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Why Human Rights Requires Free Software
andyo writes "Why Human Rights Requires Free Software: Report on a practitioner's view of the critical role free software plays in the work of human rights activists around the globe."
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When we now consider the right to Free software a basic human right, I think we are all starting to take ourselves a little too seriously. It's not like someone is trying to outlaw the writing of Free software, or suppress the Free software movement (okay, maybe Microsoft is trying to talk trash about it, but they can't really do anything to stop it). Or is this the prelude to an argument that people should have access to source code for proprietary commercial apps, because not having it is a violation of their human rights?
Free software is good. But that doesn't mean that all software should be Free. It's a big jump from intellectual openness to Stallmanism.
Those that did survive the Holocaust did so with neither free nor spendy software. Heck, they didn't so much as have an Apple II! Oh, the humanity!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
It's interesting to compare the freedom to speak your mind against the freedom to be allowed to alter software... The freedom to demonstrate against the freedom to alter software...
This author has his panties in a bunch saying high and mighty garbage such as that.
The article was basically a bunch of poorly written drivel, anyway, never mind its message. It's basically a poorly shrouded "Use free software cause I say so" ad.
i don't want gnu/human gnu/rights.
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
George Bush says the only way to have lasting peace in the middle east is to wage war on iraq, install a military dictator and give exxon-mobile the war spoils.
Gee that sounds like a plan.
I mean actually have israel stop colonizing palestinian reservations and dropping 1-ton bombs on apartment building could help bring peace, but where's the oil in that?
Besides it's virtually impossible to get elected in the united states with out zionist campaign contributions.
So i guess Bush is right, in order to have peace in the middle east we need to wage more wars!
YeeeHaww ride em cowboys!
And software most certainly is a tangible thing.
The right to life. The right to live well. The right to die well. The right to voice one's opinion without fear of imprisonment or death.
These are rights.
Free software? Sure, it can help human rights workers. But is it a right?
No more than my inherent human right to own a porsche. Someone call someone else, cause I don't see one in my driveway yet.
Does this mean that people who lived before the invention of free software were not really free? Someone should go write a letter to Locke about this.
He was looking at goatse.cx when I checked the cam.
No I wasn't. That was your mom's homepage.
I'm sure this is quite offtopic, but what the hell.
/. is wasting a lot of space posting the transcripts of what some microsoft employee says, then the 20 rebuttles from the free softwar community. I think I could do without it. Any chance we can make "Free Software-Good/Bad" it into a category so it can be filtered out by everyone? Or maybe just throw it in with the "Jon Katz" category...
Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's overkill to give a spot on the front page to every article that expresses an opinion on how good/bad free software is?
Sure, the first few discussions that reach the mainstream public... that makes sense. Now,
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Get this: on September 11, 2001, when thousands of civilians were slaughtered in cold blood, it was the Palestinians that danced in the streets.
And get your facts straight - there are damn near as many Arabs/Palestinians living in Israel as there are Jews. If the Israeli's really wanted to clear out the West bank for themselves they would have done so.
It was the Isreali's that offered a solution to Arafat - one that Arafat turned down.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Times change, the tools to pursue freedom evolve. Just as transportation of the time helped many escape the holocaust (as well as deliver it to them), information technology of today helps abate ongoing holocaust, and deliver it. Guns don't kill people... The article in question, and free software advocates generally, do not "take themselves too seriously". Freedom, self determination and self actualization are ongoing struggles. So, I support the article's views, and free software.
:-) The idea is to promote one or the other and maintain balance providing liberty for humans. Which is, in my mind, best done by nation states, not NATO or the new world orderlies :-)
I also want to mention that NATO is (or was) poised to be the UN (read: globalist new world order, which isn't quite realizing it's bogus goal) military. So for the good doctor to provide junk science to advocate that, even by absolving that body from blame, or the freaks that run it, is not a good thing. But each small victory counts and free software is critical. Note that I'm not sure that was the Dr.'s intention (absolving NATO), not knowing the man.. so, I simply want to point to where some evil lurks, and to note also that good and evil lurk in all things
Getting rid of the militant Arab theocracies and dictatorships would do more to advance the cause of peace in the world than playing Neville Chamberlain and allowing Arafat to commit the genocide of millions of Jews would.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It *is* Red Hat, after all!
Offtopic? Could it even be more on-topic???
Mod parent up someone, important post.
Heh pad're you did mean Stalinism ... didn't you ??
Or else you're on crack.
Was it just me, or did anyone else get the impression that this was going to be another salvo in the "free vs. open" holy war (possibly the stupidest holy war out there, by the way) when he opened up with the bit about how it's obvious in this context that the proper term to use is "free" and not "open source"? It seems to me that rigid adherence to some dogma or other is the worst thing you can do for the preservation of human rights; human rights are better protected by a sensitivity to human diginity, and a willingness to examine all the possible ways to preserve human diginity. Dogmatism and demagoguery ultimately limit your ability to see a problem from all different angles, and to find the best solution for the situation.
And for the record, I think his arguments are bollocks too -- have you ever heard anyone say something like: "I'm sorry, I can't accept your statistical analysis -- it was done on MS Excel, which is non-free software". Maybe RMS would, but granting agencies and international organizations certainly wouldn't.
Doesn't he first state it should be "free" and not "open source" and later, he compares proprietary solution with open source?
Unix makes easy tasks hard and hard tasks possible. Windows makes easy tasks easy and hard tasks $29.95.
He is clearly overweight. What a fat nerd.
No, I meant Stallmanism. As in Richard M. Stallman, the father of GNU and the man who screams from the rooftops that "all software should be Free" at every available opportunity. He's the same guy that will turn his back to you in the middle of a conversation if you happen to slip up and say "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux".
Yes I am. Thanks for noticing. I noticed you didn't post a link to YOUR webcam, Charles Atlas...
A lot of people can see how the institutions that try to impose software and copying restrictions choke off freedom in the USA, but those economic forces and pressures will eventually reach China when they come into the information age too.
China's government will not be so restrained, and it could easially lead to a brutal or even genocidal crackdown when it comes to billions of people and trillions of dollars in intellectual property controlls. For the USA to insist that China impose strong intellectual property controlls inspite of it's culture to the contrary is outright reckless and irresponsible. The freedom to copy is one of the last glimmers of freedom in an otherwise militant police state. IMHO we are setting ourselves up to swallow some bitter Chineese medicine.
Imagine an American scientist bringing a closed, proprietary encryption program or statistical package to political activists in a foreign country and saying, "Just use this; take my word that it works right."
As someone who works for a company that produces statistical software I found this comment to be rather close-minded and wrong. My company, along with most others, goes through extensive certification testing to make sure that our software produces correct results. Our software is used by a broad range of academics, private sector researchers, government workers, and not-for-profit groups; and not once have I ever heard anyone even suggest that our program produces purposefully inaccurate results.
Quite honestly, there are no open-source statistical software packages that even come close to offering the benefits of our package. Although R has shown some promise, the documentation that comes with our software alone is worth the price. I have yet to see an open-source package that comes with the same in-depth encyclopedic reference documentation that we produce.
Just because it's closed-source doesn't mean we're evil.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
That conversation snippit really got me thinking about this. What does everyone else think?
But I think that the thing that's wrong with making money on software is when a company devolves into making really crappy products, producing them at about $4/each, and then selling them for 100X that.
The hook I think is when that crappy software becomes so prevalent that people who can't afford it are actually at a disadvantage because it's so prevalent.
It's a little more abstract than what this article talks about, but I personally think there's something to be said for responsibility in creating and marketing and selling software. Ideally, the product would be good, and it would be priced in such a way that the company making it can make a profit. Otherwise, why would they produce it, right? But that doesn't mean that a company should gouge its (willing or less-than enthusiastic) customers.
In my opinion, any company is responsible to price their product in a somewhat reasonable manner. That a company has a near monopoly on a product does not mean that it should price its products such that they're totally inaccessible to most of the world.
there. i'm done now. ;)
I dunno. I have trouble having ANY sympathy for the Palistinians. Maybe when the stop celebrating when children are killed, or sending children to blow themselves up, or dressing up babies as terrorist bombers (and thinking it's funny)...
I hate to say, but the Palstininians are deserving what they're getting.
George W. Bush needs to be punched in the face. Hard.
The same challenges arise when a human rights organization publicly presents its results. The politicians, generals, and other power-holders will dispute every step in reasoning. Well yea, but what does free software have to do with this? People who challenge results talk about the methodologies used, how they collect the data, and so forth. Nobody cares what software they use. Openness of code is meaningless if the process is closed. Look at the slashdot moderation system.
Patrick finds the costs of proprietary software offensive. "It widens the imbalance between the rich and poor regions of the world," he says. Even worse, "It concentrates power in the hands of software owners." That's just bullshit. Where's the evidence for that? You don't want to pay for expensive software, don't buy it. If the costs are so offensive, then buy something cheaper. Oh wait, the cheap free solution often times isn't as good.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
Creating free and open source software for scientists and human rights workers would be an excellent move for any company.
Though I have never heard of any scientific results being questioned because the source of the software used to calculate them is closed to scrutiny, the concept of supporting results by noting the program used (so that the source can be examined, if desired) means that the company automatically gets a degree of 'free' advertising. It wouldn't be quite as blatant as "These results were brought to you by Micro$oft," but it would get the company name out there. Make some reliable, free, open source software to donate to organizations, and sell the other products when richer organizations seek you out with money to spend.
In addition, the company gets karma points for helping in humanitarian and scientific causes. 'If you oppose killing babies in such-and-such country, use XXXXX's software!' 'Want to save the rainforest? Help support the cause by buying XXXXX's software.' This may not be the 'ideal' motivation for donating to these organizations, but capitalism does drive charity in a lot of cases.
Free software is not by any means a right (nor did I get the impression that the article claims this), but it could improve the lot of humanity as well as bringing benefits to the company who develops it.
-KD
Anyway, the money not spent in the IT budget doesn't just disappear. It is spent on something else more directly related to the company's business, thereby generating more jobs somewhere else in the economy.
Hey, every IT employee should expect that day to come: the day they can be replaced with technology. It's no different now than in the Industrial Revolution except that the people being replaced now are from the same group that built their replacement. But that's capitalism, and in the long run becoming obsolete is good for society.
Free software will become increasingly valuable to companies because of economies of scale. If every company wrote their own web server in-house, none of them would approach the power of Apache. Now that they're realising the value, we've got to convince companies of two things:
I skimmed the article, misinterpreted the author's message, and posted a comment that was completely off-topic. Anyone modding the parent up obviously did not read the article thoroughly either. It got modded down to 0 earlier, but people keep modding it up again as Insightful. It wasn't Insightful, it was Illiterate. If you want to moderate the parent, MOD IT DOWN. Thank you.
ITS ALL TRUE CHINA IS TAKING OVER LINUX. LINUX IS COMMUNISM.
this is why we should all use windows. microsoft is not influenced by communist blocs. what a horrible world we live in when china can take over an open source project.
I think that the idea of free software is great, but there needs to be a way to make money off of it or it will not advance at a decent rate. Look at it this way, most of the Linux advances have either come from colleges, where your grade depends on it, or from the software industry, Redhat for example. And all of them sell the software in some form, or support for their versions. But I do believe that software is like sex.........it is better when it is free :)!
Why are they going to seek you out with money to spend? You're already giving away the software you make, so why exactly are they going to come and buy from you, the same software you're already giving away?
Just thinking about this? Free/Open Software is essentially a bunch of college kids doing for free, what professionals get paid to do. Of course people lose their jobs in tech! Hell, can you imagine if you were, say, a plumber, and all of a sudden these people with extra time and money on their hands decided to open a plumbing business that charged $0? That's *exactly* what's happening in tech, and I don't understand why people are putting up with this.
Ok... so he throws out the idea that we can't trust closed source statistical software and yet defends non-standard (basically closed) approaches to statistical analysis. Where's the transparency there?
"On the other hand, Patrick does not anticipate that XML will make a big difference to the human rights community. This is because very few traits of their data are standardized, while the strength of XML lies in its facilitating the exchange of standardized data. Most of the time, the individual statistician imposes his or her own structure on the data gathered, and another statistician who starts another project will structure the data differently. "
Is this sig nificant?
In this case the College students were able to deliver better than the IT workers. This is in part due to reuse of old labor (code)as well as presumebly cheaper pay.
As far as cheaper pay there are already systems of natural and artifical checks and balances to keep an equilibrium of pay for services releative to the cost of living.
As far as free labor (code), the laborers have to feed themselves and therefore will have to dedicate resources to paid labor. Also, the "free" labor could have been part of an assignment for a class that would be bartered for college credits that would eventually be bartered for a degree.
So in conclusion, yes free software is causing companies to fire experienced professionals and replace them with part time college students. However, this is not neccessarally a bad thing. If the professionals are really that damn good they will be able to get another job. If they can't then society probally has little need for their labor and they will learn new other skills or work for what the college students are working for. The obvisious conclusion of this is there will be less college students taking up computer science/CIS and less free software written. This will cause a greater demand for programmers and greater rates of pay. Hence capatialism will keep the market in check.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
As well as it should be, but I believe that the effort to "prove" that the program used to process the data is trustworthy is going to be as difficult as "proving" that the collected raw data is trustworthy. One could, perhaps not easily, take the data that was collected and plug and chug it into another statistical program to see if the results were anywhere close to what the first presented results where. That could be considered one way to "prove" that the processing was legitimate, as long as the programs were not from the same software house.
But just go ahead and try to prove that the data were correct. But that's not the argument here.
I'm wondering if Oram's argument was more of an idealogical one rather than a practical one. I don't see why someone should be disbelieved just because they used a Microsoft product or a SAS product. I would also think it highly unlikely that a maker of shrink-wrap software would somehow be at fault, except perhaps through their own stupidity, for erroneous results, especially since their credibility is on the line.
On top of all that, wouldn't an open software package created mostly by, or presumed created by, a group of a particular nationality (KDE presumably made mostly by Germans, for one) come under more criticism if that particular nationality was related to the question that the(ir) software was being used to solve? Hmmm....
I'm starting to think that this article was an excercise in political correctness since I would highly doubt that someone would want to go through the effort in taking apart the program used to prove that it was correct. It would instead have to be an assumption that it was correct because it was Open Source. And how often have we had perfect Open Source programs that never needed patching?
Disclaimer: I use Open Source software, except for Quicken (sorry).
Is this thing on? Hello?
Since when do you have a right to copy something you don't own or intend to buy? People like you are the reason why there are few that take legitimate opposition to draconian copyright seriously. Instead of arguing "I have a right to use my IP in any way I choose for my own use (commercial or personal)" you argue, "I have a right to do anything with any IP I encounter for my own use." Tell me, which one sounds more mature and one like the rantings of some child who never grew up?
It looks as though you were built in a laboratory from parts of lesser nerds --- a sort of "bionic nerd," if you will.
You don't sell the same software you give away. You give away reliable, useful software tailored for specific and narrow uses. You sell other software that has broader applications and a lot more features, and a host of other software that may not even be related to the original software you gave away. Think of a company like Old Navy giving away free t-shirts with their logos one day. People are NOT going to say, "Well, now I have a t-shirt I need never go there again!" People will come back because they now know the company's name, see that they make pretty keen t-shirts, and want to see what else they have to offer--which is a great deal more than the one t-shirt that they gave away.
Why, whatever did the framers of the Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution ever do before the concept of Free Software?
What a bunch of tripe. Human rights requires vigilance and dedication. Software systems are a non-sequitur--they can express freedom, but they cannot create it.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
There are Arabs in the Knesset. How many Jews are in, say, the Saudi legislature?
A bit much to complain about that when so many people have been made redundant by computers over the past thirty years. Go and talk to a former newspaper printer, for example.
So they've found a more efficient way of doing the job without employing quite so many VB monkeys. That's exactly the right step. The IT department exists to serve the needs of the company, not to provide jobs for tech workers.
And it's not as if any of the laid-off programmers are going to be unable to find a new job, even in today's market.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
You poor victim of propoganda.
In nazi germany people used to say "I have no sympathy for jews after all they are just stealing, cheating theives and they might eat babies too!"
You're absolutely right. I too am getting a little sick and tired of all this 'preaching to the converted'.
I'd like to see this story on the front page, for example, if it originated in mainstream media; then, the topic of discussion would have been something more useful like reaching out and getting heard by the unwashed masses.
These articles get posted and people are all "oh how wonderful it would be if Joe Sixpack read that and acknoeledged the truth in it". Bleh, spare me.
Post these things again when the story pops up on NBS or CNN or the beeb.
Just some flamebait here to complement your offtopic, Mr. evilviper.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Letting a few palestinian terrorists represent the whole palestinian people is like letting the kkk represent america.
Sorry, but I don't see huge numbers of people in the streets -- in every town -- celebrating, giving candy to children, when the KKK murders a black person.
You poor victim of propoganda.
Hmmm. So then, are Jews sending jewish children to blow up jewish people just so they can blame the Palestinians?
Are the Jews going into Palestinian towns after another bomb explodes celebrating the death of woman and children being killed? Are the Jews handing out the candy to the Palestinian children?
Did the Jews dress up the baby as a suicide bomber just for propaganda? And when the Palestinians admitted it was a real photograph, was the confession manufactured by the Jews?
And let me guess: The Jews got "the phone call" and stayed home when the WTC got hit -- because it was the Jews themselves who destroyed the WTC.
The level of nastiness that this post has generated is very disappointing. There are some silly comments in the slapdash story, especially the comment about closed and non-free software being inferior because it is less transparent. Mathematica, MatLab and the like should all be independently verifable simply by the inputs and results and also by the inclusion of results of those programs in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
The point of the article, which would be a better point of debate, is that data collection and analysis by human rights organizations benefits from free software.
What free software provides human rights folks is a platform for doing specific kinds of work and letting a community improve that platform.
Here's a personal example: I'm developing a web based research and reporting system to track people who are kicked out of their HUD apartments for a drug or alcohol related arrest (not conviction) under the crazy One Strike law. We're both using free and open source tools and will, upon release in the near future, release this thing as quite modest free software.
The advantage is pragmatic: I can create a sophisticated system that other people can use to gather their own data on this subject and share/compare with ours. Are there nationwide trends and implications for this law beyond Chicago, the city where I work? Are there methods for analyzing this data that we're missing? Do other locales have specific pieces of information that we don't need to worry about in Chicago? Free software makes these questions easier to answer than proprietary software. Most of the mathematics required is stuff that any undergrad with numerical methods and statistical analysis under his or her belt can easily code, so that isn't really any issue.
It's a shame that the discussion on Slashdot thus far has been so hasty and angry, because even if it's a flawed article, it should really make people how they connect the "nerd" part of Slashdot with the "stuff that matters" part.
Online citizen journalism from the inner city: The View From The Ground
So would that make me the Six Million Dollar Nerd? That could be cool.
duunananananaa...
It is one thing to argue that an author should offer his works of authorship to the world as public domain without limitations, or even with sufficient limitations to satisfy RMS that it is "free" as he defines the term. This debate is one thing, and I do not speak to that issue here.
It is entirely another thing to claim that the failure of a society or individual to do so constitutes some form of Human Rights violation. Frankly, to do so is inanely naive and demeaning of the importance and significance of human rights. It is entirely different to argue that something is a Real Good Thing, and another to argue that it is essential to the survival of a decent human condition.
If there is a case to be made for this proposition, the article doesn't set it forth. All it contains is a combination of turgid rhetoric, wild (perhaps false) overstatements and illogical rationalizations. The argument here is virtually indistinguishable from arguments that all property, real, personal and otherwise, likewise constitutes a violation of Human Rights. Fine, but that is a radically different debate -- and there are far more refined arguments to be made than are made here. This "argument," at end, is just sophomoric whining.
There is no way that profesional software developers, who who are real grown-ups, with bills to pay have to deal with a LOT more than college kids. There's no way to compete. Grown-ups have responsibilities outside of work, college kids don't. Grown-ups have bills to pay, college kids don't. There's just not enough time in the day for a professional developer to possibly try to keep up with some kid in college coding open source.
One one hand, you've got a guy with a wife and kids at home, which he needs to spend time with daily, a mortgage, a car payment or two, and actual interestes *other* than computers. He can't even code all day at work, he has to go to meetings, socialize, etc. On the other hand, you got a college kid with nothing to do but code, jacked up on caffeine, no family in sight, and with incredible stamina.
That's *not* capitalism, because labor is being provided for free based on some bizarre form of altruism/activism.
However, the KKK doesn't actually represent 98% of the American population.
Unfortunately on slashdot lately, israel is the equivalent of microsoft 5 years ago. that is, anything trying to refute any anti-microsoft or anti-israeli FUD is automatically rated down to -1.
And not all criticism of palestinians or defense of israel against unjust allegations is "zionist propaganda".
I saw some African Americans cheer when they saw the towers fall...does this mean we should put all the blacks in america in a big camp and terrorize them?
certainly not. but neither is israel gathering ALL palestinians and terrorizing them in big camps. israel responds in force to palestinian force, and likewise palestinians respond in force to israeli force.
or, perhaps you're of the belief that all violence in the region, either committed by israelis or palestinians is israel's fault, as was recently announced by one of arafat's cabinet members.
Ok, so then why do you describe my statements as anti-semetic?
i believe your statements are regarded as anti-semitic when you said it was impossible for any politician to be elected without the zionist campaign contributions. if you make blanket statements like that about jews, even if you don't say jews but zionists, then your antisemitic. sorry to point out your biases you are certainly blind to.
Israel foreign policy has nothing to do with the race or religion of the country? Or does it? You tell me? Are there any jewish refugees in a palestinian concentration camp or only muslims and christians? Why not?
are you this clueless or just pretending to be?
do you realize the various UN partition plans allowed both Jordan and Palestine (of course the Palestine partition plan was rejected) to not allow any jews to settle there. so, those countries were allowed to be 100% jew-free. remember the palestinian refugees came about as a result of the arab attacks on israel. in fact, israel tried to persuade the muslims living there NOT to leave.
the exact numbers aren't known, but only about 30% of the refugees were 'forced' out of their homes, the remaining refugees fled to make way for the invading arab armies to clear the area of jews. many even joined the armies. then realized the jews wouldn't be defeated so easily.
plus, you refuse to mention that there is almost an equal number of jewish refugees forced out of the surrounding arab countries after the creation of israel. those refugees emigrated to israel or the US and got on with their lives. they didn't decide to be used as political pawns to make their 'enemies' look bad. remember, palestinian refugees are allowed to move to jordan. most don't, they'd rather live (with the encouragement of arafat et al) in squalor as political bargaining chips to make israel look bad.
Trying to paint any critic of Israel foreign policy as anti-semetic only exposes your own racist policies for what they are. i totally agree with you that valid criticism of israel is definitely NOT anti-semitic. but when people start saying 'the jews controll the media' or similar, then that DOES approach anti-semitism.
and remember, many muslim nations too are saying bush's attacks against iraq and afghanistan (which i don't support, btw) are anti-muslim, or a war on islam.
That has nothing to do with human rights, it's just a political issue. People don't starve to dead or get murdered just because RedHat removed a flag.
It's more like a kid plumber charging $30 per hour because the work involves using standard parts and standard published techniques to do the work.
When you go to an independent car mechanic, that's what the mechanic is doing as well. He is also using standard parts (not necessarily produced by the same manufacturer) and standard published techniques to do the work.
This may make our jobs less secure, but it does increase exponentially our standard of living.
Stephan
It all boils down to one thing... TRUST.
Who do you trust? The author(s) of the software? The company or companies that create, manage and ship the software?
Trust can only truly occur when there is complete, open and truthful communication between entities. Being that the 9th circuit court has upheld that software falls under free speech, we now have an issue with trust. If software is free -- free as in freedom -- and ships with source code -- are we (metaphorically) not able to have a lot more trust in what we can see. The parallel being free and open code and free and open speech that goes to how much trust is built up by the end users.
it could be argued that such important work should be done by the human hand, the human mind and the human heart ... rather than by a computer. Computers excel at quantity, not quality.
Gandhi didn't have to resort to statistics to stop British brutality in India. Statistics don't remind us of the humanity of the people we oppress -- their faces do.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Look at Palestinian "justice" for those accused of "collaborating" with Israel. The lynchings and cold-blooded murders would do the worst of any terror state - Stalin's NKVD, Hitler's Gestapo, Pol Pot's goons - proud.
How come everyone's worried about "human rights abuses" and the "loss of civil liberties" here in the US when Palestinians are summarily executed by their own leaders with no attempt at due process whatsoever?
All in all, a worker's paradise!
"People don't starve to dead or get murdered just because RedHat removed a flag. "
Really? Are you aware that the ONLY THING that stops China from invading Taiwan is public opinion in the rest of the world?
If Taiwan is listed as a part of China in peoples operating systems for example public opinion will drop since most will not even know about it.
And as I presume you understand, with Chinese occupation of Taiwan all kind of human rights will be violated.
It never ceases to amaze me how far afield people go to rationalize a belief. In this case the rationalization includes the supposition that the only way for human rights workers to attain the software they might require to accomplish their worthy goals is if ALL SOFTWARE IS FREE SOFTWARE. This argument ignores a wide variety of alternatives, such as charitable donation of said software, or purchase of said software with money obtained via charitable donations just to name two. Thus, rather than decimating the entire software industry by insisting that all software be free, maybe we should be critiquing those who do not donate their software to worthy human rights organizations, or make financial contributions to those organizations? These seem far less radical approaches to addressing the concern raised.
Two problems with this:
1 - The same principal of minimizing costs that causes companies to rush to free software also causes them not to pay for "free software". Companies do not spend money out of the goodness of their heart. They pay only if legally required. Thus, if they can legally obtain the software they wish without paying, then forget about them paying at all.
2 - College Students are financially supported by their parents and those organizations providing financial aid. Thus, the labor that is churing out free software is being funded by these organizations. Who is funding the laid off software engineers being replaced by these "superior workers"? In these days of "welfare reform", no one. They get a limited amount of unemployment and then fall through the cracks. This is not how we should be treating people displaced by these "free software" subsidies".
3 - At some point the subsidies will run out. Parents without hi-tech jobs will loose their ability to send their children to college, and financial aid sources will be overwhelmed by the need, and then the number of college students will fall dramatically. Who them will write the software needed to power industry? For that matter, as military and government stampeede to "free software", who will write the software THEY require? Maybe they will start supporting those college students no longer finding support from their parents and traditional financial support sources?
As you see, "free software" is by no means free. The people who write it must eat and have shelter, oh and computers and network access, and that is not free. Thus, free software as it is being suggested as the ONLY proper form of software does not exist. There is only subsidized software and unsubsidized software, and the ramifications of what is happening are quite severe.
So then, are Jews sending jewish children to blow up jewish people
No jewish children (18 year olds) are being sent to kill palestinian children. Mandatory service in the israeli occupation force you see...
Are the Jews going into Palestinian towns after another bomb explodes celebrating the death of woman and children being killed?
No after the jews blow up some palestinian women and children they celebrate saying that "justice was delivered" or some other silly nonesense.
Did the Jews dress up the baby as a suicide bomber just for propaganda?
Want me to show you a picture of a little american dressed up as a klansmen? Can i bomb the shit out of your family now?
There are additional advantages if the software is free in addition to having accessible source code.
A similar outrage occurred at our office the other day: Someone made a long-distance phone call!
Now, not long ago, he would have had to hire someone who knew how to write, have them buy paper, ink, and a quill and write a letter, give it to a horse courier, have them ride across the country, stopping at several general stores for oats and saddlesore ointment, patronize the occasional saloon, and deliver the letter, whereupon the same process would be repeated for the response.
But now, just because some unthinking bastard came up with a more efficient and less resource-intensive way of getting the same thing done, all those people are out of work.
Something is seriously wrong in our society, and free software is clearly at the heart of it. Just imagine, people building on what others have done so they don't have to waste time re-inventing the wheel with each new project. What ever happened to morality?
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Let me know when you'll be picketing Home Depot and all those stores selling Do-It-Yourself books. I'll bring you some coffee.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
For Fuck's sake, I know it's in vogue to bash Marxism, which is fine, but don't spout off about what Marx said or didn't say when it's patently obvious you haven't read a word of his work. He never said widening the imbalance between rich and poor was good, and in fact he wrote in Capital that capitalism was revolutionary in that it allowed for the development of the very concept of human equality. And while your absolutely correct that his belief that the industrialized countries would experience benign socialist revolutions was flat wrong, his analysis of the commodity system under capitalism still reads as quite salient.
As for your argument that capitalism embraces inequality, you're right about its effects, but you're dead wrong about its theoretical base. For Marx the very notion of human equality arises because capitalism taught us to see people as possessors of commodities (rather than as "free," "slave," "serf," or whatever). While capitalism inevitably creates inequality, it does make possible the idea of equality. So Marx did think some good came from capitalism, in spite of what many (including many Marxists) believe.
Disclaimer: IANAM
Hmm, does anybody here go to Oekonux Confenference in Berlin?
statistical procedures in Microsoft Excel 97. Computational Statistics and
Data Analysis, 31(1): 27-37
The problems have not been corrected in an XP box I just tried.
It is my firm belief that the code must be available for review for it to be good science, and closed source is one of the greatest problems in science today. You are expected to document every aspect of your research, except for the actual implementation, that doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't need to be free as in speech or even Open Source in the OSI sense, but it sure helps.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Anyway, the money not spent in the IT budget doesn't just disappear. It is spent on something else more directly related to the company's business, thereby generating more jobs somewhere else in the economy
Translation: it cuts programming jobs by a significant percentage. You have to ask yourself, is this really what you want?
In this case the College students were able to deliver better than the IT workers.
"Maybe" better than the IT workers.
Next July, when the college kids are off biking through France, and the database needs some tuneup or added feature...One manager might find himself out looking for a new job.
There is something to be said for onsite staff.
What I really want is for somebody to pay me to sip tall drinks while I sit on a beach in Hawaii. Unfortunately, very few employers find that to be a productive enough activity to staff up in that area. Oh well, life's a bitch.
When we overthrew the democratically elected government of Germany.
"Why Human Rights Requires Free Software"
So... All the progress in humans rights over the past several centuries up until about 50 years ago never really happened because free software didn't exist yet? People can't have human rights without free software? Last time I check human rights didn't require software at all, let alone free software. I think someone should be a little more careful in picking titles. Accuracy about the issues is more important than an overly dramatic and ultimately incorrect title.
That has nothing to do with human rights, it's just a political issue. --FooBarWidget on Slashdot.
Can I quote you like this in my .sig?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
No after the jews blow up some palestinian women and children they celebrate saying that "justice was delivered" or some other silly nonesense.
The difference is that Israel doesn't intentionally target women and children. That Palistinian terrorists hide among women and children is all the more shameful (and proof that Israel goes out of their way NOT to harm civilians).
Want me to show you a picture of a little american dressed up as a klansmen? Can i bomb the shit out of your family now?
Once again, the difference is that Klansman are a tiny, insignificant minority. We don't have people celebrating in the streets when Klansman kill innocent people, like the Palestinians do.
When the rank-and-file Palestinians start condemning and demonstrating against the intentional killing of innocent children (rather than celebrating and giving out candy), then I'll start giving a shit about what happens to the Palestinians.
Or to put it another way, there is no action that Israel can take -- including occupying every square inch of Palestinian territory -- that justifies the willful, intentional, wholesale slaughter of children.
In nazi germany people used to say "I have no sympathy for jews after all they are just stealing, cheating theives and they might eat babies too!"
Well, let's compare the two situations.
Jews eating babies: Obviously false.
Palestinians using suicide bombers and targeting innocent woman and children: Clearly true.
And exactly who is engaging in the propaganda here?
No.
I grew up in Louisiana. When I was a teenager, the state legislature considered a bill that would make marriages between first cousins legal.
How are these two even remotely connected? The former is a bill restricting what you're allowed to do, in what is in today's technological society a pretty fundamental way. The latter is "allowing" something which, even if you consider it ill-advised, isn't properly the business of the state at all.
The only way you could be connecting these proposals would be if you were saying that they are equally ridiculous. I suppose they are, but in diametrically opposite ways; 1) it is far from ridiculous that first cousins should be allowed to marry*, but a law allowing it is ridiculously unlikely to pass, and 2) it is ridiculous to mandate crippling the normal functions of computers in today's world, but the legislation required is very likely indeed to pass in one form or another. Some precursor legislation has already passed, viz. the DMCA.
*Yes, I know I'm open to flaming here, but the ban on 'incest' between first cousins is not based on any solid genetic ground; it's a taboo, pure and simple. Even if there were any significant increased risk to offspring it isn't the place of the state to determine these things, any more than they should mandate sterilization of women over 38, or men with a family history of testicular cancer, or people with poor eyesight.
What I really want is for somebody to pay me to sip tall drinks while I sit on a beach in Hawaii. Unfortunately, very few employers find that to be a productive enough activity to staff up in that area. Oh well, life's a bitch.
I don't mind when 90% of a companies programming staff has been cut. But when you are a programmer, and you can't put food on the table, you know who is to blame.
It's great isn't it? Now do you think someone could remind your president when he next talks to your inefficient, useless, uncompetitive steel industry?
Of course there's nothing wrong with what the GNU project does! The whole point is that the original poster was saying that you have a right to copy anything you want. Big difference between the GNU philosophy and that philosophy. One is voluntary, the other is not.
3 - At some point the subsidies will run out. Parents without hi-tech jobs will loose their ability to send their children to college, and financial aid sources will be overwhelmed by the need, and then the number of college students will fall dramatically. Who them will write the software needed to power industry? For that matter, as military and government stampeede to "free software", who will write the software THEY require? Maybe they will start supporting those college students no longer finding support from their parents and traditional financial support sources?
Then there will be no more free software and acompanies will hire all the parents back. Sure its way more complex than that, but the market has ways of keeping itself in check.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
I cry "TROLL!" Poster is missing the point, willfully I think.
Q1) What stops the experienced IT staff (who understand the systems and the people using them) from using free software to cut the development time and/or licensing costs of the project?
Q2) How do a "couple of kids" brought in at short notice put something usable together quicker than 5 experienced staff who were already working on it. (Unless the 5 staff were idiots ripe for firing anyway)?
Answers: "Nothing" and "Not likely to happen".
I am a programmer. I write software for use within the manufacturing industry where I work.
I use free software to do so whenever possible.
It often allows me to be more productive thereby increasing my job security.
It also allows me to see inside it, and opens up options that would never be available with closed software. So I can be more creative, thereby increasing my job security.
Those 5 IT staff (if they existed) should have been cruising freshmeat from day 1 of the project, eh?
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
Well get a bunch of college students to smelt steel in there spare time and that problem will be solved. Seriously though, steel can;t be copied as cheaply as software. The fact that you have to produce it and shelling out a $1000 followed bye $40 a month for DSL and an increase to your electric bill won't get you an infinite supply makes steel slightly different from software.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip
market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and
is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose"
-- James Finke, Commodore Int'l Ltd., 1982
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