Note: this entire message is tangential and can safely be ignored by those in a hurry.

At 10:08 AM 7/12/03 +0100, Oliver Pereira wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:

...

The license is silent on the matter, therefore, under general principles of freedom (in the sense of speech, not beer), which is the foundational principle of GNU, then anonymous authorship is just fine.

I can ask RMS if you really want me too, but I think it's highly HIGHLY unlikely that he would say "Oh, no, I didn't intend for people to write things anonyous under the FDL. The talk about authorship is supposed to imply that people are required to give their full name, address, and social security number before they can use the license!"

My message was about pseudonyms, so full names, addresses, and social security numbers don't come into it.

<snip>

But I should point out that just because the ideas of freedom of speech, and privacy and anonymity, are closely linked in American history, it doesn't mean that they are in truth. Privacy and anonymity are just personal barriers, and barriers are restrictions on freedom.

It is no more a "barrier" for me to say "just call me Redbird" than it is for me to say "just call me Vicki Rosenzweig" or "just call me Rachel Rebecca Kanner". The only "barriers" come in when someone demands proof that any or all of those are really my name, and then insists on defining "really". My skin is a barrier, and so are the walls of my home. They do not restrict freedom, unless freedom is defined as the right of bacteria to infect me, or the right of wind and rain to interfere with my sleep and destroy my books.