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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.
Sure its true.
/usr or /usr/local), this is not at all true in MS-Windows, where one usually has to either
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
(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
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?