Slashdot Mirror
Round 3 Of TAP Forum By ESR, Lessig, Et Al.
Iambic Pentametor writes "Back in April, Slashdot had a story
covering the first two rounds of a forum at The American Prospect between Eric S. Raymond, Lawrence Lessig,
Nathan Newman, Jeff A. Taylor, and Jonathan Band.
The third round is here.
ESR's latest is pretty inspiring and despite some squabbling, each of the combatants make some good points."
Or is http://www.prospect.org/controversy/open_source/ a bad URL?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Yeah, but most Linux users will advocate OSS at the drop of a hat anyway. Some even do a good job and make a good argument. As for the coding part, lots of the kernel developers manage to code and hold down a full time job at the same time anyway. Even Linus did it. Maybe ESR does more than the people with full time jobs, but then so would the others if they didn't have a real job to goto :)
Syllable : It's an Operating System
"We'll stampede to a new leader. But it could be months or years before the talking heads notice. It took them years to notice that we existed in the first place."
I submit that this is a problem with media that has no true intrest or ties to the community it is reporting on/about. Even other groups have this problem, and I'm sure we won't be the first to deal with it.
"Bad Mojo is right."
Can I quote you on that? You know, for when I run for mouthpeice of the movement? Hehehe.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
No, because chances are very good that what ESR says is what most hackers think. People like ESR and RMS don't get their ability to be heard from their own power, we attribute it to them.
If you are going to be annoyed, go be annoyed at elected officials telling you what you think. Or get mad at the media for telling you what laws you break and what a horrible person you are as a hacker. Go be annoyed with society or something. But don't try to construct ESR as `the man'. Last I checked, ESR was viewed as typical hacker with ideas that lined up pretty well with a good many open source and free software people out there.
When that changes, I'm sure the majority will finger some other willing soul to be a mouthpiece for the movement. Maybe even you.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
He's not just a self-appointed Katz-like "spokesman for the hackers".
He's not just that, but he still is that. I cringe every time I see him say "my tribe" or "my kind". Yeesh. We are a group centered around one activity: coding and software. It pisses me off to listen to him speak in my name as he talks about antitrust law, just because we both write code.
Demagogery is the enemy of rational debate. We don't need no steekin' spokesperson!
Well then, look at some of the software copyright & privacy laws that have been passed. Are they beneficial to you? If no one is going to speak out against it, who is? Most of the public is unconcerned or uninformed about software issues.
Yeah, so one of the traits of hackers is supposed to be individualism. But at what cost?
I think perhaps ESR and the others are not as far apart as they might imagine. In the third round, ESR states that "we [hackers] are very, very good at co-opting the system". What he doesn't seem to realize is that there are two entities in his statement, the co-opter and the system being co-opted.
From my reading, I believe that what Lessig in particular is saying is that the system exists in the form of policy, and that system has already been co-opted by the Microsofts, MPAAs and other large corporate interests to pass things like UCITA and DMCA. Lessig seems to be suggesting that if we don't co-opt the policy process the way we've done in other areas, somebody else will, much to the open source movement's detriment.
ESR seems to be arguing that we don't need no stinking system, because hackers are the real creators of the digital revolution. What he is ignoring is the fact that without a system, there is nothing to co-opt. For instance, if there had been no ARPA in 1969 with money to spend on a massive networking experiment and politicians nervous about mobile military communication, then it wouldn't have mattered how many hackers like JCR Liklider and Robert Taylor there were.
PS. I also grow weary of ESR as my "tribe's" representative. We are too diverse a group of people for any one (or two) people to really represent our views. Otherwise slashdot wouldn't be as interesteing as it is.
Contract law can be something very good. Properly applied it could simplify some of the legal maze we've built - imagine if the labels on products were contracts - if the package of grits says it great for pouring down your pants, but when you try that ... - then the manufacture has broken the contract.
Unfortunately, these days contract disputes tend to be won by the side with the most lawyers, and consumers are consumers, not partners in a contract.
The Declaration of Independence "holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Technocracy by hackers is not in good faith as regards the intents of our Founding Fathers, as it elevates hackers above the status of equality afforded by U.S. law.
The U.S. is a republican democracy, not a hacker oligarchy!
There are many ironic things about ESR being a prominent media personality in the open source world.
/.? I wonder why....
:)
* The open source/linux/free software community values real substance more than vaporware or marketing. Yet the main claim to fame for ESR is as the marketing guy for linux/free software - remove the media spotlight and his actual output is the dictionary (a good one) and maintaining fetchmail (not exactly earth shaking stuff). It's profoundly ironic that a person who uses his ability to manipulate the media does so to promote a culture which rejects slick marketing and views it with contempt.
* open source coders do it not just for love of coding, but for the value and estimation of the world at large.Now...
* ESR's marketing of open source pushes him into the spotlight, much more so than code contributors who have written WAY more code and built the actual software that we use as we speak. Marketing vs. coding - guess who wins?
* The exercise for today's class is to ponder what is wrong with the above picture.
* ESR quote from the article: "Speaking both in my own person and as an ambassador from the people who built and run the Internet".
Question - who made him the ambassador? The people who built and run the internet....oh really? This is really stretching it a bit. Speaking one's own opinions is one thing, but grabbing the mike from bemused coders not particularly interested in cultivating networking skills with journalists and yakking away in a smug manner is a habit that is getting a bit tiresome.
But.....the open source community has built in error correction. Notice how little ESR exposure has been seen lately on
(Note to journalists - you may have a symbiotic relationship with ESR via your address book, and it may help get quick soundbites, but please don't consider he speaks for *us*. Try scouting opinions from other coders instead, preferable people who won't irritate readers with their smug demeanor. It's worth it. We will actually read your article then.
yeah. but we are also green/socialist community minded pacifists.
hint:
why some prefer guntoting eric and others free as in beer stallman.
coders/geeks can not be put into a camp with an ideology. We DO tend to aver and eschew traditional republican and democratic party lines and flock to alternatives that fit out worldview and morality, but some of fear BIG GUMMANINT/KarlMarx and some of us fear BIG BIDNESS/AynRand.
ESR can not speak for us on anything other than coding. He should shut his YAP on anything else.
Tom
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
Not that I agree with everything esr says and definitely not to elivate him to that stature. I just think that "we hackers" have to recognize that this is a political debate. In this context, you have to presume that the speaker represents some body of people {X}, and that there are people who consider themselves members of {X} that agree with the speaker, and some that to not.
Jesse Jackson is called a "black leader". Why? Is it because he's black and is a leader, or is it because he leads black people? Does he speak for all black people? Or is it simply that "black leader" is a convenient, if distracting label, for someone who gives voice to a message that alot of people (of different colors, I may add) want heard, despite the fact that others disagree?
So, like it or not, esr is a "hacker leader". To those who call themselves hackers, and to those who do not, he still has to make his case with his own words. Whether "we" agree with him or not, the important role he plays is that he draws "us" into the discussion.
One of the more disturbing subtexts of ESR's use of the word 'tribe' is that, in an actual tribe (think "primitive peoples"), there can be no dissent in the modern sense. All members are of the same blood, have identical culture, and have similar life experiences so there is actually not much in the way of deeply opposed points-of-view. And the Tribal Elders run the show, and tolerate no serious opposition.
Given these attributes, it makes perfect sense for ESR to refer to all hackers as his Tribe: In his view, those with any fundamental disagreements are, by definition, not of His Tribe. And therefore not really hackers. Witness phrases such as "...my report of what the open-source culture knows and believes and wants." If you disagree, you Don't Really Matter.
As a self-described anthropologist/linguist ESR cannot be totally ignorant of the implications of this usage of the word.... and one does sometimes get the impression from his essays that this sort of tribal setup would, indeed, be his ideal social structure for Open Source.
Depressingly enough, we may already be there.
:Michael
I agree with him that in retrospect, very little of his poetry is worth saving.
That "Funny Fan Mail" reminds me of those cheesy testimonial ads on TV...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
In the past, the government has shown willingness to subsidize art via the NEA. Now certainly art and code are (somewhat) different things, but I really can't see how subsidizing OS projects would be detrimental to the community, and it would provide a more useful function than art(apologies to any art lovers).
In a similar vein, tons of academic computer projects are subsidized by government, including the military. If the government is willing to provide funding for all this, it surely should be happy to give some money to, say, Debian or Helixcode(for support of GNOME) among others. And think how much that would benefit the general public. The government may do some really stupid things sometimes, and has the power to do even more, but giving open source a gentle shove in the form of financial backing cannot be entirely harmful.
Oh, well that's conclusive. I don't think.
For a start, there's CML2, which looks likely to be what gets run when you type "make config" in future. This is entirely an ESR work.
> The kernel thing is news to me. I grepped through the kernel source and didn't find anything.
Oh, well that's conclusive. I don't think.
Never said it was conclusive.
For a start, there's CML2, which looks likely to be what gets run when you type "make config" in future. This is entirely an ESR work.
Well, that might be a significant contribution to development tools, I suppose, but it doesn't support the literal truth of what you said, which is perhaps an overstatement.
In any case, this is an irrelevant quibble.
I don't mean to criticize ESR's contributions to open source projects, to which he can justly point with pride; I don't think it gives him the right to be anyone's spokesman but his own.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
> What kind of question is that. You can be
It's a rhetorical question. Next time I'll put around it, so a computer expert such as yourself can understand it.
What the average person knows most likely wouldn't amount to an eighth grade education, and wouldn't include English.
So no, the average person doesn't know what a RFC is, most likely any more than you know the first thing about Category Theory, playing the violin, or designing automobiles.
How disadvantaged we all are. Perish the thought the average person would want safe drinking water, when it knows nothing of Chemistry.
> Are you this disingenuous in person or only when
> it suits your argument? Do you really think that
> if the government actively funded open source
> development (this was brought up in part I or
> II) that they wouldn't begin to make politically
> correct demands about how their money was used?
Are you suggesting that State Universities require me to have homosexuals, or to develop disability functionality on my research project, which happens to be open source?
Perhaps the Government isn't funding the State University, eh?
> In any case, there's not much that goes on in
> open source development that affects anything
> beyond developers and users.
So the realm of open source software has no effect on anyone not actively using or developing open source software? That's not even remotely logical. For instance, if I run a business and use open source software, perhaps it saves me money (either in price, or long-term maintenance), which can then be passed on to the consumer. No, this has no effect on anyone.
Or more related to the actual discussion, if the Government were to prefer open source software, or to prefer software vendors that preformed open disclosure of communication and storage protocols, interoperability between your grandmother's e-mail client, and your child's, may be less inclined to be totally and completely incompatible, because any given vendor wanted a larger piece of the pie.
And related to the actual comment you replied to, since Microsoft's business practices effect such a wide range of people (whether or not they use their products themselves), their lives are influenced by Word, Excel, VB, Windows, and many other MS products that millions of people use to get their work done. It's only natural that they have a say in whether or not Microsoft may harm them, just as we institute laws to gurantee food quality, automobile safety, and any other number of things.
> If you want to argue for reform of patent laws,
> that's fine. If you want the government actively
> involved in the generation of open source
> software, well, I'm reminded of African-American
> leaders in the late 80s asking for "help with
> the crack epidemic." Be careful what you ask
> for.
I'm not personally asking for anything in this matter. I simply believe that U.S. citizens are entitled to their say, if they are being harmed, whether or not they know what a RFC is, have ever implemented their own heap manager, or can count in octal.
I believe that's more where ESR is coming from.
Eric, correct me if I'm wrong, please.
You got it right.
>>esr>>
Shoot, I'm calling up Network Solutions, MCI, and BBN Planet right now and demand the equity that's mine. All this time, thinking property law defined who controls the infrastructure.. what a chump I was! I guess all is well after all.
Well.. as much as I dislike being grouped and generalized, like ESR did when he wrote that Guide to Being a Hacker or something like that, someone has to present us to the rest of the public. And ESR is doing a more or less good job of that. We are still a minority (urk. categorization again) and I guess ESR is our self-appointed spokesman, if we think that he is doing a bad job, then just speak out, or better yet, go appoint yourself spokesman. Like someone said in another comment, it's not an easy job.
ESR does not represent a community, he is part of a community. This gives him the same right to speak about the community that every other member of the community has. I'm frankly pleased there's someone with his elan out there talking for us, otherwise, the Clueless Masses would be forming their ideas about geeks solely on the basis of mass media reporting about Columbine and Mitnick.
Oh, and to paraphrase ESR, if you don't like the job he's doing, then do it yourself. You don't need to be appointed or selected, just get out there and do a better job. I'm sure he'd applaud your efforts. Hell, I would too!
Good point. I dunno why the government cares so much about beefing up the existing laws. When you think about it -- people who have something covered under intellectual property law and DMCA comes around, now their property is 'protected' in a way they never wanted. If DMCA applies on/to all software, it makes these big monopolies they _say_ they want broken up into goliaths in a world of davids. And of course more copies of software _have_ to be sold, as the companies can require this, and the government makes money off various taxes. You ever wonder if there wasn't some underlying theme? Oh... that's right... money.
I agree, but you are focusing on the details and not the whole picture of that post.
Look.. I've got more code in the linux kernel than I care to own up to. I write free software, some of which is pretty good according to the users.
Does that give me the right to stand up, beat my chest and scream "WE ARE HACKER! HEAR US ROAR!".
I don't think so. I hope not. The problem with most of the free software community is that they can be easily sucked in by a saviour figure. ESR pops up today, half the geeks flock to him. Someone else might pop up tomorrow, everyone goes to that person. Its not a good trend.. and it reinforces some of the bad stereotypes about computer people in general.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
Who would win though? My bet is that Bill Gates would parachute in and smack everyone around with big wads of cash. Hrm... maybe not. The real question is: Tux vs. The BSD Daemons vs. The Atheos parrot vs. The Windows Window.
If we did all think and act the same, then Open source would be no better than proprietry.
Working out whether we do all think the same is left as an excercise for the reader.
The government - ANY government, no matter where you may live - has a long track record of badly thought out policies on issues ranging from diplomatic relations to public health to intellectual property. Just about the only thing distinguishes an effective government from an ineffective one is how readily they learn from and fix their inevitable mistakes. Unfortunately the only indication that a government has that it has just made a mistake is the volume of protest, counterarguments and lost votes that result from the mistake.
This is where a government is no better off than the average slashdotter because they have an even worse signal:noise ratio to cope with than we do - Anyone with a "strong" viewpoint will generate so many flames when a regulation they object to is introduced that a politician often cant "hear" the more rational voices, the ones proposing intelligent solutions or compromises. There aint no moderation in politics so the offtopic gets dragged in as relevant (how many riders to otherwise useful bills have fouled things up in the last 12 months of american politics, for example.)
For so long as any government is trying to set policies on an issue those that are able to speak to that issue from a genuine position of experience and knowledge will be needed. I may not agree with ESR on every point but I sure as hell respect the fact that he is doing something useful by his open-source advocacy and more to the point it is something that I cannot do myself. Sure as individuals my opinion and his carry no greater theoretical weight on a national scale but the fact remains that he has earned his reputation as a knowledgable person in this field and therefore he is better placed in this role than I would be.
He cannot do it alone though, nobody could. How many of you have written to representatives regarding issues like the DMCA - I'm not talking about flaming "this legislation is a piece of crap!" letters, you all know as well as I do that those wont even get read. I'm talking about a rational statement of your disagreements with a bottom line of "If you support this measure I will not vote for you, irrespective of my party alleigance"
If they cant hear you, they cant represent you whether they want to or not - and even if they dont want to the prospect of losing an election is enough to force any career politician to take your views into account
# human firmware exploit
# Word will insert into your optic buffer
# without bounds checking
I had a
And his poetry is shit
And his "Funny Fan Mail" isn't funny.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Actually, this may be why ESR has his "Geeks with Guns" bent. "When they come for my router, they'll have to fight for it."
That's part of it. A bigger part is this:
Why does a subset of hackers get this bizarre notion that it's bad if the government tells me what I can do with information, what I can do with encryption, what I can log into when, what I can see in a movie theatre, or what I can send to whom over the net, but it's OK for them to tell me how I can go about exercising my right to keep and bear arms?
Information is far more dangerous than guns, yet some of us will tolerate the restriction of the latter but not of the former.
That is asinine. All of your rights are precious, and just as you wouldn't tolerate me trying to restrict a right that you value, I won't tolerate you trying to restrict a right that I value.
I believe that's more where ESR is coming from.
Eric, correct me if I'm wrong, please.
BTW, why would anybody who doesn't trust the government not to lie, cheat, and steal also trust them not to murder and kidnap? Guns are your protection against the latter, just as information is your protection against the former.
I contend that it's worse if the government kidnaps or murders you than if they lie, cheat, and steal from you, yet some hackers proclaim that they'll never give up the right to protect themselves from government lies, cheating, and theft, but readily give up the right to protect themselves from potential government kidnapping and murder.
Give up that right if you must; but don't try to give it up for *ME* too. Or for Eric.
--
A reasonable legislative agenda for the open-source movement might be as follows:
All of those things are within the realm of political reality.
These statements are, at least to some extent, contradictory. It's clear from anyone who's listened to them that ESR and RMS have some very, very different opinions on various matters, particularly WRT the government's anti-trust suit against Microsoft (which ESR made a big issue of in his talk). This, in itself, is evidence that ESR does not necessarily represent what most hackers think.
IMO if you read the general opinion on Slashdot (which is at least an attempt to listen to the whole community, rather than one self-appointed spokesman), it becomes obvious that on at least some issues ESR represents a small minority opinion. The Microsoft breakup is one good example of this. The opinion on Slashdot seems primarily divided between people who have listened to Microsoft's POV (MS has done nothing wrong and should remain atop the heap) and people who think that the anti-trust suit was a great thing. Comparatively few people have expressed Raymond's view that the anit-trust suit is essentially meaningless (because MS is going down to the power of "Open Source" programming) and a bad thing in the abstract (because the government should butt out).
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I think ESR did miss Lessig's points
I think ESR misses everything these days. His thinking seems to have crystallised a couple of years ago and never moves forward, no matter what changes out in the rest of the world.
I submit that this is a problem with media that has no true intrest or ties to the community it is reporting on/about. Even other groups have this problem, and I'm sure we won't be the first to deal with it.
Yeah, I stopped believing that the mainstream press was correct, accurate, complete or up-to-date years ago. Every time they report events that I have first-hand knowledge of, they are dead wrong on at least a few important aspects of it. By Occam's Razor, I assume that the same is true when they report on things I wasn't already familiar with.
Part, and only part, of the problem arises from the model of the press as an entity that practices unbiased journalism. Those two words hold the key to the problem. There is nothing wrong with the hope that we can get a view of every side of a controversial issue. But it is common for press reports to reduce it to two competing sides. As for journalism, there are too many reporters out there who know how to write stories for newspapers and magazines and too little about what they are reporting on.
I prefer press with a background knowledge and a viewpoint. I don't have to agree with that viewpoint, so long as I know what it is.
Mojo, go ahead and quote me. It isn't like my comments ever got anyone else anything.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
"IMO if you read the general opinion on Slashdot (which is at least an attempt to listen to the whole community, rather than one self-appointed spokesman), it becomes obvious that on at least some issues ESR represents a small minority opinion."
I think that by your logic, using Slashdot to get a consensus of the general Hacker opinion is no different that getting it from ESR. IMHO of course.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
When I read your comment, I realized that my last sentence was ambiguous. I was talking about not posting my own comment anonymously.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
non hackers shouldn't have any say in the Open Source movement, and that THEY (hackers) and not avg. Joe should decide whether to put Microsoft on it's knees.
Hi. I'm a non-hacker. I think you should write a Linux app that will replace Hyperterminal...
...
...
...
Are you done yet?
...
...
...
So what's wrong with this picture? I'll tell you what's wrong. The Open Source movement is a whole bunch of individual people. They write what they want to write. No non-hacker can tell a hacker what to write, unless they've got the money to pay for the hacker's talents. I don't see ESR so much dictating policy as stating an obvious fact: those without power cannot exert power over those who have power unless they take some of that power for themselves. No non-hacker can create code unless they become a hacker.
Yeah boy, if only he would be more like RMS and stick to the topics at hand :) :) :) Heck, the last time I heard RMS speak, he at one point was describing marriage as a repressive male institution designed to subvert women... How exactly is that related to open source or the GPL?
Seriously, ESR and RMS are both extremely bright and thoughtfull philosophers with important things to say. I agree with one more then the other, but I think both are important to listen too, and I don't think you can listen to them in a vaccuum.
If you listen to a speech, you get listen to what the speaker feels is important to say. If you want to hear just what you want to hear, write your own speech or pick speakers that are more fully aligned with your world view.
There is enough bigotry and censorship already (against both the left AND the right wings)... lets not add to it and give our guest speakers a list of "approved topics"...
All, of course "IMHO"
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
I think it would be more precise to say that "we run the internet", not that we own it.
Have you never read Dune? "The power to destroy a thing is the power to control it absolutely" or something like that.
The Government isn't strengthening or weakening its control, since it still has the sole position of allowing patents, either way.
Rather than changing its control, it'd simply be reforming the process required to grant control over these ideas to others.
He's not advocating weakening Government control, he's advocating weakening corporate control, and more responsible Government guidelines regarding the dispatch of control.
ESR has a lot going on these days doesn't he? Anyone wonder when this guy takes a break?
(AC 'cuz who knows how much today's moderators like ESR)
violently so. ESR may have some 'elitest' tendencies, so do most of us in one direction or annother. Would a plumber let an MD touch his clients plumbing? Or an MD let a plumber at his patients? Well, in each case only if the other has formal training. What he is saying is 'elitest' in the same sence. He's saying that control of computers is in the hands of the computer literate. TRUE. Have you seen the instructions that come with an Epson printer nowadays? I have a 4 yrs old cousin who could handle the job without them, and yet, rather than do it for her, when a friend asked me for help installing her new Epson, I held her hand through following the pictorial and written instructions. The sad bit is that she's a grad student. WTF? Even though computers are becoming easier and easier by the second to use, thoes who are have-nots remain so until "we" help them.
BTW: Grok v. (1) To drink (2) To eat
In any case, what makes me want to puke (again, as I part one above in this text is just that) Is reading these posts. Words like "moral" and "right" - what shtooyot (heb. nonsence/bullshit). No, I'm not saying I agree with everything ESR said - not even close! It's just that = well, you all know perfectly well what he means by "we" and by "own". You've stoped to playing the lowest sort of semantic games just because you don't feel right about what someone else has to say. In any case, it's 1am, I have more netting to do, and I have to cross half of Istanbul to get back to my bed - and, my date, maybe? - and I think I've enough on-topic stuff here so I can end. Goodnight all!
Everything and everyone is an aspect of Gd. So remember to show proper respect!
we, of the linux community, can no longer tolerate the scourge that is eric s. raymond. in the text that follows, i shall show that esr is NOT the innocent open source advocate everyone believes him to be. he is, in fact, a german conspirator in the petroleum industry.
mr. raymond is a complex personality, as are many of today's wealthy open-source advocates. most people are not willing to look beyond his open-source writings and dig deeper to find the truth. i WAS willing.
mr. raymond's firearms advocacy is well-known. what is NOT well-known is where this intense love of firearms originated. after scouring several records in libraries all over the nation, i tracked down mr. raymond's father... josef raymond.
josef schlecter was an anti-nazi activist in world war ii germany. fearful of nazi persecution, mr. schlecter had no choice but to design extremely sophisticated weaponry for the german army. he and his business partner, dieter van woehausen made a very comfortable living with their arms factory.
everything went smoothly for several years, until mr. van woehausen was discovered in a compromising position with a young hitler-youth, who shall remain nameless due to his being a minor at the time. young mr. schlecter watched in horror as the brown shirts cut his friend and business partner to pieces with machetes. to add insult to injury, mr. van woehausen's heart, having been left exposed by the mutilation, was abducted by a starving dog.
severely traumatized, and fearful for his family's safety, mr. schlecter gathered his wife eva, his young son erik and daughter heidi and left for america. to avoid persecution by suspicious fbi agents, mr. schlecter adopted the americanized version of his name: raymond. he also changed the names of his children to eric and janet.
mr. raymond made a good life for himself and his family in his new homeland. he built a formidable empire out of his full-service gas station chain... an industry increasingly under the control of german imigrants. young eric, however, was embittered and longing for his homeland.
several years later, mr. raymond passed away from consumption. while sorting through his deceased father's belongings, young eric came across several firearms manufactured in his father's old factory. eric packed his father's weapons in a duffel bag and left for germany to study the ways of the great german military leaders.
after months of intensive combat training and years of meditation in the mountains of germany, eric raymond returned to america to reclaim his father's vast petroleum empire. his strong-arm tactics and cunning ruthlesness were the envy of even the most powerful mob-bosses.
a few years ago, mr. raymond received word that he was about to be investigated by the fbi. where did he get this inside information? from his sister, janet... janet reno. mr. raymond turned control of the petroleum empire over to his eldest son, fredo, and disappeared for several months.
the next we heard of mr. raymond was his infamous, "the cathedral and the bazaar." mr. raymond had not forseen a small problem, however. the fbi did, in fact, continue its investigation of mr. raymond. but not mr. eric raymond.... mr. fredo raymond. mr. fredo raymond was imprisoned for conspiring to abduct and sexually assault a hot young actress... natalie portman. eric raymond regained control of his petroleum empire.
a sordid tale, i know. but think... stocks of linux-related companies have been plummeting... gas prices are increasing... coincidence? i think not.
i like german girls. and nannies.
..last post?
Mr. Last Post
It's about the role Open Source Software should be given in Public Policy. I.e. should the government be for it, against it, or ignore it? The worry is that the government will be against it due to the DMCA. Because if you distribute Open Source Software it hardly falls in with what the DMCA wants and if there is "Good Software" which doesn't _need_ that protection, and all the CRAP does, then the gov't looks dumb for making it law.
That is a worry. An even bigger worry is that they might try to help it!
My only suggestion: please look again at copyright. What part of it could not be emulated with NDA contracts plus receiving-stolen-data laws? Because copyrights and patents both assert that I don't own my property where it has a certain form, or where I changed it with a certain process into that form. This even if I got it into that form without breaking any NDAs or accepting data derived from a broken NDA.
Certainly, computer-savvy people ("hackers") are required to keep the Internet going. To the extent that we hackers believe in an open Internet and implement that belief, the Internet will stay open. However, do we as a group really believe in an open Internet? And will we as a group remain steadfast in the face of government and corporate coercion? E.g., there appears to be some number of us who work for corporations (such as Microsoft) and governments (such as China) with different visions of the Internet. The benefits of working for Microsoft and the penalties for disobeying oppressive governments can be very persuasive.
Certainly, those of us who believe in an open Internet need to lobby politicians and persuade our managers that this is the right thing to do. The government can sometimes be very helpful. For example, I think that the USA's action against Microsoft has given a big boost to open source.
But our primary goal must be to expand our culture to all hackers. After all, we "own" the Internet.
I don't claim to be as Libertarian as ESR, but I have to agree with him here.
The question isn't one of what's best, but what is moral. I don't
think the it's the role of government to encourage free software. I
would be acting against my values and principles if I advocated
government action.
I believe Lessig has a stronger case ONLY if you believe in the
philosophy of all-encompassing, ameliorative government. I don't, and
believe that moving that direction is bad for the whole country in the
long term. Not because I think I'm the only person smart enough to
figure out software policy.
He almost sounds like a Borg. Certainly not a picture the publice should get of us.
> He is right, although put this way it sounds
> inflamatory. Let me explain why. First, hackers
> write the code for open source projects. We can
> choose to scratch our own itches, or help out
> some non-hacker who needs a feature. But in the
> end, we do the work. The choice of which work is
> ours.
Car manufacturers are the people that create automobiles. Yet I'm sure you'd prefer automobiles have safety features that the Government requires them to implement. If you're familiar with the early car industry, I'm sure you're aware they took a "cars are safe, as long as you drive correctly" attitude towards automotive safety. People like Ralph Nader did a lot to get the Government to change that sort of nonsense.
As for the rest of your sentiment, specifically regarding choice, this isn't really part of the discussion. It's a given that the Government isn't being asked by any of these people to keep me from working on any project that I see fit.
It's not a one or the other issue. That is, you aren't forced to choose between anarchy and totalitarian control.
> As for Microsoft, many open source projects are
> competing with Microsoft products. There are
> only three groups of people who should have any
> say in who wins: Microsoft owners and employees;
> open source companies, their owners and open
> source programmers; and users of the products.
> The problem for Microsoft is that open source
> can't be bought out or bankrupted the way
> another company can. Open source is not a
> single target.
I'm afraid that in society, there are more people than Microsoft owners, employees, direct competitors, and consumers. So while I don't believe the Government should fragment the company for its acts, I don't believe that acts and punishment should be solely a matter of the market, since the ramifications of these acts effect a larger group of people.
If a company is dumping toxins in the water, then it's not the free market that should remedy the situation. If a car company is selling rather unsafe automobiles to save a few dollars, then the people have the right to demand they follow safety guidelines. If radio stations wish to broadcast, then the good of the people is more important than a radio station's ability to intentionally bleed out a competitor's signal. If a meat packager wants to sell their products, then it's reasonable to expect them to follow stringent health guidelines.
So if it is determined that a certain amount of Government influence is required to help the evolution of the net along, then that too should be done. Whether or not this is necessary is a topic of debate.
Trying to force people to use open standards would be short sighted, but perhaps requiring corporations to publish these standards might be effective. On the other hand, things that traditionally rely on obscurity (e.g. games) might suffer as a result. So any action should be first met with great thought on the cost-benefit.
> In the end, open source hackers, unless their
> sheer numbers are great enough, won't kill
> Microsoft. How many mosquitoes would it take to
> kill a lion? But open source can set a standard.
> If Microsoft misses that standard
> badly enough, their customers will leave. That
> is simply competition and it is something that
> Microsoft is good at.
Open Source, in modern times, isn't often in the position to set a standard, for which Microsoft would have to abide. Even large companies like Sun had a hard time forcing Microsoft to a standard, and Microsoft's developer base wasn't as strongly behind this action as you might think.
So while there may be a collection of pre-existing standards that have been embraced by Open Source, and whose original implementation may very well have been, further standards (either open or closed) have very much been lead by large corporate interests.
You need look no further than HTML for this, but if you want to, there're dozens of other such "standards."
Damn, when i read that headline i thought it was a wrestling match. Now that would be entertaining. Imagine it: A cage match with ESR, RMS and Linus...mmm, Geek Celebrity Deathmatch :)
Syllable : It's an Operating System
ES Raymond seems to say that non hackers shouldn't have any say in the Open Source movement, and that THEY (hackers) and not avg. Joe should decide whether to put Microsoft on it's knees.
Lessig comes right out and states flat out that he never coded a thing in his life, yet seems to have a firmer grasp on the situation than others... It's quite unfortunate in todays world that the law is so convoluted that it requires readers assistance... But thank god some of the best are on the Open Source side.
If you combine the argument of Lessig, and Brand, the strongest argument exists. Tighter Government control for the handing out of patents, the use of those patents (and copyrights) (Lessig) and Government sponsorship of Innovation, as opposed to stagnation. (Brand)
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
"despite the best efforts of the open-source movement to "crush" others"
Does the air around you crush you? Does the sun in the sky crush you? OpenSource simply is. ESR is saying that whatever obstacles are put in place, the desire for free expression embodied as OpenSource will prevail. Goverments and big business could put all their efforts into stemming the flow of free thought or the spread of the internet, but if by nothing more that sheer volume OpenSource will prevail. It is a reality and any amount of legislation, litigation or brute force won't stop it. No more than such actions have stopped free thought and expression. Get a clue.
What is more irritating is the wasted human effort spent trying to stop it. And when the government is doing the wasting it really bugs me because they think they are doing it in my best interests.
While you may never corral those last few hackers, the ones who write FreeNet and change it in the face of all attacks and figure out how to disguise it yet again so it evades the law this week... so what? Freedom for the .01% is not freedom at all.
I agree with Lessig; it's dangerous to assume hackers uber alle. Barring a large scale move out into space, the policians still have a lot of power here. There's no natural law of the universe that the they can't destroy all the routers of the world, confiscate computers, and kill the ringleaders of any resistance movement. You think they need us? Those who would fight freedom this hard would have no problem moving the world back to feudalism, as long as they are in power.
Do not underestimate your enemies. They like it when you do that.
"et al." is an abbreviation for the Latin "et alienses", meaning "and others".
Oh boy.. looks like ye ol slashdot has inflicted pain upon another server. Total meltdown..
Oh well, I can still comment on the article anyways.
I really like some of the things ESR says about the GPL and how it benfits the world. But then agin Lessig seems to make some terrific points about general economics and what drives the economy. I think that overall ESR stands above Lessig though, but they both do have some valid points.
While not reading the article I couldn't help but think how much ESR really "gets it" and how this helps others to "get it" too. Another thing that stood out while not reading the article was how bright Lessig is, he seems to "get it" also.
In conclusion I would say that this was one of the better articles that I have not read.