Dear Editor,

President Hennessy has just established an immediate, clear and reasonable standard that will undoubtedly lead to improved awareness, treatment and reduced incidence of sexual assault and violence on Stanford’s campus. At the same time, it is imperative, immediately, for ASSU to do what Viviana Arcia recommends in her op-ed (which everyone should read): make the reasonable standard of proof a Constitutional revision “priority.”

 

Sincerely,

 

Paul G. Bator
Lecturer, Stanford Introductory Studies

 

 

Dear Editor,

In your April 12 article, “Stallman weighs pros and cons of digital inclusion,” Mr. Ellithorpe’s disagreement with my views was evidently based on total incomprehension of them, because he confused patent law with copyright law. These two laws are totally different — all they have in common is one sentence in the Constitution that authorizes them — and have totally different effects in the computing field.

Such confusion is widespread because the term “intellectual property” encourages it.

That term lumps copyright law together with patent law and lumps both of those together with many other disparate laws. These laws were created for diverse purposes, require different things and have different practical consequences. To treat even two of them as a single subject is the road to error. Thus, to help avoid confusion, it helps to refuse to use that term. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.

 

Sincerely,

Dr. Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation