The SSSCA as introduced would have prohibited, with criminal penalties, the possession without a license of a compiler capable of producing programs that could process, copy, or decrypt data in media files. Every Turing-complete programming language in the country would have required a special federal license to use. Finally, only licensed, bonded, qualified, and tracked professionals taking responsibility for their actions could violate our precious copyrights.
But Hollings wasn't as spry as his senior colleague from South Carolina and retired before he could finish his final good work for the corporations that made him. Even that business so famously unashamed that its own mascot is a rodent would have to settle for waiting a little longer to achieve its aims.
I'm a little skeptical this will happen with software, but it is well underway in the case of hardware[1].
The arguments aren't actually that bad (of course we know that currently the strongest side supporting them is media companies trying to kill general-purpose computing to make unbreakable DRMs, but in principle they sort of have a point...) - it's the cost that is too high.
Well, the baking industry is certainly more productive of human comfort and happiness than certain other industries demanding protection from the laws the rest of us live by -- such as finance.
Indeed. Also note how the typical curriculum offered by proponents is geared towards teaching people to create things that will be ad-supported or will be providing ads.
I wish to know if there's a way to fight back somehow. Maybe not to reverse the trend, but to separate ourselves from it? Let the masses have their appliances if they really like them, but let us keep our tools.
The thing I fear is professionalization of programming, when we become a legitimate engineering discipline and thus will have to work for an expensive license to legally use a turing-complete language, and compilers is something you can go to jail for if they see you trying to run it without credentials.