Slashdot Mirror
Stallman Feeds Gates His Own Words
soloport writes "C|Net has published an article, written by RMS, in which Stallman points out that Gates is merely calling the kettle communist. Toward the end of the article, Stallman strengthens his point by feeding Bill his own words. Back in 1991, Bill said, in an internal memo: 'If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.' Now, if only Bill were as clear-minded on the subjects of Innovation and Interoperability."
Or it could be said that Bill just took his own advice. Depends on what he was looking to accomplish.
Stallman strengthens his point by feeding Bill his own words.
Once again, I imagine Nelson: Ha Ha!
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
"Stop repeating everything I'm saying!"
"Stallman's a dork."
"Stallman's a... HEY!"
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I think Bill could learn a lot from Stallman and by examining his own past and the way MS and Apple took the computer industry off of IBM in the early days.
I knew how to rule the world in 1991 but unfortunately it changed. For the better.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Idealism dies when you actually get put in the big chair.
How saddeningly true - the more patents there are, the less innovation, the less motivation for innovation. Ironically, I was going to use Microsoft as an example, before I realized it.
All your searching needs (and free money!) - 4Lancer.net
Gates is merely doing what's best for the stockholders. Oh wait. That's HIM.
If Apple (or Xerox) had patented the GUI, we would still be stuck with DOS!
So, if M$ patents everything it can get its hands on, what innovations would it stop?
...but first...
RTFA! I think he makes a valid, lucid point here and does a great job explained why software patents tend to be evil.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Hey, that hurts. . . no wonder no one came to my birthday party.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Now, will this story actually get read by Microsoft-hugging MIS types and pointy-haired bosses?
;) ) from a lentil bean.
The problem with Stallman is that, brilliant as he is, he only ever seems to garner attention from those who are already on his side. He preaches to the choir and only to the choir, which is kind of useless when 99% of the world wouldn't know a Linux (err, GNU/Linux
What would it take to get a story like this onto the desk of every Gates-worshipping, MSFT-stock-owning, spyware-infested-Windows-machine-running, Gartner-Group-report-reading, pointy-haired boss?
And... holy crap, Stallman trimmed his beard???
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
For those of us with a few years between school and the present, I'd ask you if you really wanted to be judged by what you think now, or what you thought then? Does it really matter that you're opinion of a decade ago doesn't gel with your opinion of today?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I thought the best line was: "Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism; it was set up by that famous communist agent, the U.S. Department of Defense."
Of course, he's twisting the meaning of things as much as Gates has, but of course that's the point.
sigs are a waste of space
Technically, Mr. Gates is right. The whole Open Source idea is a communist idea, not in terms of Soviet Russia (where software owns you) but in terms of a community of workers all banding together to produce their own labor, instead of selling themselves to the capitalists.
Seriously, folks, the current situation of Linux v. Microsoft is exactly what Marx and Engels were talking about.
What the Open Source community has is what all communist countries thus far have lacked, which is the admission of only like-minded people. For a commune to work, the citizens must all have similar ideas with respect to how to interact with the outside world. In a nation, where all citizens just become communists, this simply isn't possible.
fsh
Idiom "the pot calling the kettle black" + Bill Gates comparing Open Source to Communism.
Signature.
Can you site an instance where M$FT ever sued someone on patent grounds? Remember, we're talking patents, not copyrights or software piracy.
As far as I know, companies like M$FT take out patents to defend themselves, not to launch offensives against their competition.
He spelled it wrong. It meant to say calling the kettle GNU/communist.
It's not uncommon to see young companies have the same type of attitude but along the way, as they become big, their strategies have to change based on the experience they have gained.
RMS is the driving idiological force behind GNU. People don't live forever. One day, someone else is going to take over and how do we know that the same ideals will be followed. More than that, how do we know that Stallman won't just decide one day that he's tired of living and dieing for free software and will shave his beard, take a shower and go on a date that doesn't charge by the hour?
Microsoft was the underdog for a long time. They came in cheaper and good enough. GNU/Linux right now is coming in as the cheaper/good enough solution. While there are some people that use free software on principle, the people paying for free software are doing it because it makes sense in their business... When something else makes sense, the money will follow.
One day, something else will take that spot and you're going to see a lot of whining and tantrums most likely followed by agressive tactics. To be perfectly honest, you see that now with competing open source technologies.
So, instead of seeing how Bill Gates has changed... consider this a warning as how F/OSS might possibly change in the future.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
Every important element of the modern GUI (windows, icons, menus, pointing device) was demonstrated by Doug Engelbart in 1968. His system even had something that looked a lot like a blog. The patents all would have expired long ago.
In quoting Gates discussing patents, he is being deceptive in that Gates, in refering to communists, is principally discussing copyrights/piracy when he refers to IP. MS has not patented their .doc format in such a way to prevent other programs from interpreting it.
Many of the news /. posts, are based on the work of RMS.
Many don't agree with him, i respect that. But even when you don't agree with many things he says, most of you are using an operating system that exists because of Richard's Work. You are also using thousands of lines of code that he wrote by himself. He has proved in the past to have been right, and the fact that he continued with his fight, even against what most others told him, has benefited the whole community.
So, don't agree with him if you don't want to, but at least hear what he has to say, you will learn a lot, and it's the least we can do to thank him for everything he has given us.
ALMAFUERTE
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
With such an underhanded move to crowd out free software, who can really trust these people when they claim to be acting in your best insterests?
So clearly the pot is a pinko commie. Probably a liberal too. Obviously not Revere Ware.
And the brethren went away edified.
The hammer calling the sickle communist.
FTFA: "If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git." - Linus Torvalds More people really need to take his advice...
"Everyone's a Democrat until they get a little money." -
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Don't forget the increasing need for a Gates/Ballmer filter on Slashdot !
(and I think i saw more Windows news than Linux ones, lately on this site)
...err, what's so funny?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
pedagogue? I think you mean demagogue.
In a business sence, it makes complete sense - as businesses are entirely out there to make money. However, ethically, it does not really gel all that well.
-But, for the most part, if the world was a more ethical place, the standard of living would most likely be a lot better..
But, people are too lazy and non-cohesive - I see it all around me- people willing to take the easiest route even if it 'against good ethics'. They just ignore that fact -
For an example [and I know this is overused], people use cars a lot, causing a lot of problems (what to do with car when its end of life [landfill], what to do with pollution caused by cars [sick people], etc, etc) - however, I suspect if everyone was to migrate to electric buses, or trains, that these things could be reduced, and the (average) quality of life would get better. People usually don't, because cars are convenient, they are common, and people don't see them as being expensive when compared to buses (even though some of those views are incorrect).
So, people are unlikely to choose linux or mac over what their parents/friends have (windows) as they are lazy and see difference/change as a terribly difficult thing to cope with.
Therefore, we see people like Bill Gates floundering about trying to make as much money as possible from the lazy ignorant masses - and his current stance on patents is one way of making sure 'the rebel forces' cannot get a foot in.
I think its disgusting... and I don't like cars (I use the bus as much as possible) and I have a Mac laptop and 2 linux severs (along with a single windows box which needs to be reinstalled every other week).
just my $2.
That's a one track statement. You could also argue free/open source is the most competitive way to move foward, instead of having thugs^W government and lawyers shut down competition for you.
I guess the big fear right now is that at some point Microsoft, when it feels sufficiently threatened, may start using its patents to beat down open source products. Whether that materializes or not, I dunno, but I simply don't have much faith in Microsoft's good intentions. I suppose some things, like Samba, may be at least partially protected because of IBM's claims on Lanserver, but who knows. Maybe they will try to beat Linux down by claiming that people who want to mount FAT or NTFS partitions have to pay a licensing fee.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Thank goodness. I was afraid everyone had forgotten what he said almost 15 years ago.
My Tech Posts on Twitter
Realistically, Microsoft threatening to sack Danish employees if the EU doesn't adopt software patents isn't consistent with merely wanting to defend themselves from patents. If that was what they wanted then they'd be on the anti-patent side of the fence.
...in Soviet Russia, there were communists!
It is also part of communism where the group tries to centralize all of the means of production. In other words, all productive activity is to be controlled and organized from one place, and production for individual benefit becomes illegal.
Now, does that sound more like what MS is trying to do, or what Open Source people are trying to do?
It sounds to me like that one place is Redmond, and that for free/open source software, there is no such place or controlling entity.
With free/open source, anyone who doesn't like a development group's decisions can fork the code and develop their own code base. So, your comparison is not a fair one.
Get a shave and a haircut, buddy. It 2005 already.
Wake up.
Early history of CIFS
The relationship between Samba and Microsoft wasn't always so contentious. In 1996, when Microsoft was just introducing CIFS, it had to contend with competition such as the Sun-Novell alliance behind Sun's WebNFS software. Microsoft at that time pledged that it was "making sure that CIFS technology is open, published and widely available for all computer users," and it noted that Samba used CIFS.
Microsoft submitted the first version of CIFS to the Internet Engineering Task Force at the time, a first step in the standardization process. That process went nowhere, but a 1997 version of that submission is still available on the Internet. The submission made no mention of two related patents, which Microsoft received in 1993 and 1995. In addition, Microsoft shared information in a series of CIFS conferences that began in 1996.
The patents, however, rose to prominence this year.
In the technical document describing CIFS in Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft prohibits companies from using the information in software covered by the GPL, which includes Samba. Microsoft requires readers of the document who plan to implement its description to sign a license agreement that raises the specter of patent infringement.
Specifically, the agreement grants a company a royalty-free license to two Microsoft patents but prohibits the developer from using the CIFS information in software that would subject that company to "intellectual property rights-impairing licenses," including the GPL.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
oops. i just read "I think Bill could learn a lot from Slashdot ..." :) secret wish?
Although I don't know for sure, I believe that enough MSFT employees and contractors read Slashdot that the MS folks (in general) have a pretty good grasp on anything said here, and if there is something to learn from a post or topic, they learn it. If I worked for MS, and saw something here that could be used by the company, I would let my boss know, and hope the company took appropriate action.
Whether or not the new knowledge is implemented once learned is another question all together. It may be a good technical idea yet not fit their business model or vice versa.
I wish I could moderate a moderation as funny!
that was priceless.
It's pretty obvious that Gates' attitude to patents etc will hchange depending on whether he's on the giving or the receiving end.
Unlike for most of us, things haven't changed much for RMS in the last 14 years.... Hurd is still the best idea in town (ready RSN) and he's still living a Jesus sandals hippy lifestyle.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Absolute power doesn't corrupt. Absolute power enlightens. It's being within reach of absolute power that corrupts.
One's right to use software.
That's all RMS is about. The right to use and modify software for one's purposes once it doesn't impeach on other people's rights.
I thought RMS was a bit wacky but once I actually read a bit of what he was saying, it made perfect sense. RMS isn't a radicalist. He makes perfect sense.
"The transfomers are WAAAY better than G.I. Joe" - me
"Seriously, I didn't sleep with that woman. " - Governor Clinton
"Remember what I said about taxes.. uhm, psyche!" - George Bush 1
"Don't make me tell daddy" - George Bush 2
"I bet I could make money on this internet thing" - Steve Case
Ahhh.. good ole '91
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
To be honest Stallman has done some great work, but he personally bugs me. He is super annoying, egotistical and arrogant.
But he has done some damn great things.
Doh
In lefty terms:
Capitalism=market based, means of production are owned by a few.
Mutualism=market based, means of production are owned by all.
Communism=non market based, means of production are owned by all.
Stalinism=non market based, means of production are owned by a few.
Obviously that's a very loose set of definitions, based around the Trot line, and changes depending on which lefty cult the person you're talking with belongs to.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
Wasn't it the pothead (Bill Gates, 1983) calling the kettle (Stallman, 2025) black?
Gotta love that GNU/Linux (cough, Linus) side-swipe. Poor bitter man...that Stallman.
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
I do not question any of what he has done, but there are times when you just don't want to hear about/from someone/something and it is nice to be able to block those things.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
And you would know because....?
There's an entire thread devoted to discussion of how much Stallman needs to "get a haircut," since of course how you wear your hair is an indicator of the worth of your ideas.
Imagine if Einstein hadn't worn a crewcut his entire life. Where would we be then?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
...I'm not sure if this is good or bad or just an example of the capitalist world we live in...I think it's the latter.
I don't see where Stallman quotes Gates with any 'communist' statement. Please point out where I'm wrong (might've just missed it).
He does accuse, but doesn't offer the quote - in or out of context. A C-Net poster has offered a quote concerning music copyrights - but unless I've missed a few arguments, that's not the same as a software patent.
"Seriously, folks, the current situation of Linux v. Microsoft is exactly what Marx and Engels were talking about."
Of course it is. Marx and Engels talked about man tools, and how, a man , in orther to be truly free, should have access to the tools he needs. If the tools he needs to work, are owned by the rich, they become their masters, and can have him dominated.
It's the same argument that Stallmans points out, about software, and, IMHO, it's a fundamental issue.
There is a serious misguided idea that most USA citizens have, which is that communism = URSS, and that's an utter bullshit. The URSS was a corrupt dictatorship fighting for world domination (And we had 2 corrupt dictatorships fighting for world domination in that years, now there is only one left). Communism is an economic and social system, that (just like Capitalism) can work ok if implemented by honest people, or be a terrible weapon if implemented by a corrupt government. This is true for both systems. The issue is in the society, not on the system.
ALMAFUERTE
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I think Stallman must be feeling lonely, and lashing out at Gates. Not only has Moglen started up his own organization, but I see the Kuhn has left the FSF to join him...m l
http://softwarefreedom.org/team.html
http://www.fsf.org/news/new-executive-director.ht
In true capitalism I can use any resources at my disposal to make money. Only murder and theft in the sense of breaking in and lugging away things is not allowed. If Microsoft sells Windows CDs for $100 and I can figure out how to copy my CD that I bought from them and sell copies for $1, nobody should interfere with me.
So now companies come to government and say other people should give them money for something created without their further labor. Even worth, they want to tax an inventor who came up with their idea independenly. Any why? Because they "worked hard and they are good for the society"? Well cry me a river!
That's social protection, and companies don't really need it. If not for patents and copyrights, businesses will form consortium to joinly invent something they can all then manufacture. And in particular software companies will sell personalized support for their software. Like a poolman, there will be a computerman that comes to my house and teaches me how to use software for reasonable rate. There will be some shake up and loss of efficiency, and maybe Microsoft will have 5 billion in the bank instead of 40 billion. But it will not be all bad, and much of the money will be in the pockets of Microsoft customers who are now overcharged for whatever wealth Microsoft actually created.
We need social protection. We work for the good of the society and already don't get royalties, don't get paid again and again for the work we only did once. It's only fair we get some type of royalties first - like job security and the company that outsourced jobs paying for retraining costs for layed off workers. Then, once we are well protected, we'll think about shelling out a few bucks for their CDs that we can easily make ourselves.
By the way, I am not arguing for unlimited social protection or that capitalism doesn't have benefits. But patents and copyrights are definitely NOT capitalism.
Absolute power rocks
...of the bill gates quote
The solution is patenting as much as we can.
In the article, RS is implying that Bill Gates once agreed with him on patents, and the quote he gives would make it seem so....however, if you include the bit that he "conveniently" left out, it reads quite the opposite, gates stance on patents has always been the same, and against RSs stance. Nice to know that Microsoft isn't the only one capable of FUD...well done RS.
I don't like the idea of patents an all little things such as the European patent law would suggest! Where would we stand if a single OK button would be patented! It's just crazy! Gates should see that as well, he should think of where it all will go when everything will be patented! If that was the case they couldn't have made their new side monitor thingie for longhorn cause it was already there gkrellm!
Software patents intefere with the right to use software.
Stallman's speech The Danger of Software Patents provides an excellent explanation of this. I read this speech for the first time yesterday and think it is one of his best ones.
Oh! Zing!
Try eMusic. DRM free, legal, MP3 downloads.
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. ... The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors."
...
I don't know about you, but by reading this, Bill's intentions become clear from the start. Isn't he instructing his staff to patent as much as they can? Funny how RMS would hide this essential piece of the quote in [...]
You're just going to have to trust me. And stop masturbating so much, it makes me sad.
I've tended to consider it ironic on the few occasions when Gates and RMS have indirectly traded barbs...Namely because the two men actually have far more in common IMHO than I suspect either of them would be comfortable to admit. I'm reminded here of a scene from Spiderman when the Green Goblin tells Spidey, "You and I are not so different."
Both men are ideologues, and both, I believe, are megalomaniacs, despite my anticipation that Stallman in particular would strenuously deny such an accusation. But as ESR has said, Stallman wants to be the figurehead of the entire FOSS movement. His flowery speech at times aside, let there be no misconceptions about it...the man *does* advocate a heirarchy, and most especially he advocates himself as the leader of it.
The other irony is that Stallman himself is guilty of exactly the same kind of hypocrisy with which he accuses Gates here...Namely, with regards to the LGPL. Stallman at one point criticised the XFree86 group for using a BSD-like license, calling them sellouts who were doing such in order to ensure that X gained popularity...and he then turned around later and did exactly the same thing with the creation of the LGPL. He actually cites software popularity as part of the reason for the creation of the LGPL. He might not remember this particular inconsistency...I, however, do.
I am not for one moment trying to lump both Stallman and Gates into the same *moral* category here...or not completely, anywayz. Stallman has done a lot of good...I'm aware of that. However, what I think a lot of *other* people need to be aware of is that he still isn't the being of light they think he is, by any stretch of the imagination. He might be different from Gates morally and ideologically in many ways...but the main things that the two do have in common is that contrary to popular belief, both are guided by their ego, and, to a greater or lesser degree, the desire to dominate others. That might sound paradoxical when said about Stallman in particular...but do some research on the man, have a good long think about it, and see what you come up with...you might be very surprised. For the purposes of Linux users, Stallman can definitely be considered an ally...but personally I think "friend" would be too strong a word. The man has his own agenda...and not one that necessarily coincides with everyone else's best interests.
Former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold obviously saw the intellectual property light: patent it no matter what and you'll own the toll-booth. Stallman's perspective is probably too little, too late and Gates' head has probably been here for years.
Myhrvold started a company five years ago (Intellectual Ventures) that is focused on a strategy to "create or buy new ideas, accumulate patents--exclusive rights to use the inventions--and rent those ideas to companies that need them to do the gritty work of producing real products.">
How is he doing this? As it says in the article, "To generate patentable ideas, Intellectual Ventures hired a dozen top scientists as part-time consultants to participate in several all-day gabfests each month, which the company calls "invention sessions." Lawyers transcribe the discussions, which can range from biotech to nanotech to solid-state physics, and follow up on the most promising ideas with patent applications." He's obviously the most visible person involved in this activity. Pretty soon (if not already) *any* idea you have had better be fully patent-researched before you embark on a new adventure.
IMHO, this activity by people like Myhrvold (and the bleak state of the US Patent Office) is what is going to seriously hamper open source innovation and people taking risks to start up companies.
The Open Source community is diverse, that is part of it's strength.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Yes, but they are trying to patent (or have already patented?) their "new" MS Orifice format, based on XML. How you can patent a file format is beyond me, but then again we are talking about the same patent office that approved the setuid patent oh so many years ago.
I remember reading that the patent office used to require a working model of the invention. It might be time to bring that rule back.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
It's amazing that labelling someone a communist is still considered an effective strategy. Patents are scary not just because developers can be sued for writing software, but because distributors can be sued and so can end users. If software patent enforcement becomes common place the few developers who try to continue developing software will be forced underground. That is, they'll put their software in the public domain and disavow all responsibility for it. But that won't be enough because distributors will have to be underground too, else they can be sued, and end users will have to keep their illicit software quiet also. The end result will be so horrifying that perhaps even normal people will notice it. By then the software industry will be long dead though.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Stallman also wrote GCC and GDB, which, IMHO, are more important than Linux, since without them, we would be relying on propietary compilers to compile all the other software we use. All the software on the GNU system depends on GCC.
Also, without the work of RMS, Linux woudln't exist. The community that helped torvalds develope linux was created by RMS.
And, again, let me tell you that we had a fully operational set of utilities (besides linux) way before 1991, and also now, we have choices other than linux (BSDs, for example, and HURD, some day not so far away).
We don't ask too much, we don't want to take credit out of Torvalds, he did his part, just like everybody else. The point is, Linux is part of OSI, and OSI doesn't talk about Freedom, it's just a business model. But GNU, is about Freedom, it's a moral issue, not a technical one, and since most software in GNU is licensed under the GPL (and in the body of the license, it's clearly specified why it exists, and why the software licensed under it is created), and most developers that freed software under the GPL understand and agree with those ideas, so, calling the system GNU, makes that reference, while calling it "Linux" doesn't. I Think GNU/Linux is a fair alternative that talks about both worlds. We are small, we are less powerfull than them, so, we should stick together to be able to stand against the big guys.
ALMAFUERTE
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
What you describe is the difference between communism-the-political-system (perhaps if the FSF *required* copyright assignment to them) and communALism. Communalism is the phenomenon of people contributing to a greater whole. It at least avoids all the baiting around "communism"; it's a ruined word.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Reading this article where RMS states the blindingly obvious, i.e. that Microsoft is trying to put a legal stranglehold on the net and all software development with their usual avaricious and rapacious greed in order to milk computer using human society of their every last penny, an idea occured to me that makes me wonder: Why have the MPAA and tthe RIAA, two organisations easily as evil and filled with shit filled scum like Microsoft's management is, not yet tried to patent songs and movies?
I'm pretty sure they must have thought of it, but then decided against it when they realised that easily 80% of todays crap pop and movie blandness are simply lifting ideas from other musicians and movies.
Hmm . . . now that I look at it, I see that this is not exactly the same as the one I read. There is a speech with this same title in the book "Free Software Free Society", but the one is the book was given in the UK; this one was given in India. Whatever, the speech is roughly the same.
Wait, lemme get this straight.. When people are the underdog, they support measures to even the playing field, and when they're dominating, they support measures to keep themselves on top?
Holy sh*t, people are only out for themselves? When did that start?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Or do people make it to the big chair because they recognize the limitations of idealism?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
When Microsoft was tiny, patents were bad for them; now they find them useful, simple as that.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Oh, so you are watching me huh? I can really get into this new kink.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Great.. you know if there is a GNU/Communist it's only a matter of time before a KDE app Kommunist is released.
I just can't be bothered.
I think you lost all credibility at "anywayz"
What a shame, I was following along until that point.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
RMS appears to have the irritating tendency to be an incurable egomaniac. When he's speaking in general terms I usualy agree with him, but when he's talking about specifics he comes off more like a nut. He talks about embracing free software, but it appears as though he only embraces software that he personaly has had a hand in. Free software that he has not personaly had a hand in is often declared to have some imagined flaw and new software must be created to appease RMS, needlessly duplicating effort.
I say 'appears' because I do not follow him closely enough to make any real judgements, but personaly I'm glad that the Media, for the most part, has latched onto Linus Torvalds as Linux's poster boy and not RMS.
Does anyone remember that old 'Bloom County' where Bill asks a girl out, she turns him down, and he offers her an island? Just to go out with him once.
/classic
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
that Bill Gates is destroying an industry that made him so successful.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
KENT
What?
MITCH (V.O.)
Nothing. I want you to think about what you've done and repent, and from now on, stop playing with yourself.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Very few patent disputes with big companies ever become lawsuits, and it takes a while for lawsuits over patents to be filed (in fact, it can be in the interest of companies to wait a while). Microsoft has only started getting on the patent bandwagon fairly recently and they have already been throwing their weight around with patent-related threats.
Furthermore, the notion of "defensive patents" is nonsense. In order to defend an idea against a patent claim, all you need to do is publish it (you still need the lawyers to actually win in court, but you need those also if you have a patent).
The term "defensive patent" is really a euphemism for becoming a member of a patent cartel: the "giants" that Gates talks about, companies like IBM, Apple, Xerox, etc., have amassed huge patent portfolios that they are cross licensing. As a result, they can operate almost completely free of worries over patent infringement, while small companies that don't have cross licensing agreements are at constant risk of being put out of business by any member of that club. Well, Gates's solution to the problem has been to become a member of the cartel.
Unable to convince us about MS superiority on security, TCO, and interoperability Bill now gets emotional and starts calling us all communists.
I prefer the old, "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." -- Sir Winston Churchill
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Stallman/Stalin?
Does Microsoft sell many products in China? Mightn't it hurt the business there to be using the term communism as a label of evil?
Esoteric reference.
I guess (hope?) that would be about the point where the US Patent System would collapse and take the corrupt government and courts with it.
Linux is not Windows
I believe Gates and Company have taken the approach of patents to protect themselves from suits from others. Has Microsoft actually sued someone over copying their technologies?
They've threatened too. When all you have to do is threaten to kill someone to get what you want, there's no point in killing them.
I guess you won't understand what I mean if I tell you that (above a certain minimum level) money doesn't matter that much for everyone.
Linux is not Windows
There is nothing "fundamental" about selling softwares---bunches of codes that can be copied at a fraction of a cent. There might be question whether a completed software becomes public good or private property, but that's far from being settled...
Big shocker that this garbage is coming out of Berkeley. First of all, you equate the value of software to the cost of duplicating it. Pretty convenient that you can ignore the cost of creating it in the first place. And as for software being a public or private good, that's why we have licenses. If you create the software, you get to decide which license to use. What an amazing system!
...which despite better features than gnu/communist no one will use because it is in a package named kde-politics with dozens of other programs you will never use and needs a full-blown kde installation even if it is the only kde program you are using and it only uses one library call in kde-libs to save two lines of code compared to using glibc directly.
Linux is not Windows
Sure, you are limited to honest ways of making a living which naturally is a huge drawback. Playing fair is always a little harder.
Linux is not Windows
Because YRO sounds better than "random disjoint legal issues tangentially and/or directly related to the field of computing, software, hardware, and online activities"?
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
I don't believe that Your Rights Online means Your Online Rights. I believe it has always meant web pages, articles and discussions based around your rights.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Yes I am. So what?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Yes - if you write software and publish it online, you could have unknowingly infringed on someone's patent, and thus become legally vulnerable. This endangers your right to excersize free speech online. (See sig.)
"There's a word for it. Stupid."
So, was it smart people or stupid people who thought democracy might be a good idea?
Caution, there may be a trap somewhere in that question.
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
And yes, since you asked, whenever I put my point of view on record, I think it only reasonable to expect it to be scrutinized for consistency with other expressions I may make at other times.
This attitude is called taking responsibility. I understand that not everyone has a firm grasp of the concept. But when someone with enormous wealth and influence shows a consisten neglect for responsibility, I see no merit in coming to their defense.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
>> "Everyone's a Democrat until they get a little money." -
>George Soros doesn't look like he's changing his stripes anytime soon...
This is supposed to be be news for nerds, use your brain. Or, to be more precise:
Let d(x) mean x is a democrat.
Let m(x) mean x has money.
The grandparent stated that !m(x) -> d(x)
To be really pedantic, the grandparent's statement was actully in temporal logic and somewhat more complex, but the simplified version will do for here.
You said d(George Soros), m(George Soros). So, substituting into the statement provided by the grandparent we have:
!m(George Soros) -> d(George Soros)
I.e. if George Soros didn't have money, he would be a democrat. Do you see a contradiction here? No? Neither do I. That makes George Soros a really lousy example of a contradiction. If you want to find a proper example of a contradiction, you'll need to find some poor but vocal republicans. I suggest you try small-town America.
Damn. I feel like an idiot. Thanks for pointing that out. Now I have to go find a good Einstein biography. Do you know any?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Didn't you hear? The freeways in California are actually Information Superhighways.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
(Wemembwer to wawtch owt for the spawces in the winks. uh-hah-hah-hah.)
0 65 .wav
1 04 .wav
1 14 .wav
2 64 .wav
3 73 .wav
RMS: (on the phone to Bill)
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Bugs_Bunny/ltbb_
Bill:
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Daffy_Duck/ltdd_
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Daffy_Duck/ltdd_
RMS:
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/bugs_bunny/ltbb_
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Bugs_Bunny/ltbb_
~hylas
What about in dongs?
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
There's a huge gap between being honest and being idealistic. Idealism, at its root, is the idea that the world should be perfect and behaving as if it were. Idealists point us in the direction we should go, but realists make things happen.
Playing fair is always a little harder.
There's no such thing as playing fair. It's a kindergarten concept that just doesn't work in the real world. It's like the old saying.. Honesty is everything. When you can fake that, you've got it made.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
okay, so we're back where some celtic kingdoms were.. You crown the king, he runs the place for x years, and then he is ritually disembowelled to inaugurate the next guy.
That way, you've gotta really want the job, and there's no point in accumulating favours for after you retire.
In fact, sounds damn near perfect..
Integrity, self-respect, moral clarity, admiration of peers ... I'd say RMS is infinitely wealthier then Bill will ever dream of being. It all depends what your "currency" is...
I dont think bill needs to learn much from RMS.
By this yardstick, Bill has nothing to learn from Mahatma Ghandi either... not that he would comprehend anything, ever. I sense you are belonging to the same school of thought Bill does: The Society of Insanely Greedy Psychopaths.
In true capitalism ... Only murder and theft in the sense of breaking in and lugging away things is not allowed.
Where in the capitalistic economy definition does it say that you have to be morally good?
True capitalism is every one for themself. Don't think for a moment that a true 100% capitalist wouldn't literally kill their mother if it benefitted them to do so.
Innovative firms naturally gain monopoly power for some period of time, and it is argued without the prospect of monopoly power in the form of "intellectual property" would have insufficient incentive to innovate. In fact intellectual monopoly is costly, dangerous, and neither needed for, nor a necessary consequence of, innovation.
Hmmm... all those Hollywood paupers. All those poor editors at the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc. All those penniless Ivy League tenured professors, union bosses, bureaucrats, lefty IT geeks and CEOs, casino operators, etc. Wonder how it is that the Limousine Liberals don't have a dime.
It does work, just not in the short term. That often confuses people. Playing fair and being honest does work. You just have to understand that you will lose a few battles, but win the war. It's a hard concept in today's world where everyone is focused on short-term gain. After decades of watching social battles, I can say, the scumbags always lose in the end. It's just a question of how many lives they fuck-up on the way out. Please, don't be one of those people.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Microsoft has already patented some .Net implementation methods,
I would really like to know.
Of course not, he gets it both ways, look it up. His money is sheltered from the taxes that he wants to place on everyone else. Easy to vote democrat when your money isn't effected by what the democrats do. Its when you have money that is affected by taxes that you start to question if they are worth it.
If there were no software patents, the big companies would appropriate all the innovations and dominate through marketing instead of invention.
Wait a minute...
For great justice.
Help a poor old programmer who has probably been creating software longer than you've been alive:
iff(writing_software~=singing_the_blues) then
patent("singing about my girl left me")
endif
I'm being facetious, but do you see how ludicrous software patents are? I've looked at and written as much software as anybody, and I've never seen anything worth patenting in terms of code and implementation.
The stuff that maybe could have been patented *never was* things like virtual memory, protected memory, job schedulers, etc.
The really ironic thing is that in the past 10 years, there's been very little innovative software that should deserve a patent. Yet before that time (before there was software patents), the software world was far more innovative.
Now we patent "one-click" and think we've really got something. Its really a travesty.
It was in the '80s -- you must have missed it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sorry, could you clarify that please Carly?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Being a post that was already scored +4 Insightful, I read it, and was surprised to see NMR mentioned (somewhat) off-topic
e sonance - similar to NRM, but without the constant magnetic field.
I'm a research assistant doing work on NQR - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Quadrupole_R
Anyhews... although the fundamentals of NQR have been published for years, there are really only a few groups worldwide that work on this. AFAIK, only two corporations and two Universities do NQR related stuff.
Guess who publishes findings in journals and who patents things. We've actually had our work stolen, via patent, because details were revealed during discussions with the USArmy. The same co. was then awarded $20M+ in research funding, while we had to beg for less than $200k. And that was supposed to fund my prof, the students (myself,) purchase equipment, etc. There's nothing like watching a bunch of frauds use your work, and squander millions, while you do fundamental reseach using items purchased at HomeDepot and Kitchen Ka'boodle.
We currently have a (minimal) amount of funding from a certain big corporation. Because of this, they want the rights to our work first, and who can blame them. I've personally made a rather simple observation that may apparently have use in many other fields. We're torn between publishing the work, or having my name on a patent app.
OK, I'm rambling. 12+ hours in the lab today isn't helping. My point being: Whoa! You mentioned NMR! and, Not all scientific discoveries/techniques are published in journals.
With apologies to the true fans out there, I'm reminded of this:
FROA #109. [Integrity, self-respect, moral clarity] and an empty sack is worth the sack.
1.Netcraft confirms:In Soviet Russia all your base welcomes a beowolf cluster of CowboyNeal overlords. 2.? 3.Profit!!1!
If intellectual property is property
:-) Rather you have a government-granted privilege to collect tax from other citizens.
War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength
All right, if computer-generated characters were persons, playing Doom would be mass murder. But fortunately, they are not. And ideas in my head are not your property, even if you got a patent that would cover them. What are we, a slave society?
His weight in code.
Stop the Slashdot effect! Don't read the articles!
Seeing how IBM is starting to use its muscle to support linux, and given Microsoft's sentiments about open source, could this be MS's way of bulking up before an armageddonesque showdown with IBM...? Just something I was wondering about.
I must bid you farewell....... "walks out amid the gunfire"
I say we let these two settle this thing in a duel. Hand grenades at 2 paces.
--This sig is in beta. Please let us know abut any errors you find.
Yes, whatever the anecdotal evidence of corporate speak to the contrary, I suspect the Microsoft patent portfolio is at the ready to pave a path over smaller company's innovations.
Trusting people is one thing. You can form an opinion about their character and decide where or how far to trust them.
The character of publicly traded companies is that they are obligated to legally maximize profit. Since using patents in the USA to crush competition is legal, in a way they have an obligation to do that.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
But a conservative is not a Republican (at least not the Engish kind). Stallman could actually be considered a traditional conservative in Burke's definition -- preserving the institutions of the country (i.e. freely available softwre -- the commons), while raising the condition of the people (users of the common software).
China has created brand-new form of capitalism: Bill Gates
It would seem that "communist" isn't as much of an insult coming from Bill these days....
Do you have ESP?
shortsightedness or overthinking of the situation I guess.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
I'm sure Bill respects himself. He got from just being a nerd (yes, Bill was once one of us, too) to being the richest man in the world. We have to keep in perspective: there's more to the world than software, as RMS admits. What RMS does is right, but there's nothing morally wrong with what Bill is doing. I believe that they believe their software is better, and I don't think everyone will suddenly be happy if they all stop using Microsoft (although they won't be as unahppy).
I think Bill has moral clarity in some areas (not business dealings), especially since he's got a ~10 billion dollar charity organization (I think). And I think everybody admires him, unless they happen to be involved in free/open source software or happen to be emotionally linked to Macs. Nobody likes his software unless they're getting paid for it, but everybody admires him.
I don't disagree with you totally (Bill could learn from RMS), but I also think that Bill isn't totally evil and hated, as you suggest (gasp! heresy!).
Before you walk a mile in someone's shoes, you should insult them so you know how they are and what they're doing.
"I don't belong to any organized political party: I am a Democrat." -- forget who said this, but too true (and once you start talking about liberals it gets even worse)
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
And what you left out is that it is not available to anyone and it can not be used in/by FOSS dev. Meaning that... FUD is an easy 3 letters to spread, but sometimes you just might swallow it.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
IBM, Novell and other large corporations that have thousands of patents, and that have opened up many of these patents, should form a consortium. Smaller software companies join this consortium and pay an annual due (couple thousand dollars, based on size of company). If any of these smaller companies get sued by a big company not part of the consortium, the big companies in the consortium do 2 things: they leverage their patent portfolio against the company pressing suit, and they provide legal support. I imagine the big companies in the consortium could even make a profit off this, as the yearly dues for all the companies will exceed the amount spent on legal fees. And in one fell swoop we can make the ruling decision of the gov't moot, and thumb our noses at anti-FOSS corps like Microsoft.
...other than How To Become Insanely Rich Through Dumpster Diving?
Maybe How To Justify Everything You Do, Hypocritical Or Not. Windows still occasionally bluescreens when you plug a new device in, years after this faux pas, in which Trey explains "that must be why it hasn't been released yet". Billions in cash, but still hasn't ironed out the bugs == "we don't really care about the bugs". Quality is not Job #1, getting the money is.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
No, I'm not who you're replying to... but I'll bite anyway.
really? Bill Gates donates billions of dollars a year to many charatable causes. What does RMS donate?
RMS founded - and works for - a charity. What do you think their paychecks look like side-by-side? You have to take it in before you can donate it. Would you rather RMS rob Peter to pay Paul?
I can bet you have used at least one computer today that has a Microsoft operating system installed. I would say that Bill Gates is clearly more intelligent than RMS. Otherwise, we would all be using GNU software.
I haven't. And your argument , if you can call what you wrote an argument, that Gates is more intelligent that Stallman is probably the worst cliché I've ever witnessed. Troll.
A lifetime worth of effort to provide freedom (in the form of free software) to everyone? It is easy for Gates to spend maybe 10% of his money on charities, he can't tell the difference anyway. RMS doesn't have much money (AFAIK) but he gives what he has.
if RMS really had moral clarity, he (and the FSF foundation) wouldn't go after people for violating the GPL.
Having moral clarity is not the same as being a pushover pacifist. Indeed, it means standing up to those who would do wrong. RMS is doing that.
if RMS had integrity and self-respect, he wouldn't have tried to change linux to GNU/linux.
A linux _distribution_ is (or was, at some point) 95% GNU software and 5% kernel. If you were the man behind that 95%, wouldn't you want to be credited for the part you did? RMS never wanted to rename the kernel, he wanted to rename distributions. And you know what, he has a pretty damn good point there.
Software Patents? Who needs them?
Patents would/will (and maybe in some cases already do) only slow developement, software, hardware, doesn't matter.
Company A - Has an idea, patents it
then
Company B - Get's cought and forced to pay up.
or
Company B - Is forced to re-invent another way to do the some thing (re-inventing the wheel)
This is exacly what's holding us, the human species back. We could share ideas and/or methods and concentrate on support and improvement.
Company A - Invents, and releases to public
then
Company B - Takes the idea and improves on it,
releases to public
then
Company C - Takes the work of Company C and further improves on it. And releases it.
If the big companies didn't play this childish game (which they don't need to, they already have dominance/influence because they are big companies) we as species would be way ahead of where we are today.
Even if you didn't want someone to know how you did something. You could refuse to show your code. In this case companies would compete on better implementation of thesome idea.
Everone wants somethingm for nothing...but not at expense of keeping the little business out. IMHO...
Bill "donates" a negligeable fraction of his ill-gotten fortune to "charitable" causes which somehow inevietably result in government procurment deals for his products and tax breaks. Bill's charity is the Dickensonian kind, of a fat pig in a luxury carriage tossing a few silver coins to wretched poor in rags on the street on Christmas. "Self-serving" is a term we use for that.
As to RMS, a lifetime of effort, bearing fruit such as the GPL and Linux, to mention just the obvious ones. More importantly, he "donated" to humanity an entire movement which seeks to protect us from ... people like Bill who will not rest until they somehow enslaved us all.
if RMS really had moral clarity, he (and the FSF foundation) wouldn't go after people for violating the GPL.
I can't tell if you are serious here. GPL is a clever mechanism to protect our rights from those who would take them, using the villain's own legalese. If he would not use it as a weapon, the whole thing would be pointless.
if RMS had integrity and self-respect, he wouldn't have tried to change linux to GNU/linux.
I happen to agree that GNU deserves very considerable credit for Linux, far more so then any other component provided by others. The GNU/Linux campaign is perheaps unwise from the PR point of view, but it has all the moral justification it needs.
free software is fine, but the majority of people in this world don't enjoy getting rehetoric forced down their throats.
Do you know the beauty of free software? You don't have to use it, you don't have to contribute under GPL, you can do what you want with your own projects. What you just said is "Meeee! I wanna to make others make software for Meeee under Myyyy terms!! Everyone, gimmeeee!". Somehow I suspect a conversation on this subject with you is waste of time.
I can bet you have used at least one computer today that has a Microsoft operating system installed.
You would have lost your money, but that is beside the point.
I would say that Bill Gates is clearly more intelligent than RMS. Otherwise, we would all be using GNU software.
I see. So the measure of intelligence is an ability to foist one's "product" on the unsuspecting public. By that measure, the inventor of "pet rock" was a true genius, far above Bill. And I am getting an ominous feeling that I am feeding a garbage-covered troll.
He got from just being a nerd (yes, Bill was once one of us, too) to being the richest man in the world.
Gates has *always* been rich, his dad *owns* a bank ffs.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
And wasn't it the same Bill G. that said that OS/2 is the "platform for the 90s"?
wave
The same guy that did not notice the Internet... but then again he has billions worth of stock in that company. I would say anything to protect my wealth! Cheers
COMMUNIST! TERRORIST! LIBERAL!
There should be laws meaning we can lock people like you up without trial, indefinitely. Unfortunately, because of our commitment to FREEDOM in the United States^^^^^^ civilised world, that could never happen.
; )
The famous first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Konrad Adenauer once said:
"Why should I care for my yesterdays gossip"
my 0.02
But, then it bcomes a power issue. Again Bill wins over RMS.
Dont get me wrong, Bill is evil. But in the long run, i dont think he really cares as he 'won'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You know, maybe you are right. If Linus hadn't started Linux, we would now be running GNU/Hurd instead of GNU/Linux. If RMS hadn't started GNU, we would be using BSD (and they would have needed to write a compiler).
So from this point of view, putting that /Linux behind the GNU is a compromise, a kind of recognition towards Linus for being a great guy and helping to popularise free software. One might argue (though I wouldn't agree, I'm fine with GNU/Linux) that RMS should strive to have the OS simply called GNU instead.
Personally, I prefer to look at distributions as OSes. So there is the Red Hat operating system, which include GNU and Linux and Apache and Mozilla and X.org and so on. Debian happens to be based on much of the same software, but I'd still consider it a different OS, with different tools and a different community. Perhaps the FSF should make a totally free distribution/OS of its own and call it GNU...
Besides, it's not like any of his public health donations address priority issues or even have a proactive lean to them. Nope, it's largely pushing corrective measures that rely on large purchases from his other investments.
C'mon you remember when his media circus when to India. Smoke from kitchen fires is a larger and more concrete problem than expensive AIDS treatments. However, AIDS is a high profile event in the US media plus he gets to push sales of expensive pharmaceuticals.
It's probably just funny money to him anyway. He gets MSFT stock for free and then "donates" enough to neutralize any taxes he might accidently still have.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Someone help me here. I don't understnad why those words from Gates are a bad thing? Isn't that the stance that we all want to see? Is it bad only because it comes from Bill Gates? Why such a derisive article when that IS what we want?
I can tell you've never studied the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.
Fair play is the way to go, every time.Do you like Japanese imports?
"Everyone's a Democrat until they get a little money."
... thankfully, as they are all that stand between us and the abyss.
Of course, that's demonstrably a crock of shit, in as much as Bill Gate's father (a multi-millinaire in his own right) has been very rich for a very long time, and is consistently a democrat. Other examples include Donald Trump (rags->riches->rags->riches, with a few more iterations ahead of him it seems), and of course the Kennedy's (except Schreiber, but every family has its black sheep).
Not everyone sells out their ideals when they achieve a little success. Many do, and we as a culture have deified such things, and the greed and avarice that causes such things, but there are many good people who choose not to succumb to greed, who do place the greater good above their own, and who think this toxic neo-libertarian self-centeredness is in fact the single greatest contributer to the decline of our civilization.
But of course, the apologists for such thinking will find someone richer than the examples I cited, and raise their definition of "a little money" to be greater than that of those I cited, thereby shuffling definitions until they think their hypothesis holds.
It still doesn't. There are a few good people in this world who do not sell out for a quick buck
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The GIMP has a very very good interface.
Indeed: unzip and let the good times begin!
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
Please enumerate your donationas and net worth. If they dont add up to a third of your need worth, then you are a hypocritical loser.
I had the same thought, but i am afried IBM isn't big enough to win. Maybe they will still though.
Freedom or George Bush
It's not quite as dumb as it looks, it just came out of specific uses. The year is often implied. It also matches the way you say it, "February sixteenth, two thousand and five". (You don't say "two thousand and five february sixteenth", though you could I guess). Some examples:
What dates are those? Both the sixteenth of February, current year. They line up nicely. If you are more interested in month-related data, then it works well; you can make nice lists, where the constant year is not obscuring the data that is varying; compare (e.g., how many August dates are in this list? How many August 1 dates?):
So if I oppose DRM and software patents that makes me a communist? Funny, here I thought I was just a pro-environment paleocon who believes in minimal government, one that does not hand out monopolies like candy (as our current patent office does) and that does not infringe on peoples right to tinker with their computers, stereos, and other gadgets (as the DRM does).
With an attitude like that, you should wear a neon sign reading "Whats you price, whore?" so that you can save yourself time asking that question of everyone you meet. And they will know right away how to treat you too.
This might come as a shock to you but some people are not for sale, no matter the price. I like to think of myself as a member of that list. And in the long term, people on that list are the only ones who actually have a claim to the term "homo sapiens".
Oh, and one more thing, your attitude is dangerously close to that of a sociopath, from what you are saying I could easilly conclude that organizing with one's army a little gold teeth extraction regimen in a "work camp for inferior races" is all-right because, as you said repeatedly, "morals are relative"...
That formulation works alot better if you are a member of the English ruling class than if you are a factory worker. In any case, with all due respect to "Freaks and Geeks", Marx had a somewhat more general formulation:
"The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but on the contrary, it is their social existence which determines consciousness."
Actually I think it's "The Society of Insanely Power Hungry Psychopaths" but other than that, bang on :)
;)
I personally think if Bill had been a paper pusher instead of a bit pusher he'd be making Bush look like a nice guy right now
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
I love gnu software, the quality and capeabilities are amazing, and if something is missing I can mod the code myself.
I hate microfost SOFTWARE it is low quality and I cannot make my own changes.
I do not hate microsoft, I just wish they made a better product and let me have some control over what I buy.
I do not hate bill gates, he worked to get where he is, he earned his own money, maybe through scheming, maybe through effort, maybe what someone sees as scheming to him appears as work. relativity folks.
Why is this relevant to this article? Well to denounce gates accusation of communism is fine, and to reverse the logic to show gates as a hipocrite is also fine. But stallman, the very intelligent absolutely brillian long time asshole went beyond that. As great as stallman is he is undisputedly arrogant.
The statements in here though making a valid point and reprisal are also very much a personal attack. It is like a media flame war between an arrogant asshole who has earned the right to be an arrogant asshole, and a man at the top of everything who has also earned his way there (though in my opinion it was with a crappy product). All this shows is that people at the top are no better and no worse than the flammers at the bottom. In the long run this article has accomplished little more than fortifying the positions everyone already had. In fact that is the only outcome of almost everything today. I ask has anyone here ever changed their opinion on an issue after holding it a long time based on something a popular/well known (ex stallman and gates) said tot he media? I f you have changed your long heald (5 years+) opinion based on this then please reply to this post and say so. But don't just say britney spears says war was bad so I am anti-war (yes I am going beyond patent law) and don't just say all my friends hate Bush so I decided I do too! State what opinion you changed, who said what sparked your change of opinion, and why you changed it. I do not care what the opinion is, or which side of the issue you are on.
Err, yes it is actually. It is copyright violation, and that is wrong.
if RMS was really spreading freedom...
That's the BSD argument, and I understand it to a point (it is naive, but ok). It has little to do with having moral clarity though. Moral clarity also doesn't mean working for free, or giving away everything you own/create for free.
you are very naive to think that RMS actually wrote 95% of that software.
I don't. I know he had a lot of help. All those people joined together under the name "GNU", and now he wants that name to be used when that software is distributed. It isn't actually required by the GNU licenses, but his request is not unreasonable.
95% may have been released under his license..but lets give credit where credit is due. If I release a program under the GPL today..would you say that RMS is behind it?
No, but why would I? If GNU releases a program today I would say that GNU is behind it. If someone then adds this program, and some more GNU programs, and some external program together and distributes it as a whole... Then I would say it is not unreasonable that GNU asks for some credit for its work, for example in the form of a mention on the box or something.
And I, in turn, don't mind doing so. I credit the people whose software I include in my own, even when the license doesn't require me to do so. It is simple professional courtesy; I expect it from others and I give it to others.
A linux _distribution_ is (or was, at some point) 95% GNU software and 5% kernel. If you were the man behind that 95%, wouldn't you want to be credited for the part you did? RMS never wanted to rename the kernel, he wanted to rename distributions.
It is, however, not quite right.
It *was* 95% GNU software and 5% kernel, but now it's more like 50% GNU software, 45% X/KDE/Mozilla, and 5% kernel. Why does RMS not insist that everybody call it "Mozilla/[KDE/]X.org/GNU/Linux"? If he were truly the man of integrity that many people think he is, he would cede credit to the other people who bring together a functional modern desktop OS.
Of course any realist would see that insisting it be called "Mozilla/[KDE/]X.org/GNU/Linux" would just drive everybody batty, and as more and more apps/layers are added, it would just become unweildy (if "Mozilla/[KDE/]X.org/GNU/Linux" isn't already.)
Seems to me RMS made a similar comment about the original BSD license, no?
Everyone has a price, dont kid yourself. The only thing in question is that price. Be it in dollars, 'stuff', freedom, or something else. But that 'price' is there.
And you may conclude all you wish about my moral limits.. You may, or may not, be correct.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sources please.
Even if he is giving away all this money because of some "rich brat syndrome" (which I strongly doubt), who cares? Why does his motivation matter if his actions are good?
It matters since the whole point of the conversation was comparing RMS to Bill. Motivations is what this is all about.
By the way, exactly how did he "steal" that money?
By first expoiting general public's lack of understanding of software and operating systems and then by engaging in wide scale extortion.
Why don't you want to reply to the question of whether the ability to read the source code for rich people in industrialized nations is more important than the survival of disease stricken children in poor third world countries?
In order to answer that question, one would have to first answer another: how much of the poverty and desease of the poor third world countries is due to the actions of people like Bill who used them as slave labour and plundered their resources while ensuring that they have no education, democracy or other perks of civilization. Furthermore, one would have to examine the impact of "Intellectual Property" laws promoted by Bill and his buddies which result in things like drugs being far too expensive for vast majority of inhabitants of those countries. And so on. After an in-depth analysis you will quickly discover that men like Bill take far, far more then they give.
Everything that's of utmost importance to you, Random American Cubicle Dweller, (i.e. free software) may not be all that important to the rest of the world, some of which has trouble even surviving. To them it is good that people like you are in no position of power. The length some people would go to to avoid cognitive dissonance is truly mind boggling.
Free software etc has no bearing on the topic you brought up, which was the "charitable" activities of one Bill Gates.
I dont usually converse with ACs but today I seem to be in a charitable mood. The enslavement I speak of has many components, the two top ones being: establishment of a private taxation system on virtually the entire economy of most Western countries, the other is an attempt to establish "Intellectual Property" laws which seek to appropriate the intellectual heritage of humanity and turn it into rental property for the likes of Bill (which curiously results in drug prices being out of reach for the same very african victims of AIDS who Bill claims to be helping). Enslavement of others can be achieved by many ways, steel chains is only one of them.
They may or may or may not be intellectual equals, but Gates is clearly a better salesman
I never contested Bills salesmanship, merely his morals and his worth to the society.
Yes, that is why there are poeple in prisons who would rather lose their freedom then go against their conscience. That is why there were those who died rather then to sell out to those who thought like you. The existence of those people without the "price" is what keeps me thinking that there might be hope for humanity yet, despite the best efforts of those like you, who seem to despise their gift of sentience and would rather return to the ways of amoral animals.
I agree that GNU deserves credit, but I totally disagree with the whole GNU/Linux campaign. Every GNU utility in Linux made reference to it's origin. Linux never claimed ownership of the utilities in it's OS. How can one morally justify the requirement of a name change?
The thing is, RMS had no need to be jealous as anyone who used Linux KNEW that the utilities were GNU. Just like anyone who used AT&T UNIX knew the "useful" utilities were BSD. And the way it was presented and justified by RMS himself. I know RMS is in denial, but if Linux is just a teeny weeny kernel and a collection of a few drivers, then make your own OS and be done with it. Hurd....? I'm willing to bet that if hurd ever did take off, RMS would start a new campain about how people should dump Linux for Hurd. It would certainly fit RMS's style of self interest. RMS and GNU is not about spreading freedom to the world, it's about spreading HIS view of freedom to the world. And his approach has historically been very draconian. Just think of the XEmacs vs Emacs days.
My own thoughts are of how hypocritical RMS really is with GNU. Using his own presence to force change down someone's throat. When I think of RMS, I think of the phrase, "absolute power corrupts absolutely". RMS has power just like Bill, and just like Bill I feel he abuses that power to brow beat others into submission. As much as I agree with the need of free and public software, I totally disagree with the viral GPL and the GNU ways.
The argument behind the GPL, I feel, is just weak. The slogan, "use the GPL for fear that someone will steal your code and lock it up" Is just bunk! Say you wrote some free software and you released the code publically. Say a corporate entity snags that code, makes a minor change or bug fix and sells it for millions. Who cares? Other free minded individuals have the same option to grab your code, make changes and rerelease the code for free. Your initial code was never "hyjacked". It was never stolen or locked up. It's still free and from that perspective, there's no need for the viral GPL protection.
However, there is one thing that GPL maybe protects and that's the ability for another party to grab your code and patent or copywrite it. That would indeed "lock it up". So on those grounds, I absolutely agree with the GPL. I feel the GPL should do nothing more than state that the following code can't be claimed as ownership by any other party. And that's where the license should end. Not even the requirement of stating it's origin. It's always nice to give credit, but why make it a requirement? It's a common curtiousy and nothing more.
In regards to providing source code for derivatives works I think is rediculous, or even requiring derivative works to follow the same license I think is a restriction of freedom. Just so long as the initial algorythms are patent and copyright free is all that's necessary.
That to me is what donating code and freedom to use is all about. If you're donating out of goodness and not for fame, then you shouldn't be concerned about plagurism. If you truely believe in freedom as in freedom to make your own choice, then you shouldn't be concerned about how someone uses your code. You're only concern for freedom should be that what you release as free should always be free. That has nothing to do with derivative works and it's where I can't see the GPL gets off calling their philosophy based on freedom. The viral tatic of the GPL is just as draconian as a corporate license. Saying it stands for freedom really is a hypocritical statement in the face of true freedom.
I started exclusively writing dates that way after dealing with some Cuban refugees. Almost every country in the world but the US writes dates as day-month-year, often using only numbers! So now, it's 16 Feb. 2005 for me, NOT Feb. 16th 2005.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
See this article, for example. There are many others that are somewhat critical of Gates's intents. First, think how much he got through tax evasion. It might have been more than $28 billion. Second, it's really easy to be generous with criminally gained money. Gates is a monopolist capitalist pig, so the fact that he gives away some of the money doesn't justify stealing all that in the first place.
I do commend Bill for sharing his wealth, though. But it doesn't mean he gets a cart blanche to do everything he wants and still be free of criticism.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
What? The most successful strategy was "Tit for Tat, with forgiveness." Aside from the fact that the whole issue is completely irrelevant to the real world -- it's a contrived situation -- Tit for Tat is not the same as fair. If someone kills your sister, it's fair to kill theirs? Maybe.. it depends on your definition of fair (same for honesty). Thus, there's no such thing as fair and honest. Until there are objective definitions of these words, there's no way to abide by them. But that can never happen.
So what is fair? If Country A has a better education program than Country B, should they give some of their own educational funding to Country B until both programs are roughly equivelant? That's fair, right? I think the educators of Country A would disagree -- they's now lost funding through no fault of their own. Is it a more successful long term strategy? Well, you now have a larger pool of educated people to work on various projects, so while you may have delayed the discovery of the cure for B.O. in Country A, you've enabled Country B to discover the cure for morning breath. So should the world be socialist? But pure socialism hasn't succeeded ever, anywhere. Not even in small hippy communes where everyone's baked during all waking, and most sleeping hours.
So long term success.. is it better to screw over your neighbor, or play fair? The important thing is variety. In the long run, it doesn't make sense to stick to any one single strategy. Sometimes it's more effective to screw somebody over, and sometimes it's better to work together. I'm not talking about one person -- although certainly there are occasions where one should question whether their moral interest or disinterest is helpful -- but if cancer researchers in one part of the world are playing cutthroat; industrial espionnage, spying, etc., and researchers in another part of the world are collaborating, then you've got the best situation possible -- whichever is more effective will win. Since there's no way to predict the outcome in advance (only the likely outcome), it makes the most sense to diversify.
Aside from that, life isn't fair, and there's no way to make it fair. Natural disasters kill millions.. people's own bodies betray them.. some people are smart, some are not so smart. Should I feel bad because I'm (arguably) smarter than my dog? Or my neighbor? Or should I leverage my advantage and do everything I can with it? I think that's being "fair," in the long run. Taking advantage of whatever it is we can. It's the will to power.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I'm sure you all never use any date notation other than the International Standard (ISO 8601, as recommended by the UN as well as the HIPAA committe and every single data processing standards body that currently exists).
However, I thought you might be amused to know that the United States is *not* the only nation that teaches children to use fundamentally stupid and broken date formats. Here are some of the moronic customs taught in other lands:
Russia, Germany, and Finland use dd.mm.yyyy, which is not entirely retarded since you can always sort it backwards.
Great Britain, Australia, Argentina, and Brazil use dd/mm/yyyy, which would be fairly sensible if they didn't also use dd/mm and dd/mm/yy. My grandfather was born in '99 and so was my son!
Belgium, France, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, and the Netherlands use dd-mm-yyyy which again is not completely asinine because you can sort it backwards at only a small penalty in efficiency.
Switzerland and Norway use mm.dd.yyyy which causes great confusion for their more intelligent neighbor nations. And of course any format that doesn't proceed from the largest unit (year) to the smallest (day) probably costs eight times the CPU power to sort (more if you don't zero-pad).
Italians often use dd-mmmm-yy with roman numerals for months, because apparently they don't quite "get" the whole concept of "efficient sorting" at all. This is so clabber-brained that the US notation would actually be LESS imbecilic.
The Japanese often use y/mm/dd where y is the year of the emperor's reign (currently 16 Heisei Era) which makes a completely numeric representation impossible (since you have to specify the Imperial Era if you want your work to last more than one generation). To make matters worse the proclamations that announce era changes (for instance, from Meiji to Taishou) are so couched in archaic formula that it is impossible to pinpoint exactly which day is the changeover date, and the first year of any era is never referred to numerically (it is always denoted by the word "GANNEN" instead). Many Japanese government documents are required to use this inane notation, which in the age of computers is essentially a puerile affectation.
Latin America and the USA use mm/dd/yy and mm/dd (and occasionally mm/dd/yyyy) because we can't stand to do anything the way the British do it, even though our way is inutterably boneheaded and costs us billions of dollars every year.
French Canada, Hungary, Yugoslavia,Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Poland use yyyy-mm-dd which you will note is actually the ISO standard. I guess somebody was bound to get it right, but I would not have guessed that these particular regions would do so. The Quebecois are probably doing it just to spite us.
So, I know you're all wondering, how many ways can we interpret 02/02/02?
Well, there have been 125 Japanese Emperors, so that's 125 ways right off. Then there's the whole "how irresponsible can we be with the month field" issue, so that gets us mm/dd/yy and dd/mm/yy and yy/mm/dd and yy/dd/mm (there's probably some culture out there that uses mm/yy/dd or dd/yy/mm, which is sort of the pinacle of thickheadedness, but I haven't yet run across any poor souls that have been so miseducated) so that's 129. Then there's that two-digit year... hmmm, we'll throw out future dates and everything BC so the number doesn't go instantly to infinity... still, that's another 21.
So we've got about 150 ways to interpret 02/02/02 (or at least 25, anyway, after we throw out the Japanese imperial poppycock as arrant nonsense) without even really trying.
Thank you and goodnight.
--Charlie
You're on crack, my man!
If "linux were to be the dominant marker" then MS would have their 50,000 developers working on value-adds for MS-branded linux.
In case you haven't noticed, Ballmer is not a total idiot. The GPL can't prevent MS from becoming a free software provider any damn time they see a need to.
Not that I necessarily believe "50,000 developers" are currently employed by MS, but... get a grip, man.
Have you seen Bill's woman?
The discussion went from software patents and free software to the morality of donating money. It has been a long time since my Logic and Reasoning class I took in college, but I believe this is a something of a red-herring. By arguing charity, the original conversation has been lost, as was the intent of the AC pro-Gates. It is great (I guess) that Bill is giving away his money for the sake of third-world countries and puppy dogs. But this has nothing to do with to whom I would listen, or the truth of the matter. Personal morality and monopoly practices of a company are not within the same discussion. Screwing over an entire industry and its associated consumers (almost everyone) is another matter, the original matter.
It is dangerous to be right on a subject on which the established authorities are wrong. - Voltaire
Dude. It's a TV quote, not the Fundamental Theory of Physics.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
No, but why would I? If GNU releases a program today I would say that GNU is behind it. If someone then adds this program, and some more GNU programs, and some external program together and distributes it as a whole... Then I would say it is not unreasonable that GNU asks for some credit for its work, for example in the form of a mention on the box or something.
And I, in turn, don't mind doing so. I credit the people whose software I include in my own, even when the license doesn't require me to do so. It is simple professional courtesy; I expect it from others and I give it to others.
I can understand Software that is forked from something stallman created (such as emacs or gcc).
But what about things like the linux kernel? It was created under the gnu license, but has almost no actual code created by stallman.
He nor the FSF deserve any credit what so ever.
Your comments on class obviously mark you as a marxist/communist. So of course anything you have to say about capitalism is suspect--sort of like asking Gates about free software, or Stallman about the proprietary kind...
Hardly. Instead, I think your comments mark you as a closed minded bigot in the grip of some sort of ideology. So of course any accusations you make about anyone else's political leanings is suspect -- sort of like asking Ann Coulter about anyone who doesn't worship at the altar of George Bush.
Capitalism is like Democracy. They're both terrible systems, but they're the best we've got.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Fingerpointing..
Well Bill Gates exists because he can,
he does business the way he does because
it works.. That's why he is there..
And he thinks, I believe, if Ayn Rand is his
inspiration, that he, like some who believe Karma (I don't) that he exists to do what he does..
However, in each of us, there is good and evil, and its up to us to determine which will rule over us..
Bill's faith lies in his money and his work,
as long as he has that, he can be complacent.. What drives him, this is just one large game.. He doesn't see good and bad, he sees only what he wants to see.. But he's confused when the world doesn't believe what a great guy he is.. To him, this industry exists because he is.. He's so big, that when he becomes little, he loses his respect for himself.. This is why he acts the way he does.. His strength is all in what he owns and his power over the industry.. That is his respect for himself.. Some can be thankful for what they have.. But can
Bill be thankful for what he has..
It says in the bible.. HE who has will be given more.. And he who hasn't, even what he does have, will be taken from him.. This means, if you aren't thankful for what you have, be prepared to have it taken away.. And if someone is given more, don't be jealous, or in your distraction, what you have will be taken from you..
Just say no to license servers!!
He nor the FSF claim credit to it. The GNU/Linux thing was for distributions that include lots of GNU stuff and a Linux kernel, not for the kernel on its own.
If IBM isn't big enough to win (they are the largest patent holder), nobody is. They have armies of professional, extremely competent lawyers, and an arsenel of patents which must make Microsoft downright envious.
Also if they make allegations over large projects, they may find that they are picking a fight with more than just IBM. For example, what happens if they allege patent infringement in Linux? Will IBM, Novell, etc. just sit back or will they do whatever they can to help eachother out? What about Samba? Maybe SGI, Sun, and every other Linux and UNIX distributor will help.
Microsoft *is* boxed in on this one. Seeing MS pick a patent war would be like seeing N. Korea declare war on the US. They could cause a huge amount of collateral damage but in the end, they would have *no* chance of winning.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP