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GNU-Darwin: Three Years of Free Software Activism
JigSaw writes "The GNU-Darwin Distribution is a free BSD operating system and a popular source of free software for Mac OS X and Darwin-x86 users, but it is also a platform for digital activism. Founder Michael L. Love wrote an editorial speaking about the roots, goals, problems and just about everything about GNU-Darwin. Free Software is at the core of GNU-Darwin and also anything political that has an impact on digital and even rights. Is this the first truly politically oriented BSD OS?" Nope.
Problem is that for most people, digital activism amounts to bitching and whining on /. and maybe voting for people who have no chance of winning.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Well, timothy seems to be suggesting that OpenBSD is a 'truly politically oriented' version of BSD. Yet the OpenBSD site says that one of their goals is to "[b]e as politics-free as possible; solutions should be decided on the basis of technical merit." So is it just not possible for a group of Free Software programmers to be non-political?
Maybe partying will help...
GNU-Darwin is an activist distribution
...
GNU-Darwin has been an ardent defender of digital liberties, and it is a platform for digital activism. Given the current state of things in the US and elsewhere, strident expressions of democratic power are necessary.
blah-blah
We have been prepared to take the Distro off-line a couple of times as a form of political action.
Damn, my skin crawls just remembering it
Seriously, what's this political rah-rah attached to software making? sure free software is about freedom of speech and it's very preferrable for a million valid reasons, but gee, let go of the melodrama-mode button.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Seems silly such an article is written about "3 years" of free software. Since clearly this "free" stuff has been around for quite a bit longer.
I see Darwin as FreeBSD's little brother that just happens to have picked up a nice job working for a respectable corporation. The only reason why anyone really cares about this distro is because Apple does. Not that that is a bad thing.
That GNU-Darwin people decides not to link to "proprietary" libraries is, of course, a result of them using the GNU Public License so extensively-- and now the primary supported Darwin platform is not even supported in this project!
This makes me shake my head and think, "what the fuck?" This project is not only shooting itself in the foot by choosing a platform not fully supported by the OS, but is also screwing over the real meat of Darwin's userbase: PowerPC owners. This move is akin to opening a car garage (in America) whose mechanics are all experienced in servicing American cars, and then changing policy months later, stating that the garage will only work on foreign models.
Where's the fucking logic?
Seriously, am I the only one who is wondering who the Hell is in charge at that project? Kool-Aid Man? This move makes so little sense I can't tell if the people at GNU-Darwin are really that stupid, or if I am waking up in alternate realities every damn morning. I almost kind of hope for the latter.
This is the GPL in action, Mac faithful. Get down and kiss Apple's butt for choosing the BSD license.
While I seriously doubt a free os will be able to muster the clout to be taken seriously on theri Antiwar stand or for that matter their Anti DMCA stand. Its very good to see people taking a stand and getting out the message.
This does point out the bigger question of why the technical community is not taken seriously on political issues. If you caught the Diane Rehm show this morning, they were doing a piece on voting systems. While they did have a few C.S. people talking about the problems of electronic voting machines, the election officials managed to stonewall and treat their concerns as non issues. The trick for technical people of any stripe is to make certain that the opinion of their community is heared outside their community. GNU/darwin, free BSD, or linux will only serve as a platform for speaking to those allready within a particular community.
From the site:
In fact, we did blackout the home page as a war protest in March, and we blackened the whole website, after Apple used the DMCA, but we have never actually taken it off line. Fortunately, the situation has never warranted taking the package collection off line, which would be an even more drastic step, and our actual users have never been affected by these actions. In fact, we received many orders and messages of support as a result of our activism.
While I realize that MOST of the supporters of Darwin may in fact be politically liberal...this is not fair for the [conservative and otherwise] users that are not. I'm not looking to start a flame war, but I believe that inserting his political beliefs into his work project is less than elegant.
Most developers don't have a problem with opposing things such as the DMCA and the abuse of patents that runs rampant. That won't be an issue. It was also said in the article that, in March, the page was blacked out for a time in protest of the war against Iraq. I know the war is something that most Slashbots were quite opposed to. While it may not have been the right thing, there are some good things to come from it. One of which is millions of Iraqis now have freedoms they never enjoyed under Saddam Hussein. For the sake of the Iraqi people, hopefully the war will be a success and Iraqis will enjoy the freedoms that much of the world already enjoys. And hopefully the standard of living will rise in Iraq, too. My point is that some issues don't have a clear cut right and wrong. Taking a side, one way or the other, risks fragmenting the community, alienating developers, and just causing a big mess.
I'd like to think the editorial was right when it stated that the community hopes to pressure SCO into changing its ways, much like the effect they probably had on Apple. Unfortunately, the problem is here that SCO doesn't give a damn about the community. SCO is all about profit, pleasing investors, and making a quick buck.
SEARCHING FOR SIG
SIG NOT FOUND ERROR
READY.
Dubya: Ok, tomorrow we start dropping the bombs if the demands are not met.
General: Sir! We just got the news in! The GNU-Darwin distribution has taken down its website!
Dubya: Oh my god! Cancel the war!!
The whole article just comes off like a crank piece to me. I'm against the war in Iraq, but if they think blacking out their web site is a real form of anti-war protest, that's pretty pathetic.
Find free books.
Well, I'm not very familiar with Darwin, but now I can say, based on this story, that my mind is pretty closed to it. I would certainly be hard pressed to ever consider it for anything in a production environment.
I don't want politics with my OS. I don't want the distribution site going black because Bush decides to bomb koala bears or even humans for that matter. Call me cold-hearted, but if I'm in a production environment, and I need to deliver a box that's expected to be supported and work as advertised, I don't want to worry if the freaking OS "activists" -- whatever the hell they are, exactly -- are going to pull the Distro (capitalized, no less) because the Malaguan butterfly's habitat is endangered by oil drilling or 250 million U.S. citizens have strong opinions about war.
Screw that. Give me my FreeBSD, which, to my knowledge, is pretty much always available, regardless of what Dan Rather is spewing at any given moment, and give me peace of mind. Hey, I know that's a lot less eloquent than "give me freedom, or give me death", but in my mind, and with some of the pressures I face from clients, I really don't distinguish between the two.
Activists need to shut up and get jobs anyway.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
Quick...name one Fortune 1000 company seriously considering a move to Hurd.
Ultimately, it's not Stallmans call over what kernel is used. That's sorta the thing with the GPL. Since it's all GPLed, people can pick what kernel they like. Some folks will jump to Hurd. My own guess is that very few will abandon Linux, at least in the forseeable future.
FWIW...People who want to dispose of the Linux kernel now do have an option. Last time I checked, the Debian/NetBSD folks had something going, tho they has some "interesting" ideas about licenses. I haven't seen a mad rush that direction from either the Debian or the NetBSD camp.
That said...we could use a new toolchain on top of Linux. Not because of any "consipricy" on the part of Stallman and his cabal, but because the GNU compilers are vastly better at portability that optimization. Having something as good as the Intel compiler or the DEC Alpha compiler for ever arch would be nice...
We need a non-GNU toolchain to put on top of the Linux kernel so that when the Hurd makes its power play, Linux won't be dependent on the GNU stuff.
Why do you think that the advent of the Hurd would be a bad thing from which other systems need protection? Your entire post is an odd rant, for why rail against GNU software if you're a Linux user?I'm disappointed by the lack of progress in the Hurd (it should pick up after the port to the L4 microkernel, however), but if it achieved stability it would be a superior solution to anything currently on the market. The Hurd has a ton of ingenious improvements and renovations in POSIX architecture, and could truly be a better future for *nix users. Of course, I'm not getting my hopes up, it's been ten years and Debian Hurd is hardly usable. But a man can dream.
Anyway, I expect GNU-Darwin to be cannabalised for code after Hurd picks up. This isn't a bad thing, however, since code reusability is a good thing.
This guy's a zealot. I don't mind him choosing to do what he does, but I won't ever bother to try out GNU/Darwin because of his zealotry. I prefer a more relaxed environment where BSD, GNU, APSL, or other licenses are not so strongly advocated or political/religious views put forward that I can worry instead about what interests me.
Make sure you vote in the next election. And think before you do.
What for? aren't Diebold machines supposed to do that for you?
I don't know why the fuck this douchebag and his GNU-Darwin hard-on are allowed anywhere near slashdot. Check his homepage if you want. He's a scientologist.
This nutjob seems to think that people should be buying into his beliefs when all anybody cares about is the software. He makes the mistake of thinking people should care just like him one other issues because of one non-related issue.
Can you imagine if you were in a restaurant and the waiter berates you for being pro/anti-abortion, pro/anti gun or being christian/jewish/whatever??
I'm sorry, this guy is really no much different than the child molesters who tempt kids with candy , only to get them into the back of their vans. Harsh, but true.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
"In fact, we did blackout the home page as a war protest in March, and we blackened the whole website, after Apple used the DMCA, but we have never actually taken it off line"
/ ne ws/2003/06/22/wzim122.xml
Did they take the site offline when "The war veterans - unleashed by President Robert Mugabe to seize white-owned farms - are not, however, killing only people: they are slaughtering animals on an unprecedented scale."?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=
Did they take the site offline to protest the jailing and torture in china of people who speak out or worship?
Did they take the site offline to protest the actions of the goverment of iran to put down the student lead protest movement that has resulted in thousands being thrown in jail?
No? Why not? Do they only protest against things that are 'in style' and/or 'hip' with their 'progressive' friends?
"This does point out the bigger question of why the technical community is not taken seriously on political issues."
I believe it is because the way that technical people see problems is very different form the way that non-technical people see problems.
Technical problems typically involve tradeoffs. E.g. if you use this certain data structure, you will get fast deletion and insertion, at the cost of slower searching; if you use this data structure searching, deletion and insertion are all reasonably fast, but it is difficult to code.
The concept of a compromise is thus in our vocabulary, but usually it's a negative -- that is, most technical compromises suck.
The idea of a win-win scenario, where everyone wins, is very foreign to us techies. We see things in terms of "this vs. that."
RTFA to see a great example of this. The political points made are all made in terms of "Us vs. Them." They are on one side, and they are in opposition to another side. It is very warlike, in fact, and someone who does not already agree with their point of view -- who might not yet have an opinion on the matter -- is going to be very put off by the language used. And those who do disagree but who are otherwise open-minded are immediately going to be put on the defensive.
The only solution to the problem with Diebold (for example) that will help things is a solution that also helps Diebold's bottom line.
Consider this point of view: Diebold faces a long-term growth problem if they force buggy voting machines on the public. The truth always comes out, and if Diebold doesn't take action, the resulting backlash and loss of trust will bury the company. If, however, they acknowledge what is a simple technical limitation and fix it, and work with the community, they are not only likely to land contracts now, but to dominate the market in the future. This leads to substantial revenue in the future.
Notice that I'm talking about what Diebold itself is most concerned with. This is the only way to have any discussion: Talk to people in terms of their interests, not yours. Diebold doesn't care one way or another, as a company, how they make money. But obviously destruction of Democracy as an institution is bad for them: They will be the first ones lined up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Unlike technical solutions, people problems deal with people, who are irrational and emotional. If you consider someone else's point of view first, you can get them to see your side of things, and convince them to pursue another course of action. And when that happens, everyone thinks they win. And when everyone thinks they can benefit from a course of action, suddenly change becomes easy.
So called 'GNU-Darwin' is NOT OpenDarwin so far as I can tell from their respective websites. Apple is not associated with GNU-Darwin in any way, other than GNU-Darwin seems to have stolen the mascot, the name (adding GNU - how original and trademark avoiding), and the source.
Seems to me that this 'GNU-Darwin' is no more than a political website, probably distributing the stock Darwin unchanged.
Stupid, stupid people. This can of worms has been opened before - don't they know that polotics is not considered 'added-value'? And if they don't have anything substantial to add to the core Darwin, they won't last more than it takes for them to come up with some other bandwagon.
-Adam
For example, on the GNU-Darwin site, the developer mentions taking the distro offline as a protest to the war. What purpose did this really server? Do you really think that the leaders of the coalition had any high-level meetings where they said "You know, I really thought this war was a good idea. But the blackout on the GNU-Darwin software site has really made me think twice"? Of course not. What it DID do however was pressure some of the distro's users to get pissed off and write their MP or Congressman and oppose the war because they wanted their distro back damnit! And that was the intention: to force their USERS into taking a specific action.
Yep, there's that freedom they rant about huh? Software blackouts don't mean a thing and the developers/sites that use them should be ashamed of themselves for trying to extort their users in such a way.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
On what planet? I think the poster is thinking of Fink, which is at this point quite apolitical. Everyone tends to shun GNU-Darwin, generally because the bootstrap script was originally horrendously insecure. This appears to have been fixed, but they're still downloading completely unnecessary binaries (you don't need wget to download a single file! curl does that just fine).
Good point. And yet another example of a raving radical looney who believes that taking away choice is the only way to protect freedom to choose. Sheesh...
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
We have been prepared to take the Distro off-line a couple of times as a form of political action. It is important to realize that the software freedom status of GNU-Darwin was tenuous before the change to the APSL, so we were ready to cut our losses, and remove GNU-Darwin from the internet, if necessary. Now things have improved very much.
Which pretty much sums up why these guys will never be any kind of serious competition for any real free OS. Who the hell would place any faith in this distribution? Doesn't exactly sound like the kind of dependable OS I'd want to put on my critical servers if it's going to come and go depending on the current political situation. And what kind of idiotic form of activism is it that goes out of its way to inconvenience its supporters, rather than the people its protesting against?
Apple didn't change the APSL because of you. Hell, Apple can't possibly think much of your project, considering they've since founded OpenDarwin, and are paying people to create DarwinPorts.
It's kind of sad you need to write these articles yourself. I mean, if people actually liked your distribution, they'd be writing these crappy articles for you! You don't see Linus submitting stories to Slashdot about Linux, do you?
Darwin already has a mature, GPL-licensed, Stallman-compatible software distribution: Fink. Hell, it' even uses apt, the favourite software management tool of people everywhere. There's also the aforementioned DarwinPorts project, for people that wish to use modern, ports-like system on Darwin.
Maybe GNU-Darwin should be focusing on important things: It's not part of MetaPKG, the massive collaborative Darwin software effort, which Fink and DarwinPorts primary members. Even the newcomer Gentoo has been invited to take part. But GNU-Darwin has not.
The future of Darwin software is setting sail, yet GNU-Darwin isn't on the boat. This can't possibly bode well for GNU-Darwin's future relevance on the platform. Maybe they should be working to become a part of that, instead of submitting rubbish to Kuro5hin, Slashdot and OSNews.
Right now, GNU-Darwin is totally irrelevant, and there's nothing on the horizon to change that. If it disappeared tomorrow, no-one would notice. Instead of trolling here at Slashdot, go do something!