December 21st, 2007
A Merry JibJab Christmas...
I always wanted to have Bill Gates as my taxi driver. And whoda thunk it…Richard Stallman is my guardian angel.
Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” is one of the best Christmas movies (in my opinion, of course), and its status in American popular culture was created through its presence in the information commons. In other words, if its copyright hadn’t expired and TV stations across America hadn’t picked it up for endless broadcast on account of the fact it was free, most would have been unlikely to see a film that had bombed when it was first released.
So, Stallman fits as defender of the information commons, and Gates fits as defender of the economic incentives that caused the movie to be made in the first place.
John Carroll has delivered his opinion on ZDNet since the last millennium. Since May 2008, he is no longer a Microsoft employee. He is currently working at a unified messaging-related startup. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to A Developer's View via Email alerts or RSS.
