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Stallman Unsure Whether Firefox Is Truly Free
Slatterz writes "Among the theories Stallman bandies about in this Q&A are: Facebook may not share private data with the CIA, Firefox isn't really 'free software,' and his dreams of a day where nobody is involved in developing or promoting proprietary software. Agree or disagree?"
Whether or not software is free or not free, we have more or less redistribution of wealth, more free trade or less free trade, more environmental protections or less, is not nearly as important as whether or not this nation is producing leaders sufficient to the tasks before it.
Right now, I'd say the answer is NO.
On paper, American managers and CEOs and political leaders, particularly the Bush administration, ought to have succeeding wildly.
BushCo, for all of its "revolutionary Republican" posturing, is a product of the system of education and nation building. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, all of them are top school graduates. All the generals that came before Petreaus also have distinguished resumes.
The CEOs that run American companies, financial institutions, etc, all have similarly stellar pedigrees.
Yet, the government is a mess and the private sector is in tatters. Our financial institutions are burned from bad loans and our manufacturing is gutted from bad products. A country with the supposedly best educational system in the world ought to have produced a ruling class capable of winning wars quickly, balancing the budget, and making use of the largest pool of private and public capital ever assembled to expand its businesses and not lose them to third world countries.
Yet, this nation has utterly failed.
And, on the left, we can see too that the leadership is similarly anemic. Our arts are in a constant spiral downward, free speech now means whether or not you can say the F- bomb on public TV. Are there any musicians today, who we will listen to in 100 years? Are you are there any books today, that will be read in 100 years? Can we really say the writing behind a movie made today is the equal of the writing of a movie made before?
This isn't about politics any more. This is a failure of our institutions to produce decent leaders, or leaders capable of making the right decision. Why this is the case, and how do we fix that, how do we fix a culture that has failed, is really the national debate, and every other issue almost doesn't even matter.
This is my sig.
How is this flamebait? It was modded as funny to start with, then you fucking faggots modded it down.
Maybe you need a bat to the head to make up your FUCKING minds!
How is this modded Informative?!
Didja know that Slashdot moderators consist of multiple people? Not just one person with multiple personalities or an inability to make a decision.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
Indeed, which is why RMS should stop trying to enforce his mindset, and embrace the anarchism inherent in digital reproducibility. BSD is a license that reflects this.
Essentially you want the freedom to restrict others. Then I guess it's only fair for you to give me the right to put you in jail.