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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.
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.
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
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.
What a sick joke.
.. 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.
.. or as pure evil for somehow getting my fellow man into thinking they made it based on the merit of their product.
Starbucks employed the most agressive expansion strategy in the history of retail.
They themselves are responsible for the term 'clusterbombing' neighbourhoods
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)
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.
"Old man yells at systemd"
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.
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?