Software Libre: DoHS Switches, Commerce Slights

An anonymous reader writes "Some excellent Pigdog investigative journalism: Apparently, The state department is trying to block international support of OSS and Free (Libre) Software. See also this InfoWorld article." Contrast that with this NewsForge report of a switch from Windows 2000 to Linux+Oracle at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They picked a good week for it.

Comments

They will fail

[PD]

The free world won the cold war because an open society is more efficient than a closed one.

Free software will win on the same basis. Sure, the US is open compared to most of the countries in the world, but it's not as open as open source.

Re:They will fail

[Kenja]

Da Comrade. The Capitalist Swine will fall any day now, overthrown by the will of the people.
Hey look, a Starbucks opened up down the street.

Re:They will fail

[goatasaur]

At the risk of being OT...

"Hey look, a Starbucks opened up down the street."

I assume you're making an ironic musing on capitalization and corporations. Starbucks started like every other chain -- with a single store. What made them popular was the fact that they sell a GOOD product.

corporate != shit

Sometimes, but not always.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually it proved the capitalist economy (where the workers get more than two goats and a chicken as annual salaray) works better than a socialist economy (where the Politburo gets the nice black cars and all the money funds the military). Not really anything about open vs. closed.

Re:They will fail

[LordNimon]

What made them popular was the fact that they sell a GOOD product.

Have you actually tasted their coffee?

Re:They will fail

[PD]

No, it proved that eating potato chips is more efficient than eating cabbage.

Can you tell that I mock your ideas? Open is a more general idea than capitalist. Capitalism in a closed society is called fascism.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

The Cold War was responsible for some true innovation from both parties. So far, all that Open Source groups have done is follow after the Closed and mimic their accomplishments. Aside from your philosophical stance, which I agree with, you need to make a product that can and will compete with the likes of Microsoft. You can't keep crying anti-trust. There are genuine flaws in the design of your wares, and they need to be addressed.

Re:They will fail

[urbazewski]

The cold war cost billions of dollars in real resources. It was a huge tax on the populations of all countries involved, contributed to massive environmental damage, and led to military support, arms and training for numerous guerilla organizations that either inflicted suffering on their own people (Honduras and Guatemala) or that turned out to be ill considered allies (like the Taliban).

While the behavior of those corporations seeking to protect their monopoly/oligopoly is unlikely to lead to wasted resources on the same scale, tremendous inefficiencies can be caused by, and I would argue, have laready been caused by, the strategic actions taken by the producers of proprietary software. It's not just the final outcome that matters.

Re:They will fail

[goatasaur]

Yes. I enjoy their wide selection of coffee and tea; I don't drink Starbucks on a daily basis but I'll usually grab something if I pass one.

I've also tasted the coffee of many local enterprises... most of it is mud. If I want bad coffee I'll stay at home and make it myself.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the biggest crock of shit I have seen in days (ok, hours) on Slashdot.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, we have cabbage chips!

Re:They will fail

[Dr Caleb]

fact that they sell a GOOD product.

They do sell a good product. Breath freshner for people who eat shit.

Re:They will fail

[pummer]

To take a cue from Orwell, All free things were created equal, but some free things are more equal than others.

Re:They will fail

[PD]

Anti-trust is irrelevant. The closed source companies will have to change or die. This is no different than it already is.

Note that nothing I said talked about closed source companies. I was talking about US attempts to influence adoption of open source internationally, which will fail. Backfire even.

I've got nothing against closed source. Closed source companies will need to adapt or die. This is exactly the same situation that they are in already.

Remember, closed source companies are a component of an open society. But as open as that society is, it cannot control something that is even more open. That's all I am saying.

Re:They will fail

[Thud457]

Dumbass, TV has told us that Starbuk's coffee taste like crap!
You wouldn't DOUBT TV, would you?

1. Overindulge in Tweek's fine coffee
2. See the underpants gnomes
3. ????
4. PROFIT!

QED

RE:THEY WILL FAIL

[blazerw11]

I assume you're making an ironic musing on capitalization...

STARBUCKS!!!!!

WordNet defines capitalization 4 ways. Number is "writing in capital letters".
We're number 1!

Of course, defiitions 2-4, pretty much revolve around corporate business crap.

Re:They will fail

[SirSlud]

What a sick joke.

Starbucks employed the most agressive expansion strategy in the history of retail.

They themselves are responsible for the term 'clusterbombing' neighbourhoods .. by buying 4 or 5 stores (they admit to going specifically after trying to buy the leases out of already-existing entrenched local coffee shops) in a 3 or 4 span block, you couldn't escape them.

It was only people's desire to think they had control over their little universe that led them to think Starbucks multiplied in size a zillion times over the span of 5 years because they innately discovered a better coffee than all existing coffee shops.

What a joke. Anybody that takes an interest in corperate strategy either revears Starbucks as a hero, for successfully expanding faster than any retail gig in known history, for pioneering a few new coperate-expantion strategies like clusterbombing, for gutlessly buying out the leases of local favorite coffee shops (despite protests by local populations and local celebrities and dignataries) .. or as pure evil for somehow getting my fellow man into thinking they made it based on the merit of their product.

I wont even touch on what they did to international coffee prices. Now, 0.5% of their coffee beans are bought, in their words, "at a fair price." This was to silence those who rallied valiently to save the livings of coffee farmers the world over.

Re:They will fail

[goatasaur]

If you had *seen* the episode, you would know that Tweek's coffee tastes like week-old diarrhea, and that Harbucks (an oh-so-subtle reference) ended up winning the day.

So Mr. Tweek ends up working for the man. Like everyone.

Re:They will fail

[Thud457]

Maybe those idiot coffee farmers shouldn't be listening to the DEA and instead be growing real drugs for real money.

Your precious free market at work!

(goddammit, I'm gonna get my karma slammed on this thread! first I embarassingly misconfabulate the plot of the underpants gnomes episode, now this!)

Re:They will fail

[Angram]

Starbucks, like any store that became a chain, isn't what it used to be, you can be sure. The only reason to expand into new locations is to make more money. Once you get big enough, your wholesale or raw materials purchases become so large that what would have once been a thousand dollar a year difference is now billions.

Coporations typically start small, it's the greed required to get them big that is the problem. Companies like JetBlue seem to have figured out a better way to all of this - superior product on a large scale. Rather than high quality in a single location or low-quality on a large scale, they did both, and they're reaping the rewards of thought in business.

Re:They will fail

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The closed source companies will have to change or die.

Actually, it's the open-source companies that are having to change or die. The closed-source companies are humming along the same as ever.

We can argue all we want about whether open-source software is morally superior to closed-source software or whatever else, but the bottom line is that the companies that base their business model on closed-source software are surviving, while the companies that base their business model on open-source software are dying.

Re:They will fail

[SubtleNuance]

No, one of the reasons the "free world" "won" the cold war because North America has never hosted a modern war. Rebuilding Russia and much of Eurpoe has occupied those peoples - this complete lack of recognition of the Place in History of the CCCP and the hostile acts by the US against it (assaulting the idiology and provoking (participating) in an arms race) needs to be considered when discussing Communism Vs. Capitalism in the second half of 20th century.

The US presently has an astounding public debt (hey, have a look at what Shrub is doing wrt spending/debt -- hint: it aint gettin' better). This debt is used to compensate for any contraction of the free market, essentially, when times are 'bad' the debt balloons as the Plutocrats see to it that the 'free market succeeds' "see, once again, the market saves" - building debt and calling it success is a little silly.

What *WILL* happen is that this debt, will collapse onto the US. Both the private (your household) and public (state/federal) debt.

USofAmerica a very unsustainable economic system -- (i wont even mention the problem with American Consumerism and its effects on the Environment in the discussion (unsustainable/deadly/ridiculous consumerism had to be CREATED in order for the US economy to 'explode' to 'compete' with USSR. The planet has its limits, not everyone is going to be able to consume like USofAmericans, eventually, saner policy will prevail to combat real problems (global warming, mass extinction due to habitat loss, etc)

Basically, time will tell... Americans never fail to amaze me when they look so narrowly at Reality and declare the US Model of "Society" the best thing ever.. in reality, it has had some circumstantial support, things that will not always exist in order to 'prop it up'.... and when that happens, when your pride has to be swallowed as you realize your precious 'system' has some serious faults, I hope for all-our-sake you arrogant warmongers dont start WWIII in a mass-hysteria jingoist crusade. (think hitler && germany)

Re:They will fail

[Angst Badger]

Sure, the US is open compared to most of the countries in the world, but it's not as open as open source.

I hear this a lot from Americans. (Don't get your nationalist knickers in a wad; by accident of birth, I'm one of you, too.) The problem is that it is only a half-truth. If by "most of the countries in the world" you mean to include Brunei, Madagascar, and the Sudan, well, sure. But compared to the rest of the industrial democracies, it's not that clear-cut.

"Freedom" isn't a monolithic measurement, except to nationalist politicians. There are quite a few things I can do in various western European countries that I can't do in the United States. The converse is also true. For example, what Americans refer to as First and Fourth Amendment rights are considerably more open in some countries, while the American Second Amendment is pretty unusual for countries not ruled by hereditary warlords.

For my tastes, Germany is a much freer place. Someone who likes to own guns or is a Scientologist would probably feel differently. While it would certainly be nice if there were a most free or most open society, the truth is that you must ask "free and open in which ways?"

Re:They will fail

[swb]

This was to silence those who rallied valiently to save the livings of coffee farmers the world over.

Hey, if the RIAA and MPAA don't deserve to get their stupid business models enshrined into law, why should the coffee growers or anyone else for that matter?

OPEC figured out how to run a cartel, so should the coffee people if they want a guaranteed high price for growing too much coffee. Blaming Starbucks isn't the right tactic.

Re:They will fail

[Mullen]

What a sick joke.

Starbucks employed the most aggressive expansion strategy in the history of retail.

Okay then, how come they sell millions of their products every day around the world? If you make a crap product that no one wants and you open a million stores, it does not mean anyone is going to buy your product. It is the selling of a consistently good product at all stores, day in and day, that appeals to wide audience is what sells.

What needs to happen is you anti-free market and anti-capitalism wanna be do-gooders need to do is go back to econ 101 and learn that a product sells when people desire it or need it, people know about it and can buy it. In the case of Starbucks, a good, cheap product made quickly and easily accessible.

It might come as a big shock, but any Starbucks, anywhere in the world, is better than 95% of the non-chain Coffee Houses. I know, weird, but they sell a good product.

Re:They will fail

[CakerX]

the same reason people use microsoft, people buy RIAA CDs, etc...

BECAUSE THEY WANT COFFEE, AND HAVE NO OTHER CHOICES!

The average person does not know of indie record stores.

The average person does cannot get anything working on their PC but windows. why? most don't even know of linux, other than mentioned in a few words somewhere

And since starbucks litterally DESTROYED the other coffee shops, people have no where else to buy coffee, and few know of the situation.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

If you make a crap product that no one wants

Well, you can make a crap product and have people want it, I think Starbucks is a great example of this.. there are plenty of others McDonalds, etc..

It might come as a big shock, but any Starbucks, anywhere in the world, is better than 95% of the non-chain Coffee Houses. I know, weird, but they sell a good product.

Where do you get that ridiculous idea from? Have you been to a good local coffee shop? One with atmosphere, great coffee mixes, menu & good service? You have no idea what you are talking about. They are not even better on average.

Re:They will fail

[swb]

Have you been to a good local coffee shop? One with atmosphere, great coffee mixes, menu & good service?

Been to plenty with good coffee, good atmosphere and a few with decent sweets. But ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THEM have anything approaching good service. They all have the same orange-haired, pierced-nose alterna-whatever trendanistas "working" there. They're rude, slow and usually can't make change or do anything other than take breaks well.

It's no better at Starbucks or Caribou or any other chain -- its like you can't make coffee unless you're over 45 with "Flo" embroidered on your dress or under 30 with more safety pins in your lip than I have in my whole house and hair the shade of a warning sign.

Besides, buying coffee at the store is dumb to begin with. The markup is like 2000% or something. A pound of decent beans is $6 and makes enough coffee to keep me wired for a week. A single cup at any coffee place is like $3.

Re:They will fail

[vonWoland]

I am sorry, but do you realize how stupid you sound? I mean, have you ever seen pictures of an oil rig or even a refinery? Now have you ever seen a picture of a small bush with berries? Which one do you think takes either governments or huge multinationals to produce and maintain, and which can be tended by people who work more and harder in a day than you will in a lifetime?

Please, think again about what you said, get informed, at say here (The site is in Afrikaans, but I am sure you will figure out how to click the English link); come back here, and post what a heal you have been.

Don't be too proud---a sincere mea culpa will get you many points.

Re:They will fail

[vonWoland]

O.K., only if you go to grad. school in economics where the first thing you will be told is to forget all the myths you were taught in Econ 101.

Yes, a product can sell when people desire it, but that is not the same thing as the product being any good, or anyone needing that product. Don't belive me? Well you may be shocked to hear that ghasp cigarettes sell quite well, though they are neither a good product nor particularly usefull.

Furthermore, you go to any local coffehouse outside of the Midwest U.S., and see if what they think of your Starbucks coffee. Sure, if all you know is Folgers, it may seem like nectar, but compared to the worst coffee house in say Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Spain et c. et c., Starbucks seems much like so much sewage.

I know, I know it is comfortable to hold on to those free market myths of yours. And you know what, if you actually found a free market, it might not be all complete bull. But find that free market, friend, but meanwhile try to get informed.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Having just moved back from Germany, a country in which you can't give the finger on the highway (unless your car has more occupant than their car) where you cann't insult people because they might sue you, where you must register where you live within a week of moving. Lets not go there in these types of arguments. There are some things you can do in some countries and some you can't. I was quite proud of the German industries that refused to give up information to the government when asked to do so in the name of the war against terror.
I would be much more interested to see a discussion of how G7 type countries compare to say saudi arabia, and why the US shouldn't be supporting them.

Re:They will fail

[SirSlud]

LOL, sometimes I wonder about these people that went to Econ 101 .. remember physics 101? Remember how what you learned in physics 101 is a vast oversimplifaction of the mechanics of markets

you know how time isnt constant?

Well, no market is transparent. No consumer is aware of all their choices. And no Econ 101 course is going to teach you anything about how the economy really works.

The way people like you talk, executives have no jobs .. all they do is pay their employees to make the product. Here's a clue-stick: executives jobs are to influence the sale of their product, independant of the quality of that product, by using various tactics to influence the -ahem- 'free market'.

Any fucking econ dude that did post grad work will tell you that Econ 101 is to give you the very basic rules. When you start to factor in various innovations in influencing markets and consumer behaviour (gee, what the fuck is advertising if consumers magically buy the right product as per your theory) ... drivel like yours almost isnt worth the time to refute.

But dont believe me. Check the other replies to your post.

Re: They will fail

[Black Parrot]

> No, one of the reasons the "free world" "won" the cold war because North America has never hosted a modern war.

The USA won the cold war because the Superpower Lifestyle bankrupted the USSR slightly before it bankrupted the USA.

The USA spent a decade inching back from that brink, but now that we've got a cold war mentality again (even without any cold war), it looks like we're going to bankrupt ourselves on foreign adventures and faith-based missle defenses anyway.

Re:They will fail

[Spellbinder]

i enjoy smoking my weed without going to jail.
so switzerland is a lot more "free" for me!!!
and you can start drinking beer with sixteen but you have to wait with driving a car to 18
and i don't like to be sued about some shit. ( like me making hot coffee= )
everything has some pro contra points
maybe some people in iraq even enjoy living with sadam
that we don't know someones way of live doesn't mean ours is better...

Re:They will fail

[MrResistor]

It is the selling of a consistently good product at all stores, day in and day, that appeals to wide audience is what sells.

No, it is the selling of a consistent product at all stores, day in day [out], that doesn't disgust a wide audience that sells.

McDonalds does not make good hamburgers, but that doesn't seem to have hurt them at all. Why? Because I can walk into any McDonalds anywhere in the world and point at the picture of the Big Mac behind the cashier and get exactly the same crappy hamburger with exactly the same special sauce. I know exactly what I'm going to get, and people are willing to pay for that, generally regardless of actual quality.

What needs to happen is you anti-free market and anti-capitalism wanna be do-gooders need to do is go back to econ 101 and learn that a product sells when people desire it or need it, people know about it and can buy it.

I hope you'll take your blinders off when you decide to grow up. In the modern market economy peoples buying decisions rarely have anything to do with either need or quality of the product. The idealistic supply/demand model only works in commodity markets.

Nobody buys Kraft cheese or Wonderbread because they're superior products. They buy them because that's the bland, tasteless, lowest common denominator product from a brand name they recognize.

It might come as a big shock, but any Starbucks, anywhere in the world, is better than 95% of the non-chain Coffee Houses.

I don't know where you've been buying your coffee, but I think it's clear to most of the people reading this thread that you need to get out more.

Starbucks makes stuff that isn't bad, but I can get equivalent or better, with faster more personal service, at the same price, at any of my local non-chain coffee houses.

Re:They will fail

[nihilogos]

What made them popular was the fact that they sell a GOOD product.

Are you joking? Those watery, burnt espressos made on stale coffee by some pimply untrained teenager on minimum wage?

The mathematician Paul Erdos once said "A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems." He is later reported to have said that American coffee is "for the lemmas."

Most of the crap Starbuck's sells is more milkshake than coffee. And besides, I think that last line is his sig.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Goodness, your sixth grade understanding of economic never ceases to amaze me. Canada and Europe will collapse under debt before the US will, thanks to their aging populations and extensive state welfare programs. Canada's in better shape thanks to their liberal immigration policies, but the end is nigh, regardless.

Re:They will fail

[dcmeserve]

> led to military support, arms and training for numerous guerilla organizations that either inflicted suffering on their own people (Honduras and Guatemala)...

Don't forget Iraq! :)

> ... or that turned out to be ill considered allies (like the Taliban).

Actually, the Taliban didn't exist at the time the US was supporting Afghanistan against the USSR. Back then, the CIA was supporting/coordinating (along with others such as one Osama Bin Laden) miscellaneous groups of locals. Though you could say it was the same thing, since these locals were rebelling aginst the USSR largely because the Soviets were trying to impose modern ideas of culture on them -- e.g. equality for women. And the Taliban came to embody the most extreme version of that attitude.

Of course, the Taliban *did* come to power due to support from an outside source -- Pakistan. Which, er, is *now* being supported by the U.S. in the War on Terrorism. Ugh.

Re:They will fail

[10am-bedtime]

what does a company's association w/ free software have to do w/ the free software? free software can't die; your restriction of terms is artificial.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

It might come as a big shock, but any Starbucks, anywhere in the world, is better than 95% of the non-chain Coffee Houses.

Oh my... You just beat the record of the most ridiculous statement I've ever read on Slashdot. (No small feat, huh?)

Regardless of any "econ" considerations (101 or otherwise), Starbucks is the worst thing to ever happen to the idea of good coffee -- an entire country, 250 million people, persuaded overnight that it should taste like the bitter sock's juice sold at this sinister outfit.

Coffee is to Starbucks as cuisine is to McDonald's. "Anywhere in the world"? It's simply unthinkable that you've ever been to Italy and tasted a real ristretto .

Yet another one who mistook econ 101 for an education, and Disney World for getting a damn passport, I guess. No wonder your home page's "fun" tab says "nothing here yet".

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

So your point is those dirt-covered spear-chuckers should be paid shit for their product, because it's easy to produce, and there's a large supply? Excellent.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had coffee in France, and it tastes like coffee anywhere else. Do you think you can name places in other regions and simply say, "Hey, this is better coffee, because it's from Europe and stuff" and carry any weight?

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd, I can't even get the same experience from the same McDonald's. Your experience amazes me, or rather, doesn't. McDonald's actually does modify their food products for regional differences in diet, but I'm sure you're both observant enough, and have traveled sufficiently to be an expert about such things, right?

Personally, I think you should get out more. All of the people posting in this thread, have other, liberal free-the-workers nonsense in their comment histories, and this is the basis for their problems. They hate Starbucks because it's not your local coffee shop run by a bunch of college dropouts and social science graduates.

Re:They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:They will fail

[Eccles]

Da Comrade. The Capitalist Swine will fall any day now, overthrown by the will of the people.

Basil Exposition: Austin, the Cold War is over!
Austin Powers: Finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh comrades? Eh?
Basil Exposition: Austin... we won.
Austin Powers: Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism!

Re:They will fail

[Twirlip of the Mists]

If you wish to be understood, please use capital letters. You are not e e cummings.

Re:They will fail

[PD]

I was not including the European and some other democracies, which are in many ways more open than the United States, in both policy and culture. Most countries don't approach the small bunch of open nations at the top; those were what I was referring to.

Re:They will fail

[vonWoland]

Sorry, but you missed my point: The post I was responding to called for coffee growers to "form a cartel like OPEC." I had difficulty in deciding where to begin to show just how ludicrous this statement is. My point, in fact is quite the opposite of what you made it out to be.

Re:They will fail

[enjo13]

Or someone who doesn't like censorship.. Germany is pretty bad with outright censorship on a number of things.. we've seen many of them on Slashdot. I noticed a LOT of them while I lived over there...

Everyone has their shortcomings...

Re:They will fail

[SirSlud]

You cant cartel whats cheap to produce and easily available. Oil cartels require control over the land the oil is. Explain to me how a coffee cartel could control all coffee fertile land again?

Re:They will fail

[canadian_right]

I'm not quite sure what you are upset about. Whatever method Starbucks used to expand, they certainly did it well and should be congratulated for their good business sense. I, for one, will never buy their over-priced coffee, but you have to admit they run their business well. And they didn't even need to bribe any congressmen to protect their market.

If you want to buy fair-market coffee search the web for a local supplier. It costs a bit more than most coffee beans, but sure is a LOT cheaper than going to Star-Bucks.

Fair Trade Coffee

Re:They will fail

[SirSlud]

The funniest thing is that you replied to his point about free markets with a comment about coffee!

Way to refute the notion that no market is transparent to the consumer and that advertising and location planning exists for a reason!

Re:They will fail

[Eunuchswear]

The post I was responding to called for coffee growers to "form a cartel like OPEC." I had difficulty in deciding where to begin to show just how ludicrous this statement is.

And what's ludicrous about the International Coffee Organization?

Re:They will fail

[grahamm]

I am reminded of Robert Heinlein's book "Citizen of the Galaxy" where an anthropologist remarks that the free traders, as a people, are the freeest in the history of mankind - but only at the expense of the freedom of the individual members of the community.

Re: They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA won the cold war because the Superpower Lifestyle bankrupted the USSR slightly before it bankrupted the USA.

Yes, and the parent poster stated very clearly that the only reason that this was the case is because the U.S borrowed a hell of a lot more than the U.S.S.R did. Now the ex-U.S.S.R states have a much smaller national dept than the U.S could ever hope to have, and the U.S dept just keeps getting bigger. The only reason the U.S has gotten away with such a huge debt so far is because they have the largest economy, but what will happen in a decades time, when China overtakes the U.S? You have to pay that money back some time...

Re:They will fail

[MrResistor]

Regardless of your experiences, consistency is what McDonalds sells, That's what franchises is all about, and have always been about since the first franchise (Motel 6) got started. Your statement only strengthens my later point: that buying habits are rarely based on reality.

Personally, I think you should pay more attention to what's going on in the real world. You and the poster I was resonding to both suffer from the naive belief that "what's good for GM is good for America". Let me clue you in: GM doesn't give a rats ass about you, and would happily poison your grandmother if they thought it would make them a buck.

And for the record, I hate Starbucks for the same reason I hate WalMart and Microsoft. It has nothing to do with how big they are, but rather what actions they took to get there. None of those companies compete by offering a superior product. Instead, they compete by buying up the leases on their competitors buildings a rising the rent until they can no longer afford to remain in business, or by charging less than it costs to produce a product in order to undercut the competition, or by using their sheer bulk or monopoly position in order to bully their their competitors suppliers and customers to not do business with them.

I have no problem with companies like IBM, Apple, and Sun, who (despite some of their pasts) maintain their market positions based on the actual quality of their product.

Re:They will fail

[gotan]

German censorship has mostly to do with nazis. Now if you are a nazi, that censoring will hit you pretty hard, admittedly, please note, that germany (population and even more so the government) is very sensible when it comes to the subject of nazis. That's because of our (yes i am german) history. There are still nazis in germany, but i think, many other countries have a worse problem with that. Anyway that's not the point. The point is, that a lot of german censoring (probably all) that hit the "slashdot news" probably has to do with nazi propaganda.

That is not to say, that this is a domestic problem and noone else should have a say in this, but please discriminate what is censored, and take the german history into consideration. I don't know if we're better off with respect to free speech than the USA, but i notice that there's a worldwide trend of limiting free speech rights.

As an aside i'd like to thank the allies (among them the US of A) that i don't have to live in a "national socialism" today, i consider some well defined limits to free speech rights (e.g. prohibiting to deny the holocaust and to glorify the nazis) a fair price if it prevents those assholes from spreading their lies again. I'm really happy that thousand years went over so fast i didn't have to live in them.

Yeah, mod me offtopic, it is, and i'm drunk.

Re:They will fail

[arivanov]

As most typical americans you have a memeoryspan of 6 years +/-1. 10 years ago before Starbusck started there was not a single outfit selling drinkable coffee in the US besides one or two larger cities with big Italian colonies.

Ever tried to by an espresso in any Ohio city in the 80-es and the beginning of the 90'es? Compared to the brown-painted horse piss sold everywhere under the name Coffee Starbucks was and is salvation.

Note: I am not saying that their coffee is not shit, I am simply saying that it is considerable better then 99.9% of what was available before they came.

M$ ad blocked half the page

[fuckface]

While not making the information totally unavailable, M$ did their part to obfuscate this miscarriage of corporate government (for me at least) by leveraging their ad-space on the page to cover the right half of the second paragraph. Kudos!

Re:M$ ad blocked half the page

[The Kiloman]

Did that to me too. Using Mozzila? Phoenix b.5 here...

homeland security switch

[pmineiro]

"An experienced sysadmin can just do so much more to lock down a Unix-based operating system, especially Linux," says Beale. "Windows 2000 doesn't offer either the same kind of granularity of configuration or the equivalent ability to inspect pieces of the operating system."

now is this true?

i know zero about windows administration, but i always thought it was that unix admins were more security conscious, better trained, or better paid, but that windows itself inherited alot of really cool security features from VMS, which in theory could make the box even more lock downable.

-- p

btw, the most productive follow-ups would be objective assesments from those who have administered both unixen and windows.

Re:homeland security switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure its true.

Most Windows services cannot be run as ordinary users. Going further, not only is Windows itself is heavily biased towards all important processes being root, but most developers run as root all the time on MS-Windows because it is so difficult and time-consuming to accomplish work if one is not root.

Whereas in UNIX, one can easily install almost any application without being root (albeit, not to /usr or /usr/local), this is not at all true in MS-Windows, where one usually has to either
(a) risk the entire box by switching to root to install
or
(b) bring up a new box (or VM) just to test the software package

Re:homeland security switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better, I've administrated VMS and Windows. While NT got lots of good input from the VMS world, including things like the security model, VMS wasn't the bugridden pile of crap that Microsoft commonly puts out. VMS wouldn't have been very secure either if it was coded in the style Microsoft has grown accustomed to. For instance, you can have a routine check whether a process has permissions of some sort to an object, but if that routine itself is poorly written then all the security architectures in the world aren't going to help. Why check the object against 'joe_lusers' permissions, when all the world can whack the sql user ;-)

Re:homeland security switch

[bobKali]

My understanding (and I've not much MS experience) is that the security model for Win is more complex and therefore more difficult to secure. In *nix, everything's a file, and I think that makes it simpler. Plus, the Unix model's been around for 30+ years, and it's an open model.

I dunno - considering that the only utility you need to customize *nix security is vi, where with Windows you need countless wizards and administrative tools and multiple registry settings for the same items.... well it confuses me (not that that's hard to do)

Re:homeland security switch

[10am-bedtime]

logic error.

most valuable would be most subjective assessments, as long as the subject (the one making the asssement) is experienced.

if an assessment is most objective, it can be done by machine, but that is not useful in this case.

carry on...

Re:homeland security switch

[cfadam]

What admin is going to install software on a production system w/o testing it? You are just asking for trouble doing stupid shit like that.
There are many services in UNIX that also must be run as a privledged user, this isn't a windows-only problem.
Windows vs Unix on security is quickly becoming a non-issue, just like Windows vs Unix on stability.
- Adam

Re:homeland security switch

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Windows 2000+ has the "runas" command, which lets you sort of "su" an application, such as an installer, from the CLI.

Convicted monopolists need our support

[burgburgburg]

The same government that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and turned a monopoly breakup into a mime of a wrist slap fights the good fight to make sure that software that isn't being licensed by the major party contributor is on superior footing against "free" "better" software. Why is anyone acting surprised?

Americans, you think...

[Anonymous Coward]

you are so free:-) We have you all tricked...

The Conspiracy teorist (insert two Rs after the E).

Well !!!!!!!

[chickensdelight]

Open source technology - there really is no way to ensure that the third world would get second rate technology using free software, and where will the NSA put all their back door

Re:They will fail (OT)

[bobKali]

No, Starbucks became popular because most places sell a WORSE product.
They remain popular because they sell the SAME product line everywhere they are. Kinda like McDonald's.

US likes money and things that make more money

[Anonymous Coward]

img src="http://www.bbspot.com/Images/News_Features/20 03/01/os_quiz/palm.jpg" width="300" height="90"

Re:US likes money and things that make more money

[DoomHaven]

Try doing that quiz without answering any of the questions. :)

Important change in wording

[mpeeters]

Just remember folks, when such a smaal change is considered important, it usually means $$$ is a stake. As in:

The use of free software is supported : you can get $$$ if you use the stuff.

The use of free software is encouraged : you can get kudos if you use it.

That being said, I think the author of the original article smoked a bit too much of all the shit he could get on that beach.

This isn't a bad thing, people!

[egg troll]

This is an excellent action on the part of the US government. Open Source software has a few bright spots (Apache, BSD) but its overrun with too many amateur, half-finished programs - a quick look at sourceforge will reveal as much. By doing this, the American gov't is simply saying they want proven, reliable code. Unfortunately this tends to mean closed-source code. I hope one day that most OSS goes thru as rigorous quality control that most major closed-source programs do.

Re:This isn't a bad thing, people!

[HiThere]

... I hope one day that most OSS goes thru as rigorous quality control that most major closed-source programs do.

I think that your experiences with closed-source programs has been different from mine ... though you did say major. Major OSS programs get good testing too. Mozilla has caused me less troubles than Netscape. It would be unfair to compare it against InternetExplorer, as I have never upgraded that beyond 1.35. And Konqueror is as stable as Mozilla, if not quite as easy to use (for me).
The OSS programs that are unstable tend to be either the beta programs or the minor ones, and let me tell you that the minor commercial programs [on windows] are an excellent way to waste money and trash systems (as well as, occasionally, being the best programs around). On Linux they are merely an excellent way to waste money.

It's nice to wish that everything were perfect, but it's not that way, and you don't really gain much by pretending that it is. Working to make it closer ... now that yields benefits.

Re:This isn't a bad thing, people!

[Anonymous Coward]

stop your inane babbling. you have absolutely nothing of any consequence to say.

Well!!!

[chickensdelight]

I mean supposed we stopped keeping them in line with the WTO, and we let them develop where are we going to get all our cheap coffee tea Nike's etc

Thanks For Nothing, MORON! : +1, Patriotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Name Last Change
Dow Jones Industrial Average Index 7989.56 -141.45
Nasdaq Combined Composite Indx 1325.28 -16.86
S&P 500 Index (CBOE) 847.48 -13.92
S&P 100 Index (CBOE) 429.47 -6.67
13-week Treasury Bill Index 11.42 +0.15
5-year Treasury Note Index 28.98 +0.55
30-year Treasury Bond Index 48.73 +0.32
Amex Composite Index 807.09 -8.75
Computer Technology Index 502.50 -5.54
Dow Jones Transportation Average Index 2144.01 -19.32
Dow Jones Utilities Index 203.26 -7.40
Handy Harmon Palladium Index 264.00 -1.00
Handy Harmon Platinum Index 644.00 +1.00
Major Market Index 845.01 -16.49
Mexico Index 73.05 -0.95
Financial Index 498.04 -6.53
Nyse Issues Up/down Ratio -75.00 +221.00
Nyse Short Term Trade Index 2.31 +0.58
Russell 2000 Index (CBOE) 368.58 -6.48
Semiconductor Sector Index 279.65 -4.02
S&p 400 Midcap Index 410.43 -7.65
WILSHIRE 5000 TOTAL MARKET RETURNS INDEX (Wilshire Oil Co) 8041.99 -133.75

Setec Astronomy

[porkface]

If the rest of the world's governments use OSS, the US government might have a harder time spying on them.

Faulty Business Models?

[Anonymous Coward]

the government is trying to protect the business model of proprietary software companies such as Microsoft in the face of a newer, better model for using and making software. Since when is the STATE DEPARTMENT'S job to preserve faulty business models? Isn't that what the COMMERCE DEPARTMENT is all about?

So, according the site, MS has a faulty business model, and apparently Mandrake et al don't. Which one is raking in billions and which is filing for bankrupcy, again?

Okay, someone has to be a legalese nerd...

[Halo-]

So, other than my own connotations for "support" and "encourage" what do they mean to the rest of the world? By this, I mean the people who actually control policy/pursestrings?

"Encourage" could be syntacially stronger than "support" if "encourge" was used in this community to mean financial support in addition to moral support.

I strongly doubt this is true, but someone reading has to have seen enough of these things to actually know what the between the lines meaning is.

Motivating my curiousity was a discussion I had today about some GPL'ed code, and what exactly could be done with it. I realized that past a certain point, all I was comfortable saying was: "Well, to my understanding... blah, but you really outta talk to a lawyer before assuming anything" Words mean different things to different audiences.

The business as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

The cookie pushers in Foggy Bottom have always acted against the interests of the US voters. Why does anyone expect this to be any different?

fucked up my mental equilibrium

[soorma_bhopali]

"But I made a crucial mistake that has fucked up my mental equilibrium"

If an article starts with this sentence in the very first paragraph, I am not sure how many people are going to take it seriously

Re:fucked up my mental equilibrium

[Tony]

The apparent bias of an author changes neither the seriousness nor the importance of an article. Often, the most telling evidence is reported in the most biased journals.

This is the face of new journalism: everyone is a journalist. The most important effect of the internet is also one of the most subtle. You and I are communicating, in a rather disjointed way; moreover, we are communicating in public. This elevates our words beyond mere conversation.

Since 99% of everything is crap (used to be 90% before the internet), most of our public conversation will amount to nothing but an archive on /. . However, some of this conversation will impact someone, somewhere, probably without either of us ever knowing.

So, this "report" is still important (in a minor sort of way), even without the sterling stamp of unbiased reporting. Hell, it's nothing more than a blog entry. It serves at least on major purpose: it helps us realize we are not alone, that there are others who feel and think some of the things we feel and think. This alone is worth the time cost of reading it. The fact it is entertaining helps.

Anyway, I'd rather see blatant bias than the subtle bias most respected news sources employ -- the small censorships, the subjective language disguised as objective, the stern seriousness with which they present the most trivial garbage, the dumbing-down of gut-shot-serious current events.

Just my $.02, sure, and biased to boot. But intelligent bias is a hell of a lot better than idiotic objectivity.

Re:fucked up my mental equilibrium

[MisterBad]

Thanks, cap. I appreciate your support.

you can do better

[Anonymous Coward]

That's about the most pathetic troll I've seen in a long time.

ask a hard one, why don't you

[Doktor Memory]

It's not true in the slightest. There are many complaints you can legitimately make about NT's security model, but a lack of options and flexibility with regard to locking down boxes is not and has never been one of them.

Frankly, complaints like this about NT/2000 seem to largely come from 2-bit linux "admins" who freak out at the notion that they can't administer a modern server OS by running vi on a text file (the HORROR!) and don't bother to RTFM before spouting off about how "insecure" Windows 2000 is.

Speaking as someone who has had to lock down both 2000 Advanced Server and many assorted flavors of Unix professionally, I'd say that the difficulty of securing them is about the same, and no unix admin should ever cast stones at Exchange so long as sendmail remains the default MTA for just about every major unix flavor out there.

Re:ask a hard one, why don't you

[Dyolf Knip]

Explain to me how a piece of software in which you are totally, utterly, and in every way dependent on the ingenuity and foresight of its authors can possibly be more configurable than one whose source code you may read, modify, and use however you see fit? More configurable than software that allows you to remake the entire program to the limits of your programmers' abilities? C'mon, even the configurability of OSS is configurable!

Heh.

[Xformer]

They're probably just pissed that things like the distribution of OpenSSL are completely out of their control.

Re:They will fail (OT)

[The_K4]

No they used to sell good coffee, but as they grew in size, the quality of the coffee went down. Kinda Like McDonald's :)

Trade Balance vs local Costs

[RichMan]

All Microsoft software is an export of the US this brings trade $ to the US and profit, employment and tax dollars to the the US. Manufacturing costs are minimal. The US State Department has a mandate to support exports of American products.
Internally the US government is mandated to support national development and minimize costs. This is best done through an open source solution system and the development and support of many independent local service companies. See the Peru OSS document.

Thus we have the two faces of government:
1) attempting to get other nations to buy overpriced, over hyped expensive american products
2) attempting internally to minimize costs and local development
Should one be suprised that other governments are also attempting 2. No. But the best thing to do is to pressure them to do 1 and send those $ to the US.

Re:Trade Balance vs local Costs

[hherb]

By looking superficially at this issue, you would be right. However, there are issues at stake that are more important than the revenue of a single company, no matter how big.

This issue is foreign relations. The war mongering is already antagonizing most of the world against the USA, with the UK and Australia possibly being the last official allies - thus anything to antagonize the people in other countries further may cost the US very dearly in the future. Hegemonialism and imperialism are attitudes that do not stand in high regard any more.

Re:Trade Balance vs local Costs

[cabalamat2]

The US State Department has a mandate to support exports of American products.

Isn't Red Hat an American product? Or is it the US State Department's policy to favour some US suppliers over others?

Re:Trade Balance vs local Costs

[Anonymous Coward]

This is best done through an open source solution system and the development and support of many independent local service companies.

But I don't want to only support software. I want to design and develop software as well. Where will my paycheck come from to feed my family in your scheme?

In my experience (7 years now dealing with OSS and trying to market/sell products on Linux), getting money out of most OSS folks is like getting blood from a turnip - they don't want to pay for support and they want the source code.

Not that it matters much anyway, the OSS movement is educating other nations faster than it is educating ours (the USA). Soon, the only computer software related jobs left in the USA will be tech support, unless you want to work for free.

Re:Trade Balance vs local Costs

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were up to the Australian public, we (Australia) wouldn't be supporting a war on iraq, our government has different ideas however...

Re:Trade Balance vs local Costs

[Anonymous Coward]

The same for the UK - given a general election I doubt the UK would be an 'Official' ally.

Re:Trade Balance vs local Costs

[wfrp01]

But the best thing to do is to pressure them to do 1 and send those $ to the US.

One of the first things you learn in any elementary economics course, or by simply scratching your butt and thinking for a minute, is that Ponzi schemes are all eventually destined to collapse. This applies to Microsoft and the US stock market just as it does to any other enterprise that thinks it can continue to outpace real growth by simply sucking in more customers. And it applies to your view of international trade as well.

The real economy is a network, not a pyramid. Whether you are a supply sider who believes supply creates it's own demand, or whether you believe the economy is driven from the bottom by consumers, there is nothing in either of these prevailing theories to suggest that maintaining artificially high monopoly pricing for a product capable of being commoditized is good for the economy as a whole.

Nor is there evidence to suggest that other countries losses are our gains. The goal is not to suck the money from point 'A' to point 'B'. Capital is not some kind of incompressible fluid that should be hoarded like gold. That kind of economy died long ago. The goal is to lift everybody up, simultaneously. Yes, really for goodness truly.

Nearly everything in this country is too high priced. The only thing that should be high priced in this country is the man that works. Wages must not come down, they must not even stay on their present level; they must go up. And even that is not sufficient of itself -- we must see to it that the increased wages are not taken away from the people by increased prices that do not represent increased values.

-Henry Ford, New York Times, November 22, 1929

Re:Trade Balance vs local Costs

[wfrp01]

I should probably point out that the price of human capital, i.e. labor, must, on a macroeconomic scale, obey the same strictures as any other good. Supply siders like to point out that Henry Ford's advice to Hoover had a less than salutory effect on the Depression era economy...

Re:Trade Balance vs local Costs

[Anonymous Coward]

It's policy to favor large corporations over small-to-midsize companies. Why? Because that's where the money is...

oh good

[VAXGeek]

I'm relieved that when the US govt is systematically eroding my rights, they'll be using Open Source software to do it. If Larry had his way, we'd have all our personal data in an Oracle database down in DC somewhere (for a small fee, of course) for protection against "terrorism". The Department of Homeland security is just another excuse for the US government to spy on its own citizens.

just a quick note

[stinky wizzleteats]

The United States (as originally designed) != capitalism.

Captilism is a new, post-industrial idea. The thinking is that things are run by the few who have scrambled to the top and can negotiate with each other for power and influence (see Rockefeller on this, who actually disdained the idea of a free market). I therefore don't subscribe to the idea that a government must be either Captilist or Communist. Call me a throwback, but I am kind of partial to the word free.

Re:just a quick note

[geekee]

Capitalism is inherently free in that it is based on the concept of free trade. Communism is not free since it assumes that an individual must sacrifice his freedom for the good of society.

Re:just a quick note

[Spellbinder]

nice for you..
so you don't have to follow rules for the good of society???
it's not a different system i think just the measures are different.

Re:just a quick note

[vonWoland]

O.K., I know I am wasting my breath but here goes:

Capitalism: economic system, first described in detail by Karl Marx in Das Kapital in which capital goods, i. e. the means of production such as factories or tractors are owned by those who controll them, i. e. factory owners. This is not a post industrial idea, but actually one born in the heart of the idusrial revolution.

Communism: econimic system, first proposed by Karl Marx and Freidreich Engles in which the means of production are held in common, i. e., private ownership of capital goods has been abolished. It is fairly complex, but baisically means that you can own your toothbrush, television and house; but you can not own a factory, a mine, an oil well, or even a farm.

As you can see, neither is a political system. You can have democratic communist countries (in theory, at least), and you can have very oppresive Capitalist ones (Nazi Germany and Facist Italy.)

So where do we live? Well, most of our means of production are owned by large corporations. Those corporations are not owned by the people who controll them---the shareholders---but by executive officers appointed by large mutual and pention fund managers, and persons with usually less than 5% ownership of the company. Which means, there is not capitalism. It also means that persons who controll corporations are accountable niether to workers, nor to their customers, nor to the general pubic, but to people who can not see beyond the ticker at the NYSE.

So, the 5000 point bonus question: Is this the system which will result in a free society, or will sprout forth types like Ashcroft and his gang of freedom loving incarcirators?

Re:just a quick note

[killthiskid]

Communism is not free since it assumes that an individual must sacrifice his freedom for the good of society.

And how is that different from capatalism? I realize you're over simplifying communism, but how is the statement 'Capatalism is not free since it assumes that an individual must sacrifice his freedom for the good of society' false? Capatalism requires us all to give up freedoms in the form of agreeing to be ruled by a government so that certain rules (that restrict freedom) can be enforced so that capatalism can work.

Eh?

Re:just a quick note

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, most of our means of production are owned by large corporations. Those corporations are not owned by the people who controll them---the shareholders---but by executive officers appointed by large mutual and pention fund managers, and persons with usually less than 5% ownership of the company.

Excuse me?

Owner = "person having less than 5% ownership" ?!?

Re:just a quick note

[vonWoland]

thanks for noting the typo. Corporations are owned by their shareholders. They are controlled by the above mentioned social parasites.

Re:just a quick note

[10am-bedtime]

corporate control is concentrated by proxy, and is a separate concept from corporate ownership.

Re:just a quick note

[Fwonkas]

Capitalism: economic system ... in which capital goods, i. e. the means of production such as factories or tractors are owned by those who controll [sic] them, i. e. factory owners.

Forgive me for nitpicking, but aren't you essentially saying here that the people who own factories are factory owners? While I won't (and can't) argue that, isn't that, well, a little obvious? That doesn't seem to be a feature unique to capitalism. The owners of anything are the owners, regardless of the economic system under which they operate.

In other words, this is a poor definition of capitalism. It's not even a definition. It seems like a syllogism. It'd be like saying that one who exploits is an exploiter. Certainly true, but it doesn't say anything.

Re:just a quick note

[leviramsey]

Capitalism: economic system, first described in detail by Karl Marx in Das Kapital in which capital goods, i. e. the means of production such as factories or tractors are owned by those who controll them, i. e. factory owners. This is not a post industrial idea, but actually one born in the heart of the idusrial revolution.

You, dear sir, are an idiot who does not know what you are talking about. Capitalism may have been named by Marx, but it was described decades before Das Kapital, in Smith's The Wealth of Nations, which preceded the Industrial Revolution and greatly contributed to the Industrial Revolution.

To call the US capitalist, however, is to also demonstrate idiocy. The US is far from being capitalist. If anything, it is the closest nation to achieving the Marxist dream, though it is doing it in a way that Karl could not have seen.

Re:just a quick note

[vonWoland]

I am sorry, I did not make the point clearer. Under capitalism, factory owners not only own the factories, but they control them as well. One person or a small partnership have ownership rights to a resource, and the same person(s) manage it as well.

In the current system, ownership is diffused amoung tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of shareholders (people who own the company's stock) and controll is excersized by hired managers.

There are certainly exceptions: SAS, a huge statistical software company is owned and controlled entirely by its founder. But that is an exception that proves the rule---the age of the Rockafellers, Morgans and Fords is long gone. If that was somehow a better age, the age that was closer in resemblence to "true capitalism": is a question I will leave to you.

Re:just a quick note

[nathanm]

Personally, I don't like the labels capitalism or communism. Capitalism because it's usually meant in a pejorative sense nowadays, and communism because it's never truly been tried on a national level.

I prefer the terms individualism and collectivism instead, most eloquently explained in F. A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom. The basic gist of the book is that socialism inevitably leads to totalitarianism, demonstrated in the Soviet Union and Third Reich Germany.

Individualism (aka capitalism) allows each person to make their own decisions how they will spend their time, money, and resources. People may own property and benefit from its use. This encourages them to work hard and be productive.

Collectivism (aka socialism, fascism, or communism) controls prices, trade, and consumption, based on the group's goals and values. Unfortunately, for any sufficiently large group, it's impossible to define these to each member's satisfaction. Whoever makes decisions must ultimately impose on the group what they perceive as its goals and values.

Here's a good quote from playwright and current Czech President, Vaclav Havel:

Though my heart may be left of center, I have always known that the only economic system that works is a market economy....This is the only natural economy, the only kind that makes sense, the only one that can lead to prosperity, because it is the only one that reflects the nature of life itself.

And another on the benefits of ownership from Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury and current Harvard President, Lawrence Summers:

In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.

Re:just a quick note

[vonWoland]

O.K., I know this is very subtle, so subtle it might even elude a genious such as yourself. What I said was "first described in detail by Karl Marx." Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations while a very important book, is primaraly concerned with refuting the Merchintalistic theories prevelant in its day. It therefore is not in any way a systemic description of capitalism, but rather a "founding text" of economics.

I am not sure which segments of our population are "closest ... to achieving the Marxist dream." Do you mean former Enron emploees, tossed on the street, current Wall Mart employees who suffer illegal retribution for attempts to organize, or some other equally enfranchised group?

Perhaps---please, do not be offended if this idiot makes a suggestion to a person of such shining parts---but perhaps a quick walk to your own school's "UMass Labor Relations and Research Center" might help you to come up with an answer that astounds us all.

Re:just a quick note

[graybeard]

Execellent points, except ... the vast majority of economic activity is generated by small businesses, not "large corporations". Almost all of those small businesses are owner-operated. Capitalism *is* the predominant model, at least in the US.

Re:just a quick note

[graybeard]

Capatalism requires us all to give up freedoms in the form of agreeing to be ruled by a government so that certain rules (that restrict freedom) can be enforced so that capatalism can work.

I'm trying, but I can't think of any freedom that must be abridged if I live in a capitalist economy.

In civilized countries, there is a judicial system that enforces contracts. Is this the freedom you refer to? But this has nothing to do with capitalism, it is a function of government, under any economic system.

Re:just a quick note

[leviramsey]

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations while a very important book, is primaraly concerned with refuting the Merchintalistic theories prevelant in its day. It therefore is not in any way a systemic description of capitalism, but rather a "founding text" of economics.

I will give you that.

I am not sure which segments of our population are "closest ... to achieving the Marxist dream."

No, I am referring to the end result of a Marxist economy, that is to say, worker ownership of the means of production, across the economy. In the US, the majority of people own stock in at least one business. Admittedly, we're not even close to 100%, and there is still a lot of work to be done to reach that goal (which I think is an admirable goal... I just don't think the Left's idea of how to get there is the best way to do it). However, when you look at the regimes that have tried to follow Marxism or one of it's derivatives, you have universally found systems where ultimately all power and control of the means of production resides in the hands of even fewer people than in so-called "capitalist" economies.

I believe that the free market, with a free market in capital, is the most effective means of achieving a world where everybody has control over the means of production... in essence, where everybody has a share of the pie and the pie's total value is maximized.

Re:just a quick note

[vonWoland]

Well, it is a nice idea, but as can be seen from the current Wall Street scandals, as well as the United fiasco (an emploee owned company, as you may remeber)that widespread stock ownership is cure for very little. Remember, that the people that actually excersize the influence of the small shareholders are fund managers, many of whom are in bed with the executives they are supposed to be overseeing. There was a proposed rule that proxy votes could not be cast in secret---which might have remedied the grossest of conflicts of interest---but that was just shot down by the SEC.

I wish I could share your optimism, but the amount of this country's wealth has been gradualy more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. This is a constant trend since, I belive, the mid-sixties.

I could see how a young man in college today would be disenchanted with the alternative presented to him by the so called "left," if by the left is meant the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton's legacy in the White House seems to have been piles of regulations meant to protect ourselves from ourselves, while at the same time eroding basic social guarantees, and letting in Republicans by the back door for business as ususal. What I will remeber about the last Presidency is that is took Richard Nixon to create OSHA, but it took Bill Clinton to effectively castrate it.

You are probably not a bad guy, Levi, but I will give you two bits of advice:

1. Don't be so quick to dismiss someone as an idiot

2. Don't confuse real freedom with the freedom of some guy to make a buck.

Re:just a quick note

[Wizord]

Ideas like free health and education came from Socialism and were a commonplace in Europe only a decade ago. Cooperativism was also a common (and encouraged) entrepreneurial organization. Now European governments are forcing (and forced) towards "true Capitalism", and all I can say is life in Europe is far worse.

Capitalism means one thing: Financials rules. More money means more power; more power means more money. Capitalism tends to concentrate the power in fewer and fewer hands.

About freedom, it's a matter of choices. How many different choices do you have? You have as many choices as your money allows, so your freedom depends on your money.

On the other hand, efficientness doesn't mean happiness. I don't understand why YOU people say "Capitalism is Efficient, and that is Good". But for who is efficientness good?

Re:just a quick note

[Saeger]

Yeah, Individualism and free markets win because "incentives matter!" (I repeat that phrase in my head all the time). There's not much incentive to be productive for no reward, just as there's not much of a disincentive for everyone not to shit in the river.

However, individual greed can get excessive, to the overall detriment of everyone, and the gap between the haves and have-nots widens... no thanks to a government like the U.S. which is tilting its wealth redistribution (tax) in favor of the rich with obscene corporate welfare and by eliminating fair progressive taxes like the estate tax (not a "death tax"), dividend tax, etc.

Greed is good, but socially responsible greed is better. So yeah, I'm one of those whackos who thinks that maybe billions of dollars in concentrated personal wealth is just a *tad* much, and that to redistribute the extra gravy at high rates isn't much of a disinsentive at all. "Oh no, I can't make 2 billion as fast as 1 billion. Guess I'll go eat some worms instead."

Not that any of this will matter as much in a few more decades when the means of production (and destruction) is democratized with molecular nanotechnology, just as digital production was democratized. The poorest of the poor will have the cheap and easy means to live like the old robber barrons without any of the robbing, not to mention the means to "print opensource food" from freely available component molecules and sunlight.

And what's the incentive to produce in a world of material abundance? Social brownie points I'd guess... tradable for things which are still scarce like celebrity time and beachfront property. Somehow I don't think the new social contract will allow for disproportionate wealth though. (Hmm... I seem to have rambled offtopic. Oh well.)

--

Re:just a quick note

[CakerX]

explain to me exactly how things differ in a communist state, one that really exits, and not on in some ideal world. Because you know when push comes to shove, if we had communism, it would be the same sort of fools running the damn country. Explain to me how ENRON would be diffrent if it were a goverment subsidiary, like it would have been under communisim. They're still would have been corruption, only IT WOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN DISCOVERED.

I think Enron is the ultimate proof that capitilisim in the US can work. Big corperation fucks up, big corperation goes under. Enron was not fit to survive and DIDN'T. Corperate exec's wealth should be taken from them to ensure they don't corrupt any other buisness.

Re:just a quick note

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really true? I'm not disputing that, but in my personal life today so far...

I ate Brownie Bites for Breakfast (Hostess)

I put on my clothes (Old Navy)

Took a shower (Proctor & Gamble)

Drove my car to work. (Honda)

Turned on the computer (IBM)

Made a phone call (Lucent, AT&T)

Listened to MP3s (Sony headphones)

Had a cup of coffee (Maxwell House)

Don't know the brand of the coffee cup, but it was made in Mexico.

For lunch it will be Subway Tuesday (Subway)

The stapler on my desk is Office Depot brand.

Books on my bookshelf (O'reilly, Sams, Wrox, Apress, Manning, Peachpit press)

I don't know if any of those qualify as a small business, but they are very familiar brands.

Re:just a quick note

[What'sInAName]

> In the history of the world, no one has
> ever washed a rented car.

He obviously never met my father!

Re:just a quick note

[killthiskid]

I'm trying, but I can't think of any freedom that must be abridged if I live in a capitalist economy.

I CAN think of some, but before going onto theory, let's just look at reality: how many freedoms are currently limited in the US?

Re:just a quick note

[shreak]

I suppose it's a syllogism, but as you say, not a very good one. I'd actually qualify it more as a tautology.

=Shreak

Re:just a quick note

[nathanm]

Yeah, Individualism and free markets win because "incentives matter!" (I repeat that phrase in my head all the time). There's not much incentive to be productive for no reward, just as there's not much of a disincentive for everyone not to shit in the river.

"Incentives matter," I like it, but where in the world did the river example come from? It's not a very good one (off-topic), and a disincentive is not the same as an incentive. Positive and negative reinforcement have different effects from a psychological perspective.

However, individual greed can get excessive, to the overall detriment of everyone, and the gap between the haves and have-nots widens... no thanks to a government like the U.S. which is tilting its wealth redistribution (tax) in favor of the rich with obscene corporate welfare and by eliminating fair progressive taxes like the estate tax (not a "death tax"), dividend tax, etc.

I never said anything about greed, just acting in your own interest.

Besides, governments shouldn't be in the business of wealth redistribution at all. Taxes should be used only to fund the necessary services the government provides (mostly defense and justice). Much of what the federal government now performs and spends money on is clearly beyond the scope outlined in the Constitution; which was supposed to be left to the states and the people. I'm against subsidies in general: corporate, farm, or otherwise.

Also, progressive income tax is anything but fair. The only true, fair income tax would be a flat percentage tax with no exemptions. The tax burden on people with higher incomes has grown much greater, while the share of benefits goes mostly to the lower end. There's a great article in the latest Newsweek about this.

Greed is good, but socially responsible greed is better. So yeah, I'm one of those whackos who thinks that maybe billions of dollars in concentrated personal wealth is just a *tad* much, and that to redistribute the extra gravy at high rates isn't much of a disinsentive at all. "Oh no, I can't make 2 billion as fast as 1 billion. Guess I'll go eat some worms instead."

Actually, I think any greed is bad. I believe one can act in their self interest without being greedy. Not everyone is motivated solely by monetary gain. Personally, I could care less about making a lot of money. I just one day want a nice house and comfortable life for my (future) family.

But, when you put a limit on the amount of accumulated wealth, the whole system breaks down. First, the truly greedy will find a way around the limit; hiding their real net worth, putting their business and bank accounts in the name of their spouse, children, or dogs, or moving their money offshore, to banks in Switzerland or somewhere else. Second, what do you think the people with a billion $ do with their money? Hide it under a rock? No, they invest it in stocks, bonds, etc. so more entrepeneurs are given a chance to generate wealth and employ more people. Finally, limiting wealth is fundamentally against the principle of individual freedom. If you limit freedom in one area, more are sure to follow. As long as they aren't harming others, people should be allowed to be as wealthy as they want to be.

Not that any of this will matter as much in a few more decades when the means of production (and destruction) is democratized with molecular nanotechnology, just as digital production was democratized. The poorest of the poor will have the cheap and easy means to live like the old robber barrons without any of the robbing, not to mention the means to "print opensource food" from freely available component molecules and sunlight.

I was following you up to this point, but now you've gone off the deep end. Putting your faith in fantasy technology is naive and unrealistic. I think nanotechnology might bring some benefit to mankind, but it's no panacea that will solve every world problem.

And what's the incentive to produce in a world of material abundance? Social brownie points I'd guess... tradable for things which are still scarce like celebrity time and beachfront property. Somehow I don't think the new social contract will allow for disproportionate wealth though. (Hmm... I seem to have rambled offtopic. Oh well.)

What new social contract? I expect (and hope and pray) the US Constitution is still the law of the land here.

Re:just a quick note

[Fwonkas]

Ack, you're right. That's the word I was looking for.

Re:just a quick note

[Saeger]

"Incentives matter," I like it, but where in the world did the river example come from?

Tragedy of the commons. People tend to trash resources they have no direct stake in (like your rental car quote).

Putting your faith in fantasy technology is naive and unrealistic. I think nanotechnology might bring some benefit to mankind, but it's no panacea that will solve every world problem.

Moleculary nanotechnology is not some "fantasy technology" that "might bring some benefit to mankind" -- molecular manufacturing is an inevitable evolution of technology with huge implications for world economic, political, and social systems. And no, it's no Utopia, because solutions cause new problems, but that doesn't mean that the overall change is neutral, or negative. Imagine an effectively post-scarcity world where you don't HAVE to work for a living. That's just the tip of the iceburg.

Anyway, just don't be so quick to dimiss MNT, and its effect on excessive capitalism/individualism. (Open source software is a collectivist community phenomena, and MNT will allow for the same in open source hardware.)

--

Re:just a quick note

[nathanm]

Moleculary nanotechnology is not some "fantasy technology" that "might bring some benefit to mankind" -- molecular manufacturing is an inevitable evolution of technology with huge implications for world economic, political, and social systems. And no, it's no Utopia, because solutions cause new problems, but that doesn't mean that the overall change is neutral, or negative.

Nanotechnology will be just a tool, with potential for good or evil. A relevant example, from a terrible movie, is in "Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever." The object everyone's after is a nanotechnology device designed to lay dormant in a victim's bloodstream, that causes internal damage when activated, so it looks like the person had a heart attack or something.

Imagine an effectively post-scarcity world where you don't HAVE to work for a living. That's just the tip of the iceburg.

There will always be scarcity, with the scarce resources changing over time. Also, people will always have to work.

Anyway, just don't be so quick to dimiss MNT, and its effect on excessive capitalism/individualism.

I'm not dismissing it, just being a realist. It won't solve world hunger or peace. I personally believe it won't have an impact even close to that of computers and the information revolution.

(Open source software is a collectivist community phenomena, and MNT will allow for the same in open source hardware.)

I would definitely dispute that all free/open source software (F/OSS) is collectivist. If RMS had his way, it would be, but that'll never happen, thank God. RMS has done a great service to mankind, mostly as being a vocal extremist who polarizes debates and keeps us on our toes.

Software development ranges the entire spectrum from collectivist to individualist, and everywhere in between. I use F/OSS because I, personally, get the most benefit with the least (monetary) cost. I contribute (code, support, evangelism, and some money) to F/OSS because I will indirectly derive some benefit. But, I still use some proprietary software (mostly games) and would never advocate a mandate to open all code, since that is inherently a limit to freedom.

Re:just a quick note

[Saeger]

I personally believe it [molecular nanotechnology] won't have an impact even close to that of computers and the information revolution.

I'm sorry, but I find it really hard to believe you'd still think that way if you'd read a little more on the subject. For light reading, there's the old Engines of Creation and Unbounding the Future, by Eric Drexler. Or you could learn about the hard science which would lead you to your own similar real world implications.

I'm not dismissing it, just being a realist. It won't solve world hunger or peace.

Peace, no - we're still human afterall - but solving world hunger, yes, that's imminently possible.

Sure, we currently have warlords pinching off the food supply in the 3rd world when there's more than enough to go around, but these poor people certainly wouldn't have any trouble smuggling in just one nanoassembler (able to make copies of itself for other villagers). This nanoassembler can then extract all the energy it needs from the sun (stored in fuelcells), and all the infinitely recyclable molecules it needs from the surrounding environment, and can manufacture any desired object bottom-up.

So how is literally dirt-cheap food, clothes, and shelter not revolutionary for starters? I don't think I'm being overly optimistic either; I think I'M being the realist for a technology is only a couple decades out.

--

Re:just a quick note

[nathanm]

I'm sorry, but I find it really hard to believe you'd still think that way if you'd read a little more on the subject. For light reading, there's the old Engines of Creation and Unbounding the Future, by Eric Drexler. Or you could learn about the hard science which would lead you to your own similar real world implications.

I'm familiar with Engines of Creation. From the parts I've read, it's more science fiction than science. Until someone builds nanotechnology that's actually useful, instead of just cool research toys, I'll save my unbridled optimism.

Sure, we currently have warlords pinching off the food supply in the 3rd world when there's more than enough to go around, but these poor people certainly wouldn't have any trouble smuggling in just one nanoassembler (able to make copies of itself for other villagers). This nanoassembler can then extract all the energy it needs from the sun (stored in fuelcells), and all the infinitely recyclable molecules it needs from the surrounding environment, and can manufacture any desired object bottom-up.

How are people in the 3rd world going to know about nanotechnology in the first place? Those warlords will be just as interested in controlling technology as any other resource. It keeps them in power.

So how is literally dirt-cheap food, clothes, and shelter not revolutionary for starters? I don't think I'm being overly optimistic either; I think I'M being the realist for a technology is only a couple decades out.

If it ever happens, it may be revolutionary, but that's a big if. Realists don't base their predictions on unproven, untested, as yet impractical technology.

Now I'm confused...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when has the USA been in Asia?!?!?!

Support means $$$

[coyote-san]

"Support" is probably a term of art, at least in the US, that translates to spending money. Not entirely - candidates are always "supporting" various causes, but when you talk about government policy it usually means a lot more than just saying that you should probably go with the stuff that gives you access to source code over the stuff that doesn't when all other things are equal.

In other words, this is probably a big uproar over nothing. The only reason to track it is to prevent certain commercial vendors from spinning the same term-of-art to it's own benefit.

Re:Support means $$$

[King of the World]

I agree there's not enough to go on - and this isn't great journalism from Pigdog (though it's a good site for other reasons).

But this does happen (American Government pushes for Enron in India) and I think we'd be naive to think that Microsoft wouldn't be doing this. It's in their benefit.

friggin old news!

[Ender Ryan]

I read about this a week or two ago on LWN and newsforge. Why the hell wasn't this on /. then? This is important stuff!

As far as I can tell, our government(to all you other Americans) is favoring proprietary software vendors(ie. Microsoft) over OSS/free vendors, including RedHat, IBM, HP, etc. OSS has become integral to a number of U.S. based companies, BIG companies like IBM and HP. OSS/free software is also used internally at companies like WalMart, Burlington Coat Factory, and our oh-so-fucking-precious movie studios.

What incentive does our government have to favor certain U.S. based companies over others? You have one guess...

It is not that bad

[PineHall]

The original draft called for open source to be "supported" and the final draft says "encouraged." Here is the final compromised sentence: "Development and deployment of open-source software should be encouraged, as appropriate, as should open standards for ICT (information and communications technology) networking." That is not that bad. Encouraging open source can mean supporting open source. I like the supporting better, but all they did was make the wording less definite.

In Stalinist CCCP

[ackthpt]

404 Page not found.

Attractive Nuisance

[Anonymous Coward]

In the realm of personal injury and liability lawsuits, there exists a what is called an "attractive nuisance". Like when someone parks their shiny, chromed Harley in a supermarket parking lot and goes inside. Joe Sixpack, his stupid fat wife and amok-running kids park their minivan across from the bike and immediately the kids jump out of the minivan and run over to check out the bike. One of the kids jumps up on the bike, knocking the bike off the kickstand on top of himself, breaking his leg and getting burns from the still-hot engine. Joe Sixpack, of course, sues the crap out of the bike's owner and insurance, and wins big-time... it matters not that he failed to control his kid's behavior and that the kid basically trespassed on the bike. Why? Because the bike presents what is called an "attractive nuisance". This has happened more times than you can imagine, and is usually the norm in such lawsuit cases. Rarely does the bike owner prevail.

How does this tie in with Open Source, the Slashdot crowd's way of MS bashing, and the latest MS server worm?

Well, don't you think it's about time that someone applied the doctrine of "attractive nuisance" to any MS servers that are placed onto the Internet? After all, the stuffed bandwidth and denial of service resulting from these events hurt more than just the businesses who run these servers.

Why is this an issue?

[WindBourne]

MS was totally allowed off the hook from the lawsuit right after W./Ashcroft came to power. There are constant reports of whole departments being moved to MS from stuff that works (and even recently bought). And now, we hear that W. is pushing MS everywhere and trying to deny OSS. I would guess that not only is W in bills back pocket (possibly front pocket), but I am certain that MS allows us to monitor other governments. So, why is this an issue? Afterall, we get what we elected.

Re:Why is this an issue?

[slim-t]

Afterall, we get what we elected.

GW was not elected. Just read Michael Moore's Stupid White Men and it's quite clear that GW is indeed squatting in the White House.

Re:Why is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not american so I may have misunderstood. but didn't you get what the minority voted for overall, i.e Bush won because a couple of big states(election wise) counted more than all the other states who collectively have more people ??

(no I'm not talking about the florida thing).

Re:Why is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, most of the large states went with gore. It was mostly the little and medium states (and Tx/Florida) going with Bush that did it.

How good is the included firewall?

[blazerw11]

What do you do when you get an error during the "Secure Your System Wizard"?

How can you be sure the new development enivronment you just installed did not just open port 1434?

Can you run services like IIS in their own "jail"?

I don't know, I can't afford the Server versions of these OSes. That's why I'm asking?

Doesn't surprise me at all

[ronfar]

Our government is currently almost purely mercantilistic. That's why if you manufacture things out of steel in the US, the government is out to get you, but if you manufacture steel itself, the government is giving you a helping hand. For an article on what I'm talking about, see this one:

Eluding tariffs

We can see the same thing elsewhere, with copyright, the DMCA, softwood tarrifs(designed to increase logging profits in the US which is faced with Canadian competition) and the like.

The essence of mercantilism is to reward your cronies with government favors (corporate welfare, monopolies, tax breaks) while harming their competitors, and anyone else who happens to get in their way.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Microsoft has secured its position as a beneficiary of "honest graft"

I mean, I hope no one thinks it was in the interests of justice that they got a slap on the wrist in the anti-trust case.

Say what?

[ackthpt]

The free world won the cold war because an open society is more efficient than a closed one.

I'm not sure how you are tying that to selection of software. Effectively the US outspent the USSR and broke them. At the present rate of growth in China, which is in some ways open, some ways closed, it will be interesting to see how the US stacks up in the years to come. Seems to me the biggest economy wags the tail.

It is ironic the government embracing pricey closed systems, particularly how they are doing it. NSA and Homeland Security employ open source, apparently because they have full access to code and updates. Less critical applications get the junk. I've had to exchange data with various government departments before and typically they're a bit disorganised, so throwing buggy software at them seems like a way to compound their problems. Great for the next round of budget cuts, "Department X is inefficient and unresponsive to the needs of the people and will be eliminated/restructured/etc.", as sacrificial lamb to show leadership, etc.

"Their giving us Microsoft Office and and Exchange Server."

"Yeah, looks like it's time to polish up the old resume."

Re:Say what?

[jcast]

Effectively the US outspent the USSR and broke them.

And exactly where do you think the US got the money to do that?

Re:Say what?

[ackthpt]

Effectively the US outspent the USSR and broke them.

And exactly where do you think the US got the money to do that?

We borrowed it all from the Japanese, Germans, Swiss, and anyone else who sunk money into financing U.S. debt.

The irony is, if Russia actually pulls itself together fairly soon it can again be a superpower. It left the coldwar with only $80 Billion international debt. I don't imagine China has much of a debt, but the U.S., last I looked, was $5+ trillion in the hole and Bush handed us the shovel and said, "get digging, again" It's gotta get paid off, and while the U.S. taxpayer does, other economies can surge ahead.

With Mozilla, it was unreadable

[burgburgburg]

But with Netscape 4.7, they wouldn't even try. I was bumped to a page explaining that they no longer supported this browser. Can't wait to see what it looks like on a Mac.

Re:With Mozilla, it was unreadable

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird... I'm browsing at work, which is the only reason I know that apparently Internet Exploder is the only browser in which MIcroSOft DIDN'T block the article!

Limitations of USian capitalist model

[Anonymous Coward]

This shows one of the main limitations of the laissez-faire capitalism that USia endorses over the more rational policies implemented in the rest of the world. When corporations are as unfettered as they are in USia, getting them to agree on things like standards is a herculean task - each corporation is assured that it has the One True path.

In Europe OTOH they're more used to being told what to do by more socialist governments, and the idea of a standard is more easily applicable to the way they work within regulations anyway.

Also, you have to remember that USia is such a huge place that establishing the kind of mobile phone networks that are seen in Europe is extremely difficult - after all, there are still many places in USia that don't even have electricity yet! I'd say that was a priority over the wireless revolution.

Even Microsoft Knows The Truth

[mabu]

Some time around 1995-1996, we broke a story to Infoworld about Microsoft using BSDI unix as their web serving platform. After that they shut down various ports to keep people from finding out. It was hilarious. Even while MS was promoting IIS in the early years, they were still running on Unix, even their main web site.

This is only half the story...

[Dynamoo]

This is only half the story.. the latest announcement from the Department of Homeland Security is basically a tax on web surfers and publishers. Goodbye the free internet :(

What's the US gov doing there?

[AxelBoldt]

What the fuck is the US government doing at a conference of Asian governments and NGO's? Make sure that any position paper that reaches the global conference is sanitized ahead of time?

It's about back doors

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about supporting Microsoft's business model. This is about being able to have the NSA tell Microsoft to stick back doors into its software, making it easier to conduct surveillance. (Also see here.)

If foreign governments switch to free software, the U.S. will have to try the ol' gcc backdoor maneuver, which may be harder now with all the md5 sums and digital signatures.

Did anyone else see ...

[SysadminFromHell]

... the Microsoft add in the middle of the page? It was misplaced (flasmovie) and covered a part of the article. This actually means that Microsoft is even censoring articles that mention Open Source! :-)

And when I right-clicked on it, I could give doubleclick.net permission to use my microphone and camera. How's that for privacy. (OK, it's turned of by default, but it scares me anyway.)

Did anyone _read_ the InfoWorld article?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real outrage here is that "representatives of 48 countries, 21 international organizations, 53 private sector entities, and 116 NGOs" went to Tokyo and spent three days (and probably an obscene amount of money on first-class air travel, fancy hotels, and sushi) debating the language of a statement.

It's not as though this is a statute or a court decision or some other kind of statement that's going to be enforced, either. In fact, this isn't even the actual statement.

The event is one of a number of conferences being held around the world to solicit regional input for the World Summit on the Information Society ... that will take place in December this year in Geneva, Switzerland, and in Tunis in 2005.

Since this is a draft of a statement that will be written in December and won't actually have any effect, the delegates are of course free to 'raise awareness' of all kinds of issues without having anything resembling a plan for how to deal with them. Example:

In the area of copyright, the declaration recognized the 'vital role' that intellectual property rights play in innovation in software, e-commerce, and related areas, but also noted the need to strike a fair balance between such rights and the interests of users.

Well, who could possibly argue with 'fairness'?. I agree with that statement, and I'll bet Jack Valenti would agree too[0]. So, pray tell, what balance is 'fair'? Does this document define "fair use"? Does it propose a maximum copyright term? Does it discuss the Lessig tax, or any of the other copyright-reform proposals we've heard? No, but it 'recognized', in the same sense that Pratchett's Personal Dis-Organizer could recognize handwriting.[1]

Somewhere in this sucking vortex of stupidity, the US delegation asked them to change 'support' to 'encourage'. The author of the Pigdog article decided (with no evidence) that this was an attempt to "stomp on free software", and some Slashdot reader thought that such an arbitrary slander deserved to be celebrated as "excellent investigative journalism", despite its total failure to notice the sucking vortex.

Of course, it wouldn't be a UN conference without lip-service to "human rights" while kowtowing to brutal despots:

Speaking after the event, a number of NGOs that had taken part in the summit said they were broadly satisfied with the outcome but had hoped for greater commitment in a number of areas such as a social justice. They were satisfied with the inclusion of a reference to human rights in the declaration, despite some attempts to change it, they said.

The groups also repeated protests over the deregistration of NGOs from Taiwan on Tuesday as the result of repeated protests by the Chinese government delegation.

I suppose the Taiwanese delegates shouldn't have been too offended at being kicked out of a pointless conference, but maybe they were looking forward to the sushi.

[0] Assuming he could get past the concern that agreeing with their declaration without permission would be stealing.

[1] "Yes, that's handwriting."

Re:biggest crock

[tomhudson]

This is the biggest crock of shit I have seen in days (ok, hours) on Slashdot. </quote>

Get ready to repeat yourself when the story is re-posted tomorrow :-)

Actually, the State Departments' actions in trying to discourage open source are the biggest crock of shit I've seen today, especially in contrast to the DoHS switching to open source.

good for OSS?

[ponxx]

Considering the US governemnts current popularity in most parts of the world, there is nothing like them pushing MS products to get others to move to OSS.

encourage vs. support

[geekee]

The article is making something out of nothing. The US apparently asked to change the word support to encourage in the sentance "Development and deployment of open-source software should be encouraged, as appropriate, as should open standards for ICT (information and communications technology) networking.". How does unsing the term encourage = against open-source software? My guess is the US asked for the switch because support can mean provide monetary support, while encourage is less ambiguous. Basically, people are making something out of nothing here.

Re:encourage vs. support

[Anonymous Coward]

> The US apparently asked to change the word support to encourage

No. Wrong. The US asked to change the word 'support' to 'ban', a comprise was reached by using 'encourage', the majority being able to outvote the US.

Jesus christ...

[CakerX]

This is real intresting, but the writer of the artical could have used a little more "Proffesionalism in Journalism". While he did have a few valid points, he came across as a raving lunatic with a bigger case of ADD than I do, and that says a lot. speaking of which, did you check out that new palm pilot, a and wow, look I finally got debian installed, WAHOO!!!

Hardware solution

[gentlemoose]

As I understand it, they're running RedHat (AS2.1?) on some number of Egenera BladeFrames. I've been using one of those beasts for months now - easily the coolest piece of hardware I've seen in a couple of years.

Conspiracy Theory or just standard Trade?

[illumin8]

The way I see it there are basically two ways to look at this:

1. The U.S. government has been taking huge political contributions from Microsoft and has had to sit down and listen to their lobbyists give these speeches about how Free Software=Communism and by supporting Free Software you're supporting communism. Thus, they are taking some kind of moral stand because as you know the primary mission of our country is to promote democracy and capitalism throughout the world. I'm saying this all half tongue-in-cheek, but it could be possible that they actually bought into some of the OSS=Communism rhetoric.

2. The more likely probability is that software sold by Microsoft and other closed-source US software companies is billions of dollars in exports from our country. By promoting commercial products that are closed-source in nature our economy gets a boost from all of the international commerce and money coming in from other developing nations. Although this sounds like a shitty way to run a country, this is the way the world works. We have to convince/prod/force other countries to buy our poorly manufactured Microsoft software because it helps our economy...

Oh well. Guess we should all just drop out of the international financial system all together and go back to bartering for goods... Once you work out all of the delivery and manufacturing headaches bartering is actually a very good economic system.

reasons for company success

[GodWasAnAlien]

Reasons for success of a company:

1. good/unique product
2. consistent product
3. well adverstized product.
4. addictive product
5. monopoly on product

Starbucks is 2,3,4
Coke/Pepsi is 2,3,4
McD's is 2,3
Microsoft is 3,5

Re:reasons for company success

[Anonymous Coward]

And Natalie Portman is 1,2,3,4,5.

Re:reasons for company success

[goatasaur]

Any successful food/drink company can be marketed as #4. Especially fast food restaurants.

McD's makes some shit, but it's easily consummable.

Its all about the taxes

[panxerox]

When's the last time you paid income taxes on the positive Karma you acquire for working and promoting Linux? There's your answer.

Ms bough the State Department too?

[linuxislandsucks]

So what else is MS going to buy..they already bought :

DOJ
NSA/CIA

and now State Department?

at least they don't have the military!

But guess what Sun's Java has the Miiltary..can we say nuke Redmond..

Pointless. Completely Fucking Pointless

[Bowie J. Poag]

Two things.

1) We already have an "Office of Homeland Security" Its called the CIA/NSA, and has been around, honing their skills for close to 100 years. Shut up, take your tinfoil hat off, and let them do their job. Do yourself a favor..Take your tinfoil hat off and go back to what you were doing. Panic solves nothing.

2) The problem this country faces is largely a self-imposed one. 9/11 was a freak accident, and freak accidents *will* *happen*. Terrible things happen all the time, and they scare all of us. Accidents happen, and theres nothing we can do to avoid them. If you believe otherwise, you're not living in the real world.

Its not a minimzatiion of a tragedy to point out that the WTC site doesn't even amount to so much as a pin-prick on a map of the United States...Its a fact. But yet, we're reacting like it was the entire fucking eastern seaboard that got nailed.. Hell, even if you had an 8.5x11" glossy of just the state of New York, you still couldn't find the WTC. Its not a minimization of a tragedy to point out that the majority of the damage inflicted on this country is psychological, not physical...YES, thousands of people died, and yes, what they did to us is sickening...but no amount of press conferences, phone calls, UN inspectors, meetings, speeches, comittees, foreign diplomats, town hall meetings or other such horseshit is gonna repair that. The only thing that repair's a country's confidence and sense of national identity is war. As unfortunate as that may seem to you, thats how it is. You're more than welcome to point out something besides war that accomplishes the same. If you can come up with something else, let us know. Mankind has been trying to figure out an alternative for about 45,000 years now. Nobody likes war, just the same as nobody likes a tornado in their neighborhood or a tidal wave on their shores, both of which are just as natural and just as necessary.

It's a hard concept to be comfortable with -- the concept that war is a necessary, unavoidable and critically important part of human nature. Its hard to think about, and unpleasant to consider. But consider this: War is what keeps us in balance as a species, and staves off mass extinction. It does so at the price of contained, localized, and periodic killing. It's a regulating force of nature like any other, a cycle of destruction and renewal that has to take place in order for the big picture to sustain itself.

Avoiding war is just as pointless as engadging in war on a continual basis. Like everything in nature, too little war is unhealthy. Too much, and its just as bad.

I'll leave the decision as to whether or not we go to war to the people who have studied all their lives to know how to make the best decision. They dont tell me how to do my job, so, i'm not going to tell them how to do theirs. The government is made up of Joes like you and me anyway.. Not superintelligent uncaring zombies spawned from test tubes.

Cheers,

please read

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, your point is taken about war. It happens. But it doesn't mean ANYONE has to like it, or shut up about not liking it, or trying to prevent it.

1 - Stop your condescending tone with the "foil hat" remarks. Having a tone like that makes you sound as if you are 'above' or smarter than the people you have for an audience. Clue for you: you are not.

2 - Regarding your last paragraph, I'm NOT going to leave the decisions on whether or not we go to war to the government, without expressing my OPINION about it. It's called "democracy"...maybe they don't have that where you come from.

3 - Regarding your claim that WTC was nothing more than a "pin-prick": that claim doesn't take into consideration at ALL that it was the largest attack on the United States' own soil, and also an attack on two of the nation's largest standing structures.
In comparison: there were more people working in those buildings than over 99% of the buildings in the country. There were more COMPANIES in those buildings than there were faculty at your college. And yes, it was a disruption of business for MANY people and industries that you don't even know about sitting in your comfortable couch in Arizona.

4 -- Until you have put on fatigues and watched little kids die because of the bomb you just dropped, then don't tell ME how necessary war is.

Re:please read

[Bowie J. Poag]

Well put, sir.

Business as usual?

[Kwil]

the American Second Amendment is pretty unusual for countries not ruled by hereditary warlords.

So what you're saying is that it's not unusual at all for America to have it?

Oracle , Homeland Security, and National ID Cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Would this not constitute evidence that the Office of Homeland Security has adopted Oracle and next up is rolling out Larry Ellison's vision for National ID cards... and with Microsoft rewiring the Navy... the US is setting itself up to fail. Blue Screen Style.

-----------------------
Data in a Time of Terrorism
As America wages war on terrorism, data collection, sharing, and analysis move to the front line

Your Point? On your head.

[Anonymous Coward]

And three years ago the entirity of the Microsoft website was run on Windows 2000. Today the entirity of their website is run on Windows 2003. Unix wasn't running on big iron immediately either.

Countries Support Their Primary Export Industries

[istartedi]

Countries Support Their Primary Export Industries. Film at 11. The US isn't being any more persnickety than say... oh... France when it comes to the name "Champagne". I'm sure the Europeans who don't want to cave to MS feel the same way I do that we (the US) haven't caved to the French and allowed them to dictate how we use words. Cheers.

let's hit the nail directly

[stinky wizzleteats]

Capatalism requires us all to give up freedoms in the form of agreeing to be ruled by a government so that certain rules (that restrict freedom) can be enforced so that capatalism can work.

Well, Capitalism, as it is practiced in the U.S., goes a lot farther than bondage under the law.

Capitalism means you are not free to carry a gun in your car, because your company doesn't allow it. Capitalism means you can't listen to what you want to listen to (see Janis Ian on controlling the supply side of the artist-consumer equation). It means your insurance won't pay for certain medications because the patent has not yet expired. It means you can't skip through the ads on your kids' DVDs, and you can't legally burn copies of your own CDs. It's why Office Space is funny, why your job sucks, and why you've always known that something is wrong with the world; like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.

It's why Ken Lay is still living the high life. Capitalism is the hand who makes Bush's mouth move and the force that saw the DMCA pass almost unanimously.

God bless America, and save it from Capitalism.

Just business as always

[Anonymous Coward]

US NEVER use the same politics for internal than recomend for external.
Example: internal, lower tax for corporations, external, put their major shareholder power on IMF to presure Argentina to raise taxes.
This is not a paradax, is just business as always.

PS: I just hope to see you on your knees, preferently, during my life.