Slashdot Mirror
LUG Pres Resigns Over Military Linux Use
Joe Barr writes "NewsForge is carrying the news that the founder and president of Linux Users Los Angeles (LULA) has resigned because of his opposition to the war in Iraq and the U.S. Armed Forces' use of Linux."
Blaming the tool again...
This person appears to have the thinking skills of a duck. He stops supporting Linux because the Military in using it,
but he still uses the internet which the military helped fund and currently uses.
Is he serious about his outrage or is he just being selective in his outrage and trying to play his leaving the LUG
into an opportunity to get a better job with one of the LA antiwar groups?
As a final note, having Iraq be free is important to our National Defence because, regardless of what those in DC say,
part of the war in Iraq is securing access to vital resources for the American Economy. In other words oil.
It seems like he was going to leave anyway, and decided to throw on a war protest while he was writing his resignation.
But... but Darl said Linux was a terrorist OS!
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Applaud his right to express his opinions.
Even if they are stupid.
Ain't America great!
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I'm glad they're starting a LUG in Baghdad and I'm glad Hussein is gone. I just don't think it had to cost maybe 20K Iraqi lives and how many Americans' so far.
He's glad Hussein is gone, but thought it cost too many lives? I wonder what "cheaper" plan he would have suggested that still got rid of Saddam. At least he's not one of those people who think Iraq was better off with Saddam in power. What are the mass grave numbers up to now? 300,000 bodies?
boo hoo.... bloody hippy...
In the military, there will be high tech and software involved anyway. Traditionally army investing in certain product will only do good things to consumers, since there is no way army or anyone else can misuse Linux the way its not intended to - to serve people - under GPL!
Due to the military's blatant use of water and air, i have decided to, as a stand against oppresion and Bush's agenda of oil, stop using both. this will, in all likelyhood, be my last slashdot comment. ::holds breath:: ::falls over:: asjdhflaksjdhfoiausydf9-8qwefijsndflakjndclkajd
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
So, let me get this straight. He is an advocate for Linux and wants people to adopt it but when the military adopts it he become outraged. Doesn't this seem like a contradiction????
Evolution or ID?
Ok - so despite anyone's feelings on the war in Iraq, let's face it - the military has to use SOMETHING in it's systems. Shouldn't our brave men and women at least have something reliable like linux? You'd think the linux community would be proud that linux is so reliable that the military uses it.
Would you rather they use windows?
does this guy think that the war is ABOUT linux? Or has he just been looking for a far-out, almost non-related reason to quit all along?
hamburgers, sauces, pasta, pants, shoes, hats, air, water, fuel, cars, robotics, radar, computers, blah blah blah.
Silly move dude.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
Electricity is helping the war machine!
I've resigned from my subscription to Penthouse when I got married. And there was no press release on Slashdot.
Honestly, who cares? The guy has strong feelings about the war in Iraq. And just because he runs a LUG his opinion is God's word?
The blood of tens of thousands of Iraqis is now on the hands of anyone who has ever booted a linux kernel. This includes owners of certain Linksys products, ReplayTV, and any other consumer devices that rely on embedded linux, as well as anyone who has ever watched one of the more recent Pixar films that was rendered on clusters of linux computers.
It's time to repent for the atrocity that we have all committed.
Amazing magic tricks
Seems to me the guy's complaining about a primary aspect of the GPL -- that there are no restriction as to who can use the software.
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Add an extra clause denying military use of GPL'd software
A premise for freedom, software freedom inlucuded, is that it is for everybody. You can't have "freedom, except for those I don't like". That kind of discrimination is actually incompatible with the GPL.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
So would he rather have them all running Windows? I'm confused.
This person is mixing up a specific political view with the use of free software. The good thing about free software is that there can be no restrictions on who may use it. I do not neccessarily agree with the war on Iraq, but limiting software licences to those who agree with my standpoint would be a bad way to express my opinion. There are many other ways to do that. Plus, if this would become common practice, we'd have to prepare ourselves for a hard time. Checking for all software you use whether the author included some kind of usage constraint would be very tedious. Imagine the situation where for example the Apache Group would say: "we're pro the war on Iraq, so who's against can not use our webserver to promote that standpoint". Very undesireable of course. Please don't mix up politics and free software.
Isn't the idea of free software that anyone can use it...even if you don't like what they're doing with it?
well done. all my appreciation.
dumbass
/. ?
Why is this even posted on
Isn't it? I mean, Linux is free software, so pretty much everyone is allowed to use it, even Al Quaeda, the US military, the Mafia and all the child molesters out there. And if you don't like that state of affair, tough luck.
I don't think this resignation is going to achieve much.
Which reminds me of Theo De Raadt saying that OpenBSD could even be incorporated into "baby-mulching machines"... It's about the same here, as the GPL does not prevent anyone from using Linux.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
And carry on bombing the Allies?
.. brought to you by Microsoft :)
Friendly fire
Linux, because the DoD uses it, is now bad.
The internet, that the same DoD uses, is ok because it lets him IM people to get his message out.
He is job hunting for a job amoung the antiwar groups in his area.
Its really just another way of saying, "Well things are going the way I want them to, so I'm gonna quit."
Don't give up, fight for what you believe in until you can't fight anymore because someone else stops you.
I understand that there is a human side of this, I know that there are probably a large number of people that know this guy and are going to say what a nice person he is. I have never met him, and I won't argue that, however I still feel as though his reasons for resigning are all the wrong ones and probably shouldn't make national news.
The whole point behind the licensing used for Linux is that anyone can take and make use of the same tools. Its the same concept that inspired PGP. You have to release something into the open so that everyone can use it. That means that the people that you don't want to use it have the same access to it as the people you do want to use it. The philosophy here is that at least the people that you do want to use it can.
"Everybody knows the moon's made of cheese," Wallace.
he should stop paying taxes as well. Taxes fund the military.
Anyone who would quit something (in other words, remove himself from a position to make a positive difference) because of something so far disconnected from the role that he quit is making an excuse.
It's cowardice, and quite frankly blaming his dislike of fellow LUG members on military linux use is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. When I saw this article I checked the calendar to see if it was already April 1st again.
Amazing magic tricks
This is like saying you will step down as the head of a screwdriver & hammer manufacturing company because you are against the war in Iraq and you oppose the military's use of screwdrivers & hammers.
Are the articles that lean this morning?
Big deal! Sounds like a rather idiotic way to protest. I mean he advocates something and then gets upset because some people he doesn't like starts using it? Screw him I say. I say that because A) I like when anyone start's using linux and B) I'm a Marine.
Derek Greene
Only at Smith or Mount Holyoke College in general, or any university if they want to get an "A" in "Women's Studies".
Politics & the war in Iraq aside, he raises an interesting question. As I understand the GPL, a company can do whatever they want to do with Linux. The only restriction is that IF they redistribute their changes outside the company, they must distribute the source code.
Am I correct in assuming that if the military takes Linux & changes it, they don't need to publish anything if they keep it internal?
How about a fresh Diebold story?
Links here
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I wish there was such a LUG. I'd be happy just to watch...
And, protest the U.S. military? Better to protest the sunshine. You have a better chance of getting rid of it.
Enjoy your fifteen minutes, there, buddy.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
John.
Though he claims some dramatic reason for his departure,
...I will still participate in the LUG, just let new leadership come to the fore.
...you have to say that a body of work worth billions of dollars has been created and placed in the public trust. The LUGs can and should be the trustees or guardians that trust.
"Wasn't it nice that so many smart people worked to hard for free to forge their own chains."
it sounds like he just wanted out of the job:
After all, he believes,
So on one hand he is disappointed in how Linux is being used, that he has a vision for the right way Linux should be used, and that LUGs should be the ones to ensure the right way is followed, and on the other hand he's stepping down as head of a LUG. In other words, "I believe it's groups like mine that should lead the way, therefore I'm quitting as leader of the group."
From my (admitedly limited) experience with them, Military brass doesn't particularly like loosing their men, especially for BS
Whether or not it seems like a reasonable justifcation to you to leave the LUG, he might have genuinely felt that advocating Linux was leading to developers with good intentions being exploited by the military who use it for facilitating their killing. It is newsworthy as it shows good people in the community are getting fed up with being taken advantage of, and having their work used for purposes that go against their ethics.
after that he will be looking for a job for a long long time.
Who the heck would want to hire him. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot
I think Stallman and the rest of the Free Software leadership understood the ramifications of free software: that both people you like and people you don't like will be able to use it.
This guy has every right to resign, of course; but hopefully his views ring hollow to the rest of the free software supporters. He is advocating that people with some control use their power to limit the freedoms of others. It's as anti-freedom as the Patriot Act. You can't honestly call your software "free" if you are picking and choosing who can use it. Just as in free speech where no one has the right to silence unpopular opinions only because they are unpopular, no one has the right to decide who can use Linux and who can't. Military, nuns, terrorists, martians: as long as you meet the terms of the GPL (or whatever free license), you can use it.
. . . free as in Freedom.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
Now, if we could only get Bill to do the same thing...
Dawn of the Dead
The best thing about Free Software is that everyone can use it. The worst thing about Free Software is that everyone can use it. You can't have it both ways; when you start restricting when and how something is used, it ceases to be Free.
This guy is either a hypocrite, or he's very stupid. I doubt he's stupid, which leaves only one option. Opposing the war in Iraq is fine, but I suggest that those who wish to protest it do so in productive ways, rather than hypocritical, meaningless token gestures.
I am sorry, he may be the nicest guy in the world, and could even be Linus' long lost twin brother, but what an idiot.
What does GPL software have to do with the war in Iraq? What does the military's use of Linux have to do with anything related to Iraq?
Nothing.
Sorry, but if you really want to protest something, and involve Linux, then protest China. Sorry, but China has one of the worst human rights records of modern history, and is also, on a national level, one of the largest proponenets of Linux development and use in the world.
But no, Heaven forbid someone he doesnt like uses Linux. Those damned military guys! they should all use SCO UnixWare instead! (evil grin)
Get a grip... there are far more important things to protest/worry about, and do you really think that ANYONE outside a very small group (compared to the rest of the populace of the US) will care that the president of LULA resigned because the Military likes Linux?
Sorry, but while I do have great respect for people with convictions, I liave little respect for people who do the wrong things for attention.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
I really get upset with people like this.
So far some of the highest moderation post agree with me but I am some here on slashdot will foam at the mouth that linux could be used by the military. Why don't they stop using all the Tech developed by the military too because you know it might be used to kill people. So do me a favor moron and get of the internet.(Developed by the military.)
It's all Politics
I work for the Corps of Engineers and we love it. And I was against the war too.....
Looks like someone has a problem with the First Amendment. Free Speech means that it is free for whoever for whatever. They do their thing, you do yours, I'll do mine. We can all be happy.
I suppose that the next story will be someone quit because an abortion doctor uses linux.
Or maybe a Democrat?
How about a child porn website hosted on Linux?
You don't have to like free speech, but you do have to live with it...
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
what an idiot. That's ok, I gave up on open source and wholly endorse closed source now and strongly encourage others to do the same. Yep after 15 years of Unix then Linux, I switched to Windows.
No problem with the logic... America knew sadam was an evil man before they put him in power. The Bush parents had no idea thier son was going to be an idiot.
Meh.
In the old Amiga days you could very often find "Military use prohibited" clauses in the licenses the public domain software came with.
e.g. one of the popular terminal-emulaters had this, it was called just "term" iirc.
Personally I like this - I wouldn't like it if my software was used for non pacifist usages.
Yet another example of micropolitics in action. That is taking every conceivable act one does, breathing, eating, talking about the weather, being a Linux User Group member, walking or not walking on the cracks on the sidewalk and adjusting one's behaviour based on some pedantic notion that one's choices in these minor manners is having some kind of political impact.
It's kind of an obsessive compulsive form of political activism and the net effect is to annoy the crap out of everyone and make one's political beliefs look silly.
That is all I have to say.
Take your ball, and go play somewhere else you whiny little brat.
Can I get this in a 12' poster? Maybe a T-Shirt?
Or Finland perhaps? Or Europe, or Africa, or Asia, or South America? Do you think everyone involved with Linux is from the USA?
so it goes.
lookout bullow.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators..... unprecedented evile does not know how to use (fears) the unbreakable newclear powered kode base anyway. see you there?
That's right, you won't find any because there's no such thing as an illegal war. We don't have to answer to anybody for defending ourselves and our interests. Especially to that asylum run by the inmates, the UN.
good by, good ridance! Thats what happens when your stuff is good and cheap, the millitary uses it.
-Polyhead-
The decision of the American Military forces to adapt their technology to Linux does make me wonder what is going on in the headquarters of SCO. Since the choice has been made by the Army, perhaps the conversations over at the SCO headquarters are similar to this one.
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -- Linus Torval
The article seems to state that his reasons for leaving the LUG weren't so much based on the military's use of Linux but rather (to quote directly) "My one regret is that more and more it has become an insular collection of geeks that can get along just fine without me." Perhaps someone got left out of a discussion or two, or doesn't understand why he's not being called on to make ALL of the decisions. Sounds more like pouting than any real political or moral beliefs.
for the latest killer app on linux???
You got politics in my science.
It took a real world war to end the airplane's patent wars. - Fâché Rouge -
I can't believe this made slashdot. If I switch my personal PC from linux to windows will that be /. worthy?
I guess if you submit it, they will come.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
and nobody cared? Seriously, why would anyone outside of Slashdot give a rats ass that some LUG President resigned over...well, anything?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
...almost everyone is going on about how this is a stupid move. Maybe I'm one of the first to be able to say I support his decision. Not because it'll make any changes to the problems he sees, but because he's willing to remove himself from a position which forced him to violate his own sense of what's right. Too many people, when put it a position of power, become all of the sudden willing to go against everything they believe in so they can keep their jobs.
Furthermore, it seems to be that his primary reson for quiting is not the war-related aspect, but rather how the focus of many linux-users has shifted away from trying to improve humanity via things such as more secure and affordable computing, and shifted to a more "Hey, let's find a way to make us geeks look cool to the public." And as a whole, I tend to agree with this, or at least see where he's coming from.
Also, on the war side of the issue, what's wrong with saying 'I don't want a tool that I've spent years of my life helping develop to be used to kill people in a war I don't even support.' He's not trying to sue the government or anything like that, or even calling for other people to protest with him, he's simply removing himself from a position which forces him to go against his own principles.
Ah well, there's my two yen worth.
So when I started looking for a job, I excluded companies having products with a specific military use. I would never work on developing a missile guidance system, for example.
However, you can hardly avoid to work with a company whose product can not be used by the army, even if (let's say) it makes strawberry jam the army may be among its customers.
The same with Linux. I would not work on a feature specifically interesting for the army, but if the army uses Linux I couldn't worry about that.
Besides, I like to think that the international cooperation in projects like Linux, or OpenOffice.org, helps to create understanding between people in different corners of the world. If more people would communicate and cooperate in this way, maybe we wouldn't have so many wars.
You're all saying what a dork etc he is for getting so het up about this, or for quitting his job, but everyone seems to be overlooking the dorkiest fact of all: HE WAS PRESIDENT OF A LINUX USER GROUP.
He probably just got a girlfriend and has to drive her somewhere on Thursday nights.
I see the usual political naivety from the Slashdot posts and mods on this issue. RTFA.
"I don't think that Linux should be used for killing and I don't really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL."
That's all it takes. One person has decided that he does not like the idea of supporting the Pentagon while it engages in what he considers an unjust and immoral war. He hopes that his stance will cause people to think about that instead of blindly accepting their "war masters" reasons and justifications.
He is to be applauded.
Leave your insults at the recruiters office.
cheers
front
You know Linux isn't just for leftie puritins ...
War is started by politicans, not the people in the country. To wish harm on anyone is wrong you chicken shit mother fucker.......
...so I can post such an abrupt response.
Pussy.
That's all.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
You are new here, right?
Even if you take at face value his statement that 20k Iraqi civilians have died during the combat, the fact is that Saddam was planning to execute at least 70k people.
So, military intervention has saved about 50k lives. Not bad, IMHO.
Come on people, this guy is a genius, we really should stop using EVERYTHING the military is using. As of today I'm going to give up my car because it has a GPS navigation system, television because they play their recruiting commercials on them, coffee because they package it in the soldiers MREs, T-Shirts because I think the Navy invented them, and all of my computers because the military uses them too!!!
If we want Linux to be as common place as cars, TVs, T-Shirts, and coffee, we'll have to accept the fact that someone you may not like for whatever reason may use them too. The LUG is lucky this guy is leaving, what a jag! Oops, there I go again, JAG is a term used in the Navy too. Damn that military!
Sheesh, I can't believe I actually replied to this topic...
Blame the fuckwit politicos who got control of the country (and the voters^w justices who handed it to them). AFAICT, the top military brass doesn't like what's been going on any more than some of us 'liberals' do.
I couldn't agree with you more and am amazed that your post is currently marked "troll".
Members of the US military do not get to pick and choose their assignments.
The don't get a letter in the mail that says:
"Gee guys, we're going to war. Anyone who wants to help can, but feel free not to show up if you don't like it."
(Or at least everyone but Bush doesn't. For some reason no one cares that he deserted. You or I would go to jail.)
My point is: Don't blame some poor marine for the war they're fighting.
Unfortunately many people don't get it. Back when I was going to college in Ithaca, NY there were a number of protests in front of local military offices. One of the officers wrote a letter to the editor expressing pretty much this sentiment:
We (the military) did not choose to fight this war, your elected representatives did. You should be protesting in front of their offices, not mine. Why work at demoralizing people who've signed on to protect your life with theirs and have no choice, when you could protest those who actually made the decision?
Life is too short to proofread.
The guy sounds a little confused. He thinks the creation of the Internet, GPS satellites, and SELinux by the DoD is a good thing. But then he's ashamed of going to LUG meetings because of what's going on in Iraq. He's just using his status of being a president of a LUG to get some attention to voice his opinions. It's too bad he points to Linux and tries to use it as his excuse.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
> Shouldn't our brave men and women at least have something reliable like linux?
The Al-Qaida uses windows (and doors).
sure sounds French / Spanish to me...
Oh Great! I started using linux cause I thought that would make people think I'm smart, so much for that...
So this guy admits that what the NSA has done with Linux in the form of SE Linux is a boon to Linux. But they should not use it. Does the word hypocrite mean anything to you?
And since when does Linux have anything to do with government policy, or the war in Iraq? If they didn't use Linux, they'd use HP-UX, or Solaris, or Windows, or anything else. Has the thought even occurred to him that perhaps the reason we've lost so few men and women to this point is due to superior equipment, some of which is running Linux, some of which could be pruchased because several hundred million dollars in licensing some other OS was not required?
You're LUG sucks. BOOHOO, let us blame the war in Iraq because it is so convenient. Wake up. It has nothing, NOTHING, NOTHING to do with the war in Iraq. Honest to God, there is nothing I hate more than whiny metro-sexual types declaring the doom of mankind because a war broke out. War has been waged since the dawn of time. The only difference now is that a vile dictator may have been justly removed from a position to opress his people. The answer as to whether it really was just, is what the US et al do next. Hopefully establish and nurture a government that will help the nation prosper. But we'll see. Hell, maybe they'll even use Linux to set up the new technology infrastructure.
But these two things, Linux and War in Iraq, have little if anything to do with each other.
First, I'll get the nitpicking out of the way. There is no war in Iraq unless congress formally declares war, which hasn't happened. I believe the correct term for this is "conflict".
Next, even if it had been a war, it's now over. Certainly there is a bunch of shit happening over there, but it's not exactly warfare. So, what exactly is this guy opposed to? This isn't the 1890s, guys. Our soldiers aren't over there raping the women and stealing everything they can find as war trophies. They're trying to keep some semblance of peace, and make sure that when we leave, the same fuckheads who ran that country into the ground (Saddam and his cronies) don't take over immediately. Would you rather these soldiers pack up and leave tomorrow?
Are you expecting some bright and shiny, miraculous UN coalition force to take over maybe? Did you forget that whenever such UN forces have any teeth, it's because US soldiers make up a majority of that force?
I was, and still am opposed to the idea of pre-emptively invading Iraq. Bush is worse than an idiot. But now that we're there, I can't fathom the idea of just leaving. We'd only be adding to the harm of the Iraqis, and then only some reactionary fools could feel good about themselves.
Finally, how the fuck does this have anything to do with linux? Why does this cretin think that his "resigning in protest" will have any effect, even that of some noble sacrifice? I hear stuff like this, and laugh at the boob that did it, and forget about it 10 minutes later. Never fails to amaze me how childish some people are.
Cute photo to be found here.
I hear the military also use di-hydrogen monoxide.
Are we just going to stand by and watch this go unchallenged?
Find out more here.
---
"I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing and it was everything that I thought it could be."
Someone with a reputation needs to write a text explaining to the the rest of the people in the Big Room with Blue Ceiling that there are two cultures around Linux(the FS/OSS community's most noted work), one that's politically centered and sees "free software" as one of the basis of a "free society", and one that's business-oriented and thinks that open source software guarantees better market efficiency, and generally works better is has better "scalability", "customizability".
Most hackers won't fit in clearly in one or the other group, but the tension is there.
Someone neutral, but with a reputation (perhaps mr. Perens, perhaps JWZ) needs to explain where RMS stands from and what he stands for, where ESR stands from and what he stands from and so on.
Because whenever RMS pulls his bohemian/hippie/rebel act on BusinessWeek or some people with radical politics try to get Linux associated with their (perfectly fine) stances, they hurt people who are investing money and careers in Business Linux.
We can't, and we shouldn't alienate the public image of Linux from the Free Software/Free Society crowd, but we can sabotage the Business Linux public image with a few well-planned stunts. Should we? I don't think so. When you choose to be against business or military or televangelist use of Linux, you are pretty much contradicting the Free Society stance, as well as the spirit of the GPL.
And, shit, nor IBM, nor some long-haired anti-war activist should be allowed to hijack the spirit behind Linux.
First, leaving an "open" society based on the concept of freedom (Open source) just because you don't approve of a group taking advantage of that freedom is grossy hypocritical.
Second, while I can respect the viewpoints of people who oppose the war, I have utter contempt for people who oppose "the military".
Let me put it this way: No matter where our troops are sent into, regardless of my agreement or disagreement with the actions they are in, I would want the members of our armed forces to have every possible advantage we can afford them to get their job done and done with as few casualities as possible. They aren't a legion of faceless oppressors, they are our brothers, sisters, our compatriots and fellow citizens, and are fully deserving of all the support our country can muster.
Nothing gets me angrier than when an addlepated fuckwit like this utter disgrace to humanity decides that "our military" is evil and must be opposed. You can oppose the president, you can oppose the policies of the government, and you can protest both, but don't antagonize a group of people I hold in the highest regard.
e to the i pi equals negative one
Spoken like a true nazi.
Hey everybody, look at me, I want attention.
Yeah right. This guy doesn't care any more or less about Linux, Iraq, the USA, shoe leather or cold beer than the rest of us. There is but one difference that sets him apart:
He's a friggin drama queen!
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
I'm willing to bet that when he was a kid he was the one who always threatened to leave the park and take his ball with him.
-- Charles A. Plater
I started Linux Users Los Angeles [Lula] eight years ago when Linux was a baby and needed all the friends it could get. I saw in Linux and its "free as in 'beer', and free as in 'speech' philosophy" a tool with vast potential for the liberation of humanity. I have been the president of LULA for all of those years and have helped it grow and strive. My one regret is that more and more it has become an insular collection of geeks that can get along just fine without me.
Translation: I wanted power, and I discovered a small new thing that looked like I could start a club with. I put in a lot of effort, but now I've been marginalised because I'm not smart enough to do anyhting other than run a club. I'm pissed because I've lost my power...
Lula = insane (slang)
Hmmmm.... I think they use computers as well. Guess he better get rid of those to. Poor guy.
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
I hear they are using transistors in military equipment too! I resign!
The ex-president of the LA LUG, having decided that his previous protest didn't go far enough, has given up breathing in protest at the US military's use of oxygen.
What a wanker.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
I can see the point he is getting at, but I personally prefer the thought that the Army is able to use, modify and evaluate open source software a much more preferable situation than that of using closed source software. Who knows what evil back doors are in closed source stuff?
I dont particulary like the idea of a nuclear missile BSOD'ing just as it flies over the UK. or worse of all a missile Silo contracting the "Doomsday" Virus.
Joking aside though if the Army has to use software isnt it better that they have complete control over it?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I guess this bastard is all for the export of US crypto technology to terrorist states. And I am sure he was outraged by the US export ban on playstations 2 to prevent them to be used as a Linux clusters for whepon research my Iraq and other terrorist states!!
What a fucking jerkoff
projects @ http://spectechnologies.net
"Some people think technology is pure and not related to the end use, and those people will be our doom."
Wow, great logic man. And because you are not only so smart, but also so important, this is why your leaving LULA will change the future.
- I once had high hopes for Linux. I felt sure it could make a real contribution to the success of humanity, now more and more I have my doubts. I have a real and growing fear that if the Mr. Smith's of Linux have their way, in the future they will look back and say: "Wasn't it nice that so many smart people worked to hard for free to forge their own chains."
And here we see a great example of cognitive dissonance. Claiborne previously thought that everybody working on open source projects is, as stated in the GNU Manifesto, done for the betterment of humanity. What's happening now is that he sees the current trend towards outsourcing. He sees how many people used to have high-paying jobs writing many different kinds of software. He understands that people can't pay the bills by giving away software for nothing. Most of the once profitable software packages are now being eclipsed by open source software. Even the MySQL guys admit that having "support contracts has been shown to be insufficient to fund software development". The only way they can put food on the table is by selling licenses.Faced with the internal conflict between the belief that open source will make a positive impact on humanity vs. the knowledge that open source has resulted in much unemployment, has been taking advantage of by corporations to downsize IT staffing and further increase profits, and results in a whole lot of intelligent people working for free -- he has offset the dissonance this created by distancing himself from Linux. In effect, the Linux honeymoon is over and the economic realities have set in.
For all the Eric Raymonds out there who, at one point, were worth millions on paper, how many unrecognized geeks work hard writing code or otherwise contributing to a project and get nothing back for it? It's always the guy at the top of the pyramid who rakes in the big bucks. This is like the ultimate MLM scheme. Get a bunch of people to work for free, and the high-profile guy on the top makes all the money because of the hard work of the guys below.
More and more people are going to experience this same cognitive dissonance eventually. Open source is great and I use it myself in my company because I fully support the right of others to work for free so that I can resell the efforts of their labor for a profit. But let's disabuse ourselves of the notion that it'll somehow free the world.
I dare bet they use clothing in the army as well, wonder if he'll give that up too.
Okay, he cut out on the UG, what about his job? If he's got a job involved with Linux for pay and doesn't cut that out, I think a declaraction of SELLOUT! is in order. I had a college friend who was a 4.0 at MIT. One day, during an internship, he had lunch with a guy he struck up a conversation with and found out his newly struck-up acquaintance's group was designing & building detonators for next-generation nuclear warheads - just down the hall from him. Being a pretty serious pacifist, he felt so repelled by this he transferred out at his next opportunity.
Now, if he were to make a major change in his life; e.g., career, then I could see believing what he's saying. And if that were the case, I would have expected to see that in an interview ("I was so offended by the hi-tech state of affairs, I quit my job and became a dog catcher.") One presumes he's still involved in technology. And one can also surmise this is true because there appears to be primarily, but not limited to, two major camps: the Linux way and the Microsoft way. If Linux is seen to be used for a reason which offends him, I can see he'd feel "switching" to Microsoft would make him feel like a sell-out as well.
So the question remains: did he quit the hobby and keep the job or end both? (inquiring minds want to know)
Maybe this would be a better protest to give up breathing.
This is one of the most ridiculous self-martyrdom acts I've ever heard. Good riddance to her resignation. Linux is a "natural resource". It's lying around waiting for people to develop it and make it useful for a purpose. It's like getting angry at steel foundries because the military vehicles in Iraq are made of steel, or Kellogs because the military buys Shredded Wheat to send over to Iraq to feed American troops.
Linux, and the GPL primarily, are not for this woman, and those who hold her "you can use this software in any way you want except the ways I don't want you do" view. May I suggest hacking up FreeBSD and releasing it under a license that specifically prohibits government use. Or possibly Microsoft Windows, seeing as the management at Microsoft holds quite simmilar views about controlling what you, I, or anyone else can do with their software.
Linux is rarely used. Microsoft Windows and Sun Solaris are the norm. Regardless, I am using Linux and various open source tools because I don't have to fight thru so much administrative crap in order to get a system purchased and to be quite honest - I use the "right tool" for the Job.
The way I look at it:
1) I am saving tax payer dollars
2) I am accomplishing my mission
3) If my efforts in any way help the soldiers to communicate with their families or perhaps prevent the death of a SM, then whatever technology I use to accomplish that mission is fine by me. My duty to my country is first, regardless of personal opinion or politics. Everything else is secondary...
Freedom to make soap out of babies. This is what the freedom implied in Free software means, if you want to. No discrimination against fields of endeavour. This guy does not get it.
Did you USofAns saw that, thanks to a 100M$ spending in two weeks TV ads, your genius president is up and running and probably will get re-elected?? Pay attention to the polls, and do something, because the unwashed masses are paying attention to the TV.
Go vote instead of mixing apples and bullets.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
1. From the article it did not sound like he resigned just because of the military use of Linux with reference to the Iraq war. It sounded like he had lost his interest and the "military" use of Linux was just the last straw in a decision that was going to occur anyway. I am unclear on how much military use of Linux there is.
2. You should not blame the military or get mad at them for using Linux. You should be happy. The military are just doing their job. If they can kill more effectively and cheaply using Linux then that saves the USA tax payers money. In the USA, the military are controlled by Civilians, namely the President - the Commander in Chief. So you should blame the politicians and the voters for vote for them.
I will still participate in the LUG, just let new leadership come to the fore.
Actually, it sounds like he guy is just a drama queen. I mean, really, look at this quote. The group is a bunch of dorks who get together to drink soda and talk about computers on Friday nights instead of getting laid, and he's talking about "new leadership coming to the fore". Oh puh-lease. Imagine the lead fry cook at the local McDonald's quitting saying this.
taker yer pick, google page for Project For a New American Century, the neocon battleplan website. Their plans were published, still there, you can find extracts and anlysis at the other links here from google, or you can go to that website and read all the extensive documentation yourself. they don't hide it, it's just TV doesn't cover it, so that makes it "invisible" I guess.
Honestly, to think that sea of oil under Iraq had nothing to do with it......it's silly. They have been planning this strike for years, well before 9-11. Personally I think if we had used the OPEC embargo fiasco wake up call way back in the 70s and had done a manhattan project level crash national program to significantly reduce our dependence on oil, it would have been a good thing. As to this LUG guy stepping down, seems just as silly to me as being naieve about the oil, or over the WMD that the US and other western nations helped saddam develop and deploy. Saddam had big quantities of them, vast majority were destroyed during the fiirst gulf war, they were blown up inside the bunkers they were stored in then by US troops, and the main reason they don't make a big deal out of it in the controlled press was potential national embarassment over violating of various treaties we have signed, and to help limit the governments exposure to the vet's from that war claims of sickness that were denied, the ones who breathed that stuff.
All despotic regimes follow a similar formula. they use both an external threat and an internal threat for the excuse to completely take over and become..well, more despotic over their people. If the threats don't exist, they MANUFACTURE the threats. It's a formula that works. Problem -reaction -solution.
Of course if the GPL permitted you to discriminate, every additional author would add their own condition.
We would end up with EULAs reflecting the worst parts of a poorly written law.
It wouldn't accomplish the goals, and it would hurt the goals that were intended.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I forgot to add this line to the end of the post:
If you disagree with what I've said, write a response rather than modding down in the hopes that a viewpoint different from yours goes away.
Other pertinent, although slightly dryer points on the topic:
It's hard to see how the point could have been made by the people at the very foundation of free/open source software.
However, I'm sure the president of the LUG understands all that, and was just conducting a publicity stunt for his cause. I think it was unwise, because it'll do bugger-all for the antiwar cause (a cause which I support - that 200-odd billion dollars could have made the world a lot safer spent in a myriad other ways) and it reinforces the image of Linux enthusiasts as long-haired hippies, which still remains an impediment to wider adoption sometimes.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I guess this guy hasn't read the GPL or doesn't understand what 'anyone' means. If you GPL your code, you can't pick and choose who gets to use it based on your silly little liberal causes. Get over it already. I'm sick of the us-and-them attitude exuded by the left - collect all the guns, except for our bodyguards. Everyone can use this software, except for bullies and people we don't like. Sheesh!
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I was opposed to this war, and I too agree that such actions would be silly.
However, after RTFA, I think we're taking one peripheral comment from the article and making it his central argument.
So let's be fair. He may be some egotistical maniac that doesn't like the fact that his leadership is no longer needed, or just a guy that is having second thoughts about Linux in general, and the Army's use of Linux is just one element of that.
Of course, we'd rather not admit we're a bunch of insular geeks, and would rather pounce on his silly pacifist beliefs which we use as a strawman argument. Come on people, we may disagree with what he says, but at least let's represent his argument fairly.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
I'm fairly certain that MS Winblows is also used in the Iraq war. Should we all stop us it as well? On second thought, don't answer that...
Why didn't this nobody from l.a. quit using linux and drop his thursday night gig at the LUG when the chinese government started using Linux ? It's only obvious the communist thugs running china perpetuate the worst kind of crimes on the type of people building the linux kernel and its components.
He should remember, that the Iraq forces may also use Linux. It is a tool that may be used by anyone and for any purpose.
Hey, Clay ! I've hear that US Army uses Windows also ! You better not to touch it.
Do You use Leatherman knives ?! Let's ban it!
Oh my, Us Army soldiers eat white bread with tea ! I will never do that again..
And so could Jehovah.
That's the whole point.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Hello, Speaking from someone who has just visited the Middle-East, Yemen in particular, there is a lot of negative tension been focused towards anything American. This is a major war of the minds and hearts of people who live in the region. Don't walk down the street in Sanna, Yemen as an American, you won't last long!
As he said, Linux is a "tool with vast potential for the liberation of humanity". Ok, well now someone is really trying to use it that way. I remembered watching on TV when Sadam gassed entire villages; and I deeply regret not taking an activist role then to bring justice to all involved. Finally someone came along with the courage to do something about it.
oh yeah, and they drink water to hydrate themselves. He should stop doing that too.
Talk about a completely broken train of thought...where the heck is the logic in this?
Some useful links to information on ethical and anti-war licensing issues:
Slashdot thread
Open Source Software License discussion list thread
Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement: an example of a license which takes ethical issues in to consideration
Freshmeat thread
Advogato thread
UserLand thread
Yahoo group to discuss open source ethics
As with many things in live, it always depends.
Water, etc are mainly helping people to survive. An atomic warhead never helps somebody to survive, it is meant sorely for killling.
It is good to discuss on wether or not Linux is still more helping humanity or whether not.
Staying calm and not saying anything only helps those who started the war. Making your opinion heard helps people to realize, that G W Bush does not have the support of the entire planet.
I saw in Linux and its "free as in 'beer', and free as in 'speech' philosophy"
That's why I think the LUGs have to expand their outlook to take in questions of the war and the military use of Linux.
What part of free does he not understand? He sure claims to with the first sentence.
This guy is nothing more than an anti-war radical. (and I say radical for the following reasons) AshcroftProof Linux? Quit a LUG presidency because the US uses it? WTF? This guy is just using his position in the Linux community to try and influence others to his political beliefs.
Uhh, how? Your statement shows an utter lack of understanding of what happens when hundreds of thousands of soldiers start trying to kill each other in a country populated by millions of non-combatants.
D) Oust Saddam without invading Iraq (we do it all the time in other countries)We tried doing that for 12 years, no dice
E) Lift Sanctions. Before we decided to impose sanctions after the Kuwait invasion, Iraq was one of the more prosperous nations. People were fed.
What a nice way to reward the tyrant for invading Iraq. Of course, doing this would have ended the corrupt Oil-for-Food program that had Kofi Annan's son in on it, and the US could have asked for and gotten exclusive access to Iraq's oil fields for doing this - so much for the wacked theory that Bush invaded Iraq to get oil....
F) Find a relatively peacable solution to ousting the current regime. They do exist. For reference, see 1989: Germany, Poland, Soviet Union, Romania, Czechoslovakia and 2002 (?): Serbia.
This is the same as your "D" option above, and once again, we tried for 12 years and actually made Saddam's hold on power stronger because of things like the way the regime controlled the Oil-for-Food program. Besides, it took 45 years for the Cold War to bring down Communism in Eastern Europe - and I seriosly doubt that those against the invasion of Iraq actually supported the US in the Cold War....
is it really about the love of writing the software? The purity of the code?
Good grief man... so you have an anti-war opinion; good for you (ironic that people have died in wars to secure that right for you, but I digress)... but what on earth does this have to do with linux? And exactly how is your opinion more important that any other citizen's?
Is this an LA thing? Something in the water out there? Like the Hollywood types who think their opinion is so much more valuable than everyone else's that it must be heard? *actor waving arms* "I pretend to be someone else for living! You should listen to me!" Bah.
Yes, everyone's got an opinion, and this individual is actually backing his up (flawed reasoning aside)... but they're actually making a distro called "AshcroftProof linux?" C'mon... this is a political stunt all the way, from somebody with an agenda to push.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
What a whiney little bitch.
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.
I worked for the "U.S. Military" for 10 years, and 6 of those years has been in either computers or communications in general.
Where does he come off with the statement "...I don't really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL." Let me tell you something-we bend over backwards to abide by license restrictions. I can't even download a shareware program (when we deal with Windows, not too many in Linux) copy without demonstrating we've paid for it. I understand the idea of "free as in beer", but I also understand "free as in speech". Speaking of free [rant]haven't people heard of the "Freedom of Information Act"? Just in case you haven't, click here. If you want to know what software we're using ask us! Don't just sit in your field of daisies whining and complaining about things of which you know nothing. And, (just so you know I know what the GPL is) you can't have the modifications I've made to the machine in my office. Why? Because I'm not distributing it...if I was, yes, you can have my source code.[/rant]
Before throwing stones at that "big glass house", realize that much of it is glass. You can see in it (well, maybe not the utility room...well, not that closet either..never mind) more then some company that takes GPL code, puts it in their router, then sells it. That would never happen.
Under the GPL everyone deserves freedom, even those that do things that many do not like. That's freedom people. While not perfect the alternative is much worse.
I'm thankful for the line "Free as in speech."
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Is making war cheap a good idea? Economics of war: if war is really expensive, there would be less war because less people could afford it. Allowing the military to use Linux for free makes the war cheaper. I, myself, would be very happy if war is so expensive that nobody can afford it.
Should the plans for nuclear weapons be open source? Obviously, a bad idea: It would possible for everybody (with enough money) to build nuclear bombs. Limiting and restricting technology is ethical for hardware and plans, why should it not be ethical for software?
There are already restrictions on certain products (explosives, guns, poison, plans for nuclear facilities and weapons). I think it would be a Good Thing if there are even more restrictions (guns for example). And I would be very happy if Linux (as well as other products) can't be used for wars.
The rules, of course, should be defined in a democratic process. The users and developers of Linux could decide that one or the other use case of Linux is not allowed.
(Or at least everyone but Bush doesn't. For some reason no one cares that he deserted. You or I would go to jail.)
Could you post a link to the facts that prove this? It was debunked weeks ago... unless you are a mouthpiece of Kerry, who voted for the war and then refused to fund it putting himself under condemnation of his own previous statements.
Common... lets get our facts down. Dispite the pittiful content of Air America there are a few (though not many) liberal talk show hosts who deal with reality. If you are in the NYC area there are some very good ones on late in the evening on 770am.
Bush is far from perfect, but can we at least criticize things he really did?? Can we also criticize things that we can positivly an alternative action to?? No, no, can't do that. We might learn somethin' and I just wanna drink my nice partisan koolaide under the careful dispensation of Mr. Franken or Mr. Savage. Don't want to listen to John Bachelor or Sean Hannity, two rather able broadcasters on opposite sides. Might learn something about my own beliefs.
Sheesh...
Btw, I do largly agree with your post above, but the cheap shot at Bush is totally out of place. If you're aware of politics today, you probably are aware that I [intentionally] did not make the obvious reciprocal argument. Gotta keep "you guys" on yer toes... and I don't think it should be a major issue. That's me, though.
Sam
Not surprisingly the hordes of Polyannic Slashdotters have once again expressed that the development and support of technologies have no ethical consequences, and lambast anyone who dares to question their sacred, techno-optimistic cow.
Score another point for the echo chamber...
Well i would certainly quit using Atom bombs if the military would use them.
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
I think the subject says it all.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Linux doesn't kill people. It's people that kill people.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Not many injured. And now the weather, with Stacey Implants.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Fuck him.
Okay, two words.
Now, if someone had quit the military because they use Linux, that would have been a more interesting story.
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
Since Reagan greatly helped Saddam carry out his slaughter.
Linux is not a religion, it's a kernel/os/free programs. There might be ideals behind the source, but it is not a scdripture on how to live life. Granted some might argue different, but everything need an extremist. Next thing the person wil give up is sex, because the military uses it to procreate!
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
The president of LULA definetly has some issues. What a winer, he quits because we are using Linux to support our armed froces? The guy obviously doesn't even understand what the military does with Linux. The military does not trust or reley on Windows crap to run high end systems. They would rather use Linux or Solaris. This will help Linux, not hurt it. The president of LULA needs to leave the country and get a life if he does not want to support our troops.
Hell, I just did! I lay down on the floor, kicked and screamed, held my breath, and tried to bite my mommy (that last part didn't work, she lives a thousand miles away). I screamed, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" at the top of my lungs - and nobody on Slashdot noticed. Or cared.
Good call, sir.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
This just in: a prominent potato farmer in Idaho is retiring upon learning that, get this... soldiers eat potatoes!
This isn't the 1890s, guys. Our soldiers aren't over there raping the women and stealing everything they can find as war trophies.
Some slashdotters have a funny sense of the pace of history. The 1890s were a time when your modern way of thinking wouldn't have been too out of place. As far as I remember, the crying of havoc was banned some time in the late 1300s (Richard II?) and hasn't been officially supported by a government for about the same time.
Linux and the military? Old news. The Army has used Linux since at least 1998, because I was using their MCS/P system at the time.
-- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
Bush for President! -- Of Iraq.
He made the problem, let him fix it, at his expense, not mine.
Los Angeles, 18th April 2004
./ story about me in just a couple of days.
Clay Claiborne: But I am somebody, I have made somthing of myself. Hell, if I wanted to I could get a whole
Clay Claiborne's Mum (bored voice): Yes dear, I'm sure you could...
Ah, I see you are attacking the problem with utilitarian ethics. Consider this: The time and resources spent saving those '1000 children' in Iraq might have saved 10,000 children in north or central Africa. There are men far more evil than Saddam Hussein running around in the world today, and we collectively care little about them.
I'm sorry, but your emotional appeal is nothing more than a very weak justification. If the US actually cared about 'freedom and independance' it would not limit itself to helping strategically important countries while abandoning the useless places to misery and death.
===---===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Most of the opponents of this war, who, I suspect, are otherwise capable of reason, tend to lose their reasoning abilities rapidly and go into a passionate rage, when talking about it.
Just listen to this guy:
I just don't think it had to cost maybe 20K Iraqi lives and how many Americans' so far. Well, how many would you approve of, sir? 20K, would still be very little -- Saddam himself has killed and would've have killed much more. I don't think that Linux should be used for killing Oh, "killing is wrong", is not it? I'm sure, if Saddam's army was marching on Los Angeles, he would've approved of killing as many of them as possible. So, killing (and using Linux for it) is only wrong, when it is done against his beliefs -- well, say so...(My bodyguards carry weapons, but everyone else, who does, should be locked up, says Rosie O'Donnel -- the passionate lighting rod of the pro-gun lobby.)
I don't really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL I wonder, which violation of GPL does he suspect? Not providing source to code modifications? But that is not required, as long as the modifications are not distributed by Pentagon. And they are not -- by the nature of the organization. They are not in the software business at all...Their laboratories, that are in that business and do distribute modifications, distribute the source too -- the already mentioned SELinux, TrustedBSD...
Everybody won on that one, and it's a great use of our tax dollars. In the first Gulf War, even the Iraqis used American GPS to guide their missiles. Talk about your equal-opportunity technologies. Now he is cheering for Iraq? The Iraq of 1991? Talk about loss of reasoning... It is a flaw of the GPS, that it can be used by our enemies (even if they can't get full precision of it). This is not a sport match, where equal oppotunity is desired -- people are dying there, and the higher the advantage of your side, the less of it dies, the better. You know I am in favor of an army and a national defense Oh, see, he is not against killing at all...Nothing wrong with passion per se. It is great in art, in bed (the very special art), etc. But the less of it in politics and computers (what a weird pairing of fields!) the better.
Good riddance, LULA!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The fact that the grandparent post got modded to 5 is insane. This is an obvious fallacy, as the parent pointed out. The number of deaths listed on iraqbodycount.com is in addition to any deaths being caused by disease and malnutrition, not instead of.
We can disagree on causes for the war or whether it is founded, but please, lets not manipulate. We're supposed to be thinking, even on slashdot.
Seriously, what's wrong with people in L.A., the same city that ask the system vendor to remove the "master/slave" from the manual? The air of political correctness is so thick in L.A. these days makes the smog 20 years ago like fresh air!
Kinda has a catchy ring to it, doesn't it.....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
In reality- It's a fucking difficult thing to do. Especially when the enemy you're fighting uses human shields. Not to mention every time a civilian dies because they get killed by a mugger or a Iraqi soldier, it's the US military's fault. At the end of the day, any dead people get stuck on the tally of whoever's in charge. (page 53)
Name a couple. Haiti? That went well. Cuba? Afghanistan vs. the Soviets? I dunno who these Taliban people are, but they gotta be better than the Communists. They were also one of the more nerve gassed nations. People were dead.Ok- so we make Iraq go bankrupt, just like we did to the Soviets. You know what step 1 to making a country go bankrupt is? Economic sanctions.(btw- that's what we were trying to do for 10 years. We tried diplomatic means, didn't work, tried economic means, arguably made it worse, can't influence the population cuz the population isn't in control of shit. So we went to Plan D- take over.)
In reality- Saddam Hussein was one of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century. No, he didn't top Stalin or Hitler or Pol Pot, (yeah, our bad) but that doesn't mean we shouldn't come in and fix the blood that was dripping from his hands.
This is a useless attention grab that won't make a difference in his LUG or in our military. That he objects to "Linux being used for killing" is, I guess one could call it, "noble". I object to using guns, bombs, barbed wire, or sticks with nails in them for "killing", but I don't object to the military's defined purpose to kill people and break stuff. Would this person prefer that our military use Windows software "for killing"? (I just love that phrase. Not "as a tool" or "in warfare" or "for military purposes", but "for killing". It conjures up images of PFCs sitting around peeling potatoes and sharpening the edges of Mandrake 7.0 CDs to use as throwing stars.) I think we tried that once, and I read about a raft of Chinese spam that got relayed to the US through the Exchange server on a docked US Navy warship on the coast of Japan. Frankly, I think I'm more comfortable with the notion of Linux being used as one of many weapons of war than I am with getting even more foreign junk mail.
-j
Exactly right. It was access to profits, not oil, that motivated Cheney to want war. (Shrub just goes along; he's still just a boy in his mind.)
Now Cheney's friends in Halliburton and Bechtel and other companies can get rich. Killing Arabs for profit! It's easy to understand why Arabs don't like this. I don't sympathize with violence, but I do sympathize with Osama bin Laden's complaints about the U.S. government interfering with Arab governments like Saudi Arabia and about the U.S. government supporting Israeli violence.
... this seems to be another one of those, 'why take a stand once if you don't do it all the time?' posts. The idea seems to be that you either change your life and protest about EVERY SINGLE THING you disagree with or you do nothing at all. Since when does life work like that? Sometimes I don't recycle cause I'm lazy or I'm busy. Does that then mean I should never recycle? I'm sad that this isn't the only post like this.
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
fucking jackass.
Point taken. Never claimed to be much of a historian.
1. The idea is to increase linux usage, doing something to protest its usage is non-productive at best, and if you are going to protest, might want to start with China.
2. Does anyone really think the United States Army gives a rats ass if this guy is the head of the LA LUG? Will they even notice?
3. There is no three.
4. Would we rather them run something more crash prone? "Here come the bad guys!" "Wait, I have to reboot the tank!"
Linux is, and needs to be, A-Political, because I am pretty sure Windows is. There are better, and more effective ways to protest a war, maybe starting with writing your congressman?
Just my opinion.
I want my operating system to be milspec. I happen to like simplicity and predictability.
Oh, and there are tons more deployed Windows-based systems in the field then there are Linux (think about that for a second, which would YOU prefer?)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
There is no war in Iraq unless congress formally declares war, which hasn't happened.
Wrong. War, by definition, is a state of armed conflict. Therefore whenever and wherever a state of armed conflict exists, there is war. There is war in Iraq. There is war in Afghanistan. There is war in Madrid, in Gaza, in Damascus, in London.
Next, even if it had been a war, it's now over.
Also wrong, for obvious reasons. As of 9:40 EDT, the body-count in today's murder-bombings in Basrah is up to 68.
The absolute worst thing that can happen right now is for the world to slip into a state of complacency about this. This level of violent conflict is not acceptable. It's not tolerable. It's war, all-out war between those who want peace, liberty, and prosperity and those who want medieval theocracy.
The sooner we get ourselves onto a proper war footing, the sooner we'll be able to bring this conflict to an end and go back to living in a time when detonating a bomb in front of a police station is a tragedy of epic proportions, not just another fucking day at the office.
I write in my journal
we here in boston have another meaning for LUGs, attributed to the special girls of wellesley college:
Lesbians Until Graduation
In fact, enforcing your beliefs upon others is (in my opinion) often, but not always, worse than a live and let live style attitude towards stuff you don't understand.
Yet this is exactly what the GPL does, by the very essence of its licence - it enforces the FSF's particular version of freedom.
No, I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I think the GPL is fantastic for a whole load of reasons, but the one which I have yet to see pop up in this argument, and which is completely relevant to it, is this:
The underlying message of the GPL is that technology, creativity and ethics are inextricably bound together, and should be treated as such.
RMS created the GPL to enforce (what he saw as) the ethical treatment of ideas. The beauty of the GPL, to me, is the remarkably innovative and powerful way in which he did this. Now, it may be that the ethics of the GPL and the ethics of Mr Claiborne diverge somewhat, but the underlying message is remarkably similar: you can't just create technology and divorce yourself from the ethical ramifications, as tempting as it is. (I'm not necessarily supporting what he said, but the typical Slashdot blinkered attitude of social-conscience-only-when-it-suits-us is getting on my nerves)
Don't say that he's hypocritical
Say rather that he's apolitical
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun
-- Tom Lehrer
Because that leads to babies, which statistically, leads to volunteers in our armed forces.
What the hell kind of logic is that?
He should boycott EVERY operating system since you will find an instance of each of them on some military systems nowadays, from Solaris to Windows to Linux to FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The US military industrial complex also uses oxygen in its invasion of Iraq.
He should stop using oxygen too.
Should Iraq become the next Afganistan|Iran?
At best, we hope it will become like Turkey.
I don't have any problem with the US military using Linux... But I do with the US government's use of the US military.
Linux is good. That the military use Linux is good - these are the guys that are delivering aid to countries that need it. That the United States Government bungles the excuse for and the implementation of an invasion of Iraq is bad. That our British Goverment is also following blindly is bad too, but I wont get into that now.
On the other hand, this is probably no different than using an awards ceremony to complain about gun usage. Sure, it's a problem, but it's not the right place to air such views. This guy will probably have his mic cut off soon enough...
It's war, all-out war between those who want peace, liberty, and prosperity and those who want medieval theocracy.
HELL's Yeah! BOO-YA!!!
uh, which one are we?
If this guy keeps quiting everytime he finds out the military uses the same things he does, he will never be employeed again.
Computers they use windows, linux, and IBM stuff. So he can't use computers. They use office supplies, chairs and desks. He can't do any white collar work. They have kitchens so he can't work in food service. They have trash cans and cleaning supplies. He can't be a janitor. Let's see they use shovels. So he can't dig ditches. Lets see what is left? Farmer? Maybe he could become a monk if all else failed.
Just because the "military" uses something doesn't mean that the "something" is good or evil. The "good or evil" is the usage that the something is put to. People can do good or evil. Things just exist.
The head of our local culinary school stepped down when he realized that the military consumes food in Iraq.
Rumor has it this has caused quite a shake-up in the pentagon, and the military is reconsidering their use of food.
Wait until he hears about China using Linux to maintain the database of dissidents to jail and torture. Rawanda's and Kosovo's use of Linux to tally up genocidal killings? And how about Israel's LinuxInside (TM) helicopter-fired missiles used for assassinating Palestinian political leaders?
I'll bet his brain has exploded by now.
OK, so I gotta rant a little on this one (skip this if you're not easily amused):
So, Mr. Claiborne needed to be the absolute leader and when the group didn't agree with his philosophies, he took his ball and went home? Practical applications of Linux even by the government should be considered a victory.
Maybe he'll come down out of the ideological fog and come to realize that a user group for an esoteric operating system that relatively few really understand has little or no effect regarding change to the socio-political structure of the known universe.
Reality check: It's an OS not a radical discovery in quantum physics that releases the power of the atom. Even if Linux is, in fact, some sort of life-altering milestone in the evolution of mankind, save the arrogant Captain Nemo vigilante mystique for something more important than an OS, dude. Remember: computers don't kill people--users do. (well, unless you count that unfortunate incident with HAL and that poor bastard who found the capacitor after opening his Mac Classic).
Hey, I hear that Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are looking for a new fan club president...
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Speculation that we will be able to control those who have the resources that are used to produce goods in other countries that we also enforce favorable trade relationships with.
Which all comes downs to our arsenal. We bank on our destructive ability, even if we seem to wield it foolishly. You don't want to be on the wrong end of the pointy stick.
No wonder everyone hates us.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Look at all the vigourous debate about linux, about licensing, and about the war has been generated here as a result of hit resignation.
I think he achieved his aim very well indeed.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Could you post a link to the facts that prove this? It was debunked weeks ago... unless you are a mouthpiece of Kerry, who voted for the war and then refused to fund it putting himself under condemnation of his own previous statements.
Here is a link to a site which hosts the relevant military documents. (You'll need to scroll down a bit to get to them.) You make not agree with the specfic opinions offered on that website, but the facts and the authenticity of those documents are hard to dispute.
I'd like to know how you think this was "debunked weeks ago."
Bush is far from perfect, but can we at least criticize things he really did?
He really did not fly with his unit, although he has publicly claimed that he did. I consider this a serious charge.
I do largly agree with your post above, but the cheap shot at Bush is totally out of place.
I think it was related, and I included it mostly because I believe that most Americans don't know about this.
Folks like Hannity have been shown repreatedly to make up "facts" on the spot. (I can give you evidence on this too.)
Life is too short to proofread.
I mean seriously, when did linux users become such an exclusive group, I remember when my mates who used linux talked me around into trying it out rather than keeping it to themselves like little kids with candy. And lets be honest here, who really wants 'Smart Bombs' having blue screens of death and acidentily targeting kindergartens, I'm scared enough about 'Smart Phones' using windows let alone things which such potential for little-kid-disintergration...
"The stupider people think you are, the more surprised they will be when you kill them..."
So what if the military stopped using Linux entirely? What would they use instead? Do we want all of our national security placed solely in the hands of one company in Redmond?
Remember, their software is open only to themselves. Our own Defense Department would just have to "trust them".
Whether you like their software or not, why would that, even remotely, be a good idea?
I do agree that those 600 innocent men, women and children in fallujah that are now dead are probably more peacefull. Don't know about the liberty or prosperity side of it though.
The president and CEO of Louisville slugger resigned today because their bats are used to break windows and steal cars. "Stealing automobiles is not what we're about. I quit." says the former executive.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Trust me this is good news. Having been just left a position working on the some of the critical systems and architectures running the whole ball of wax, this is pretty good news.
The overwhelming drive for these people is to move everything to Windoze and removing their unix servers. Personally, I could not force myself to say that moving to Windoze was the right thing to do considering peoples lives and the US's defense was on the line. So, I left the job. If someone is waking up and wanting to use Linux all the better. Some may say I am a unix-bigot but I just don't think Win* is ready for prime time...still...
--------
"A chip in my head to help me control my computer? No thanks. I am a guy, every 11 seconds it would be switching to porn..."
-----
So let's go through this, bit by bit:
The military uses computers, does he support the continued advancement of computers?
The military uses (and debateably created) the internet, does he support the continued use and advancement of the internet?
I could go on and on about just about everything the military uses - does he fly on planes? Does he use a coffee machine or a toaster oven? All things used by the military. So what's his point? He doesn't seem to have one except that he's splitting hairs by taking this opportunity to preach his view about the war.
Guy sounds like a jerk to me.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
You realize that there was a rather simple way to get the access to that "sea of oil under Iraq"?
All we had to do was get the UN to rescind the sanctions. Hell, look at the sweetheart deals that Total-Final-ELF had negotiated back when it was still a French-owned company.
Sorry to go and ruin a perfectly good diatribe with facts...
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
This guy is your normal Flaming Liberal Nut Case. I bet he's gonna vote for Kerry too. Anywho ..
Linux is more used in Logistics and intelligence side of the battlefield. But .. If one of those items fails .. Then you run into major problems.
Who would you rather be running your Ammo & Food
supplies ? Who would you rather have telling you where a target is, and not a school or hospital?
A Hardned Fast Stable OS, or one that loves to reboot every now and again for no reason?
I'll take Linux anyday.
That guy should be proud that linux is there.
Unlike the ober-cool slacker types who dominate these threads, who view any kind of 'political stance' as being uncool and passe- I find great resonance with the feelings expressed by this former LUG president.
I don't really understand why he chose to to connect his anti-war sentiment to his status as president of a LUG in LA. After all resigning as a president of a LUG has no real impact on anything beyond the LUG itself. Although protest is not something which can and should be measured solely in terms of effectiveness. (If that were the case the RAF or Kazinsky would be THE appropriate forms of protest)
Most of the people who post on slashdot earn their living in the high-tech industry, or wish, or plan to do so. With the tumltuous events of the market over the past years many have been forced to become ultra-pragmatists-ie. too closely interweaving of ones ideals and ones willingness to work for the bread which one later eats is a self-punishing endeavor. Unless you like looking like a POW.
The FOSS movement was borne as a reaction against the propietary culture which established itself over the past 25 years. Many talented people really saw something wrong with the provisions of their contracts-ie. once you signed the dotted lign,that company 0w3nd your soul-all of your thoughts, ideas, creations and talent.
Those who constantly were forced to adapt to the ever changing market conditions went through a fairly understandable process of self-disassociation. And of course this is where the obercool- 'I wouldn't have a "political" stance even if you paid me' comes from. Those who persisted in interweaving their ideals and willingness to bring home the bread too closely suffered the consequences thereof in a highly personal way.
The market has changed a lot over the past years. Now many, many talented people find ways of inversting their private time in FOSS software development and an increasingly large number of people are actually getting paid to do so and *god forbid* actually enjoy what they are doing, not being mere programmer 'prostitutes', willing to turn a line of code for a dime(dollar adjusted for inflation).
Yet I specifically chose not to enter the high-tech industry in the mid-eighties because of the fact that %80 percent of the funding for the engineering department at the university I attended came from the pentagon. I was really, really pissed off that my tax payer money was being used by the contras to rape nuns and burn down villages in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatamala etc.
I knew then, that If I was successful in my pursuit of microprocessor design, as a carreer, that I, as a lowly engineer working at Motorola, would have nothing to say with how stuff I developed was going to be used-ie. if I design a microprocessor for small education computers and the execs in the company simply decide to modify my design and sell it to the pentagon as the ultra-microprocess for the newest ICBM's.
To this very day I have no regrets for the decision I made, fully aware of the fact that I would be earning more than 10 times what I am earning now.
But I hve no qualms in the free-usage aspect of FOSS development. Ultimately FOSS will break the back of the monopoly-based IP economy and usher our mega-corporations built thereon to the days of the dinosaurs. And this will profoundly impact the military-industrial complex, which has already been eclipsed by the more recent healthcare-industrial complex and the brand-spanking-new "security"-industrial complex.
But this development isn't going to happen in 3, 5 or 10 years-although it is already happening. I expect it will take at least two full generations before we really start seeing the *societal* effects of FOSS. In the meantime the military will make use of FOSS technology to further their own ends-remember the military and it's mandate by the State marks the real hallmark of propietary markets.
It was the mandate of the State which created modern "democratic" military structures which were de
I guess I'll give that up
Look... the military uses a lot of things...
For example, potatoes... the military uses potatoes... Famously in fact. Who hasn't heard of some military guy in trouble being forced to peel them... So that's it for me... no more potatoes.
Baked... no.
Fried... no.
scalloped... no. no. no. I mean NO potatoes... C'mon people the military uses these things!!!
Frankly if the guy is this much of an idiot then I'm sure he won't be missed...
Mike
I happen to share Clay's distaste for the actions of America in respect of Iraq (over most of the last 30+ years). Even if I did not, my reaction would be the same.
Clay, we cannot stop the military using Linux. Why not accept that everyone can use Linux but avoid personal support for any developments with primarily military applications? Regardless, I admire you for having the guts to stand up and do what you think is right.
In other news, the CEOs of Britta have resigned because they heard terrorists use their filters to drink water.
Next, even if it had been a war, it's now over.Certainly there is a bunch of shit happening over there, but it's not exactly warfare.
hummmm. So when Sadaam invaded Kuwait and ocucpied it, then it was warfare. When we invade Iraq and occupy it, it is a "conflict"? Is that your thought?
They're trying to keep some semblance of peace, and make sure that when we leave, the same fuckheads who ran that country into the ground (Saddam and his cronies) don't take over immediately. Would you rather these soldiers pack up and leave tomorrow?
Actually, if this admin was concerned about "peace" and terrorist, then W. would have finished the job in afghanastan BEFORE pulling out. Also, why set an arbitrary dead line for declaring us done in there? Normally, before doing this, you determine why you are going to war, how you are going to conduct it, and then what objectives determine when you pull out. So lets look at these.
W. had a preconcived idea of picking a fight with Iraq (for a number of reasons and I suspect that oil was just one of them) making others think that America is the class bully. We got it under false pretense due to terrorst. His only reason for pulling out is for his election.
W was a coward during 'nam and he still has not changed. His father did what was necessary the country by serving in WWII, and doing unpopular things during his presidency. For that, he lost then election, but started America down the path of recovering from Reagans huge deficits. I only wish that his son had just 1/5 the courage or even 1/10 of the brains.
So what does this have to do with linux? the same as yours; absolutely nothing.
Btw, most history books correctly call the vietnam war, not the vietnam conflict. A political wording does not change what the actions are. When we attacked Iraq, a souvereign nation, we implicitly declared war.
I will support the Drama Queen Theory.
Talk about taking yourself too seriously...jeez.
I understand that the military also uses something called "food," and serves large quantities of this substance to the occupying forces. Better boycott this "food" stuff, too.
There seems to be some great confusion over what the guy said and how it got interpreted. I guess what he means is that he is politcally srongly opposed to the current US govt and that he thinks he should do more about that and therefore stepped down. He also is a little of an attention whore, because he feels there is too little discussion in the community about the use of Linux for "bad" things.
Somewhat like the discussion on firearms that led to the implementation of savety measures to make sure that it can't be used by "bad" guys.
So before You go moderating please RTFA!!!
Listen, go back to FreeRepublic and/or DU until you learn to read. I didn't say that Iraq II was a war-for-oil. I said it was one of the goals, that doesn't mean that is the reason that Bush issued the war orders!
h tm l
And a disruption of the Iraq oil supply was cause the world wide price of oil to go up, harming the economy of the United States.
SA is either the 2nd or 3rd largest exporter of oil to the USA.
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/US-Israel/oil.
First, I thought the current fashion was to bash French people and things over their A HREF="http://scbeacon.com/beacon_issues/03_05_01/r epeat_commentary2.html">double-dealings with regard to Iraq. (I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed my visit to France last spring. I just wish I could have stayed longer. Paris was beautiful, if a little hazy when we were there, and Versaille was utterly breathtaking. People were pleasant, too!)
Secondly, it had been previously noted that if was going to boycott things manufactured by companies that make things for the United States military, he's going to have trouble with just about everything imaginable for sale here. Gads, you people have no sense of humor...
Maine and Nebraska in fact do something other than the 'winner take all' that the other 48 states do. They tally up the votes in each congressional district, and the winner in each district gets one delegate. Then the overall totals for the whole state are added up, and the winner there gets two more delegates.
However, Maine only has 2 districts (4 electoral votes) and Nebraska 3 districts (5 evs), so in practice it doesn't really matter much, but I wish more states followed this system. Unfortunately, states that tend one way or another wouldn't want to switch to this system, since it'd hurt the candidate that's more popular in that state (California wouldn't want to take 20 or so of its 55 and hand them to Bush, e.g.), and states that are battlegrounds would be less of a battleground under this system, and thus would get less political attention. Nice idea, nevertheless.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Wrong. War, by definition, is a state of armed conflict.
So if I were to get into a kife-fight with a street thug tonight, I would be at war? Maybe according to your dictionary definition, but in the US political sense a war is formally declared against a country and thus has a defined mission and can be ended. Our recent "wars" do not.
However, that doesn't stop all our politicians and the talking heads on the news from saying we are at war with several different things, such as drugs (inanimate objects), terrorism (acts of killing), or the one that grates on my nerve the most: "The War on Terror(tm)" Terror is a feeling, a state of mind...are they actually suggesting that they are going to fight a war against people being deathly afraid?
I am totally against the war in Iraq, but I cant help but feel sorry for this guy and his pathetic meaningless stand. Dont let the screen door hit you on the way out.
This guy is blaming the tool....or not. I think he is tired of his job and wanted to get some attention on the way out. The Chinese use Linux all over their government and the oppress and kill citizens every day. Why doesn't he protest that? Like I said...what a tool.
how, exactly?
Blah, blah, blah, Linux, blah, blah, blah.
So I am going to cut off my nose to spite my face!
Seriously, how does that do anything but hurt Linux or do anything effective to stop the war in Iraq? That's about as intelligent as banning Islam becuase some murderous extremeists happen to be Islamic.
--Shemnon
I view Free Software as being primarily about the freedom of ideas, although it seems obvious that better software (or encyclopedias, or whatever) comes from that necessarily. So I guess I'm on the "political" side of the fence.
Nonetheless, I find this guy to be absolutely idiotic. If you really believe in freedom, you have to accept and indeed take pleasure in the fact that even people you don't like will get to take advantage of it. That's what freedom is. If you want only people you like to enjoy freedom, that's not a free society; it's the worst kind of repression.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
He didn't have a problem working for General Dynamics in 2000.
------------------
From: Clay Claiborne (cjc@cosmoseng.com)
Subject: Problem reading large files on OSF UFS partitions
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: fa.linux.kernel
Date: 2000/05/30
I hope this is the correct place to post this. Please respond directly to me as I am not on this list.
General Dynamics has given me a contract to build a Linux server that can mount a Digital Unix SCSI II drive and make the files available to Windows workstations for reading and deleting via samba. They have provided me with three sample drives, all 9.1 GB Quantum Atlas II's with 50 pin SCSI interface.
This is a commercial contract so there is money for you if you can help me solve this Beyond that I think it would be good for Linux. . General
Dynamics is looking for Linux solutions because the government has mandated it. I want to show them that Linux can deliver.
That being said, on to the technical details and problems.
[ technical details deleted to shorten this reply. Check Google groups for articles posted bye "Clay Claiborne" for full article]
--
Clay J. Claiborne, Jr., President
Cosmos Engineering Company
1550 South Dunsmuir Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90019
(323) 930-2540 (323) 930-1393 Fax
http:www.CosmosEng.com
Email: cjc@cosmoseng.com
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Would he rather the military use windows, have machines crash, and possibly result in our soldiers and/or the innocent killed?
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
He started and was the president of a USER GROUP, for crying out loud. How on earth is that being forced to violate his own sense of what's right?
I mean, did he contribute to some application that was used to detonate a bomb, launch a missile, whatever? No. Again, he was the president of a user group.
He did this to make a personal political statement, nothing more, nothing less.
BSD is an open source operating system without the stupid motherfucking zealots that give free software a bad name. This ties for the absolute stupidest thing i have ever seen. Mother fuck!
peace
How many child porn sites run on Linux? Surely that is a better reason to protest by resignation from the LUG. We may differ as a world on our views on the situation in Iraq, but except for the truley demented I think we can all agree how horrible child porn is, but no, let's protest the use of Linux in a war we really can't be %100 sure is right or wrong.
"It's okay to murder babies but we really ought to save the whales." -Randy Stonehill
We certainly are a nation divided.
More URLs about this here, and Here (USA Today's original article). Even Snopes says the USA Today map's population numbers bu counties are accurate
Actually, I admire this guy. He is a leader of a small local Linux User Group, and he is getting his "fifteen minutes" by just resigning. He gets lots of puplicity for his view on the war in Iraq. Most likely he is just tired of leading this group, and would quit anyway.
What's not so smart, is his reasoning. From a filosophical point of view, you might argue that sometime you are morally responsible for what your "neutral" technology is used for. Like Einstein having moral problems with his theories being used for building nuclear bombs, regretting that he ever published them. And most pacifists would also have problems being a chief for the army, even if they do no killing themselves...and so on. You might agree on these stands or not, but the reasoning behind it is logical.
It is however absurd that promoting/programming Linux is a moral problem if the Army is using Linux. Should you stop working in the oil industry because the army uses fuel? Should you stop producing corn because this is a vital part of the army's food?
There have to be a much clearer link, and it has to matter.
But he got publicity for his view, right?
Gee...I don't remember him resigning when Sadam was gassing his own people. I wonder if he's just too stupid to realize that he's a headline-grabbing fool and just jumping on the Bush-bashing wagon. I don't like Bush but I'm glad we've removed the dictator.
US led coalition invaded Iraq. Facing them was an organized military-force led by officers. The two sides met in battle, and one prvailed. The conflict continues in smaller scale against the occupiers.
If that is not war, then what is it? What is war then? I suppose you think that Winter War wasn't a war either since Soviet Union never bothered to formally declare war, eh?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I resigned the leadership of Rancho Santa Margarita LUG with the news that Linux was being used to power parking meters. Power to the people! Down with repression!
Yes, I am completely mocking his heartfelt position as being nearly equivelent to my pretended protest.
The LALUG is better off.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Most of the posts I see on here are from people who I guess didn't RTFA.
... just look at hiroshima.
His protest isn't against the military using linux, it's the military's (who is using Linux) actions in Iraq.
He even mentions that there has been quite a few things that the military has created/contributed to that has been benifial to most of us (GPS, internet, SELinux).
What I don't get however, is how is him leaving going to do any good?
Anyways, like any sort of technology, there's an up, and a downside that comes with it
I don't know how many American's have read the book called "fortunate son" which was pulled a few times from American bookstores due to it's anti-bush stance. ( Another great example of free speach in America) The book goes over G.W Bushes family tie in's with funding of Nazi's, Hookins with Bin ladien, As well as crime alegations and coke trafficing, G.W.Bush also was a horriable buisnese entrepreneur and failed on all his attempts. Also i dont know how many of you have passed by the site. www.whatreallyhappened.com, G.W Bush recently claimed that the attack on the NY was unexpected and with the lact of knowledge from the FBI/CIA or whoever they want to blame they couldnt of stopped it. But yet G.W Bush was pulling IRAQ websites 5 dayes before sept 11 happened.. Wake up America you're president is no better then Hitler. At least the people of Germany understand there wrong do-ings unlike American's who try to cover it up as something it isn't. curently, Over 1.5 million IRaqians have died due to America, How many more people have to die so your country can keep using up the world resources. America uses 90% of the world resources, and is less the 5% of the world's population. Your country is the most powerful and it frightens me that less then 50% vote. Don't you care how your country destroy's the world... I guess aslong as you have your Mc donalds on every corner and cheap electricals from sweet shops, you can forget about the rest of the world your destroying..
I can't speak of other countries, but here in Argentina, you can read things like this in the news:
* A rock artist is indicted for having said at the stage in a concert: "It's a beautiful night for smoking some pot" (The crime is "Apología del delito", that means "speaking in favor of committing a crime")
* Members of a neo-nazi group were indicted for selling WWII (nazi) memorabilia (violating some antidiscrimination law)
Most people I know are against the "neo-nazis", and regard illegal drugs as a "bad thing". So they tend to favor the Estate's actions I mentioned. Interestingly, the same people are in favor of "freedom of speech", effectively turning it into "You can have all the freedom of speech you like, as long as your opinions don't diverge from the majorities' point of view".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
problem, reaction, solution
Anyway, I never said anything about the pentagon, they are order-followers. The orders come from the neocon cabal that surrounds bush 2 now, many of themholdovers from bush1. A lot of them are in the org/think tank that calls itself "The Project for a New American Century", there, well before they were in office, they most clearly outlined *what their plans were*, what they fully intended to do as soon as they had control over the US governmental apparatus..
All those plans are being implemented now. They did in fact indicate the *need* for a pearl harbor-like event to give them the excuse they needed to fulfill their goals of total occupation and control of the mideast oil producing areas, starting with iraq. they also said that even if iraq (saddam) was not a threat to the US, he needed to be removed and iraq invaded anyway, again, primarily for the oil and to give the US a permanent huge centralised base of operations inside the mideast for the next steps in invading and occupying the nations there. One at a time is the plan.. They also include some pretty radical zionist expansionist proposals. It's there, you can read the guys who are calling the shots now own words.
It's all there, you can read it, follow around the links from the google page I indidicated.
When you get done with that, you can peruse in depth the 9-11 government prior knowledge evidence.
9-11 was a reichstagg fire-like event, it's the "problem" that lead to the "reaction" that provid
How can this be worthy of /. front page coverage?
Some guy decides that he won't help the military and that's big news?
Don't anyone tell him they use electricty too. Or oxygen. I don't think he'd be able to live with that one.
I disagree with what he said, but I'll defend to the death his right to say it.
No one ever believes they are wrong.
This is a fundamental truth, brought to us by Socrates.
Sometimes this is easy to forget when you are surrounded by people who lie to themselves to justify greed and injustice.
I can't imagine what it's like living in the U.S. right now where they can justify "Acting unilateraly for America's benefit." The whole thought is ridiculous.
But technology, especially information technology is always a good thing. Imperialism will continue as long as their is a power divide to perpetuate it but the ultimate weapon has been created and the end is in sight. Technology will bring equality.
There may be setbacks, GPS is locked for anti-American forces, the version designed by the E.U. was vetoed by the U.N. America might devise a way to shield itself from nuclear weapons and impose a cruel imperalist yoke on the rest of the world for another hundred years, but in time it will equal out.
Also I believe that if people are sufficiently educated they won't be able to lie to themselves anymore. If you don't believe this then you are right to stand in the way of technological progress.
But if you have faith in human decency then Linux is at the heart of creating people who understand one another and know a little bit about the evils going on in society. And that is the first step towards doing something about them...
Our soldiers aren't over there raping the women
That's good, because 'US Marine Corps' and 'rape' are well-nigh synonymous in some parts of the world(*). Not that I actually care, I just felt like mentioning it.
(*) Well, until that tank thing with the schoolgirls.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Obviously the guy is a very intelligent Linux coder. But socially he is unable to realize that the wider world doesn't even know his LUG EXISTS. His quitting will have no effect whatsoever on the Military's use of linux. The GPL states that anyone can use the software. ANYONE. If you aren't modifying it you don't have to worry about whether you can use it or not. Even RMS has recognized and acknowledged this.
Wow it just goes to show you how head in the sand some people can be.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
It sure is a good thing that Linux is free and open source. Because that clearly makes it impossible for anyone who had a different opinion than your own to use it.
(as a flock of penquins waddle in the backdrop, armed with M16s and wearing the normal complement of body armor and combat helmets) . . .
I tell you this . . . the Americans invaders are not using Linux. They do not have the intelligence. Their bellies will roast in hell . . . and they will be using Windows 3.1. There are no penguins here in Iraq.
-B
join the Open Source Anti Military Association (OSAMA)
Well let's hope they remember that the bullets might do more good domestically.
cough. Risk your life for what you believe in right? Isn't that what seperates it from conscription, oh wait.
So, In the tradition of the Nobel Peace Prize how about a Linus Torvalds Peace Prize?
"I have a real and growing fear that if the Mr. Smith's of Linux have their way, in the future they will look back and say: "Wasn't it nice that so many smart people worked to hard for free to forge their own chains." "
That statement right there ought to put a chill down the spine of any IT worker because it applies to far more than just Linux. If you work on building transatlantic/pacific communications for example then you are lowering the costs for outsourcing and long distance communications. This is the enabler for foreigners to take jobs from Americans. Add to this all the work engineers are doing on the automation of all kinds of jobs and careers and the average IT worker really IS "working hard to forge his own chains".
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I hear the military is also breathing from the same atmosphere. Perhaps his time would be better spent boycotting air first, since it would take care of all his other problems as well.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
on another not, i have found strong evidence
that linux was build by fanatic to support war and other evil dids.
Since the Beging of the Age
Linux served the evil side, it is
Loaded with big guns
To not say RBG(Really Big Guns)
All this because of little and violent pingun (which bite linus)
Rephrasing for the masses:
"We don't care about Iraqi people, we can use any excuse we want, including terrorism, so we can keep driving our SUVs and polluting more than any other nation"
Thanks for clarifying, but frankly we did not need you lame clarification.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If we start restricting the use of 'open software' to only 'what i feel is right today' then its over.
Though i disagree totally in what he's standing for..I do commend him for standing up for what he feels is right..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ahhhhh, so it is up to the congress to define if it is a "war" or not? That is about as logical as saying it is up to the guys flying plains into WTC to define if it is "terrorism" or not.
When you report great news like this (that is in sharp contrast to what is reported from this war), it would be very nice if you documentet your sources. Or maybe you ment: "Our soldiers aren't raping the women and stealing everything they can find as war trophies unless congress formally declares that, which hasn't happened".
Actually, there were many thousands of absentee ballots in California that were not counted because all the elections there were already determined with the votes they had counted. Since absentee ballots generally trend Republican, it has been theorized that there might well have been enough of them there to tip the popular vote in Bush's favor.
And if Bush had won the popular vote but Gore had won the electoral college? Damn straight I would have said that Gore was the president. Just as if my favorite football team rolls up 3x the yardage as their opponent, but loses on the scoreboard, then they've lost the game, and I can bemoan the missed opportunities, but the scoreboard determines the winner.
The Republicans did lose a very close election before, in 1960, and you didn't see Republicans whining about the result like the Democrats still are about 2000. And recent analysis even shows that Nixon probably won the popular vote-- due to the Democratic electors in Alabama being half 'generic Democrat' and half for Kennedy; check out this url for details: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/4275
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Uh, the guy is political, what a loooooser, he's against the war, what a sissssssy, the guy is personal in his professional life, what a wimp!
/.
Nice going
Cool crowd.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
... unless you happen to invent something that others used for nefarious purpose.
After the destruction of Hiroshima, Einstein said "If I had known that my discovery (E=mc^2) will have such results, I would rather have sit happily in my room playing my violin".
Most of you making fun of him are under 20 kids and have never seen what "death and destruction" of war means... you don't know what killing 20000 people means and what a father feels like carrying his blood covered child to hospital after a bomber dropped a 5000 pound cluster bomb.
Saddam was a bad guy... but I'd say US didn't really stand upto our expectations. With all the super duper futuristic inventions, I think dropping over 350 tonns of cluster bombs was too much for "trying" to kill a bad guy... a single bullet would have done that job.
The AIM was to kill Saddam... after 350 tonnes (to you, that is more than 700,000 pounds) of cluster bombs, he still managed to be alive... those bombs killed MOSTLY civilians.
To understand it better, think like a terrorist has taken hostage YOUR family and the cops blow the building killing many of your family members AND manage to capture the terrorist who is mostly unhurt!!
(PS: Even if you can't get the point - the point of blowing up the building was supposed to be killing the terrorist... in the end if you blew up the innocent AND captured the bad guy alive, your purpose of blow up has gone TERRIBLY WRONG).
PS2: You guys are joking cuz it was not YOUR family members who were blown with 5000 pound bombs and DU shells over there in Iraq.
- mritunjai
...in the US political sense a war is formally declared against a country
The War of 1812; the Mexican-American War, 1846; the Spanish-American War, 1898; the First World War, 1917; the Second World War, 1941.
Those are the five formal declarations of war that have passed the Congress of the United States. There are some interesting omissions from that list, don't you think? The Civil War, for example, is not on that list. At no time was a declaration of war issued from the Congress regarding the little unpleasantness between 1861 and 1865. That nastiness on the Korean peninsula that started in 1950? Also conspicuously absent.
Between the non-wars of, for example, 1861-1865 and 1950-present and the formally declared wars cited above we have events that can best be described as "Congressionally authorized uses of military force." These include all instances in which the Congress of the United States has authorized the waging of war without a formal declaration of war. There are 11 such instances in our history: the undeclared war with France, 1798; the first Barbary War, 1801; the second Barbary War, 1815; the African slave war, 1820; the war with Paraguay, 1859; the first Lebanese civil war, 1958; the war in Vietnam, 1964; the second Lebanese civil war, 1982; the liberation of Kuwait, 1991; the Afghanistan war, 2001; and the liberation of Iraq, 2003.
Please define the differences, practical, ethical, or moral, between, for example, the Spanish-American War and the Civil War.
However, that doesn't stop all our politicians and the talking heads on the news from saying we are at war with several different things, such as drugs (inanimate objects), terrorism (acts of killing), or the one that grates on my nerve the most: "The War on Terror(tm)" Terror is a feeling, a state of mind...are they actually suggesting that they are going to fight a war against people being deathly afraid?
Your failure to understand the intricacies of the English language is not the problem here. If you lack the capacity to grasp the meanings of simple phrases, then obviously the problem lies with you yourself.
In other words, jackass, if you don't understand what the verbal shorthand "war on terror" means, then you need to stop complaining and crack a fucking newspaper once in a while. Join us here in the 21st century before opening your goddamn pie-hole.
I write in my journal
Scalia is not the only person who has social relationships in Washington with "players". Most of the justices regularly can be found at Beltway social events. It's unreasonable to require the justices to limit their social contact or to recuse themselves for having proper social relationships with other Beltway personalities.
In Scalia's case, his limited socialization with Cheney has no impact on his hearing of the case because the case has nothing to do with Cheney himself, only the office of the vice president in the abstract.
It's meaningless flamebait from a nobody, "discussion" will ensue, the thread will be reloaded by the participants, the banner ads will be displayed more often than usual. That's how it's worthy of /. coverage.
that's so absurd it's funny.
President of a LUG with a girlfriend.
*sniff* oh man now people are going to think I've been crying.
"doh" would be more appropriate.. I think that our leaders honestly believed the issue existed.
( personally I think saddam was misleading the world to sound like he had more power behind him then he had, and it backfired.. )
Remember too that the weapons were just one of many compelling reasons layed out to justify removing him from power..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If he did not read the GPL or he did and did not understand, we should be grateful he is abandoning the FLOSS movement altogether.
We need people that can undesratnd the implications of supporting freedom for you computer code and infrastructure. If this guy was not intellectually prepared to understand the consequences (which are pretty obvious btw) I see very little to applaud in such childish behaviour.
I hate the US intervention in Iraq but I would never dream to compromise my ideals of freedom. What applies to everybody also should apply to institutions commiting grave mistakes like the US goverment and Army, even during their worst moments like the ccurrent conflict.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I fail to see why this is newsworthy? So some LUG president gets upset about politics, does anyone really care?
is it just me or does it seem like this is happening about a year too late? remember the war in iraq started over a year ago. It took this guy 13 months to come to the conclusion that he objected to linux's usage?
Yeah, because some fucking terrorist thinks that blowing them up is a good thing.
Funny thing about neo-cons. When the Supreme Court rules with them, they're 9 wise people with decades of legal experience.
When they rule against them, they're "unelected activist judges" threatening the will of the people.
Can't have it both ways, guys.
As romantic as it might sound, it's not fundamentally an equal rights issue. The law (in most states) defines marraige as between a man and a woman. Therefore, regardless of one's sexual orientation everyone has an equal right to marry someone of the opposite sex. If I am a gay man I can marry a woman, just like a straight man can. If I am a straight man, I am still prohibited by law from marrying another man.
The issue is not really about equal rights, the issue is about the legal (under state laws) definition of marraige. Currently the vast majority of laws on the issue define marraige as between members of the opposite sex. This is the same whether the people getting married are straight or not.
Now, the issue of whether or not marraige SHOULD be defined this way up for reasonable discussion; but it is NOT an issue of equal rights. That is just a hot-button phrase used to gin-up outrage.
So what Clay is saying is that he wants restrictions imposed on the OS of who can use it and how they can use it? Hmmm... That sounds familure... Basically this is actually good, because it allows Linux to go under heavy development in a sector that it doesn't often get used in. You not only get some of the people that have worked in this industry the longest working to make Linux better, but you now have something on the average of a 4 billion dollar R&D budget.
I don't get why this is a problem. Nobody seems to have a problem using military developed technology. You know like the internet (a nuke proof network). And companies employeed and funded mostly by the Military, such as Xerox Palo Alto (Ethernet, and GUI). Nobody seemed to have much of a problem when FreeBSD got a huge development budge from the DoD, and I bet a ton of you are using Reiser FS, which was DoD funded.
So I say this bluntly, shutup, and get off your high horse. Let the DoD get a return on it's billions, yes billions of dollars it has pumped into this community, openly and freely.
Clay only has a foot to stand on if he doesn't use the internet, ethernet, gui, reiser fs, freebsd, and the many other DoD funded technologies.
He has created an opening for someone who supports both the liberation of Iraq and the U.S. Armed Forces' use of Linux.
What a maroon!
I've always wondered what kinds of drugs most of the current anti-war crowd is on. I've become convinced that they are simply far left anti-conservatives and would bitch about anything that Bush or any other conservative leader did regardless of the outcome. Luckily they are a minority. A very obnoxious and vocal minority, but a minority just the same. Most Americans seem to be driven more by pragmatism than any sort of ideology. This is a wonderful thing since most ideologies are, to a greater or leser degree, fantasies adhered to by people who can't deal with reality. This goes for the right wing as well as the left.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
The fact this got news is depressing... a moron does something stupid for a stupid reason and it becomes newsworthy??
*cough* Bush *cough* Iraq *cough*
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Your failure to understand the intricacies of the English language is not the problem here. If you lack the capacity to grasp the meanings of simple phrases, then obviously the problem lies with you yourself. In other words, jackass, if you don't understand what the verbal shorthand "war on terror" means, then you need to stop complaining and crack a fucking newspaper once in a while. Join us here in the 21st century before opening your goddamn pie-hole.
Whoa, calm down a little bit there before that vein in your forehead explodes.
I do open the newspaper, that's how I hear about the "war on terror". And yes, I can grasp what people mean when they say it. That doesn't mean it is any more correct than people who say "irregardless" or other such words. Those are the people who fail to grasp the intricacies of the English language.
Ok so according to you couple of prowar guys in this thread, iraq was unstable and the world needed sadaam to be gone.
.
Well, im no american, but i would have my president's children for breakfast if he went to invade a country that presents no direct threat to me, before catching the guys that just killed 600 connationals in my back yard (new york).
80% of the military effort is concentrateed in iraq (which had no terrorist activities while it was under sadam's regime, after the clinton administration bombing of iraq intel in the 90's).
Fuck, just add-substract and see how many dollars and men are in afganhistan/pakistan/iran (home of UBL).
Now, we can go and argue about iraq being such a dangerous thing, but they had no immediate capability to attack america or american interest (saudi arabia, kuwait, bahrain, united arab emirates) whithout bringin a jihad on themselves (he already had one since he attacked iran, under american orders).
You dont attack the country of the holy mosques without having hamas, bin laden and any number of islam extremist come blow your balls off.
The way its left right now, after all your plausible arguments for or agaisnt the war, is a unsafe america, without enough forces in its soil to defend itself against terrorist attacks, without inteligence to deffend its weaker allies (read spain, assholes), but hey, with the posibility of cashing out in 20 years out of iraq with control of more than half of the oil reserves in the world.
So, lets stop calling the iraq invasion a 'war on terror'. We can call it 'an example of how to make more islamic terrorists that hate the US' or 'The origin of terror' or 'how to NOT solve hundreds of dead in New York by killing 20 thousend innocent arabs'
NO SIG
Claiborne never "blames the tool". He simply is stepping down from his position because something he feels passionate about is being used for something he does not support. Arguments such as "he might as well stop using hammers too" etc are reactionary and ill-founded. Claiborne does not spend his time at "hammer" meetings, furthering the development of hammers, promoting it's use etc. Even if he did, he would still not blame the hammer, he would step down from his position if all of the sudden the US army decided that their best method of attack would be to go and hammer Iraqi people to death.
Claiborne also mentions that he hopes that his move will "provoke discussion among the geeks", which it obviously is doing. The point is this - he's a large part of something that now has military application, and, being a non-supporter of the USA's current military actions and foreign presence, he's resigned his position. This is an entirely valid argument, and all those who are bashing him may want to look at themselves, and see if they have anything that they feel passionate about to remove themselves from if it begins to be used for something that's in the opposite direction of their values and goals, from their humanity.
A Right to be an idiot....
I'm going quit an cry because I don't like who's using my FREE software.
Hey... go work for Microsoft now why don't you... Instead of supplying the Military for the best software possible, lets give them something buggy, secretive, and who knows what else.
Let me step down and NO LONGER promote linux and other unix variations, because I let POLITICS get in the way!!!
Man, get OVER it!!!
Agree with whats going on or not... it doesn't matter. But by NOT promoting linux and playing with your undersized dink isn't going to do the community any good at all....
Hope you enjoyed your 2 seconds of fame... I didn't know your name before, but I do now... and I'll be sure never to hire you to help my corporation out! Maybe you'll leave because I hurt your feelings by making you try and meet a deadline!!!
grrrrrrrr.....
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
How would have THUNK it to believe that I could be killing people by using my Tivo?
Reminds me of those commercials where a teenager that they didn't know that by smoking weed that they help promote murders and terrorism.
1.- Who the heck do the US believe they are to chose and pick puppet goverments? The only response I will accept is the biggest Empire in current existence. Any other rubish about freedom and terrorism is just siddesteping the main issue: that the US (both goverment and populace0 believe that they have the god given right to do as they please anywhere anytime. Crussaders indeed.
2.-Great that you discovered that the UN without backup of its member states (specially the richest one) has no teeth. Thanks for stating the glaringly obvious. When we remember that even Big Teeth Nation could not control Vietnam and will never control Iraq (just look at Afghanistan for goodness sake, or did you forget about that country like your Prez, you know, that country where Osama bin Laden, the guy that actually hit the Twin Towers, is hiding).
3.- At least now that you realize the mess you are willing to clean, unfortunately the spots are uncleanable....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
wasn't about slavery.
BTW, I'm a southerner, born in Stonewall Jackson Memorial Hospital, so I can give you an honest view.
___________________
Huh?
What a worthless crybaby
SCO: 800-726-8649
Verisign: 800-361-8319, 888-642-9675
Diebold: 800-433-VOTE (8683)
I like a simple desktop. I use *nix environments precisely because I don't like the Windows desktop. OSX is better, but it's still a little too flashy for my tastes. At least it's stable. And I don't have (or particularly want) a mac.
(for those that will flame me the Windows is stable, you're right, in theory, but why is it that if IE is timing out on a network connection that the entire interface becomes unresponsive, except other running apps? That's one example of the bullshit I'd rather not deal with.)
Gotta love a guy who resigns from an open software org because he's anti-war and doesn't want the military using his toys.
"Linux is free to everyone, except the people we don't like this week." Nice principled stand there dickweed.
Open software means the US military gets to use it, Saddam Hussein's Master Torturer gets to use it, the Chicom Ministry of Nuclear Fucking Missiles gets to use it (Red Flag Linux, baby!), Arab slave traders get to use it, and your Aunt Maisy gets to use it. Open is OPEN, free for all.
Which to my mind brings the whole concept of Open Software into question. Maybe there are some people we don't want to have access to high powered computing resources, eh? Kim Jong Ill springs rather forcefully to mind.
On a more personal note, and as a non-US citizen I might add, I'd just like to emphasize my personal disdain for a man so STUPID that he wouldn't resign over the North Korean Army using Linux (you can bet your ass they do!) but he will over the US Army using it. That's got to be the pinacle of jackass behaviour.
Mr. Claiborne sir, you are a true blue Useful Idiot. Your disrespect for the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect your worthless ass is contemptible.
...properly or capitalize properly.
And you speak for the entire country on these issues? Bull.
What the fuck is this, 18th century Quaker Pennslyvania? Mod this down obvious flamebait.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
.... in this instance. It is satisfying to see US citizens recognizing it and saying it like it is.
The brothers and sisters bullshit is propaganda. Even the dearest to our hearts can commit horrible attocities and they should not be patted in the back for it but severely reprimended and punished if necessary (just remember tha the army's brains is not the same as the people in the ground, but the institution as such sucks terribly, blame the heads mostly for that).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And those documents paint a very comfusing picture but ultimately point to an honorable discharge and an individual who served the required number of days for that discharge.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Hooray, Ithaca. We sure love our protests. My favorites were when the animal-rights students locked themselves in cages every year. Or when the Gaia folks crashed a monotheism academic talk and started yelling about a "mother-goddess" and pantheism.
You a Cornellian or an Ithaca Collegian?
DSD, CU '02
He's entitled to his opinion. He's wrong and I'd tell him in no uncertain terms but, unlike Iraqis prior to the "invasion", no one is going to drag him out of his bed at 03:00 and make him watch while his family are fed to a shredder.
When you are not satisfied with your current notoriety what better than to make yourself a victim!
Hence, any respect for this guy just tanked. As pointed out if he were against using something because of the military I doubt he would find anything he could use.
Selfish people like him aren't good for organizations.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
We use planes, computers, cars, guns, knives, & fire to go to war. Even the Amish use knives & fire.
Find a respectable newspaper that participated in the many counts in Florida that declared Gore had more votes.
In other words, don't parrot what you don't research for yourself. You come off looking like part of the ignorant masses.
One minor nitpick on number 2. Guerrillas select military targets Terrorists select civilian targets.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
I guess he can stop using the Internet, e-mail, Linux, Windows, hell may as well never touch a computer ar many other devices. I guess he shouldn't drive a car ever again since the Military uses them as well along with airplanes, paperclips, pencils, paper, desks, hell...clothes. This guys needs to look a little closer at his views and think before acting.
It gives undue influence to large population centers. The people who set up our system were indeed very wise.
This is why the Senate has 2 members per state. It is balanced against the House which is "proportionally" setup. It keeps big population centers from running over little ones.
The worst change the Constitution was making Senators elected by popular vote. It has essentially ruined the Senate.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Have equipment envy?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
It's a shame that he didn't know that the most damaging Soviet spy of all time (Robert Hanssen) was a big Linux user. I understand it's very popular with kiddie porn folks too. Security works for the just and the unjust.
Of course, maybe his sympathies are more with those groups than with those that have concern for the security of our country....
This guy has the mind of a peanut. Typical Liberal.
Here are the headlines:
"Free Software Advocate Opposes Freeing Humans"
"Bill Gates worse then Kim Jong Il states OSS Supporter"
"Tyrranical Monopoly worse than Tyrranical Dictator to LA Linux User"
"Anti-Gates but Pro-Saddam"
"Free Software Advocate Supports Brutal Dictator"
"OSS Activist Opposes Military using Freedom to Create Freedom"
"Tree shredders are OK for people but Proprietary Code is not"
"Vendor Lock-In worse than Children's Prison says LA Activist"
"Real Torture is Forced Upgrades, not Real Torture, says OSS Activist"
"Starving, Tortured Deserve Free Software, not Food, Freedom says LA Activist"
Should I continue or do you get the point?
*Phew* It's a good thing you're countering unreasoned emotional argunments with such rational, evenly-considered statements.
I'd argue that support for the war itself was definitely built upon emotional appeals. It was called Operation Iraqi Freedom when most Iraqis were against the war. That and many pundits attempted to make links between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 (something the President later admitted don't exist). With polls showing that many (most IIRC) supporters of the war believed the link was real, it looks like the strategy worked.
Sure the method of protest the LUG president is using is idiotic. But that doesn't give you an excuse to be a hypocrite.
Happy people make bad consumers.
How is it supposed to be a good thing that a Floridian's vote is worth more than mine? It's a pretty tortured argument to say that this reaffirms our faith in American democracy (or republicanism as some people insist).
The current system was set up by very wise people two centuries ago. I think that they knew what they were doing, even if there is grumbling from the masses occasionally.
It was set up as a compromise between the less populous and the more populous states. I don't think the founding fathers envisioned that a close race in one state would make the electoral college look like a good thing. To the contrary, it has the opposite effect.
Interesting stuff. While a far cry from desertion, it's an interesting inconsistency. Thanks for the substantive reply. I consider this a serious charge.
Well, AWOL is a very serious charge. If we rather claim the President was knowingly lying about what he did while serving, we have to prove something about the thoughts of GW at the time that he said it. In the end, that particular charge remains a judgement call for the voters. I'm very inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt (perhaps, obviously).
Regarding Hannity, most folks I've heard, when speaking extemperaneously, draw some erroneous conclusions or claim something totally fictitious. I can't recall the specific incidents but I do rememeber thinking "you made that up" while listening to Hannity, Franken, O'Reilly and others or "you really can't draw that conclusion for sure." If you have something valid I'de be interested. All I ever see in the form of "he lies" is hyperbole, out-of-context quotes, pedantic word critique, over criticism of a joke, or harping on a factual error that the host was conviced of.
Incidentally, this is why most hosts (even Laura Ingraham) don't typically attack and knock down arguments without having a positive counter argument. You can't say, "X didn't happen" unless you also say, "Y did happen to preclude X." Well... you can, but the credibility of the argument wanes.
Sam
UN didnt seem to stop anyone at iraq.
NO SIG
He proved he had them by using them on his own people. Trouble was he never proved he got rid of them.
So when the truth hits you upside the head don't cry because it hurts.
Finally, Iraq isn't some little country. Are you telling me that it is inconceivable that they are well hidden? Could you find all the storage places in THIS country?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
...and a whole lot of dead people in Chicago and Texas.
Does he not think there is any balance such as te proliferation of Linux into Afganistan and other bombed countries because it is cheap and able to be locally support etc...
There are a lot of people here who will just run you around in a circle. They figure out your domain of expertise. And then hit home with their opinion with no verifiable information to back it up under the pretense of "these are the facts".
And then they chalk it up as a win, and their egos are thus inflated.
Don't fall for it. Argument and logical skills don't even enter into it. People would like you to believe that's what they're using, but it's just cleverly constructed rhetoric.
I yearn for a day where logical elitism is a legitmate criticism. It'd be much nicer than our current state.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Lol, there is nothing wrong with emotional arguments. My accusation is that this got play because of the emotional potential it has. I am far more critical of the folks who pass on the argument than those make it. (Read what I wrote) I also am indeed a hypocrite from time to time, thought, but I don't think so here. I appreciate that you thought to keep me honest. :)
Regarding the links to Iraq; There was a lot of emotion for sure. Why the administration resumed the war with Iraq and why the US public so condoned it are indeed different. There is some interesting information that is, IIRC, circumstatial, but is implying a more complete picture that there was a link and what that link really consisted of. Facinating stuff, though a quick Google didn't turn it up. My apologies for that.
Sam
The decision of the FLA Supreme Court was to recount the entire state of FLA. It did not support "cherry-picked" anything. The US Supreme Ct. ordered the recount of the entire state of FLA stopped. A complete recount of the entire state was never done. THAT is the essense of the issue that the US Supreme Court stopped, and why so many people are still so angry about the decision.
But I was also making a subtle joke as well.
I thought maybe you (as a military guy) didn't like my moderate attitudes and had a legitmate reason for marking me foe previously.
I was insinuating that as a Seaman/Flyboy you'd be jealous of my baby, Unit 00.
The Cold War came to an end because of someone else the Left hated. Reagan.
He figured out the only peaceful solution to defeating the Soviet Union. Spend them into a hole.
Unfortunately this could not work with Iraq. See, while the Soviets were "bad" they were rationale. Iraq and Saddam weren't. This is the same problem we face in North Korea except he already has the bomb and is further down the crazy train than Saddam was.
That is going to be next big issue we have to face. Jimmy Carter basically sold us out to North Korea. He tied Bill Clinton's hands in that whole nefarious caper. Then again I haven't seen one dictator that Carter DOESN'T like. Clinton didn't do anything about Saddam because he was too paralyzed by poll numbers. This led the expansion of terrorism that we are fighting now. The terrorist even agreed with the assessment. After our LACK OF response they saw us as a paper tiger.
Peace sometimes cost lives. The value of any peaceful society is how many lives are you willing to spend to obtain it. Those who would not spend any do not deserve to even live in a free world.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The same reasoning seems to imply that laws against interracial marriage are not an equal rights issue either. These laws were the norm until the 1960's, and were supported by a large majority of the population.
Likewise, laws defining marriage as only between same sex persons would not be an equal rights problem either.
Similarly, a law banning all religion except one would not be an equal right issue, since anyone is allowed to follow that faith. I could go on.
Look, the "anyone can marry someone of the opposite sex" line is clever, and formally correct in a way, but it assumes that marriage is not in any way about love, intimacy, or sex. It advocates that people should marry someone they don't love. And conservatives don't believe any of those things, except when they drag out this argument.
Quote: "I don't think that Linux should be used for killing and I don't really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL." Riiiiighht. Everybody knows only Windows should be used for killing (but only after securing the appropriate licensing from Redmond, of course). Anyone found killed by an unlicensed copy of Windows shall be brought back to life, however Microsoft shall not be held responsible for any subsequent brain-eating activity that may occur. What a tool. I can't believe a schmuck like this actually rated a story.
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk
While a lot of people are flaming the guy thinking that politics and technology shouldn't intermingle, I disagree.
Nowhere is the necessity of this more obvious than when you examine the problem with spam on the Internet.
The tech community continues to explore science-related "solutions" to the spam problem when it's really become a political problem. Maybe back in the day when open relays were exploited, it was a tech problem, but now it's clearly a political issue. The authorities have de-prioritized the enforcement of numerous existing laws which spammers are breaking. Tech people are finding they have to compensate to an excessive degree for the inadequacy of responsibility on the part of large corporations, government, regulatory agencies, and the judicial/enforcement system.
Lack of political action on the part of the tech community has allowed numerous issues to become much more destructive to this industry, not the least of which is the awarding of ridiculous, vague patents and IP restrictions.
While the issue of the army using Linux is probably more of a shallow and symbolic cause, and I'd put that somewhere around #87 on my list of political-technical gripes, I'm pleased to see any tech people taking a stand on politics. We need more of this, and not just in the form of fringe web sites.
There are some good tech-centric lobbying groups out there, such as the EFF, but I'd like to see more people become proactive. Every tech person should be a member of the EFF - their committment to those causes should be not unlike how every SCUBA diver understands the necessity of being a member of DAN (An organization that helps educate and provide medical services for divers).
While I think the war in Iraq is a big mistake, I'd rather have US troops use computer systems that work reliably and cheaply. Spending even more money on the war by going with proprietary systems and risking even more lives by using software that works less reliably isn't going to improve anything.
So you really don't give a fsck about freedom in rest of the world. So long as everyone recognizies that we (America) are the Alpha Male, you are satisfied. So tell me, are you truly a human being? You sound like a monkey; they are obsessed with dominance games and throwing feces at their enemies, just like you.
Oh, and thanks for illustrating my point with such a disgusting point of view.
===--===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
As a 19 year veteran of the Army Reserve who just got back from Iraq, I would like to point out some things. When it comes to drilling Reservists and National Guardsmen, there are several categories of absences from normal "weekend drills" or Inactive Duty for Training as is the proper name. None of these categories constitute being AWOL. The main categories are excused absences, unexcused absences, and away on active duty which covers tours of active duty or schools. When you receive an excused absence, you are allowed to "make up" the drill, but there is no absolute requirement to do so. If you do not make it up, you will not receive those drills points and may not get a good year for retirement, but if the soldier has no intention of retiring it may not matter to them. And if they are otherwise doing a good job, their individual evaluation or fitness report may not indicate the absence.
Unexcused absences can not be made up, and if Bush had received a "U" as we call them, there would be a copy of certified letters to him telling him that he had received a "U".
Another big part of the reason that AWOL does not apply, is that if a reservist or National Guard soldier does not show up for drill, they do not get paid. While not easy, it should be possible to find out if the President got paid during this time period. While a commander may give an "A" for sombody that isn't showing up, they will not code them a "P" and pay them when they aren't showing up.
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
If you look at the transcript, he's protesting. His arguments don't hold water if taken literally (should we all stop doing/using something simply because our enemy does/uses the same advantage? No.). But, as a platform of protest, it makes perfect sense if what you're trying to do is get your fellow geeks' attention to your cause. Despite the poor execution, I'd vote him in as President over shrub any day for simply being cognizant.
= 9J =
Once again, the left is wrong. The entire state of FL was recounted three times, which is the limit allowed by the FL constitution. The Florida Secretary of State decided to allow a fourth recount of Florida, that is what the Supreme court ruled to stop. The limit had been reached, the law must be upheld. Bush is the legitimate President, just as he will be again in November.
Achille Talon
Hop!
He says, "I don't really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL."
Under the GPL you only have to release your modifications if you distribute it right?
How likely is it that the military will at some point modify the code and distribute it to soldiers without providing the source?
Highly likely.
How likely is it that anyone will be able to stop them???
Highly UNlikely.
Use of GPL code in military applications creates an inevitability of copyright violation.
I suppose you could sue the Army for copyright violation. But that would just make Linus rich... we would never get the source code for all that cool military stuff.
.. and killing all sorts of people in the process? Ya, I guess that was a "smooth tricky move" on their part. And to help get the totalitarian patriot act and homeland security acts passed, so the US people can be further introduced to the benefits of being second class serfs in perpetuity in their own nation, ya, it was nice of them to be so "smart".
sorry if you think a diatribe isn't worth it to stop despotism. We've replaced a saddam in one nation with the US taking his place, and quite obviously going ahead with all their plans, not just grabbing the oil, but instituting some rather drastic social changes inside the US, and making us more reviled around the world, and having a lot of really big nations look at us with increasing suspicion.
Guess I'll buy stock in black boot polish manufacturers, you and your guys will be buying it by the tanker car soon.
Just remember, a lot of us out here are hip to your guys totalitarian designs, and we are neither "peace and love" hippies, nor lack serious "skills and hardware", so anytime you want to bring it on, go for it, fascist goon, let's rock.
I thought that the whole point of "free software" was "free to all".
Of course, "all" will sometimes include users who are slimebuckets, for example child pornographers and organized crime.
This reminds me of the 1st amendment of the US constitution: "free speech for all" means "free speech for slimebuckets" too.
How could he get to be president of a LUG and not understand this stuff?
Makes about as much sense as the rest of the lefty drivel (i.e. rottin propaganda). Why guys like him want Saddam to be in power is beyond me. Yes, let dictators out there do whatever they want.... unless it is their idea like in Bosnia. For some reason even though Iraq had the same exact stuff and more of it going on, Bosnia was ok and Iraq isn't. Wonder if he is going to use Windows only to discover that is used in warfare too. Crawl into that spider hole with Saddam.
BTW we are STILL in bosnia/kosovo. How come? Where is the outrage? They are still silent on it because their boy (Bill C) did it. Rabid fanatical attack on Bush. I understand that the Book campaign is the latest George Soros attack plan. Pay a bunch of people to publish damaging books. Nevermind that they are all lies. Bush should go after them for liable.
We also have a bunch of supposed "documentaries" to look forward to this summer. Michael Moore has a whole boatload of BS for us again. Nobody go see his movie. You only encourage bullshit when you do.
My favorites were when the animal-rights students locked themselves in cages every year.
Yeah that one is always pretty funny.
ECE, CU '03 myself. I wouldn't be suprised if I met you sometime.
Life is too short to proofread.
I'm not even going to touch the gay marriage thing, being that it doesn't have anything to do with me one way or another.
However, the only people who believe that marriage is about love are quite naive. The idea that one should marry one's true love is a very modern idea, and it doesn't work without the more traditional framework. Traditionally, marriage was a union of duty, duty to one's family and to each other. Marriage isn't supposed to be fun, but that can be a nice perk. It's become a joke, where the objective isn't to support each other anymore, but to pleasure each other. It's not about making house, it's about playing house. When it stops being fun, you pack your bags and leave.
It's no wonder that modern "fairy tale" weddings have a higher divorce rate than traditional arranged marriages. At least in the arranged one, everybody knows what they're getting into.
All of this hype because he has stepped down. For anyone who has not been apart of a LUG or attended meetings, that means he will not be able to dish out free pizza and give away O'Reilly books from the raffel at the end of the meeting. He is sure giving up a lot for his protest against the war.
What a chucklehead!
...as I was shooting from the hip.
Ahhhh! I must commit ritual suicide.
After lunch.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
DAldredge (2353) signed: Only idiots have 4 digit UID's and subscribe to /.
./'s only subscribers will be teenage nerd weenies pretending they know something!
Come on! With that kind of attitude
I am living proof of the Peter Principle
What a pussy.
I've been to a few LULA meetings when they first started out, not a well organized group and I doubt if it has gotten any larger than the last time I was there. It was probably close to being defunct anyway.
Is Clay going to stop selling Linux? When is he going to close his business down? www.cosmoseng.com Yet another Linux grandstander in the tradition of ESR.
Maybe the guy should stop using the internet too because it was the creation of DARPA. Maybe that will cause a change in the U.S. foreign policy... :0
And the whole logic behind "being happy that Hussein is gone but not worth the lives of 20,000 Iraqis." Well, its not like the Iraqis could vote him out of power. That's as stupid as Dave Matthews before the war posting on his website that it was up to the Iraqis themselves to opt for regime change.
Some people really have no clue.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
So, what will you do if you need "access" to diamonds and gold? Will you "liberate" soud-africa ? When you need woods and freshwater, will you "liberate" Brazil?
Sorry. Nobody have the right to steel other country resources.
To be the most powerful country in the world is a responsibility, not an advantage to benefit from.
MOD THE CHILD UP!
Yes, the war is about stability: the status quo of American dominance. What is the hallmark of a nation destroyed and rebuilt by the United States? What do Japan, Germany, and South Korea have in common?
Military bases. Thousands of American soldiers ready to respond to any crises in the local Theater of Operations. If this whole Iraq thing works out, the United States is going to have a better friend than Israel in the Middle East. It is not going to need Saudi Arabia or Jordan or Turkey for the next military exercise; it will have a true ally (or true lackey, depending on your point of view) from which to launch planes.
Unless thrown out by force, the US military is going to have a permanent presence in Iraq in the coming decades. Just wait and see.
===---===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Typical of California. Pussies. We should force them to succeed and let Mexico take it over.
Maybe not but it will have an impact on the general public's perception of the war.
Just the fact that /. is carring the story is proof.
Help fight continental drift.
Bush did make the RIDICULOUS!!!
I know this is on the second page and likely won't be read by many, but felt the need to interject with something that has been hinted at but not made very clear.
The issue isn't that Linux or any GPL'd software is merely a tool (or at least it shouldn't be). That isn't what makes his argument so asinine, though it is part of it.
No, the real thing that makes this statement and subsequent "stepping down" asinine and, well, stupid, is that no one decided to go to war because they were running GPL'd software.
Think about it for a second. A lot of people have made posts, both serious and humurous, about tools and not using things the military uses, but what it all boils down to is that whether or not the military was using GPL'd software, they still would have gone into Iraq.
Example: Say you have an epiphany and come up with an AI algorithm for image recognition that is centuries before it's time. You create the base objects or code to let other packages use it for whatever they want, GPL it, and release.
Now the military sees this image recognition software and decides they will use it to replace current portions of their target acquisition software to make more exact hits with missiles, etc.
Is it your personal fault each time one of these missiles hits a target? Think about it. Yes you software was directly responsible for that missile hitting a target BUT your softare is also responsible for it being that much more exact and reducing civilian casualties.
In the end, the military exists to fight. The military (as a conceptual group) was fighting wars before gun powder, before computers, before flight, etc. Some inventions have brought greater bloodhsed, larger wars, more frequent wars, etc.
But in creating a better version of a tool used in minimizing casualties why would you get upset at the military using it?
Obviously the previous example could be used to argue that with greater accuracy more people would be targeted by missiles than current technologies allow, etc. But the software itself does not choose to start a war.
Instead of complaining about the software being used during the war, and then also complaining about the casualties that are a result of the war, perhaps your time would be beter spent developing even more stable, reliable, and EXACT systems for the military. reduce friendly fire, reduce civilian casualties, etc.
Frankly I see this as a cheap way to get publicity and if I were the next leader of the group I was ask for him to leave as he obviouly doesn't have the groups interests in mind (GPL and the fact that he would use them to gain self-publicity) and can't string together a logical argument.
Whee signature.
SERBIA?
Did you completely ignore 1995-2000 when pulling that one out of your ass?
I wouldn't describe Romania's transition as being "peaceful" either- a lynch mob executing the president isn't my idea of 'peace'.
And Russia's "peaceful" ignores the coup that occurred against Gorbachev that ultimately failed and hasted the demise of the USSR. Yeltsin in a tank, Yeltsin's attack on the Duma a few years later.
Utter and complete horseshit. Under the E.C. my viote gets thrown in the garbage because I don't vote with my state's 80% Republican bloc. So, my state tosses it's 3 E.C. votes in with the Republicans and my vote goes away.
Under a popular vote system my vote would be aggregated with all of the other people who vote like I do across the entire country. Under this system my vote might have made a difference. Under the current system it makes none.
And before you toss out that tired old saw about the E.C. balancing differences in power between states of different population levels remember that this a national election, not a state election. States are meaningless in this context. Only the vote of the individual citizen matters.
As for the argument that the E.C. keeps the cities from overrunning the rual areas, that's a load of festering hyena offal as well. NY City still runs roughshod over rual NY state. Why? Because NYC has all of the population and how NYC votes, the rest of the state follows due to the E.C. inhales all of thier votes. Under a popular vote all of the rual NY votes would be aggregated with the rual New Hampshire votes, rual Maine votes, rual Vermont votes, etc... and if voters in rual areas have similar opnions, their votes add up.
The E.C. was created by the landed gentry to keep the unwashed and uneducated masses away from the presidential elections. And that's exactly what it's used for now.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Cmd Taco and all the rest of you verminous militaristic scumbags need to be shut down NOW! I'm not going to visit your site any more, nor am I going to use the Web at all. In fact, I'm not going to use the Internet.
Come to think of it, I'm not going to use any radios, fly in jet aircraft, take malaria shots, ... the list goes on. Screw it. I'm just going to opt out altogether and live in a hole in the ground somewhere in the Ozark Mountains where the evil U.S. military won't have any effect on my life.
That'll show 'em!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Linux, though. Confused individual.
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well it were done quickly... MacBeth
Good riddance and make sure the door doesn't hit your tail on the way out.
I hold that all human lives are equally valuable. I don't think the life of a US solider is worth more than the life of an Iraqi.
Saddam was killing between 200 and 250 people a day, (it must be true, I heard it on TV) and if that's even HALF true, and we had the power to stop it, then we had an obligation to do so. If it costs 10 lives to save 200, I'm all for it.
I was in the US armed forces, and I would have gladly gone, even if that was the only reason.
But, anyone who says we shouldn't risk US lives to save Iraqi lives, clearly doesn't value those lives the same, and is a racist. We are not more special than anyone else. All humans, everywhere, are the same. We live, we love, we die.
Do you know why a lot of countries hate the US? Because we sit on our asses while they scream in pain.
That's, of course, my just humble opionion.
...or maybe not.
Military tested, motha approved. It's a heckuva endorsement, from which Open Source Software will never make a dime. If you don't like it, fork the kernel.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
The idea of protesting a tool that is free in speech and sometimes in beer for being used in a capacity not in accordance with this person's views is exactly the thing that the software is trying to fight. He accepted the software for it's absolute freedom from being oppressed by rules and restrictions and it's warrant openess for all as long as you share your contributions. Now that the army is using it in a way he doesn't agree with, he no longer wants to be involved and create a protest against that which he supported in the first pllace, being the GPL... sounds silly to me.
I agree with the person about the war. The war in Iraq is a war we shouldn't be in, or at least do it with the support of the world. But to take demonstration out on the fact of the military using the tool you once cherised is misguided. Take your demonstration to the government directly. Use your position to question their use of the software. Ensure that the government is in fact abiding by the rules of the GPL to the letter.
Your leaving shows a sign of almost misunderstanding what the GPL is about. Yes it can be used for both good and evil. The same is true of ANYTHING. Apply it to computers, toys, weapons, tools, food, alcohol, drugs, etc. I truly hope there is more to his leaving than this.
First, I'll get the nitpicking out of the way. There is no war in Iraq unless congress formally declares war, which hasn't happened. I believe the correct term for this is "conflict".
I love it when you guys pull this argument out.
From dictionary.com:
war (wôr)
n.
1.
1. A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.
2. The period of such conflict.
3. The techniques and procedures of war; military science.
2.
1. A condition of active antagonism or contention: a war of words; a price war.
2. A concerted effort or campaign to combat or put an end to something considered injurious: the war against acid rain.
Also..
Idiom:
at war
In an active state of conflict or contention.
According to this definition, we are most certainly AT WAR. So please, in the future, check your facts before "correcting" someone else.
Back in the 1980s, a programmer named Rodey on BIX (Byte Information eXchange) had a license that prevented "military" use. There was much debate back then, but my thought was that software should not be part of a political debate. I think Apple had an anti-nuclear clause in their license back then.
This is worse than the BSD advertisement. Now will each driver or filesystem contain restrictions so it can't be used for the military, or to promote or fight againt abortions, or for the GOP or Democrats, or for police agencies, surveillence, or something else?
His quitting can only make Linux worse (if he was doing that much to help to begin with). So he has handed the military a "heckler's veto" - because they might use it (maybe 0.01% of use), he will penalize the rest of the community.
Please, go work for Microsoft.
People like the former president of the LA LUG are severely naive, ignorant, and downright moronic in their use of logic. All these qualities are that of a child's mind. Yet these people consider themselves the "intellectually elite"? Oh bitch PLEASE! I have 4 words of rebuke for you completely moronic ignoramuses on the left: GROW THE FUCK UP!
si vis pacem, para bellum..."if you wish peace, prepare for war"
The full text of the resignation e-mail can be found here.
sigs are a waste of space
I would like to add something to what I just said. Don't let the door kick you on the way out! We don't need dipshits like you in charge of any organization!
si vis pacem, para bellum..."if you wish peace, prepare for war"
Yes, because we all know how effective the UN can be with the resources and authority that the member states allow it. UN airstrikes against tyrant strongholds are the very definition of "Shock and Awe," I know.
Refresh my memory. Who is planning a mission to the Chad/Sudan region, geopolitically considered to be the least useful place on earth -- the US, or the UN? Do you, in all of your presumed geopolitical knowledge, know the strategic value of Sudan that I am unaware of? If you do not, then.....your arguement is bunk. Sorry.
===---===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
This guy is real tool, just because he quit some peon position I SWEAR WE WILL PULL OUT OF IRAQ!
Just for him.
Interesting stuff. While a far cry from desertion, it's an interesting inconsistency. Thanks for the substantive reply.
:)
I appreciate your willingness to check into things.
If we rather claim the President was knowingly lying about what he did while serving, we have to prove something about the thoughts of GW at the time that he said it.
It think it's fairly safe to assume that Bush should know whether or not he was flying missions in aircraft.
Regarding Hannity, most folks I've heard, when speaking extemperaneously, draw some erroneous conclusions or claim something totally fictitious. I can't recall the specific incidents but I do rememeber thinking "you made that up" while listening to Hannity, Franken, O'Reilly and others or "you really can't draw that conclusion for sure."
I'll agree with you that I've heard all 3 make conclusions that make me go "You can't get there from here!" but I have yet to catch Franken just making shit up on the spot. By that I mean lying about something like: "12% of widgets come from Guam." when you know that he knows the real number is 3%. Those are the type of lies that drive me nuts.
If you're going to make faulty conclusions about the effects of gun control policies (for example), that's not a lie, you're just stating your opinion.
To be fair, here's a site about a few of Hannity's lies and one about Franken's. While the franken site appears to show more lies, a close reading will show that while the numbers go up to 17, there aren't actually 17 lies to be found on the site. Lying about the lies of a man who wrote: "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them".......I think my head is going to explode! (or maybe I'm lying
Nobody is ever 100% right all the time, but what distrubs me is when people just make shit up. To me, that shows a lack of integrity.
If you tell me the movie's at six and it turns out to be at 7, I'll believe you've made an honest mistake. If you tell me you own a Porsche and it turns out you don't, you're a liar.
The government would have a record should have a record of the title transfer for your supposed Porsche, and the Gov'r should have things like GWB's flight log's. Neither exist.
(Unless of course you're lucky enought to own a Porsche and I just picked a bad example.)
Life is too short to proofread.
First respond to my whole statement not excerpts. Then respond.
Resigning the leadership of Lula was a question of limited time vs my priorities.
The U.S. today is committing mass murder in Fallouja and that needs to be discussed everywhere.
Clay
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
Saddam and Fedora
What? I thought it was Al Gore who invented the Internet. He said so on CNN. I heard him myself. But now you tell me it was DARPA. Could a politician have actually lied? What is the world coming to?
The Military uses, cars, are you going to give up that? The military uses shoes for their solders, are you going to give up shoes? They also use Windows, Linux, Macosx, DOS, BSD, are you going to give up all this? THey probably even use INTEL and AMD cpus, are you going to give up on the x86 cpu type? Im sure everything you use, comes from the military.. If your an antiwar Idiot, u should realize, humans need to fight, and the only way to have any kind of antiwar defense, is with a soild army.
NOW BACK OFF
and be thought a fool then to open your mouth and dispose all doubt."
Complete horsecrap.
Tell you what, when we start feeding people into industrial shredders and have mass graved being dug up in DC then you can compare the US government to that of the "enlightened" Hussein.
Until such time, and such time as you actually have to worry about being tortured or "disappeared" for voicing any negative opinion you can take your "totalitarian" crap and shove it.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
JWW sums up the central problem perfectly - there was no way to come up with a "correct" solution - by the time the courts were involved, the damage was done. Whoever won the court battle was going to have their legitimacy questioned.
The kind of election problems that happened in Florida happen all the time - elections, especially ones with national significance, just haven't been close enough for it to matter.
On the subject of the popular vs. electoral vote, the Electoral College is doing exactly what it's designed to do - prevent the largest and most populous states from dominating the rest of the country. When they were writing the constitution, it was Pennsylvania and New York vs. Rhode Island, today it would be California, New York, Texas, and Florida vs everybody else.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
i wonder if this guy felt so strongly about linux's use in the pornography community right here in the united states.
either this guy isn't serious, or doesn't think too hard. as the "Blaming the tool" guy mentions, linux is used in many places where "injustice" is carried out.
j.
I propose that the LUG president refrain from breathing because of the U.S. Armed Forces' use of air.
I'm a die-hard, left-wing pacifist, who loathes what our government has done...but what the hell does this have to do with Linux?
This guy is an idiot.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
It's a wonderful thing that Mr. Claiborne has stepped down, leaving the position open for someone who actually believes in the principles of free software. If your continued support of GPL software is contingent on it only being used by those you agree with, then take a walk. Go make your own software and slap on a license that forbids use in military applications.
I'm sure lots of nasty people use Linux. Of course the point is that anyone can use Linux, as long as they abide by the GPL.
"Software should be free...except for you. And you. Oh, and you. OK, and maybe that guy over there too. Fsck it, just cut and paste from the MS EULA."
The Main Point: The U.S. went into Iraq vastly undermanned. Rumsfield/Wolfowitz did this despite the assertions by pentagon professionals that troops numbers in the 400K range were needed. Both now and during the 'war' American troops were therefore left in a vulnerable position where they are dying because their numbers are too few.
Whether the decision to enter Iraq was right or wrong aside, it is clear that the decision to attack Iraq (essentially) alone and with low troop numbers was a WRONG decision. Why was this decision made, given that is was a bad decision even without the benefit of hindsight?
Whatever the answer, it is clear that at least Dick Cheney had a very serious and dramatic Conflict of Interest. He was CEO at Halliburton and made around $200 million in only about a decade. Then he steps into government and pushes for a war that brings Billions in reconstruction contracts to Halliburton, and significant military outsourcing contracts to Halliburont/KBR (now that the Pentagon contracts out much of non-combat related services).
Cheney (at least) made a decision that wasted American lives and enriched his just former company. This is a total conflict of interest, and is absolutely criminal. It is criminal if only ONE life was lost by abusing power for profit. That at least one American serviceperson's life was lost with this conflict of interest is so seriously criminal he should be tried as a Traitor.
Why the fuck aren't these people in prison???
Look at the brighter side. Would I want Linux to be used in the military and by hopefully reducing malfunctions help save lives, or let them use possibly buggy and slow operating systems that could increase risks all around?
Also, if the military increases the usage of non-free software, it's eventually MY tax $$ going to those hogs!
Momma said fair is what you pay on the bus. Life's not fair.
Don't eat, military eats! Do't drink! They do!
But in this world of US aggression - there is a bright side: good peacufull dictators like Kim Ir Sen (or Saddam Hussein was) can also use Linux to defend themselves !
Two guys in a knife fight would be "at war" with this definition. Pretty useless, don't you think?
Learning to speak effectively, to get your message across means that someday you wake up, usually as a child, and learn the nuances of certain words. Sure, the thesaurus lists them as synonyms, but they'll always be out of place, awkward sounding, and do little to actually communicate your ideas.
"War" is best used in two instances, one as a formal, legally declared war (legal by the laws of the nation declaring it), or conflicts so large or long of duration that there can be no doubt. If Vietnam had went on for 25 years, yes, definitely a war in my book, with or without congress declaring it. WWII, yes, we declared it (and so had most of the other major players). Somalia? No way. Iraq? Well, since it isn't over, and it's not yet clear that we'll be there decades...
But I tell you what. Go ahead, keep using "war" for everything on down to 2 person knife fights that last 15 seconds. Nothing destroys the meaning of a word like that, except maybe newspeak. War is peace, anyone?
The LUGs can and should be the trustees or guardians that trust. Who else is going to do it? IBM? Novell?
That's why I think the LUGs have to expand their outlook to take in questions of the war and the military use of Linux.
Uh, yeah. That makes perfect sense.
It might have helped if he gave some suggestion of what the LUGs might _do_ about these questions, after all Linux (and even the GNU project) has always been about doing rather than posturing.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
"You are either with us..or you are with the terrorists..." ( a dutiful laugh please )
i don't have to give away my sourcecode if i don't publish gpl programs do i?
I'm pretty sure they are useless to anyone anyway.
I don't want the military to publish thier code. that would be DUMB.
come on, the military only goes where the ELECTED officials will allow them to go. Not using Linux changes nothing. Cept maybe your likely hood of an aneurism.
Telling the truth to people who misunderstand you is generally promoting a falsehood, isn't it? -- A. Hope
How can a person have that level of familiarity with Linux and the GPL, and still not get it?
Linux is released to ANYONE, ANYWHERE to use for ANY PURPOSE. That is the GPL
From the Preamble - "the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its user". Note that is does not say "for SOME of its users..." or "unless you are the United States Military in a mid-East foreign country while G.W.Bush is in Commander in Chief and the month has an 'A' in it..."
From the Terms and conditions for Copying, Distribution, and Modification: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
How does this person reconcile their current actions with their past actions and beliefs? You don't (or, in my opinion, shouldn't) get to the position they were in without some idea of the nature and dedication to the OpenSource community. How can they say now that they didn't know that "Free as in Speech" meant everyone, not just those they agreed with?
Has this person taken the position of CFO for The SCO Group? Their stated position seemd to coincide with TSGs quite well. (ObSCO_Ref)
Reminds me of the Voltaire quote "I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", except this person seems to be saying "I don't agree with what you say - so shut up." This person seems to be a firm believer in President Bush's stated belief that "there ought to be limits to freedom!" which is a moron oxymoron in my opinion.
Amazing the people that CAN think but DON'T, and the ones that CAN'T think that get elected...
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
Sure, the thesaurus lists them as synonyms, but they'll always be out of place, awkward sounding, and do little to actually communicate your ideas.
Really? So why is it that NOBODY has a problem getting the picture except for you few nitpicks. Wait, no, you understood it too, you just didn't like his choice of words. So basically what you're saying is that using the word "war" didn't communicate the point, when it clearly did because EVERYONE got the picture. Sounds like effective communication to me.
In the English language, a word means what it means because the vast majority of people decided it would mean that, not because some self-important prude said it should mean a certain thing.
Taking that into account, the vast majority of the U.S. population considers what's going on Iraq as a WAR. Who the fuck are you to tell them they're wrong?
This fag-meister must think that Linux has been violated by the "infidels" (US Military). Next, Mr. Jiz-Gargler will bomb something in protest and use the violation of "his" precious Linux by the US military as a justification.
Yeah, what's so bad about nucular missiles guidance systems? would you rather like them better (the nucular missiles, I mean) without the guidance systems? they would fall in the wrong places, you know. like your home, or the White House. Thinking of what, yeah, bad nucular missiles guidance dance systems.!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
In the article only a portion of the resignation email was posted, but only one line mentioned his opposition to the war. And the interview centered on the war issue. The lion's share of the email quote dealt with his unhappiness with LULA.
It seems (from the email snippet) that he resigned because of some disillusionment with LULA the Linux community in general, "My one regret is that more and more it has become an insular collection of geeks..."
or
"I feel that Lula no longer reflects the vision I have had for it and has in fact belittled itself as an organization for change and progress."
Granted, the email wasn't completely presented, but one would imagine if there were more to the war issue, that would have been reported instead. But then, "I'm Tired of Being in Charge of a Group of Detatched, Narrow Geeks.", really isn't news, is it.
Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri?
Thousands burnt,
how would u care?
millions homeless
how would you care?
your blue-screen-free- machines of death
marching down narrow alleys
of human infested backroads,
torching, splintering, baking bodies
of those who dare to stand up
to their own quest for freedom,
just like your ancestors did
in this land of the free and brave
So foolish of me, I should have known
How would u care?
Blinded by money
cajoled by abundace
titillated by television
spooked by your leaders,
how would you care?
I hear numbers every day,
like some sporting event is happening
I hear numbers from one side
whilst the others' are left out
I realize that the other side is winning
in this game of numbers
turns out these are just body parts
and broken families..
None of them seem to be yours,
how would you care?
Is this all the hope we have
for our species of the walking apes?
Death, destruction,
mutilation and maiming.
Finger pointing and chest thumping,
dancing on graves and howling like wolves.
You are a part of this, O'brother!
You have the blood on your hands, O'brother!
Dont walk away.
Dont throw the towel in.
Please do care..
for you are human.
--anonymous foreign coward.
Also, there's a good website which debates the claims of Frakenlies here. I didn't read everything there, but it appears that the only specifically damning part from Frankenlies is on point 17 about the GAO. This one I got zapped with personally while arguing about the amount of damage done by the Clinton staff before they left the Whitehouse. Then I checked the actual PDF from the GAO. D'oh!
Happy people make bad consumers.
The Swastika usually goes in clockwise rotation.
Is he going to resign from using the internet because it was developed by DARPA?
"Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it" Richard Feynman
Open source is based on colloboration and sharing, like western science.
... definitely has a sort of liberal global peace vibe infusing it ...
500 years of colloboration and sharing in chemistry and physics didn't stop military engineers from using scientific knowledge to create bigger and better weapons.
Linux, as part of OSS
Yeah, and Mendeleev invented the periodic table. And the Germans were the powerhouse of organic chemistry. But that didn't affect the foreign policies of their respective nations.
Since when does a computer oriented group have anything to do with politics...I think he is letting his personal opinions hinder his Linux User Group leadership role.
I wonder if anyone reads the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers like the one regarding elections of the president for reasons why things are done the way they are.
I think the Iraqi Governing Council, the UN, and the EU could benefit some from reading these types of documents to understand the thinking behind the electoriate, etc.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
Maybe he should stop breathing air, the military uses that stuff too.
The way he resigns with a scattergun explanation along with other not so subtle clues suggests more that it's sour grapes and that he just can't get on with the other members.
Not necessarily. Sometimes, a person simply feels called to testify with their lives against something they feel is wrong. When that happens, they may do something like this.
Ten years ago, I found the evils of the social security system (for starters, preventing aliens from working via red/blue/green card; taking money from laborers when they need it, to give to rich folks when they don't) to be bad enough that I had to give up using my SSN. Talk about disrupting your life. Yet I did it.
I absolutely agree that we should not be in Iraq, and that if in Iraq, we shouldn't be fighting. But this man agrees so strongly that he's willing to make an issue out of his job.
Bravo.
I think more people should follow their consciences more often; and fewer people should denigrate people with motivating consciences (as a poster above your post did, for example).
Will it make a difference to the LUG? Slightly. Will it make a difference to the military? Maybe to some members, but probably not. Will it make a difference to GWB? I'd be shocked if it did. Will it make a difference to GPL? Nope.
Will it make a difference to the ex-pres of the LUG? Absolutely. If my own experience is any guide, it may be the best thing he could have done. There's a ton of value to stopping the train and getting off.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
... I mean, I'd rather have the $600 toilet seat money going to Linux integrators than M$.
Oh, and there's no clause in the GPL restricting use for only peaceful purposes. Why not stop whining and fork with your own license?
Call it the PPL?
OTOH, the Internet was developed for use of the military _by_ the military, so why not stop using the Internet? Or GPS?
Welcome to the machine!
....to work on his anti-technology manifesto.
Err, this is insightful and informative, but funny?
LOL! What an idiot.
Let's see -- the military also uses computers, pencils, networks, paper, pens. Is he going to quit using those too?
Just like every other screaming liberal, "I'm glad that Saddam is gone, but there has to be a better way!"
OK Genius, what's the better way? (That actually achieves the intended outcome)
The day that I hear some actual, usefull suggestions from the screaming liberals will be the day I die of shock.
In the fantasy land of these people, the "Scary Right Wingers" already have a plan that requires zero dollars and zero lives and magically removes Saddam (or fixes global warming or whatever).
But it suppressed because somehow Ford, Shell, the Bushes, or whoever, would make less money. Therefor they go with the bad mean plan that costs lives and dollars.
But strangely, no conservative has ever become a liberal and taken the secret with him.
So wishfull thinking aside, conspiracy theories aside, suburban white male guilt aside....
What is your PLAN?? Huh? Stop whining, and tell us all the answer
otherwise STFU.
"I wasn't using my civil rights anyway...."
...is neutral. This kind of simplistic posturing is really not of any real value/benefit. Faulting someone for using better tools because the motives are ones you don't like is fairly juvenile. Also, quitting you post in protest the way this fellow has is the equivalent to taking your toys and leaving the schoolyard in a huff for no real reason (read: just to get attention).
Sorry, but that's what this guy is.
Part of the beauty of the GPL is that the software in question can be used for ANY PURPOSE, by ANYONE.
Whining because:
These are NOT reasons to remove their ability to use Linux. Just like it's not the government's right to deny HIM use of Linux just because he doesn't agree with them.
I can't stand people who are moralists only as long as it benefits THEM and doesn't infringe on THEIR beliefs.
If he wants to make a spectacle of himself and give up a position that could allow him to effect changes on a SOCIAL level (rather than a physical, judicial, or commercial level as he seems to believe would be appropriate), FINE!
Personally, I have no use for such hypocrites.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Who cares about the US in Iraq, I am way more opposed to linux being used in Parking Meters! Now THAT is EV1L
"I wasn't using my civil rights anyway...."
"No they wouldn't even let us have access to it anyways" you'd say. But Look at all of the things we have today because of military research? IE: um, the internet for one. And hundreds of other things.
They have the resources to make some great contributions to Linux, so you really can't complain there.
nt
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
... to wait until it gets that bad. Of course, you can't really poll the 100 million plus people who could back that up, those 100 million who were killed by their own governments in the 20th century, because they are dead. Not killed by foreigners in wars, but by their own governments.
My guess is though, they might recommend that if in the future you can see clear signs that it's on the way to total totalitariansim, that it's better to nip it in the bud then to wait.
What's the saying the holocaust survivors have? Oh ya, "never again!". That means, you learn from history, you learn to put a critical eye to the clues, and you don't put up with it, especially when you see it starting. If you wait until the cattle car doors slam shut on the trains, you've waited too long. If you see the laws put on the books, but only applied "so far" to "some other guys", and you don't speak out, if you don't resist it then when it's still relativelyeasy to resist, you've waited too long.
If your home catches fire, just a tiny little flame, you put it out as soon as you can see it, failing that, if you need help, you waste no time calling for it, and you do it as loudly and as effectively as you can.. You don't wait until it's big conflagration before doing anything about it, thinking "oh well, it's not that bad yet, I'll just wait until it's a righteous blaze, then it will cross over into being serious and important".
I won't presume to know your age or anything, I can really only relate from my position and age and this sort of thing being a major interest for me for over 40 years now, but this I will staste as fact: It's a lot worse than it was when I first started looking. The laws on the books now effectively strip freedoms based on a bureaucrats whim. The government has gotten caught telling some massive lies to push forward some weird afgendas, even if it took in some cases decades to find out the truth conclusively. They have a track record for this, it's SOP for them. They have a track record of not caring about "collateral damage", to foreigners or to US citizens. they have a track record of lying to and screwing over their own Vets, right into killing them by lack of medical care. They have a track record of putting in dictators, then later on saying it's a crisis and then stating the "need" to go "do something" about the problem they created.
and if you follow up on the links I provided, and spend some evenings in research, and open your eyes you'll see the US now is in a similar position to how germany was in the early 30's. It's really that clear cut and basic.
If it wasn't like that, I wouldn't state it. None of the pieces of evidence out there is created by me, it'sall just researchable data, something the net is good for, and something I wish we had had way back when, when all this stuff really started happening. We had one president who saw it, he would not play ball with those creatures, so they offed him, and since then, they have all been puppets of one form or another. the goivernment is not run "by the people", it's run now by the actual people involved or the progeny of the coup plotters who took over back then, and it goes across party lines. they are not all allied with each other, nor do they have exact aims, but they DO share a conviction that their will is paramount, and they have enough clout to call the shots on what really is going on, and what they want is nothing less than a modern feudalistic society, two classes, one of the ultra elite and powerful, and everyone else. there's a *reason* why the constant attacks on the middle class keep occurring, there's reasons that the major media do not cover all the data, there's reasons why society is being manipulated into meek obedience. None of them good.
My point is,my POV and what I do, is to tell people if we wait, chances are it will be too late. If we fail to speak out when it's still possible, we won't get another chance. If we refuse to notice reality around us, we will still be affected by it. Lea
because it brings innocent websites to a grinding halt. Been slashdotted lately?
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
I wonder if he'd resign if he found out that Saddam was using a Linux-powered database system to keep track of all of his prisoners' torture schedules...
More people need to stick up for their values.
Stupid Hippies...
I'm glad he has the right to do it.. no matter how stupid and smelly he is..
hahahahahaha
Get a job Hippe and get a hair cut while you are at it.
I would like to see a clause in the GLP that strictly forbids terrorist organisations such as the CIA and US military etc, and other ethically-challenged organisations such as Monsanto ( who want to own ALL of the world's water and seed stocks ), McDonalds, etc from using the software.
It's all very well to release your work and say "everyone should benefit from this", but when you work makes it easier for the US to invade sovereign nations, steal their resources and cherry-pick their political representatives, I think many people would agree that the hard work of OS developers is being abused.
He is just stressed like many people are in today's economy. What do u expect after 70 years of high taxation? No investment money in America for good paying non-government related research jobs. Look what happened to the entire Russian science community. Many where jailed because they couldn't find work to pay bills (sound familiar). Then the government had to many criminals and let some of them go. Even today the over production of scientist and engineers in a poor investment climate has resulted in a reduction of wages and quality of research. I doubt he can even think clearly like many freedom loving Americans that don't like what the government is doing to people like the uni-bomber. The government still promises in their job handbook that computer jobs are in high demand in the U.S. even though everyone knows that's not true. Stress helps people make irrational statements. For example, we should build warbots and replace the fascist tyrants in control with Techlibocracy (Libertarian Government Where Geeks Rule).
...give up automobiles. After all, terrorists in Israel and Iraq are using car-bombs. And that's just wrong.
Now, if the whole 'the U.S. Military uses it' is really this guy's justification, then he's an idiot. He might as well give up food, too, because the Military feeds their soldiers.
But, I think his comments are taken out of context. It's a stupid rationale, and thankfully, it's not his primary reason. It's some stupid secondary 'justification' reason. (Kind of like giving up cars for political reasons, then blaming it on terrorists.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I quit a LUG once, too. I didn't see Slashdot scrambling to cover that. Slow news day?
Would you mod up a post called "This shows the downside of being a negro" too, if it made the same generalizations? Thanks, but this kind of ignorant nonsense is the last thing autistics need.
I don't think there ever was a war per se.
Did George W. sign a declaration of war? Not that I know of.
Technically, what we saw it better described as an invasion, or a 'conflict'.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Look, I personally think that it's hard to be rational and *not* tend to oppose the War for Oil. However, resigning from your LUG doesn't do much, and *certainly* isn't realistic. Linux is *definitely* going to be used by the military, as well as all sorts of other things, like fire, knives, x86 processors, and whatnot.
The solution to opposing the Iraq war is to vote against Bush in November and convince others to do the same, not to resign from an influential position unrelated to the war.
May we never see th
The sad truth is that we i.e. Cheney and Bush, are up to no good in Iraq. That's why WorldCom got the contract to rebuild the telephone system and...
First read my whole statement not excerpts. Then respond.
NewsForge and Slashdot could have provided a link to the source but it seems in this case they elected not to give you full access.
My point is that there are times an issue must be raised in every quarter. The United States is massacuring people in Falluoja today. That makes this one of those times.
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
terrorism (acts of killing)
terrorism != acts of killing. Terrorism is the act of imposing terror against civilians as a political tool. It is possible to have terrorist regimes. It is possible to have non-terrorist killers.
May we never see th
I have a sneaking suspicion that members of the military are more likely to be upset about arbitrary "wars" created for financial reasons than a typical civilian. The civilian has to deal with wasted tax dollars -- the member of the military is having being placed in the line of bullets, but to make a few rich oilmen richer, not to defend their country. I'd be pissed off too.
The United States military is not George W. Bush's personal grudge-fighting machine. If he wants to carry on family feuds, he can arm-wrestle Saddam Hussein. The funds and lives put into the military are for the sole and express purpose of defense of the United States of America.
May we never see th
Thanks wyseguy, you took the words right out of my mouth.
My favorites were when the animal-rights students locked themselves in cages every year.
I assume that, after being rounded up by the police, they are locked in jail cells?
May we never see th
Except that I doubt that Bush's stint in the military was for the money -- Bushies hardly lack for it.
May we never see th
This guy will never appreciate open source defense projects like OMGS that contain SQL statements like:
UPDATE Base SET Belong.To='Us' WHERE Belong.To='You'
Clay has somehow connected Linux with "the good". Linux ws some big, happy, hippy, peace lovin force against the evils of the world. Now that reality has set in and it's just a tool that frees you from closed standards, vendor lock in, etc, linux just isn't as hippy-dippy peacnik free-love anymore.
AccountKiller
I am going to give up breathing because I've heard our armed forces are doing it too...
In all fairness I think Slashdot and NewsForge could have provided links to my full statement.
Instead they choose to redact any mention of the dying in Fallouja that so far looks like it is proceeding as I have predicted and turn the matter into a joke with their from the forget-about-military-oxygen-use dept. subheading.
When all the smoke has cleared, I'd rather be in my position than theirs.
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
In all fairness I think Slashdot and NewsForge could have provided links to my full statement.
Instead they choose to redact any mention of the dying in Fallouja that so far looks like it is proceeding as I have predicted and turn the matter into a joke with their from the forget-about-military-oxygen-use dept. subheading.
When all the smoke has cleared, I'd rather be in my position than theirs.
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
How stupid. Blaming the tool, drawing attention to himself... if only he was smart enough to be embarassed.
First read my whole statement not excerpts. Then respond.
NewsForge and Slashdot could have provided a link to the source but it seems in this case they elected not to give you full access.
My point is that there are times an issue must be raised in every quarter. The United States is massacuring people in Falluoja today. That makes this one of those times.
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
Read the article folks. It says: "I feel that Lula no longer reflects the vision I have had for it and has in fact belittled itself as an organization for change and progress."
And again: "NewsForge: But what does this have to do with a Linux Users' Group? Or do you just feel your time can be of more benefit applied elsewhere?
Claiborne: Nothing directly, and I will still participate in the LUG, just let new leadership come to the fore."
He didn't quit being president of the LUG because of the war in Iraq!
Don't ping my cheese with your bandwidth!
"I saw in Linux and its "free as in 'beer', and free as in 'speech' philosophy" a tool with vast potential for the.. He obviously only agrees with "free as in..." if it agrees with his own world view. Hung by his own philosophy. If we insist on a pluralistic/relativistic view on the world without absolutes, then we have to allow the Bushes, Blairs, Howards, Sadams, Mugabes, the .... otherwise it is not "free".
And I'm going to stop using the internet for the same reason...
There is folly and foolishness on the one side, and daring and calculation on the other. - Admiral Pellew, Hornblower
Just because someone whom you dislike uses a technology you like doesn't mean you should take your marbles and go home. That might mean that the head of the local Chevy club might bail because HUMVEEs are made by GM (now).
Frickin' idiot.
I assume that, after being rounded up by the police, they are locked in jail cells?
Nope.
They actually provide their own cages out in front of the Willard Straight Hall.
Life is too short to proofread.
Also, there's a good website which debates the claims of Frakenlies here. I didn't read everything there, but it appears that the only specifically damning part from Frankenlies is on point 17 about the GAO.
Wow, thanks.
I could smell the obvious bullshit surrounding most of the claims on the website, but it's nice to see a point by point rebuttal.
Life is too short to proofread.
So you're trying to tell us that the US is currently sufferring from crushing economic conditions placed upon us by a foreign power after a defeat during a world war?!?
I think you need another layer of tinfoil on the ol' beanie. It's been fun chatting.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
I didn't read everything there, but it appears that the only specifically damning part from Frankenlies is on point 17 about the GAO. This one I got zapped with personally while arguing about the amount of damage done by the Clinton staff before they left the Whitehouse. Then I checked the actual PDF from the GAO. D'oh!
I decided to do a little more searching on this one and found an actual response from Franken on the subject. LINK
Life is too short to proofread.
The military uses guns - just like some antiwar protestors. The military uses Windows - just like some antiwar protestors. The military breathes oxygen, drinks water, and speaks English - just like antiwar protestors.
As the first post noted, this man appears to have the thinking skills of a duck. I've opposed the war since day 1, but I happily use Linux and FreeBSD -- just like the military.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
The US military, no doubt including the troops in Iraq, also use MS Windows, Mac OS X and some of the open/free BSDs. And MS-DOS, in embedded devices not including (AFAIK) bullets. That leaves, possibly, OS/2 or BeOS and I wouldn't make any guarantees there either way.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Bush is the legitimate President, just as he will be again in November.
Ha ha ha! C'mon mod's where's your sense of humor?
...inasmuch as if there's another way that will work, I'll take it.
Generally, the aftermath of a war is that everybody loses. On the other hand, the aftermath of caving in to bullying is usually everyone loses. The only reasonable approach is to support the possibility of war (which means being prepared to follow through) but put pride aside and work really hard to avoid it.
Blowing up the WTC was a stupid idea for a large number of reasons, the relevant one here being that it gave the USA some justification for doing essentially what they liked in the Middle East. This and a number of other hints that the US Gummint knew it was coming lead me to suspect it was a setup. Anything which will undo the effects of that is, in my book, good.
However... complaining about Linux being used by the armed forces is silly. Throw away your knives, the military uses them, too. Tyres? Spanners? Anything with a bolt or laser in it? Telephones and radios? How about peace-keeping forces? Police?
Meanwhile, Historicist prophecy (which identifies the USA as a power which starts off with good intentions and separation betwen State and religion, but goes bad and starts throwing its weight about on a religious basis - and consider the political power of the Roman Catholic Church filtered through "Evangelical" agents in the USA vs the political power of Islam in the Middle East<*>) is looking better and better every week.
Instead of turning this into a pick-on-Linux fest, how about "Linux for Peace" campaign - Switch to Linux and donate the savings to relief agencies and other peacemakers?
<*> Which is actually west of here...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You're a bit looney. I sympathize with your feelings, but as many people have stated here, you are blaming the tool. It's ridiculous. If you really want to make a difference, and do it involving Linux, something you probably know an awful lot about, consider going to Iraq to help start that Linux Users Group. If you can find your footing in reality, just a little bit, again - I have no doubt you could do great things there - help promote free software in a developing country. As much as a sniper's dream Fallouja is, I imagine that to be a dream for someone like you. When Microsoft moves in to give free copies of Windows XP Home Edition to everyone there, you could have already strengthened the linux support base in Baghdad.
I notice you don't mention what other projects are more worthy of your time now or will help promote your ideals. Care to share them? Even if your reasons of leaving the users group had any shred of sanity, it's too little too late. We've killed most of the Iraqis we're going to kill. Considering all the world's problems, you leaving your little user group is probably going to do worse.
I'm trying to see it from your point of view, and sure it's overwhelming - it's clear you feel that way in Linux being 'corrupted'. Even if I agreed with you, you still have to be able to recognize that it is a tool for freedom of speech if people choose to use it that way - and you are in a great position to help ensure that. Sure, the US may be funding the new television and newspapers in Iraq. But they will have to do a lot to quiet the voices of online Iraqis, which in 5-10 years or so may be considerable. It will be easier to quiet them, even if a little bit, if they don't have access to free software, or don't know enough to use it You could be there to help promote that... instead of accomplishing absolutely nothing, or worse, by abandoning something you've obviously dedicated a large potion of your life to and allowing your anger of the situation to ruin it.
Good Luck
Well I am going to start a one man boycott of Slashdot because it advertises some stupid people's actions.
He should also:
-stop paying taxes
-have no children (who could be drafted)
-buy no magazine - watch no tv that the military supports with advertising
-not buy any technology products as these will only contribute to continued r&d spending and a growing US military advantage.
Hunger is the best sauce.
It really and truly bothers me. Along with Google email using targeted ads and Bob Dylan doing commercials for Victoria Secrets. Ethics has gone to hell in this country.
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
Since when has the US had values? And since when has nuclear weapons just been a "deterrant" (misspelled)?
That's true. Remeber all those nuclear wars that we had back in the '80s? There was that Nena song about them, which kicked ass.
Signed, not-so-proud US citizen.
Yeah well, we're not so excited about you either.
Carthago delenda est!
Err, this is trollish how? I was agreeing with the guy for crying out loud. Depending on how you interpret "selected and not elected" (ie, selected by Florida's legislature, not elected by popular vote). Sheesh.
The Civil War, for example, is not on that list. At no time was a declaration of war issued from the Congress regarding the little unpleasantness between 1861 and 1865.
As far as the Federal Government is concerned, there was no war; there was only the suppression of unlawful an rebellion. The Government never acknowledged the existence of the Confederate States of America, because those States never legally left the Union. The Federal Government could not possibly wage war with a fictional entity, so it could not possibly have been at war. The Government was simply having trouble enforcing the laws in the South.
Of course, like anything, people differ on this point, and there are inconsistencies in the Government's position. For example, the U.S. Navy blockaded Southern ports, even though it has been long established in international law that blockades are considered acts of war between two sovereign nations (hence the use of the term "quarantine" instead of "blockade" during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The blockade, though militarily necessary, undermined the Government's claim that the Confederacy was not a belligerent (why would a nation blockade its own ports?). When the war was going badly for the North, and as cotton prices rose in Western Europe, European governments considered using the Northern blockades as legal justification for recognizing the Confederacy as a belligerent and entering the war on their side.
That nastiness on the Korean peninsula that started in 1950? Also conspicuously absent.
Similar legal arguments can be made about how the Korean and Vietnam wars were not "wars" as far as the U.S. Government was concerned, at least in legal terms.
Please define the differences, practical, ethical, or moral, between, for example, the Spanish-American War and the Civil War.
The problem is that your definition of war is not useful in any meaningful way beyond the rhetorical. As I am sure you are aware, the U.S. Government is legally considered to be in a state of war only when Congress passes a formal declaration to that affect. While the Government may be rhetorically waging a "war on terror," and while waging that "war" successfully may require the deployment of resources, including military resources, the Government is not in a legal state of war.
This distinction is important because when the Government is legally at war it is given legal latitude it is not given in peacetime. This is less of a problem for a non-war like, say, Vietnam, which is still a visible armed conflict with a semi-distinct beginning and end. It is more of a problem, however, if the Government is allowed to claim it is in a perpetual and loosely defined "war" against a common noun, and then attempts to acquire the legal latitude being at war requires, I'm sure you can understand how that makes people nervous, even if you believe that latitude should be granted. Like any good conservative (please excuse me if you take issue with that characterization), I'm sure concentrations of power make you nervous, and I'm sure that sentiment also helps you understand how the Government's attempts to increase its power because its protestations that is it at "war" can make people nervous. America is a nation born in revolution, and Americans are historically very skeptical of power. People who question the Government's attempts to claim more power now are exemplifying the most time-honored of American political traditions.
For all of these reasons I'm sure you can understand the legal differences between the Spanish-American War and the Civil War, between World War II and Vietnam. If you concede this point, it does not then follow that you must "surrender to terrorism" or become and "appeaser." It just means you understand the subtleties of the law, which, after all, are only an attempt to reflect the subtleties of real life.
Question: Why did Dick Cheney go to Shanghai last week?
Answer: Because the Chinese said they would only talk to the top guy.
The sad truth is that we i.e. Cheney and Bush, are up to no good in Iraq. That's why WorldCom got the contract to rebuild the telephone system and...
What truly bothers me about this whole affair is that Roblimo, having decided to interview me and run the story, quoted roughly 15% of my letter of resignation and failed to provide a link to the whole letter when he could have easily done so. That's not my idea of how an open source news organization should do things.
It really and truly bothers me. Along with Google email using target ads and Bob Dylan doing commercials for Victoria Secrets. Ethics has gone to hell.
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
It really and truly bothers me. Along with Google email using target ads and Bob Dylan doing commercials for Victoria Secrets. Ethics has gone to hell.
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
Can someone mod this kook's spamming down? He keeps reposting the same stuff over and over.
Sorry buddy I don't need to read you "statement" you are an asshat who is now on my list.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
I'm speechless. What should I put in my spam filter for you.
click herefor a good time.
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
I didn't say I resigned "Over Military Linux Use" NewsForge said I did, and then didn't provide a link to the whole email so people could read for themselves.
"NewsForge is carrying the news that the founder and president of Linux Users Los Angeles (LULA) has resigned because of his opposition to the war in Iraq"
If they had stopped right there they would have been technically true. As I said in the email anti-war work is a higher priority in my time now.
"and the U.S. Armed Forces' use of Linux."
If had they said "And he is opposed to the U.S. Armed Forces' use of Linux in Iraq" That also would had been an accurate statement.
But they mangled everything together to give the impression that I resigned from the executive of Lula because the miltary uses Linux, which is stupid. And then they forgot to include a link to the piece they were summing up.
Clay Claiborne, Producer Vietnam: American Holocaust Linux Beach (310)581-1536
Well done Clay for taking such a strong and principled stand. The fact that the slashdot response has been so negative is perhaps the strongest justification for the position you have taken.
There are many of us outside the US who believe the US (plus Brits and others) role in Iraq has been shameful and indefensible. That the US troops will eventually withdraw in shame and failure is inevitable and it is a blight upon your leaders that so many US and Iraqi people (innocent and otherwise) will have to die first. The sad thing is that in the land of the "free", your media has mostly been reduced to a cheerleading role, perpetuating the lies, half-truths and spin perpetuated by your military. I have always been convinced that good, freedom-loving, patriotic Americans who are against the illegal occupation of Iraq do exist, but their voices are seldom heard. Your action confirms this. Well done.
Here in South Africa (as well as elsewhere in Africa and other parts of the developing world) we DO see linux as being different to proprietary software, and not just in terms of more efficient software development and distribution models. linux, freebsd and other forms of free and/or open source software offer serious tools for changing the rules of engagement in the arena of global intellectual property governance. We are obliged of neccesity to take a more all-encompassing, developmental and emancipatory view of freedom than is perhaps typical of the US linux geek.
So whereas I would not (and could not) try to stop the US military from using linux, I can certainly sympathise with someone who is the chair of an organisation whose membership has such an apparently blinkered world view. Probably this phenomenum is more difficult to stomach in the linux/GPL community than the FreeBSD one, for the simple reason that linux through its lugs are driven by so much passion. It is natural to expect much more of passionate people.
Asshat, you need not filter me I will filter you as if I would ever bother to email you. As you should be able to see you are on my list now.
/. and internet socialists think because one uses Linux and supports Free Software and OSS they agree with your political thought and share the same goals you do. Don't cry when the world screws you over because you think you need to "share" your politics.
Please keep your personal politics away from my operating system. You like most
After reading the comments of this thread and your post at zero I figured you would understand your 15 minutes of fame is just about up by now. Have a nice life please stay out of mine.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
He's small minded and can not see the big picture!
I have no respect for Clay and his decision... Unless he was that second runner up on American Idol, then I take it all back.
But till he proves other wise...
Buzz off and don't come back you commie bastard!
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I can hardly wait until the US decides to sell one of these Linux-based systems. The US is one of the biggest arms exporters in the world. We make a killing, so to speak, on that industry.
Let's say Lockheed Martin decides that sell something they've developed using Linux. To Kurdistan, say.
The State Department and the Office of the Joint Chiefs will approve the sale, after some lunches are bought for some functionaries, and the product will move.
Then after buying the product, Kurdistan will say, OK, where's the source code? And LMT will say "Huh, we're not giving you source code." And Kurdistan will say "But it's GPL. And you just sold it to us. So, A. we're not giving it back, and B. you owe us source."
At which point, we as a community will be between a rock and a hard place. We can say "Hey you bums, you owe them the source code." and have congress make a specific Anti-GPL line item to let the military off the hook, which will undermine the GPL in the States.
Or we can ignore it, and have it be a minor precident that GPL is ignored where security is concerned.
And security will generalize to DMCA stuff.
The company does not own the software per se, such as the core Linux code. But they do own their modifications. They also own their physical copy, they downloaded it onto a CD that they purchased and burned and maintain in their facility. Sure, the kernel code does not belong to them to sell or distribute in ways not consistent with the GPL, but all the GPL does is specify the condition under which (as in HOW) it is distributed. It does not REQUIRE / DEMAND / FORCE the distribution. Only what CONDITIONS it is distributed under.
The key here is IF (IF, IF, IF, IF) the company CHOOSES (chooses, chooses, chooses) to distribute it, they must (must, must, must) do so under GPL. BUT they are not (are not, are not, are not) required to distribute it, and since you as an employee (employee, employee, employee) do not have authorization to distribute the code, it does not (does not, does not, does not) belong to you.
You are misreading / misinterpreting the GPL. Sorry.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
And if the violence in Afghanistan has a "relevance of 0" then why the fuck did you say that increasing violence in the Middle East is a justification for war? Have you ever heard of the "Iraq-Iran War?" Go learn about it. Does that not count as violence that far surpasses anything 1994-2004 has seen? Or is "violence" only considered violence when it is done against a Christian/Westerner? That is the impression I get from your words.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Er... I am sorry. Do you still seriously suggest that any serious weaponnery was recently found in Iraq??? THAT would be a scoop.
> the UN was able to exploit Iraq by getting oil cheaper than it could on the open market
Er... (again) does this UN acted as an oil broker for a profit? That would be a scoop too! I am eager for your -serious- sources.
And for what concerns the WMD inspections, they were rather successfull: discovering nothing when there is nothing to be discovered is a perfectly sane and scientific result. The issue is, for WMDs as for science, that it is quite difficult to know for sure _when_ you have searched enough to declare "nothing to be found"...
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
Thanks for your excellent reply. Full of facts, no emotions- just the way it ought to be. I'll have to look into some of the things you bought up.
While a commander may give an "A" for sombody that isn't showing up, they will not code them a "P" and pay them when they aren't showing up.
You would think so, but that doesn't seem to apply when your father is a high ranking member of the gov't.
If you check the site I linked to, they point out a specfic weekend where he did not show up, yet the records indicate that he still got paid.
Something is definately fishy.
Life is too short to proofread.
I already listed the ones that were found and were publicly announced. They were illegally sold to Iraq. It wasn't against the sanctions for Iraq to have such weapons but it was illegal for Russia to sell them.
As to the oil for profit, yes. Do you believe that if oil was going $20/barrel, Iraq was getting $20 of food for every barrel. The UN charged 2.2% "admin fees" for all the oil going through (over a billion dollars in "fees"). Unfortunately the "oil for food" program was under sealed records that prevented any public oversight for the past decade. Do a quick news search and you'll find that the program was rife with UN member kickbacks.
... the use of Linux on hate sites?