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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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]

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]

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

[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

[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!

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

[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)

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?

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"

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.

Setec Astronomy

[porkface]

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

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.

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: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?

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

[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

[10am-bedtime]

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

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.

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...

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?

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 :(

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.

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

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.