As has been hashed over elsewhere (and since the beginning of U.S.) - the topic ever devolves to - that of 'strict construction'(ists) VS strict construction on quite another another scale: that the authors of all our formative documents not merely understood that they could not anticipate future events: they explicity told us that this was in their minds! - we would Have to expand, not contract from *ore freeze* their ideas. Living documents!

(Which fact alone - throws many a monkeywrench into the faces of the real reactionaries - those who will insist upon seeing the words as carved in stone and will deny that there was passion behind them!) How often is skipped-over.. that phrase, indicating that powers not explicitly delegated - reside in the people.

I believe that the ingredient is 'heart' - that quality, sweet and undefinable.. like the pineapple. But it isn't important to find an exact word to describe ~ an open-ended set of ideas not meant to be taken as an exact recipe: we already know enough of human nature to realize that those with an ox to gore shall ever bend towards strict/loose as serves private aims.

Some believe that no Corporation *can afford to* demonstrate 'heart' - that its constituents with all those stock certificates would wish absolute quickest profit, placed above all other considerations. (At least that is the final excuse of the terminally greedy ruling group, as cross-polinate each other across many Corp boards).

M$ is merely giving the utter extreme view, and of Billy n'Bally - who could expect the slightest hint of their imagining that more is involved? Could you explain a pineapple to someone who'd never smelled or eaten one? Or 'explain' the concept of 'others' to a 2-year old?

I see the GPL as a fascinating set of ideas, quite elegantly tailored to survive in a country where lawyers outnumber engineers 10:1 and where the most naive ideas of what 'capitalism' might mean - are taken to their expected extremes by the mentally lazy and emotionally stunted.

Paradoxically the GPL has had to try to explicitly state very much which would be unnecessary, were we a more mature bunch: merely to try to accomplish what you suggest, an idea of cooperation, coexisting within an entirely self-serving and literal majority! That is why it's a tough read.. but all the prose needs to be there, as bulwark against the reactionary and greed-besotted.

(Almost as neat a hat trick as the Founding Mothers, IMO.)


A.