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Public Procurement and Open Source
Steve writes "Open code in public procurement is an interesting take on free software and open source software in a federal or state environment. Pawlo: 'It is time that public bodies and governments look over their public procurement policies. The policy should guarantee competition, not stifle it.' Thinking of the latest Bill Gates rant this make sense."
The Open Source movement, otherwise known as 'Free Software', has been a topic of considerable debate on the Internet's most controversial site. The majority of this debate has centered around the technical merits of the software, with the esteemed editors argueing against adopting Linux by employing the full depth of their considerable intellects, and the other side hurling death threats and similar invective. This has allowed many who would not otherwise receive quality information about Open Source software to be made aware of many of its ramifications, but one issue has been left alone: The overt racism that is deeply embedded in the movement.
Allow me to explain.
Alan Cox; Richard Stallman; Bruce Perens; Wichert Akkerman; Miguel DeIcaza.
What do you see in this list of names? Are there any African-Americans on it? Absolutely not, none of those names sound like one a self-respecting black person would have! No Maurice, no Luther, no Lil' Kim. There are many other lists such as this, you can see one here. Flip through each page, do you see anything other than white faces? Of course you don't, because Open Source and its adherents are ardent racists and they absolutely forbid access to the sacred 'kernel' by any person of color.
Lets look at another list, this time a compendium of the companies using Linux. Are there any black owned companies on that list? Nooooooo. How about these companies? They all have something to do with Open Source software, any of them owned by an African-American? No again. Here is an extensive collection of photographs from a LUG (Linux User Gathering) meeting, more can be viewed at that link. What is odd about these pictures, and every other photograph I have ever seen of a LUG meeting, is that there is not one single black person to be seen, and probably none for miles.
More racist overtones can be found by examining the language of Open Source. They often refer to 'white hat' hackers. These 'white hats' scurry about the Internet doing good, but illegal, acts for their fellow man. In stark contrast we find the 'black hat' hackers. They destroy the good works of others by breaking into systems, stealing data, and generally causing havoc. These two terms reflect the mindset of most Linux developers. White means good, black means bad. Anywhere there is black, there is uncontrollable destruction and lawlessness. Looking further we see black lists that inform other users of 'bad' hardware, Samba, an obvious play on the much hated Little Black Sambo book, Mandrake, which I won't explain except to say that the French are notorious racists. This type is linguistic discrimination is widespread throughout the Open Source culture, lampooned by many of its more popular sites.
It is also a fact that all Unix 'distros' contain a plethora of racist commands with not so hidden symbolism.
It can hardly be coincidence that the prime operating system of choice of the 'open source supremacists' - Linux, features commands which are poorly disguised racist acronyms. For example: 'awk' (All White Klan) , 'sed' (shoot nEgroes dead), 'ln' (lynch negroes), 'rpm' (raical purity mandatory), 'bash' (bring a slave home), 'ps' (persecute sambo), 'mount' (murder or unseat nubians today), 'fsck' (favored supreme Christian klan). I could go on and on about the latent racist symbolism in Linux, but I fear it would take weeks to enumerate every incidence.
Is there a single unix command out there that does not have some hidden racist connotation ? Suffice it to say that the racism pervades Linux like a particularly bad smell. Can you imagine the effect of running such a racist operating system on the impressionable mind ? I don't have to remind you that transmitting subliminal messages is banned in the USA, and yet here we have an operating system that appears to be one enormous submliminal ad for the Klan!
One of the few selling points of Open Source software is that it is available in many different languages. Browsing through the list I see that absolutely none are offered in Swahili, nor Ebonics. Obviously this is done to prevent black people from having access to the kernel. If it weren't for the fact that racism is so blatantly evil I would be impressed by the efforts these Open Sourcers have invested in keeping their little hobby lilly white. It even appears that they hate the Japanese, as some of these self proclaimed hackers defaced a web site with anti-Japanese slogans. Hell, these people even go all the way to Africa (South Africa mind you, better known as White Africa) and the pictures prove that they don't even get close to a black person.
Of course, presenting overwhelming evidence such as this is a bit unfair without some attempt to determine why these Open Sourcers are so racist. Much of the evidence I have collected indicates that their views are so deeply held that they are seldom questioned by the new recruits. This, coupled with the robot-like groupthink that dominates the culture allows the racist mindset to continue to permeate the ranks. Indeed, the Open Source version of a Klan rally, OSDN (known to the world as Open Source Developer's Network, known to insiders as Open Source Denies Negroes) nearly stands up and shouts its racist views on its demographics page. It doesn't mention the black man one single time. Obviously, anyone involved with Open Source doesn't need to be told that the demographic is entirely white, it is a given.
I have a sneaking suspicion as to why their beliefs are so closely held: they are all terrible athletes.
Really. Much like the tragedy at Columbine High School, where two geeks went on a rampage to get back at 'jocks', these adult geeks still bear the emotional scars inflicted upon them due to their lack of athletic ability during their teen years. As African-Americans are well known for their athletic skills, they are an obvious target for the Open Source geeks. As we all know, sports builds character, thus it follows that the lack of sports destroys character. These geeks, locked away in their rooms, munching on stale pizza and Fritos, engage in no character building activities. Further, they interact only with computers and never develop the level of social skill that allows normal people to handle relationships with persons of color.
Contrasted with the closed source, non-geeky software house Microsoft, Open Source has a long, long way to go.
gaysex
Linux isn't usable for the vast majority of all users, thats a fact!
Just because MS do stupid stuff doesn't mean people are going to use a system thats not usable or supported.
Whats needed on the open source scene is the same thing that has always been needed, MONEY! A bunch of students and night-coders may continue to code on open source software but for the masses real income is needed or it will never happen.
You may be surprised to learn that the software you use affects your health. A group of medical researchers in the Midwest have discovered proof that the effect of using quality, reliable software on human health is undeniable.
.NET technologies were the healthiest overall, and Dr. Wilkes found that this was directly related to the security they felt in their careers. The .NET programmers were especially well-adjusted, partly due to their sense of pride and being on the cutting edge of technology. "Microsoft is the biggest game in town," one engineer raved, "and those who miss the .NET bandwagon are getting left by the wayside. Nobody in the industry has produced a virtual-machine-based, object-oriented language like Microsoft's C# until now."
.NET family of products. These users have an unwritten "anarchic" rule that they will not install Microsoft's products on their PCs, thus they often wonder what new, exciting features they are missing. Some develop psychological complexes based on their high levels of curiosity.
An unbiased medical study was recently completed which included blood tests, double-blind placebo-controlled user tests, heart monitors and urine samples, among other techniques. The study was led by Dr. Robert Wilkes and his assistant Dr. Li Huang, both of whom have a strong background in computer software. The details have not yet been made available to the public, however Drs. Wilkes and Huang have asked that the public be provided with a summary of their findings as soon as possible.
This study was conducted over a period of two years, and the results will be published shortly in a major medical journal. The subjects for the study were 235 computer users and programmers, of varying skill levels, selected at random from major cities in the U.S., and carefully monitored on a periodic basis for software-related stress, illness, injury and other ailments. They also performed psychological evaluations to determine the effect of various software brands on the users' mental health.
Below is a brief summary of the results of their findings.
Users of Microsoft Windows, Office and Internet Explorer have a significantly lower incidence of stomach ulcers, colonic gas, redness of the eyes, and stress-related high blood pressure than their Unix & Linux counterparts -- particularly the users of Solarus, Red Hat, NOME, KDE and Netscape, among others. It was believed that the ocular redness was related to the high percentage of marijuana abusers in the Linux community, and urinalysis confirmed this to be the case. Further study and psychoanalysis showed that the stress and ulceration (found in the Unix & Linux users) were primarily caused by the following factors:
1. Uncertainty about the future of their operating system.
2. The perceived need to "fight the system", or a sort of internal struggle against large corporations (such as Microsoft).
3. The necessity of posturing oneself as "reet" in order to gain the respect of colleagues. (These users failed to inform Dr. Wilkes as to the meaning of this obscure term. If anyone here can provide a definition, that would be appreciated.)
4. Feelings of fear or paranoia concerning illegal hacking, cracking and "where's" smuggling activities. (Such feelings were quite widespread among this group, and tend to also cause the flatus which was mentioned earlier.)
The Unix & Linux users also had a greater incidence of carpal-tunnel syndrome, due to the greater necessity of typing at the command line. Examination of the wrist muscles in this group of users found numerous cases of inflammation and irreparable injury caused by their incessant command-line usage, whereas the majority of Microsoft users, who primarily use the mouse and seldom type, had healthy wrist muscles.
The Microsoft users exhibited tranquility, good mental and physical health, and balanced emotional well-being. They tend to spend more time at the gym, visit family and friends more often, and are more outgoing and social. Dr. Huang found that this is due to the fact that their operating system doesn't require them to spend long hours studying Mann pages in order to perform simple maintenance tasks. Their primary reasons for feeling secure were as follows:
1. Their choice of software is friendly and colorful, plays interesting sounds when they start up, shut down, or click on certain pictures, and Microsoft provides plenty of hotfixes such as Windows Update to keep their computer safe from hackers.
2. They feel secure about the future of Microsoft, partly because its founder is the richest man on the planet. As one user noted, "Bill Gates is one smart cookie. He knows how to make computers easy for people like me. I trust him with the future of my computer, because he always comes up with nifty ways to make computers fun. Plus he's darn rich, so they won't be going bankrupt anytime soon! LOL!"
3. User enjoyed the catchphrase "Where do you want to go today?" because it made them feel as though Microsoft were catering to their wishes and needs, which does in fact appear to be true.
Among the focus groups examined were numerous programmers, of various software persuasions. The programmers using Visual Basic, ASP and
The Unix & Linux programmers using Java, J2EE, JSP and PHP were found to have the lowest health ratings. Upon further analysis, it was determined that this was due to the following primary factors:
1. Lack of drag-and-drop interfaces which automatically generate source code. In comparison to the Microsoft-based developers, this group spent a lot of extra time writing code from scratch. This led to less time spent with family and friends, which led to ulcers, gastrointestinal disorders and high levels of stress.
2. A feeling of being "left behind" or "out of the loop" with regard to Microsoft's revolutionary new technologies in the
3. Uneasiness about being involved in illegal hacking activities, or in many cases, the need to be perceived as "reet" among peers.
Keep in mind that this study was performed without prejudice, and with the strictest adherence to the guidelines set forth by the profession for clinical trials of this nature. Dr. Wilkes and his colleagues are educated professionals of the highest degree, and their vast research in medicine and the field of computer software allows them to speak with authority on these issues.
Please take this opportunity to reevaluate your choice of software, and be aware that it can drastically affect your physical and mental health.
As long as they choose BSD over *linux, they are doing the public a service in choosing free software. If they choose an OS that sets back the state of computing with unstable VM and networking and that continually reinvents the BSD wheel, then they are not doing the public a service.