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."
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.
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.
The U.S. is not a direct democracy. The Federal government is a creation of the "sovereign states," and a number of its officials are elected by the state legislatures. The president and vice president, for example, and originally, senators.
So technically, your vote for President matters exactly as much as your state legislature chooses to allow it to matter. States can send delegates to the electoal college using any rules they want, more or less. Your state could, for example, choose to not follow the "winner taks all" rules, and send delegates proportional to the popular vote.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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.
and some of the current regime's heavyweights outlined their plans before they even got into office. Then they did it, they followed through with their plans.
That actually doesn't prove anything. The Pentagon has legions of people who draw up all manner of contingency plans. So some day some guys in the Pentagon sit down at a table and say, "What if Iran makes an amphibious assault on Saudi Arabia?" or, "What if Syria attacks Jordan?" or you name it. Then it goes out to battle planners who look at current military capabilities and make a plan. Part of the report goes to the DLA (logistics) who check materiel requirements against what is stocked and if necessary order stuff to stick in the colossal wharehouse complex in, e.g., Columbus.
So when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 somebody walked aver to a file cabinet and pulled out a plan. Right next to 8,347 others that never got used (thank goodness).