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U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit
StoneLion writes "The United Nations World Summit on Information Society was established to 'harness the potential of knowledge and technology' and to 'find effective and innovative ways to put this potential at the service of development for all.' You'd think open source software would be a natural for many UN member countries. But NewsForge's Joe Barr discovered that the US is driving policy for the organization, and its official position is that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'; in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism." We've mentioned WSIS before. Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit
That sounds oftly violent. Why didn't they just try to screw up all the meetings using their influence?
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
"The U.S. view is that we don't want to see government, or in this case, the World Summit, advocate one type of software over another." -Sally Shipman
When you get down to the nut and bolts all software is just 1s and 0s: there aren't different "types" at that level.
I think what Sally Shipman really means is "We want our large US software firms to continue to reap Huge profits: Open Source threatens that."
That's fine, after all it's a US delegation and they're supposed to look out for their countrymen. Now, why can't they word it that bluntly? Simple: because Open Source doesn't contribute millions to election campaigns.
Trolling is a art,
Don't tell anyone, which is probably the U.S. goal, to slow down all science and technology lest it make the lawyers' cabal and other groups who own the government obsolete.
The best thing they can do is make it illegal for spammers to get safe harbor anywhere.
Or, failing that, to make sure that spam only gets sent to the country of origin somehow. That would eliminate 90% of my spam, which is from the US.
Probably it will only end up in another treaty the US will refuse to ratify, like Kyoto and the International Court of Justice.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Without the efficient, industrial base proided by capitalism there would be no computers or internet to create free software with/on/for.
Sounds like another goon who isn't good enough to get a job.
Blar.
But the US is the new evil; its actions are unilateral and goes against the wishes of the international community and it's only making things worse for its citizen and the rest of the world.
In the Soviet Russian point of view, USA is the baddie! Well I guess we're living in a joke now.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
When a government, let alone a metanational body, intervenes to affect the market that is not capitalism, it is a mixed economy.
I find it mildly amusing that protecting capitalism is linked to this seeing as how our capitalist economy here in the U.S. has more than its fair share of open source development houses and they are doing just fine. I think capitalism is less to blame than big money IP special interests, they might be a better, more specific target than a particular economic system. Of course identifying the particular interests would go a long ways too....
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
...my bud that works for one of the U.S. Reps...anxious for the reaction.
Why must we constantly focus on profits? I suggest that the UN torpedo Microsoft for interfering with the profits of Apple, Sun, IBM, and other companies.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
make the world safe for capitalism.
When will the US gov't realize that open source is capitalistic - it reduces your costs allowing you to make greater profits.
Shh.
"Using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit"
Thank you Captain Obvious! Using free software keeps companies that sell software from making a profit on software they don't get to sell. This guy's got to be an economics major...
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
The is protecting the interests of its citizens, the ability to make money by learning how to program in any country, the world economy, and jobs. Software developers don't make money from developing Open Source software. Without software, hardware is useless.
Good lord, they operate by consensus?
With all the nations on the glode, with so many widely different opinions, why it god's name would they even try to operate by consensus?
The motivation behind this decision is either a) Extreme optimism or b) Extreme Stupidity. Likely, it is both.
Although, I suppose we could consider a third if you felt like breaking out the tin foil hates.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
"the UN is driving policy" and instantly reread it cause they it was wrong. Nevertheless, I am forced to agree with the opponents of the current US government and say that thier policy of intellectual protectionism to the point of intellectual imperialism is not the way to go. Japan went isolationist for a century and what did that get them? The same here, only instead of just isolating ourselves from the innovations of the rest of the world we are isolating ourselves and arresting the progres of our own innovation. There is a darwinism to nations and policies that clearly shows that nations that create policies (no matter how justified they may seem) if those current policies retard that nations sucess either those policy must go or that nations will. Laws that don't work either will collapse themselves or bring down those who attempt to enforce them. You cannot control innovation. If you try, you will fail. That is why the concept of intellectual property will colaapse. Either we must abandon are perceptions of it or face the growing threat of those who will ignore such absurd laws. Just as we can innobvate so can they and saying that we own one thought will just be laughed at by those who do not follow our laws and realize that just becuase you are the first to have a thought does not by nature give you the sole and exlcusive oweneship of that thought.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
"in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism." I must have missed your point. Why is this a bad thing?
"Never tell me the odds"
Sweet Don Quixote, why can't they get it through their heads that higher quality is more important than higher profit?
"A working-class hero's something to be." --John Lennon
First of all, I don't think that open-source software is really going to stand in the way of making a profit. By some estimates, software licenses account for only 8% of revenues in the software industry.
Second -- why is profit at the top of the list of priorities for this particular initiative? I believe that an open democracy is possible.
I don't believe in forced sharing, but I do believe that we should be allowed to share if we so desire. The wording here seems to suggest that sharing is a significant threat to selling, and that as such, it should be disallowed entirely. I realize that hasn't been said, but it's not a big stretch from his current position... I don't want to see the world start down that slippery slope.
MakePassword.com Mp3 Blog
There was some counter-summit stuff done in Geneva last December at the same time as the WSIS conference, the two sites that were used were the Hub Project open publishing site and the Geneva03.net wiki.
The level of police repression was fairly unbelievable -- the planned polymedia lab (like a hack meet thing) was shut down by riot police... Following this it got another venue and worked out OK in the end. I helped a few people get their laptops booting into Linux :-)
There were some cool things done like projecting some stuff onto the WIPO HQ, but I don't thinkt hat the counter events had much impact on the main thing -- it is bug buisness that is running it...
Check out MKDoc a mod_perl CMS
should have read:
The first is the United States' position that profit -- or even the potential for profit -- by major corporate donors to the current administration is more important than anything else.
Interesting that when this U.N. summit was first proposed, eveyone laughed at how stupid it sounded and how pie-in-the-sky politician-makes-you-feel-good wishy-washy etc. it sounded. Now that the US torpedos it, you blame "evil capitalists and BUSH". Good riddance, open source doesn't need the U.N.
No, safe for monopoly. One in particular.
BC
Ignoring the "Let IBM/Microsoft/DELL solve the worlds problems and give us cash!" angle, the US' stance does make some sense;
You might be threatening your burgeouning software industry/IP industry by promoting open source. Thats great if your goal for information technology is to make your companies money.
But how many countries are in the same position as the US? And how many more would actually like to leverage cheap costs of open source for immediate tangible benefit?
If the US was a third world nation, it would change its tune. IN the mean time, its business as usual.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Until we stop having this survival of the fittest idealogy, I will not be supprised by the actions of those who are top dog. Anything will be done to protect that position.
Others are of no consequence.
Using proprietary software might also get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit, i.e. another company. That's what happens when you make a choice between one product or another. So what are they saying, that they should only buy software if there were no competing products? That they should only buy from monopolies? Please tell us, oh wise and corrupt US representatives...
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
All Your `cat \usr\share\dict\words` Belong To U.S.!
-chill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
the UN has been trying to control the internet for some time now. The US doesnt want that. What's the problem? If you want open source, then just use it: we dont have to all bend over for the UN.
in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism
/.
The horror! And we all know that capitalism is the root of all evil in the world! After all, it was not the communists in the Soviet Union that killed millions of their own people! It was the capitalists!
Nothing that a pointless poitical dig to ruin what was otherwise an ok news post on
If the goal is to 'harness the potential of knowledge and technology' and to 'find effective and innovative ways to put this potential at the service of development for all.', then there is something very curious about worrying about intellectual property rights and profits. As anyone in Economics 101 knows, one of the functions of a pricing mechanism is to ration commodities. The wide scope quantifier in the phrase 'for all' suggests that any rationing is contrary to the stated goal. I'd love to hear the reasoning for why a person in a developing country needs to spend $100+ dollars on a Micro$oft product, rather than use an Open Source alternative (N.B. it was earlier reported that some folks in India make as little as $35 per month!). It sounds to me like the legal logicians from SCO must have had a hand in coming up with this!
in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism
Capitalism is an economy in which sources of production are controlled by private entities(instead of by the public/government). This shouldn't be confused with things like intellectual property rights, which isn't even a source of production, and really has little to do with wether you have a capitalist economy.
A modern day witchhunt.
Each government member is supposed to bring its own opinionto the table.
The U.S. government is entitled to think commercialware should be the only ware out there.
Fine. Other countries, if so inclined, can argue otherwise.
On the other hand, it is up to any interested U.S. citizen to disabuse his government of this lunatic option, if the citizen is so inclined. If the citizen does not care, the government will go with the easiest thing to do, which is to follow lobbyst advice.
... Shipman told me, "The U.S. view is that we don't want to see government, or in this case, the World Summit, advocate one type of software over another." ... It offends the sensibilities of corporate lobbyists whose moral compass points at nothing but the bottom line.
This is merely a continuation of the point that the USA's representatives do not want to turn control of the base portions of the Internet over to another closed international organization. As the process stands right now, the current controllers happen to be capitalist, but they also happen to exist in a free enough society that we can bitch about their behaviors and impose change through democratic processes (or semi-democratic, if you include getting a congress-person to impose some new regulation that dictates how things should be). There is no such guarantee once control leaves our borders.
Furthermore, there are a handful of governments who are turning from the IBM AIX/Microsoft Windows proprietary software systems to the open source models that Sourceforge and Slashdot staff seem to champion. But, that in no way implies once the WSIS takes over, the open-source methods would be adopted either. The danger expressed by the representatives is that a 3rd party such as the UN will be in control to dictate connectivity, and that the majority of members of that UN body are not interested in the free flow of information in the form that the USA embrases it. We see nations like China filtering content into their space, nations in the Mid-East who would be even more harsh on content flow, and would these nations be in the majority on the WSIS board, it would spell an end for the freedom of content that we have enjoyed this last decade.
It doesn't matter if the firewall is closed source or open source, I don't want a firewall blocking a nation from my content.
the US is doing the same thing it's always done in the UN -- attempt to provide token participation in a body that is sometimes useful for achieving otherwise-difficult ends, but that can be easily bogged down or otherwise rendered useless when it tries to do something that we don't care for.
I would even go so far as to say this isn't about maintaining capitalist dominance or corporate dominance per se, so much as it is derailing something that could potentially be highly disruptive to the US position as a technological leader and controlling force on third-world technological innovation. Open Source would drastically lower the barrier to entry for pretty much any country looking to develop an information technology regime, which puts countries on a much more even footing to do things the US doesn't like (organize, provide information to people, utilize cryptography, and heavens! even provide a means for impoverished people to have true democracy), let alone making governments more effective. Strict politics-of-power thinking would suggest that other countries having strong, independent governments is not in the US' interests, because such governments and countries (and ultimately, populations) are much harder to manipulate...
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
...without all that "free" crap. Are we still holding cold war grudges? As I understand it we just needed someone to hate and something to fight for (and it worked...).
Thank you for ensuring U.S. monopolists in general, and Microsoft in particular, can continue to extract 80% profit margins from the sale of their software products. The world is a better place because of you. Good luck for your reelection in november.
Capitalism != The best economic system possible.
It is the best economic system SO FAR, but that doesn't mean it will keep us alive and thriving in the coming decades. We should do all we can to make sure that Capitalists don't put a stranglehold onto developing countries, and force them to become the developed world's slaves.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Is "no text" for a message body an oxymoron?
I think most of this is down to the confusion between free as in beer and free as in GNU.
Maybe it would be a good pr move for the open source community to come up with a new name for this ideology?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Open Source Intellectual Property (in the form of Copyright works) has owners too and they have the right to make a profit. Unfairly excluding their work from use restricts their ability to make a profit from their work, for example by selling consulting services, or add ons or their skills and services in general. Let's not pretend that OSS is anti-capitalist or in any way incompatible with capitalism. It is another component in what should be a free market where EVERYONE including free software authors should be allowed to compete on a level playing field. If the U.S. government has forgotten this or has sold out to lobbyists representing vested interests then we need to make the case for Open Source and Free Software clearly without muddying the watters with silly statements about making the world safe for capitalism.
+ve:
====
People forget differences in the race for money. Good thing. I'd rather have people try to cheat others out of money, rather than kill others over race/religion.
-ve:
====
Loss of belief in basic human "goodness" and willingness to donate time for the common good. I can't believe the amount of scorn/opposition that Open Source is getting in the US, while the goodness behind it's basic tenet it is *so damn* obvious. Just the fact that people are willing to work together to produce a system without expecting a return should be enough to generate good faith (like charities, volunteer etc).
I have noticed that in non-capitalistic societies (only 2 countries so far), a *lot* of work is done on good faith, rather than being driven by the fear of being sued/etc as it has become of late in the US.
The fact that the government is willing to bend over and pass laws that get them corporate dollars doesn't help much either.
Not an exhaustive list by any stretch....just a couple of points which have affected my life/thinking directly.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Well, first off, when the government grants a person an unnatural monopoly on copying things, it is anything but free market. But second off, this really touches on something that has been bothering me about America lately. The path to wealth comes about by making freedom an end in itself, not greed.
If I pointed a gun to your head, took 10K, invested it, made 20K, and then gave it back to all your friends and took the credit for it - then technically speaking the group would better off financially, but they wouldn't be better off overall because they would have lost controll over their own destinies in the process. IMHO, this is what is happening to the USA. We have lost our financial freedom even though technically speaking we are wealthier than ever.
Free (as in libre) software is not mutually exclusive with capitalism. Ask RedHat. Or IBM. Or any number of companies that develop free (again, libre) software and make a profit (or, at least get a return in dollars) while operating in a capitalist system. The opponent here isn't capitalism. It's closed software and closed development methods. Of course the US (and a number of other countries, I assume) wants to promote capitalism. But it can do that and also promote free software.
If they wish to suck on the teat of the world, yes they will have to pay the price, both libre and gratis.
However, if they choose to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, they will have no such price to pay.
Just like individuals and corporations.
--fatboy
Wasn't it Linus who said that following that logic, marrage should be illigal, since it interferes with prostitutes makeing a profit?
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
After reading that article... all I can say is someone already had the end result in their mind.
His statement: "The private sector does move when motivated enough, but it has consistently trailed the cutting edge by 15 to 20 years."
What??? I can't honestly really think of any non-military cutting edge stuff that wasn't private sector. The thing open source does better than anybody else is take someone elses idea and improve upon it (even if it's brand new it's still in the private sector).
Other statement against "The U.S. view is that we don't want to see government, or in this case, the World Summit, advocate one type of software over another."
I can't think of anybody who would want to have their hands tied either with open source or proprietary software. If I have a need I just want it resolved, I don't want to be LEGISLATED as to what I've got to do.
And the whole aids them was just complete and utter sensationalism. It's insulting to all the people dieing, to even try and tie the two together.
whether you commies in denial will admit it in public or not.
Is MonopoSoft so afraid of its inability to build better software than the competition and OSS that it would go so far?
I think it would.
In fact, my own employer uses some loose language in the employment agreement that could be interpreted to mean that the company owns whatever software I create in my spare time.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Without the efficient, industrial base proided by capitalism there would be no computers or internet to create free software with/on/for.
:-)
Oh, yeah? Prove it.
What?
... is it now revolutionary or an act of sedition for a US citizen to operate, no less develop, Open Source Software, now? Or is the current US leadership only "keeping up foreign relations," Goose style (from Top Gun), and telling other nations that they should only use proprietary (and more often than not, US-developed) software?
Between this, the Patriot Act, and the Patriot Act II, I'm wondering how long it'll be before I'm sent to a recreation of the Heart Mountain "relocation" camp for possessing an OSS application (or other, similarly small and idiotic "offenses").
I may be declaring myself a commie liberal "pinko" (O! The irony!) by saying this, but I really, truly don't understand why the current leadership of the US is taking such an agressive, belligerent stance on nearly every major foreign policy decision. What stops the US from choosing to work cooperatively in alliances with other nations? I'm afraid that I'll never understand, and equally afraid that I will someday understand.
~UP
Eat the Path.
Duh.. So you've got a bnunch of guys who are coding these great applications and are willing to give it away. Sure, no one is making a real profit on open source software, but it's still capitalism.
I don't know exactly how to phrase what I mean, but I think some of you may have a feel for what I mean. Open source is still capitalism!
What is your penile percentile?
I know this assertion is attributed to the US Govt, but sounds like Darl from good ole' SCO could have said the exact same thing too!
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Open Source supporters need to make this clear, that especially where the computer operating system, web browser and other software environments are concerned, that Open Source Software isn't some Socialist Utopian nonsense, but rather Open Source supports a free market for software by leveling the playing field and lowering the barriers to entry for Software Developers.
The Free market is good and Open Source Software Environments will help keep it free.
Good to see the ol' US of A fighting for democracy in every corner of the world. Yep - you can have democracy any way you like it, as long as you have it OUR way.
With each breath in, a flower somewhere opens; with each breath out, a flower withers away. In between lies beauty.
Capitalism is not a guarantee to make a profit. I find Open Source just as Capitalistic as Closed Source is. Open Source projects, for the most part, lose MONEY in developement, and expect no profits, as a direct source of selling said projects.
Instead, projects are developed and funded by people to USE those projects to create profits as a SIDE benifit, and those profits are not tied directly to the developement or use of those products.
Let us take a big corporation that spends $$ on an "Office" product. They do so, not because "Office" makes them money directly, but because it helps them make money. Big Corporation realizes that it can take a percentage of $$ money spend on licenses, and apply it to an "Open source" project and even direct the project to include features not found in "Office" and end up with a product that is immeasurably better than the original "Office".
Big Company #2, #3 etc all start to realize the same thing, it becomes CHEAPER and BETTER than the original "Office", and each contribute. It actually because Cheaper in the long run to fund Open Source than it does to pay licenses for each new version of "Office".
The company who originally created "Office" (copied actually) complains about "Anti competitive behaviour" and "profits" are only trying to protect that which is not rightfully theirs (the right to profit).
To me, protectionism doesn't work. It is trying to protect the buggy and whip industries as cars start becoming ubiquitous.
I am all for monopolies, as they create other opportunities for innovation. Microsoft is a monopoly and I don't have a problem with it, because THAT is exactly what fostered Open Source.
If STANDARD OIL wasn't broken up, we might actually have ALTERNATIVES to hydrocarbon fuels today. In a free and open society, Monopolies are short lived, because people find OTHER WAYS of doing the same thing.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Good old slashdot... moderating someone as a troll because you disagree with him. I mean really, how is that a troll, but the completely factless parent above him is +4 Insightful? At worst this should have been rated -1 Offtopic. Hope you get metamoderated appropriately, whoever did it.
The US is just one country of how many in the UN? Sure, we are on the Security Council, how many others are too?
The UN needs to get with the program or completely disband. In it's current form, it is completely useless.
In the sense that it's used here, making things "safe for capitalism" is a bad thing. When the government gets involved and uses it's might to shift or sway the market playing field, it's almost always a bad thing. Open source software exists and functions quite well in a free market. If it beats out more traditional software companies, it's because it out competed them in terms of value given per cost demanded.
Open source is not inherently communistic, nor is it a threat to capitalism. It's simply a threat to particular companies, just as new innovations are always a threat to older companies. Even if particular companies die, the market itself will hum along just fine.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
So the question has to be asked...
Has Joe Barr stopped foaming at the mouth yet, or is he still calling people whores and swearing at them? You know, like he did when the Mindcraft stuff happened?
A more disgusting Linux advocate cannot be found. He's world renowned for having a short fuse and riding an even shorter bus - he can't help but spew bile if it "helps" Linux in his mind - even if he is turning people away in droves with his militant views.
Guys, don't listen to this moron - he's just that - a complete MORON, who the Linux community would be better off without.
This isn't helping capitalism any... Open Source is part of capitalism, government is not. When government tries to protect any entity, be it a corporation or a sector, its no longer capitalism, its the American System of Mercantilism has established by Henry Clay (and furthered into the US by Abraham Lincoln).
Remember, Open Source is free market driven as well. The customer may pay nothing, but they also may want to pay for closed software so they receive some sort of guaranteed support or whatever it is they want. Just because software is free doesn't mean that there is no cost to run it.
Government picking closed source over open source really doesn't help capitalism any. In a truly capitalist society (The US is NOT capitalist in any way), open source can compete freely with closed source. Indian programmers can compete with American ones.
Why do people imagine that free software is a threat to capitalism? Capitalism is based on free markets, which means you can buy or sell whatever you want to without coercion. Giving away things for free is quite compatible with that.
The United States position, formed at the behest of the Business Software Alliance, CompTIA, and other organizations dedicated to maintaining the status quo and curtailing the growth of free software, is that no software development methodology -- closed and proprietary versus open source -- be recommended over any other.
This is a far cry from torpedoing open-source. This is the way it should be done, regardless of whether it's UN or not.
Government mandated monopolies do not make capitalism safe.
-I am an elective eunuch.
If the US pushes an agenda that the rest of the world disagrees with then they will be ignored. No one is going to buy the recommendations of a committee that is obviously in the pocket of the US commercial software industry.
If in the worst case this committee secures funding for enforcement and UN troops start showing up with BSA agents to perform audits then that will most likely just accelerate a shift to open-source.
I'm amused how the same people who push the point of view that free software should be allowed to compete with pricey software are the ones who say that cheap foreign programmers should not be allowed to compete with pricey american ones.
They're putting the "right" of a select few to maintain dictatorship(s) over a section of the world economy that is greater than the GDP of many nations ahead of the right of people to acquire and use free software. (Microsoft's profits rival and exceed the GDP of many countries and apparently the US cares more about this than freedom). In other words, the US is promoting the limitation of freedom in favor of dictatorships over vast areas of the technology sector. They care more about the power of a priveledged few than freedom. The idea that our freedom is being taken away should concern anyone that understands the concept of freedom. If you don't think the idea of software patents is a threat, then you need to do more research. Anyone who argues that this is being done for average Americans should ask themselves the extremely obvious question, "What happens when all of the obvious ideas are patented? How does the little guy or small business enter the market after that?" This is a very obvious question that anyone who has put more than 30 seconds of thought into the idea of software patents should have already asked themselves.
US Torpedos summit US doesn't like OSS.
Contrary to popular belief, the Evil Empire as some have already put it like to keep their population employed. Companies doing things for free with a hope to have services foot the bill don't employ a lot of people - or last that long.
Companies that charge for their software product and keep the source code closed do - in fact on any given day if they blink they can affect the entire stock market.
That's what the US is going to be interested in protecting. OSS may solve a lot of things but it creates other socio-economic issues that need to be addressed as well. I for one don't hail our communist overlords in that we all work for free - as in speech - and have no way to make a buck off my work unless someone altruistic wants to pay me to give away my work for free.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
...for US diplomatic efforts. For those who keep up with multilateral treaties, the State Department under bush has been pretty effective at disrupting international negotiations, such as the Small Arms Convention.
The line taken by the Under Secretary of State was that the US constitution forbids negotiating a treaty to limit small arms. Apparently the Second Amendment also covers child soldiers in Africa, and gun runners in Colombia.
The behaviour at the conference mentioned in the article is actually very reminicent of the Reagan administration's withdrawl from UNESCO in the 80s (corrected by George W) when it became clear that UNESCO favoured state-run and public media over private control of the press and airwaves.
UNESCO was interested in creating shared media and
information networks, and that was apparently scary (they're headquartered in Paris!).
That's odd, FOSS can't exactly prevent an intellectual property owner from making a profit on their intellectual property. It is theirs after all, and FOSS can't deliver solutions that make use of this specifically, because that would be in violation of said owner's intellectual property.
However, FOSS can - in some cases - deliver an alternative. Picking either solution depends on such things as quality and security, etc. Oh by the way, this is called competition by merit, which happens to be healthy competition.
Of course I might be wrong, perhaps I missed something?
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Both open source and closed source can happily live in a capitalistic society. However I do think that closed source and closed standards lead to a monopolistic capitalism, while open source and open standards lead to a free market capitalism. I personally would rather have the free market capitalism, but I don't think we can force a free market to be free, it must free itself. In technology this is what seems to be happening. I hope it continues.
It's not nice, but the U.S. government has always gone to bat for U.S. industries, because doing so strengthens the U.S. economy. There's no real English Canadian film industry because it's repeatedly torpedoed in trade negotiations between the two countries (that's why the NFB does little more than fund documentaries); likewise, trade agreements with other nations often have riders about distributing X number of American films in the country.
Open Source is going up against perceived national interest here. It's hard for a politician to (apparently) screw an American business, with American jobs.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Why would we want the world to be safe for capitalism? I want everybody to be equally poor and miserable. That's why we must squash the spread of wealth creation.
No please! No facts!
We don't need those lolly gagers any more than we need international law. We don't need to a permission slip to defend our freedom and we don't need one for anything else either. France and the UN can go back to eating cheese and smelling bad while we the glorious United States of America continue to do as we please. Can you pass the ribs please?
Thanks
-- George W Bush
It's really hard to have any sympathy for an anti IP screed when the bottom of the page says "Copyright 2004". Hypocrasy in action.
But NewsForge's Joe Barr discovered that the US is driving policy for the organization, and its official position is that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'; in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism."
... a slashdot post.
Where does it say that it's the offical position of the US that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'? It's Joe Barr's interpretation, and the second half of that is the posters interpretation of Joe Barr's quote. I would like to see more quotes and references. The article is a lot like
"The software companies have gotten fat and lazy. Open Source came at them from left field and they still can't figure out how to honestly fight it. That's why they go crying to the politicians after contributing money to their campaigns.
This is a good point. I think it reflects the general laziness on the part of behemoth corporations with establish streams of revenue. Take Disney for instance. Every time the Mouse's copyright (Steam Boat Willy for goodness sakes!) almost comes up for expiry, another copyright extention gets past. Disney knows it's in hot water, especially lately because it hasn't had a mega-hit since the Lion King.
But it's not just Disney. If Linux really, and I mean really became a threat to Microsoft it would come down to either Microsoft ceasing to exist as it does now or Linux being made illegal (or tied up in the courts 'till forever). My guess is on the latter. Few people seem to point out (that I see, anyhow) that all this talk about innovation is total crap. Established corporations don't really want to innovate, because that costs money! Why innovate when you can just throw lawyers at threats to your revenue stream? This has been going on since (at least) Edison when he forced all the movie producers to move out to California to evade patents on motion picture equipment.
Linux will just have to do what it does best and no one else really wants to do -- innovate. Innovate damn well, too. Microsoft's $250-something billion market cap. is one heck of a freight train to derail.
2. Wait until they are marginally technically proficient.
3. Outsource your support center to said country, employing these newly minted corporate flag-wavers.
4. Garner praise and kudos from world community for raising the quality of life in 3rd world.
5. Utilize praise/kudos in global marketing blitz.
6. Profit!
Right, "advocating freedom of choice", which is exactly why the US is blocking this summit from even happening. Because, like, you know, "advocating freedom of choice" should only happen when everyone promises not to discuss any alternative choices. In the US, this is called "freedom", in the rest of the world, this is called "bullshit".
POP QUIZ ON CAPITALISM AND COMPUTERS
1) Computers were invented by:
a) Private Companies
b) Rugged Individuals
c) The Big Bad Government
d) Rodents
2) The Internet was invented by:
a) Natalie Portman
b) Private companies
c) The Big Bad Government
d) Al Gore
Thank you for participating.
That is not what the official position of the organization is. It is the article writer interpretation of the position. The quotes do not surround anything the official said but are part of a sentence in the article where the writer gives his interpretation of the official position.
Ann Coulter would be proud of your effort. But I'm going to hold /. to a slightly better standard than that.
I agree with the article but don't see the value in bad arguments.
...awfully violent...
Now that looks to me like oss/free software is in there. and personally I guess I'm inclined to be pleased that it's there at all, rather than bitching that it's not how 'we' might like it.
And then declaring the entire ting to be a failure.
Which is why I don't rely on 'pundits' such as Barr, Perens or FSF to do my thinking for me.
Anyone who's expecting oss/free to be some major plank in a guidance document under the auspices of the UN is either dreaming or stupid.
As for what the US position might or might not be frankly I don't care. Foreign policy is an arcane art at best, and if the US doesn't often fairly represent *my* views in FP, well I don't think many nations' FP's come much closer.
So for my $0.02 (yes, US) I'm glad to call this a (limited) win and go back to doing what I do which is software and engineering and occasionally bitching out / voting out the pols who can't figure out their ass from a hole in the ground. but ultimately they don't matter I do, I do stuff I make stuff, I write stuff and I'm happy enough to leave the politicing to others.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Why should software be any different from sugar?
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson wants more time for conclusive scientific study as the United States recommendations to the World Health Organization, which has the temerity to come out with outlandish and controversal dietary recommendations such as eating less sugar and more fruits and vegetables.
Other sugar-producing nations in the Americas are falling into line with this policy view. (Although I can't understand that they're very happy with the US subsidies to its domestic sugar producers.)
For those old enough to remember, this "needs more scientific study of direct causal relationship" was trotted out by the tobacco industry for a long time to combat U.S. governmental efforts to label cigarette packs.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
1. B
2. C
She does, and what I can't understand is this: IBM supports open source, and they aren't poor. Also, why didn't IBM get involved in this fight? I realize they have their hands full with SCO, but they have a lot of hands.
I don't believe in forced sharing,
Thats good, because outside of torture and interrogation chambers, there is no such thing.
Now, in a world without copyright whatsoever, there's no way you can prevent others from sharing things that you have shared. But thats not the same thing. You could call it "lack of forced sharing prevention". Doesnt sound nearly as objectionable though.
...and while all the countries on that list aren't dictators, France and Germany sure seemed to have an affinity for Saddam Hussein. Their official position was that the Baathist regime was the only legitimate government for Iraq. So, you bet, there are lots of dictatorships and dictator-friendly countries on that list (especially if it will put a thorn in the side of the US).
I've got all the Karma in the world, so you people can mod me down all to shit. I don't give a fuck. I'm tired of the words "international community" automatically being assumed to mean loving benevolent progress here when frankly, the UN and the so-called international community are a collection of gutless whining leftist states. When that's the case, I LIKE unilateral U.S. action.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Isacc Singer illegally manufactured and sold sewing machines and is now synonomys with the term. IIRC Ben Franklin stole the IP of others and published it. History is rife with people who profited from the work and innovation of others.
Information is the most powerful thing we have, absalute power corrupts (glance to M$'s marketing tactics for evidence)
Open Source has improved Windows, it has shown Microsoft how to do somethings better - as I'm sure Windows must have opened the eyes of some open source coders and made them think "I like that feature, how can I build on that concept and incorporate it into my software"; but this leads to an un-even playing field. We know that no M$ code is in Linux because we have never seen M$ code (not until recently anyways, but i'm sure Linus has downloaded it just to make sure non of it will ever appear in the kernel tree!!!) but we aren't so sure that linux code isn't in Windows, we olny have MS's word that it doesn't contain GPL'd code.
Idea's aren't created by us, they come to us from somewhere - to keep them as your own and profit from them is LAME. The real way to profit from any kind of work in the IT industry is to apply your know-how and ablity. If corporation X needs a piece of software to do a task, let them pay you to write it or support it, but don't let them own an idea. IP is just an idea after all, share them with me and I'll share mine with you... I may not have as much to give as some people but what I have is yours.
If ideas wern't shared before now, we'd have no computers and no internet on which to share ideas on. Microsoft are profiting from other people's ideas (Xerox PARC & CERN to name but two) so why shouldn't MS share what they learned and built on from them.
Ideas need to be free in the same way that people do. Freedom does't mean people can't profit from ideas, it just... if Metalic's music was freely available on the internet, they might gather more fans that would pay to see them at concerts.
It's not worth it to pay a mega corp like MS to write a piece of "free" code [even for a million bucks]...it doesn't benifit their business if they can't charge over and over for the same software...they don't make money from "development" anymore, they make money from marketing. MS and the other companies have product they can donate for essentially free but can charge for updates later[or non-charity cases]...while any funds going to OSS go to development with it being Free-er later!!!
if I give $1 million to OSS programmers I'd get $10 million of retail finished product, but it'd be released for Free to more than $10M worth of users!!! How most software companies make their money in these situations is to offer a "discount" on the $10 million down to say $2M then pay developers $.5M for the work and pocket the rest using shell compaines for services [and write off $8M] just for being "charitable". Given the profits these guys make they HAVE to donate X millon dollars of "stuff" or pay corp taxes on hundreds of millions!!! Then they can go back later and charge full-price again or "donate" again...so it's a recurring "charity" scheme too! OSS changes that because it take real $$ and turns it into usefulness...bypassing middlemen taking $$ from the system!!
Do I need the UN Mandate to download Linux? Do people in Third World countries have access to different Webservers that I do? What is preventing them from choosing OSS over commercial software? Call me stupid - I don't get it
Barr writes, in his article, "The United States position, formed at the behest of the Business Software Alliance, CompTIA, and other organizations dedicated to maintaining the status quo and curtailing the growth of free software, is that no software development methodology -- closed and proprietary versus open source -- be recommended over any other."
And later, "Shipman told me, 'The U.S. view is that we don't want to see government, or in this case, the World Summit, advocate one type of software over another.'"
In other words, the U.S. is being even-handed and supporting both closed and open source equally. But the tone of the whole article is that the Americans are anti-open-source and are pushing proprietary solutions. How is that consistent with these quotes?
You might be threatening your burgeouning software industry/IP industry by promoting open source.
Interestingly, Oracle, IBM, Novell and other software companies who promote linux don't feel as you do - perhaps there is a fatal, obvious flaw in your argument?
There are pros and cons to the use of any methodology and it is open to anyone to make a recommendation based on whatever factors they wants as to which is appropriate in a given context.
IT users should after all be smart enough to be able to work out if the recommendation is a good one. Lots of bad ones are ignored. Hell, lots of good ones are ignored.
This is a far cry from torpedoing open-source
Sure, by itself it won't and there will be no one thing that does. You think all those strategists for Business Software Alliance, CompTIA etc. are sitting round trying to think of ONE BIG IDEA to sink open source.
But it is one straw and to ensure one straw dosen't finally do it each straw should be thrown away as soon as possible.
I hate Bush. I hate capitalism. I wish we had a one world UN government run by socialists that would have the power to tax americans and also have sovereingty over the U.S.
There are three ways to get wealth: inherit it, marry it, or steal it.
Given that most of the wealthy nations of the world got that way through theft of some kind or another: colonial resources, natural (many would say aboriginal) resources, intellectual property (North America in the 19th century, witness China doing the same today) or labour (slavery or equivalents). I suspect the third world may take note of the precedent in their drive to get out of poverty.
We in the west are a little too comfy, I think, with the idea that our priveleges are entirely a product of our own innocently industrious natures. I think we are in for a painful readjustment. Even now countries like China are gathering the capability to put our currencies in the toilet. I am personally hoping it only takes stolen "intellectual" property to get the third world out of poverty.
The USA thinks it should mold the world to its image....
Who said anything specifically about linux? I'm talking about open source as a WHOLE.
If there was an open source product that was competitive with Oracle you bet your ASS they'd be Fudding it out of existence (or rather, TRYING to fud it).
So the flaw in your comment is that you are comparing apples and potatos. IBM sells hardware and services (yeah, they sell AIX (Which I love, BTW) but as evidenced by their lack of low-end server boxes* (not talking about the intel re-badges, I mean their POWER3 and POWER4 chip monsters) they don't care to get their OS out to everyone- just the ones who can afford their boxes) And Oracle sell software and services.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Sure it sounds great, but when major corporations are running Linux with free applications like office suites, billing systems, CRM systems, ERP systems, etc. it's great for them, but where's the money for you?
In the maintenance you say, in the implementation? Yeah, right, that will get shipped overseas where the labor is cheap and all you'll be left with is your copy of Linux without the money to pay for your DSL connection.
The free software idiots will put you out of a job. Anybody that works on creating free software is working on their own demise, whether they want to believe it or not.
"they want to make the world safe for capitalism."
The submitter says this as if it's a bad thing! Of course America wants to make the world safe for capitalism; we fought a fscking Cold War to defeat communism. Whether or not open source is the best way to go about it another question, but I'm glad my government is protecting capitalism.
What I don't understand is why people here think that "protecting capitalism" is a good thing.
If capitalism is such an efficient economic formation, why does it require such protectionist policies (such as employed by US)?
This situation is not unique to the software industry. US representatives actively protect IP rights of large multinational pharmaceutical companies, which is, without a doubt, a major factor in AIDS pandemic in Africa. Another industry that will not make without the help of US politicians is biotech.
US, WTO and World Bank have been pushing similiar policies for many years and US policy on WSIS is just their logical continuation.
She told me how they solicited and received public input, including letters from the U.S. Chamber of International Business and the Business Software Alliance.
This is public input? No, these are interested parties, with huge axes to grind on this very issue. I thought public input meant a consensus of the people, NOT biased opinions from those who stood to profit or lose from the issue. Maybe I'm wrong.
Its not really they want to make the world safe for capitalism. since that implys free market. Its that they want it safe for the 'good-old-boy' network that has been built up.
Virtually, Edward Wolpert
Adam Smith would be appalled and horrified what his name and ideas have been attached to in today's American economy. It is far, far from being a free market. In a free market, there would be no such thing as patents and infinite copyright, and there would scarcely be licensing, trademarks, and all the many, many other implements the U.S. government uses to restrict free trade and reward current players in the economy.
No, what we have in the United States is crony capitalism, plain and simple. Even the blindest Miltonian economist can see that, and many of them have recently said so.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I noticed a fair amount of interpretation going on in this article. Since the UN document seemed rather vague on some points ("Nowhere in the WSIS documents was it deemed permissible to state the obvious: that free/open source software is the logical choice in achieving affordable solutions."), I had to wonder if there was a hidden agenda by the UN going on. Maybe it's just me, but when I read, "harness the potential of knowledge and technology" and "find effective and innovative ways to put this potential at the service of development for all.", I immediately wondered if they were going to give free copies of proprietary software to third-world counties. The arguement would probably be "you're depriving them of software that they can't afford anyway". The comparison to prescription drugs (which, by the way, US companies have agreed to the production of generics in other countries - despite what the article says) didn't make me feel any better because third world countries are clearly ignoring the very idea of intellectual property in creating generics. The only reason it is allowed to happen is because people are dying. On the other hand, software is not a life-or-death product like AIDS drugs. But, by putting them in the same category it makes me think that their thinking is somewhere along the lines that "we should be allowed to ignore software intellectual property rights just like we ignore drug patent intellectual property rights". The two are not the same thing.
My suspicions are only heightened by quotes like this: "We are also fully aware that the benefits of the information technology revolution are today unevenly distributed between the developed and developing countries and within societies. We are fully committed to turning this digital divide into a digital opportunity for all, particularly for those who risk being left behind and being further marginalized." They never actually say it, but I have to wonder if the unspoken next statement is "and that's way we are giving developing nations free copies of this proprietary software".
What confuses me is the seeming inability for administrations to resort to more rational compromises instead of steamrolling everything.
In the Disney/copyright case, it would have made much more sense to tinker with the copyright renewal process than to extend all copyrights accross the board, including the ones that nobody cares about anymore. There used to be a perfectly good copyright renewal process, described here, that was amended to provide "automatic renewal", probably to cut down on administration costs as much as everything else.
For whatever reason everyone's now decided to focus on simply extending the copyright term for everything instead of requiring those who actually still want to enforce their copyright to actively say so. This means that lots of derelict and abandoned work is simply disappearing because projects such as Project Gutenberg aren't allowed to save them.
This just in...
US represents own interests in the UN while other nations do the same! Sometimes these interests are in conflict!
Film at 11.
The United States position, formed at the behest of the Business Software Alliance, CompTIA, and other organizations dedicated to maintaining the status quo and curtailing the growth of free software, is that no software development methodology -- closed and proprietary versus open source -- be recommended over any other.
So, the US advocates that open and closed source software be allowed to compete, the UN wants to advocate open source across the board without taking into account the particular situation or product and the US is the bad guy? Reading some of your comments, you'd almost think that the US was advocating the elimination of open source software from consideration, but it's not! Quite the opposite - the UN wants to eliminate closed source software from consideration. So who's promoting fair competition?
Not long ago I was wondering: is there anything else the USA can do to lose even more of whatever respect the world has left for the country? I mean, nuking the disarmament treaties, wasting the Rio agreements, making international law a thing of the past, invading sovereign countries on a whim, driving foreign brains away, censoring science, obliterating the country's economy, wrecking NATO, creating a planetary wave of terrorism, driving countries to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty... that's quite a record for less than 4 years. Man, how can you beat that?
Well, I guess they'll always find a way.
``L'imagination au povoir.''
You forgot the fourth way - create it. This is what America does so well, and what socialists do so poorly, perhaps because they buy into blather like yours.
I'd do my best to sack one that did otherwise.
>>>>truth; beauty; unix.<<<<
Sheesh. I was just thanking our lucky stars that open source software has the wherewithall to wander around neutered organizations like the UN and the US Gov. "Open Source's Local Heroes" | The Economist "Se Abla Open Source?" | c|net
OpenOffice has evolved...have you?
"You'd think open source software would be a natural for many UN member countries."
You'd also think it was obvious that torpedoing a UN information summit wasn't a big deal if open source is so natural to everybody. Sounds like a huge waste o' time and money to me. Do you really need to 'summit' something like this?
Unless, of course, the open source movement is actually weaker than you say it is. And no, that's not a flame.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
But the governments HAVE to get involved to regulate the markets and prevent abuses of power, monopolies, etc. There no such thing as an absolute unregulated market in this planet. When there is no government control it's called a war zone.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
But NewsForge's Joe Barr discovered that the US is driving policy for the organization, and its official position is that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'; in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism."
/.ers, disagree with the statement that OSS gets in the way of profits. OSS certainly requires a different business model to generate revenue, (duh) but from an economic perspective, it isn't any better or worse than proprietary software.
Obviously, Capitalism is the economic system which works the best i.e. it provides the best chance for a given nation to operate on it's production possibilities curve (yeah...econ101) and therefore provide the highest standard of living for the people.
I, like most
I do not however like the negative spin that you are putting on Capitalism. Achieving a decent standard of living with plentiful food, medical care, and economic and political stability cannot be achieved as well with any other system; Capitalism has emerged as the clear winner. Degrading this most efficient system because it's not always associated with your views on software licensing is just foolish.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
"The UN something or other agency is bound to fail" and I thought "good". Death to the UN.
Heres the context of the quoted passage:
Except the US government is only making the world safer for corporatism instead.
Capitalism GOOD. Corporatism BAD.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
Many monopolies exist due to gov't protection of monopolistic companies. The oil and railroad indutries are pretty good examples. When someone would rise up against these companies the gov't would send in the troops to protect their interests. When a union would strike a major industry, you would never hear the gov't tell the company to give them(the union) what they want. They always order the employees back to work. Now they can protect these companies with IP.
What?
"Until we stop having this survival of the fittest idealogy"==Darwin.
That's what happens when a nation believes in Evolution (aka survival of the fittest) and it's principles.
I'm not willing to say that there are no cases where government regulation of the market is necessary, but they are few and very far between. In most cases, givernment regulation serves to create a monopoly. They must then step in and regulate the monopoly they created to prevent abuses. Without government regulation in the first place, there would be no issue.
The function of government is to protect the rights of the individual. Without that protection, there may very well be a "war zone." But in a situation where my rights are protected; where I have the right to own property and freely enter into contracts, and where there is a legal mechanism in place to enforce the mutually agreed upon contracts, little or nothing else is required of the government for a healthy, fuctioning market. It is when the government begins to meddle in the nature of the contracts that problems arise. Even market abuses are almost always worked out without govenrment intervention. For example, many people would agree that MS has abused it's market position. Most would also agree that, despite investigation and lots of lip service, the govenrment has done next to nothing to correct those abuses. (Some of us, even those who dislike MS's tactics, would say that that's a good thing.) Yet we can already see MS's dominance start to falter. The market is correcting the situation. It may not be happening as fast as some people would like, but it is happening.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Copyright and patents are meant to bring knowlege into the public domain, not to perpetuate monopolistic gouging.
>>>>truth; beauty; unix.<<<<
This is not capitalist vs socialist or communist. This is about the public money being spent on something that cannot be controled by the public. Even Microsoft can be made to understand that when a public office buys a software product, the public buys a service that must be public for the good of the public. The government should not spend more money than absolutely necessary (that's a laugh) this means that if a PDF reader is bought from Adobe, there must be a way to read PDF files even if Adobe goes under and the software becomes unavailable for the new machines, possibly for a different OS in a few years. PDF should be an open standard, at minimum, at best Adobe would give the government the source code for the sold software.
In a government, where it is everyone's money, these money must not be wasted, and many times buying closed source software could become a waste.
So, get with the program, you, proprietary corporations, if you want to sell to governments - sell open source software.
This is not about communism vs capitalism, this is about your money.
You can't handle the truth.
I don't know about you guys, but when I see a single company which controls 96% of the desktop market, about 50% of the low- to mid-end server market, and has an awful security record (from the standpoint of evidence, not design) I don't see a wonderful example of capitalism in action.
/. before, Capitalism and the Free Market are not the same thing. Microsoft is a great example of Capitalism in action. They took some capital, and using labour and energy, they increased it.
Although this has been hashed out of
What Microsoft is not a wonderful example of is free market economics. In an environment where politicians looked out for the free-market rather than capitalism, Microsoft would hardly be the monopoly abuser that it is today. This is a symptom of the market moving faster than bureaucratic processes, allowing Microsoft to use illegal (but hard to recognize for a bureaucrat), tactics to eliminate competition early in the companies life.
Now that competition has come in the form of Linux, and Microsoft can no longer use unethical or illegal tactics effectively against the competition, it wants the government to assist them in anti-competitive behaviour. And as the US government is a government for the corporations, of the corporations and by the corporations, it's doing it's best to lend a hand.
>>
I am the director, and this is my movie
I'm not denying it but I think you are viewing it only in your own country way.
We have government created monopolies in the name of free market, just for full pockets of a few. Telephones, gas are examples in my country. But as worst are the cases in which the government just makes what we call a "free zone", no regulation nor control. Again, corrupt governments in action. Then they say that free market will regulate itself, etc.
In my experience, the market doesn't correct anything for you, and people doesn't have power to influence big companies, so the state should act as representatives of consumer and defend our rights. If your customer is important you may be more willing to treat him well. The government must act as representative of all customer to get better conditions for us. The companies can defend themselves very well. I'm not talking centralized economy here. Just regulated capitalism, as is in first world.
Believe me, we tried no regulations and State on companies side and it wasn't any good.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
They should talk directly to the Open Source community, not the US Government Corporate. We don't need Government permission.
:v)
Vik
"t's about stopping (well, trying to stop) bullies from kicking about outside of their borders."
Tell me you're not that naive.
There is no "international communities", there are simply interest that coicide at the moment.
France Russia and Germany were against US destruction of the Baathist regime because they had large contracts with Sadaam. That's a legitimate position, but lets not wrap it up in humanitarian concern.
It was business that led the US to invade. It was *BUSINESS* that had most of the EU against the invasion.
If you think it had anything to do with "human rights", then you're the 2nd dumbest person on the planet.
"Open Source would drastically lower the barrier to entry for pretty much any country looking to develop an information technology regime"
Complete and utter bullshit. If this was the dynomite you think it was, then every frickin' country would be rushing to embrace Linux and open source.
And its not happening that way. SO either the US is so good at closet diplomacy that they're forcing every country to act against their own self-interest, of you're full of shit.
Which is more likely?
You do realize that the most powerful country in the UN is the US itself, right? The UN is largely a political tool used by the US to enforce its will on others with the air of international legitimacy.
You know, I went one step beyond RTFA and clicked the link to the actual WSIS declaration of principles here:
1 16 1|1160.asp
http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_multi-en-
I think the article by Barr misrepresents what the WSIS declaration says. At best, he's confusing what the declaration actually says with what the US representatives may have wanted it to say (or at least what *he* thinks they wanted it to say!). The declaration includes plain language about
1. The importance of public domain: "A rich public domain is an essential element for the growth of the Information Society, creating multiple benefits such as an educated public, new jobs, innovation, business opportunities, and the advancement of sciences. Information in the public domain should be easily accessible to support the Information Society, and protected from misappropriation."
2. The role of open source: "Access to information and knowledge can be promoted by increasing awareness among all stakeholders of the possibilities offered by different software models, including proprietary, opensource and free software, in order to increase competition, access by users, diversity of choice, and to enable all users to develop solutions which best meet their requirements."
3. The only mention of Intellectual Property in the declaration is followed by noting the importance of knowledge dissemination: "Intellectual Property protection is important to encourage innovation and creativity in the Information Society; similarly, the wide dissemination, diffusion, and sharing of knowledge is important to encourage innovation and creativity."
But who am I to spoil the fun of everyone straw-manning the declaration?
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
if a PDF reader is bought from Adobe, there must be a way to read PDF files even if Adobe goes under and the software becomes unavailable for the new machines, possibly for a different OS in a few years. PDF should be an open standard, at minimum,
PDF is an open format. The specs are there for anyone to write his own reader or writer. I agree with your point, but you picked a bad example.
Not that i know of.
The CIA doesnt run the camp in Guantanamo bay, its a different branch of your government that does that.
The US is an internation dictator.
I am sure that the Nigerians could pick up the slack.
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
well with this hole iraq thing we all know the last thing the yanks want is to better the world. so i say we just keep them out of it, by it i mean every thing, the seas the sky, the internet, space, cos as we all know they have a wonderful habit of putting there noises in where they like the smell only to find out that they are not really as wanted or needed. as for any kind of UN deal, well we all know how they regard that. lets have them sine Geneva convention, Kyoto convention and one that is yet to be made up about being annoying and how to pick a ruler.
:)
note to the yanks, yes you may not like what i am saying but i know a lot of people that do
Actually, it is the current US government that has been shown to be a farce in the Iraq war, with their exagerated claims, and as a final humiliation, ending up begging the UN to clean up their mess in Iraq afterwards.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Well, we have at least these meanings:
The U.S. has installed a non stop cavalcade of ruthless dictators since the end of World War II
Get it right. We've been taking over countries a lot longer than that pal. We've been running Central American since Theodore Roosevelt was in office.
Wsis created a lot of papers that will cause UN action on that field. I suggest everybody of you to accredit to the secon phase in tunis and represent your country in your civil society caucus.
Free Software was very influential on WSIS. Brazil put the WIPO and TRIPS agreement references out, i think that may be of greater importance.
There are other persons that already understood that Open Source is about 2100 century information infrastructure. So what Free Software has to invest even more in good diplomacy and lobbying.
Free code, free internet access, free almost everything! Reporters would be the first to preach this, after they are paid.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
The US neo-cons see the UN as a rival to their own of agenda of a US imperial world government.
The idea of global issues being managed by an organisation in which all countries are represented is anathema to them, they want the US to be in a position to dictate it's terms upon the world.
Adam Smith addressed wealth creation over two centuries agp. He stated that the true source of wealth for a nation is the effort and inventiveness of its people. There are many examples today of nations with relatively few natural resources that generate enormous wealth.
You've fallen into the fallacy of the "zero sum game", that the only way to get rich is to take wealth from someone else. Modern economics, which you appear entirely innocent of, says that most situations, particularly when people are free to follow their own self interest, are win-win. People buy products because both they and the manufactorer are better for to. Someone agrees to work for someone else because it improves the lot of both. Two countries agree to trade with each other without restriction because they are both richer for it (something Lou Dobbs should keep in mind).
You see everything as exploitation. You see everything as winner vs. loser. You should, perhaps, grow up.
By the way, U.S. patents last 20 years from the data of first filing, That is far short of eternity.
Well then, this request shouldn't be a problem. Please provide factual support for the following points: Fact 1: Thousands of Iraqis killed by US occupation. Please provide support. How about throwing in some facts about Saddam's mass graves while we are at it. Fact 2: WMDs. Just because we can't find any now, doesn't mean that there weren't or aren't any. Bio seed stocks fit on a shirt pocket. Look at David Kay's testimony (Hint: He believes that the weapons existed even though we can't find any). Fact 3: What's this with the FBI being invited to verify anything? Saddam remained defiant until the end. Fact 4: Saddam's regime was known for its meticulous record-keeping (Hint: its necessary for centralized dictatorships obsessed with control). Yet there was no evidence of WMD descruction because Saddam couldn't provide evidence? Fact 4: No terrorists. Yet there was evidence of terrorist camps even before we invaded. How did that happen? Fact 5: World good will. As far as I can tell the only countries that have ill will against the US were those who opposed the war to begin with. I don't think that France, Germany and a few others which have always been historically anti-American comprise the entire world. Yeah, some facts!
'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'
Eh, maybe I'm dense, but so frigging what?
It's not like making profit is the meaning of life, you know? As we're talking about the US here, could someone check where in the Constitution the word "profit" appears?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I did not intend to insult true leftist lunatic anti-American activists. And either way, my chief complain is his inability to keep his political-hack op-ed out of news based stories. If I wanted to listen to his crap, I'd still post at Kuro5hin.
Yes, damn those asskissing bastards in France, sucking up to their American masters.
The only reason some permanent members of the Security Council attempted to veto the Second Gulf War is that it didn't meet their economic and political interests (although I agree with the ends they were trying for, I am a realist about their intent). And all permanent members except China have a vested interested in the macroeconomic status quo -- in that they want they poor countries to stay poor. Ultimately the UN reflects the desires of its member governments rather than some intrinsic goal of progress and human rights.
I believe the reason that in the first 45 years the member governments were more altruistic and idealistic and therefore limited the General Assembly to serious resolutions. Since the end of the Cold War, the WTO has supplanted the UN.
Lets have some brainstorming: is there any way that the open source community itself (rather than a sometimes aligned company like IBM) could fund their own lobbyists?