On Sunday 15 October 2006 20:48, M Harris wrote:
On Sunday 15 October 2006 22:17, you wrote:
This seems to me a complete non-sequitur. We don't know what the OP's needs are beyond those he stated. Namely, the ability to protect access to a PDF document..
Point taken. However, the answer to his question is then obvious and trivial (as another pointed out) use M$ windoze and a commercial copy of Adobe. End of story.
Hardly. It's not reasonable to expect someone with a valid publishing need that includes some sort of access control to go to a commercial OS or commercial software to fulfill those needs.
Surely you can accept that sometimes there is a need to publish documents and still restrict their distribution (or access to them, failing the ability to restrict the dissemination of the bits).
No. I have completely bought into the concept that intellectual property does not exist. No one develops anything in a vacuum. All new information is derived from existing knowledge, and no information is useful to society unless it is "free" in the sense of "freedom," not price.
You're assuming that this is about "intellectual property." Or do you believe no one has the right to keep secrets at all and to share them with only those people they choose to? Would you have all cryptographic technologies eradicated?
Furthermore, a document is not a program. The arguments that Stallman puts forth w.r.t. to software do not necessarily apply to every imaginable published work.
You obviously did not read his book. The concepts most certainly can apply to almost any imagineable document... most of Stallman's stuff has the following: "Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved"
No, I didn't read his book. And it cannot be assumed that I'd agree with its thesis if I did. If Stallman wants to publish something under those terms, that's certainly his right. But it's arrogant and foolish to believe that every document, every program, indeed every act of creation should be devoid of any notion of ownership or propriety, which seems to be your assertion.
Lastly, I doubt the OP believes or wishes that you "need" his document.
True enough... I didn't mean to imply otherwise... my comment was a general comment referring to, well, as a for instance, the NMEA codes. ...
I don't know what NMEA stands for.
M Harris <><
Randall Schulz