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Use Open Source? Then You're a Pirate!
superapecommando writes "There's a fantastic little story in the Guardian today that says a US lobby group is trying to get the US government to consider open source as the equivalent to piracy. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), an umbrella group for American publishing, software, film, television and music associations, has asked the US Trade Representative (USTR) to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil, and India for its 'Special 301 watchlist' because they encourage the use of open source software. A Special 301, according to Guardian's Bobbie Johnson is: 'a report that examines the "adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights" around the planet — effectively the list of countries that the US government considers enemies of capitalism. It often gets wheeled out as a form of trading pressure — often around pharmaceuticals and counterfeited goods — to try and force governments to change their behaviors.'"
Then the world would be a better place. Although, I kinda like the idea of being a pirate. I've always wanted to sail the open seas, plundering vessels, going ashore and plundering the village's wenches. AARRGGG.
Sent from your iPad.
sorry
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
what happens if you write/contribute to open source?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
I think this is is seriously flawed logic. It appears to falsely equate "value" and "intellectual creation" with a proprietary, commercial development model. Proprietary IP rights are a way to exploit the value of intellectual creations. But proprietary rights are not the source of their value. We can give "due consideration to the value of intellectual creations" without discriminating against open source. Maybe buy the developer a beer or send them a thank you note, or better yet, a bug report or patch?
We used to laud those benevolent spirits who contributed to the public good with no thought of remuneration. Now it seems we try to outlaw them. There might be a movie idea here.... The Police unions get together and sue Batman for doing pro bono work...
The GPL is, arguably, the most popular and most well-known open source license. Without strong copyright law protecting the rights of creators, the GPL could not exist, depending as it does on copyright enforcement to effect its clauses. So I'm not sure what world this lobbying group lives in where FOSS is incompatible with copyright.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
OS = piracy? I thought OS = communism was pretty stupid, but "using free software = stealing" takes the cake.
So now it's pretty obvious what the 301 is. Not a tool to protect IP, but a tool to excuse protectionism.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
The NSA's SELinux, anybody? Obama administration Drupal sites? Forge.mil?
These morons can ask all they like but I don't think they're going to get anywhere.
Aren't you a communist as well?
Since I encourage open source software, can I sue the IIPA for defamation?
I suspect that to some extent the IIPA sees the US policy as an extension of their own economic interests. For much of history that's exactly how things have worked with colonial powers forcing things on colonies and subservient or conquered countries to serve their own economic interests. However, the end result of this will be pretty clear: If this does go through then people will simply take the 301 Watchlist much less seriously, which will actually hurt the copyright holders and others because the list contains examples of countries that really are abusing copyright in very serious fashions that actually should be dealt with.
arrrrrrr!
Can I mod something +1 Scary if it's true but I wish it weren't?
William "Bloody" Gates III, Aaargh.
I preferred to called a privateer...
But these IIPA guys are just bloody trolls.
In fact they could wide spread the idea to fund open source development to lower these nations strategic dependencies from the United States.
A message that seems worth to spread around. I want my government to spend one billion on Linux Desktop and OpenOffice development, so we finally stop public tax payer money to end up in the pockets of an unethical American company.
Get us our money back!!!
i was wondering how that it didn't happen yet?! no problem, no need to wait anymore LOL :-)
the corporate smashing machine moved really slowly on it ...
...that you're a thief if you drink from a public water fountain?
Any crackpot organization can submit comments to the USTR, but why does anyone, including the mainstream media, take this seriously anymore when
there are so many counter-examples of distinguished groups taking open source seriously? If the federal government "takes this under serious advisement",
then maybe the Open Group can irritate Hamilton Beach and Kitchen-Aid by suggesting that toasting bread for breakfast is the equivalent of piracy.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
If this goes through and gets approved, then it's time to leave this country. What kind of place do we live in where doing something for the public good is criminal ? It's a sad state of affairs when people are "criminals" because they help the public... I for one will leave this country in a heartbeat if this gets approved. I hear there are countries in the world that encourage people to help the public ;)
Quite the contrary. Copyrights, patents, etc are monopolies created and granted by government to selected individuals and companies and therefor are the very antithesis of capitalism (which is orthogonal to the question of whether or not they should exist). In a totally free market anyone would be free to manufacture and sell any object even if it was a copy of an object first made by someone else. The express purpose of copyright and patent laws is to prevent competition.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This is not the first time that open source has been accused of being a vector for illegal activity, also, it has been labeled as communist http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/bparchive?year=2007&post=2007-05-14,1 http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism Those are just two mild examples
United Kingdom and France. Three Strikes, anyone?
To their checkbooks it is equivalent to piracy. However, if they view legitimate (albeit free) competition as criminal, then they are admitting to their monopoly and/or price fixing. If their competition releases equivalent software for free, then their justifications to sell software licenses for $90+ are unsound and possibly illegal. If they want piracy to equal using open source solutions, then instead of going to an open source solution, I should have no moral qualms of pirating software. Thanks to them!
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
...open source the government. Seriously, how hard is it to write:
Legislation
If (party1_votes 60) && (party2_votes 60)
GOTO Gridlock
Gridlock
GOTO Legislation
I think I may have just automated congress.
Hahahaha hahaha haha hahaa ha ha
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Using open source deprives closed source vendors of potential revenue, which is the same argument used against pirates. I'm sure the US doesn't care if these countries are not buying our software because they are pirating it, or using open source alternatives; the US wants to take the same approach to all countries who are not paying for commercial American software.
Although due to the fact that "Arr" has been trademarked, I must now instead say "Ess"
Well piracy wouldn't exist without copyright law either!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I'm not an Open Source zealot. I believe that different licensing models and business models suit different folks. You make a choice and live with the consequences open source or closed source. Interestingly, the very folks that find open source fundamentally evil are also users of Open Source. I seem to recall hearing that several of the feature length animations produced by their members were/are done using rendering farms of systems running ... wait for it.... Open Source software. Kind of hard to reconcile this with things like http://www.openexr.org. I would be surprised if it didn't exist elsewhere in their businesses.
Not only did the British government changed the wording around its controversial 'three strikes' proposals,...
That's around the part of the article where I stopped reading it. If one can't bother to at least proofread their own drivel, then I'm certainly not going to bother reading it myself.
I'm probably the Nth person to quote this, but it's so fitting:
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
You are a pirate
This post's title completely sums up the irony, stupidity, and fucktardedness of the IIPA and other assholes giving lobbyjobs (known as LJ's) to various government schlongs in the hopes of being paid for their liberty whoring.
/endrant
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
this is an appalling indicator of how bad an environment corporatism and unregulated capitalism can create.
If you think that the US has unregulated capitalism, or even just plain capitalism, then you need to come visit the US sometime so you can see how wrong you are.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
If you can get the government to make consumption of your product mandatory, then you're set for life. This is just like the single company in the US that manufactured catalytic converters lobbying congress not to mandate emissions standards, but to mandate that all cars be equipped with a catalytic converter -- regardless of their emissions. They've been mandatory since 1975 despite the fact that they reduce horse power and fuel economy
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
USA - the den of greed, hypocrisy and bullying. If that's the true face of capitalism then I don't mind being called a socialist.
... it's my recommendation that the IIPA & all of it's member groups get put on the "Special DiaF" list.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Institution of International Pathetic Asshats. Here is what that haven of piracy Canada has to say about it when they were put on the list: "Canada does not recognize the Special 301 process due to its lacking of reliable and objective analysis, and we have raised this issue regularly with the U.S. in our bilateral discussions." Even our mild mannered neighborino to the North told them to go suck an egg. I have yet to see any reason why being on that list should bother a country in the slightest.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
A few notes:
On the article, the main qualm for the author of the main article seems to be with Indonesia's inclusion into the Special 301 list. For those that didn't read the article but don't know what that list is, the Special 301 list monitors countries that are known for infringing IP rights on a wide-scale (or at least that's the jist I got from reading the articles).
If one reads at least the Executive Summary for Indonesia's report, it is made pretty clear that the analyzed paragraph is not the reason why Indonesia was included on that list. Their issues are, like many second- and third-world countries, much more far-reaching that.
Firstly, it is important to recognize that these are not governmental mandates. These are requests. While there is some legitimacy in claiming that the exclusive use of (free and) open-source software imbalances the playing field for companies looking to make a profit, it is very weak. Nobody complained when Germany or France switched over to OpenDocument format and Linux on government desktops, even though that both of those actions, according to the IIPA, would be guilty of the same thing. It should be a government's decision to determine whether they want to adopt a purely free and open-source computing environment; in fact, it is actually a pretty good decision for them since it would help them deter privacy at-home (which is ultimately what these folks want) while saving them massive dollars. I highly doubt that this will be followed through; too many questions would be raised.
Secondly, one the real reasons why Indonesia is on that list is clearly stated if one reads a bit further down into the report. They are reported as ranking in the world's top 12 countries for business software piracy. That more than likely means they get lots and lots of copies of Office from TPB or wherever. I'm not against piracy, but that would definitely be a legitimate cause for landing up on that list. They are also reported to have lots of other issues with illegal copying/selling/et al.
I am not against piracy (at least on a personal level), but I am against sensational journalism that only blows up a few pixels out of the bigger picture instead of looking at the whole image. This is hardly an attack on open-source; it's just a "thing they noticed."
Not wishing to defend these guys too much but on a quick read of one of their reports, they barely mention open source. Here's all the report on Brazil says about FOSS:
"Avoid legislation on the mandatory use of open source software by government agencies and government controlled
companies."
If I'm here, I read Slashdot.
Being accused of using Open Source software would be the least of my worries.
I'm pretty sure these types have no problem with e.g. Habitat for Humanity. As long as they can take a tax write-off for their contributions. Maybe they should try and outlaw that too. In a more general way, I kinda pity those who cannot value anything without dollar signs attached.
C|N>K
With Intellectual in the title. That should be enough to tell you that they have no intelligence whatsoever.
Full Speed Ahead Mister Cohen!
Incidently, I love the statement just before the credits.. maybe we have finally found a good and fun reason for an economic meltdown :]
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
"Use Open Source? Then You're a Pirate!"
Then a Pirate Arg Be.
Office pedant: President Madagascar! An asshat Washington lobbyist group is calling Open Source software piracy?
President Madagascar: Pedant? Shut down the Internet! NOW!
What I believe the IIPA is saying that mandates to use open source without considering other alternatives is something they see as a barrier to market access and what they consider to be a non-illegal but misguided solution to the problem of piracy. They're not saying that using OSS users are pirates.
Since its absolutely possible to charge for it.
(Forgot who im misquoting here)
Often I have a tendency to laugh at these nut job laws and attempts to strong arm the public by greedy companies. But the sad fact is that these criminals often get their way. It is past time to strike back. Equating free software with piracy is about as sinister as it could get.
I am getting confused here. I thought pirates shuttled old men and their boy toys to Alderaan? But now you are saying we are like Che Guevara?
Either way, our chances of getting laid any time soon just sky-rocketed. We are now officially "bad boys". Rebel with a compile.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They don't give a shit of what we think. Months or even years from now when this issue is before some little corner of government that corner will not have heard of or even care about slashdot. They will only care that they go through the machininations of government. Checkbox, checkbox, action. Go home sleep. Did we organize enough money to get a checkbox? No? Fuck off.
Shh.
As this could effect MANY big players in unexpected ways.
Company's like Amazon will be effected due to the Kindle reader uses open source software ( http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10266319-16.html )
Apple would be pretty much killed on sight since all there products run on either OSX or a modified version which is programmed from UNIX ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osx ) (which is open sourced) and the open source Mach Kernel from BSD ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_kernel ).
While it is not in the US, the London Stock Exchange runs on the open source program MillenniumIT system ( http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/10/06/1742203/London-Stock-Exchange-Rejects-NET-For-Open-Source )
Last I knew, Linksys routers run on Linux ( http://wifinetnews.com/archives/2005/12/the_l_in_linksys_wrt54gl_stands_for_linux.html )
Microsoft could also be effected due to their new deal with Amazon with issues towards the patents involved in said deal ( http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/02/23/1231255/Microsoft-Amazon-Ink-Kindle-and-Linux-Patent-Deal )
Then there is every Android phone since Android is made from Linux ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) ).
At thats pretty much the tip of the iceberg. Many company's and products run on different versions of OSS, which all would be effected with this. And as you can see, this list of company's effected aren't just a small group of no names, but the big players like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Verizon, Linksys...
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
If your commercial products aren't good enough to compete, then go on the offensive! :-(
...and didn't even pay for it.
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Seems like a stupid list with no legitimacy. Honestly, it seems like a petty schoolgirl's list of "people I don't like", where countries get put on it for completely arbitrary reasons.
They're just trying to do something about Global Warming!
http://www.venganza.org/
By increasing the number of pirates, they are decreasing global warming!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Back when I was pirating Windows, I wasn't a pirate, but now that I don't I am. That makes sense.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
Oh?
"Linux/Apache/etc. doesn't have X, I'll pay you to add X and open source it under your name and our company [Canonical, Dell, IBM, Google]"
"Please fix Y bug/security flaw/etc. in X open source software."
"Create a GUI for a program that does Z."
The list goes on and on.
It time to classify the IIPA and their members as economic terrorists. Herd them all up, transport them to Guantanamo and waterboard them for their nefarious intel and prosecute them as enemies of the state.
or at least the appearance of hypocrisy - the corporations funding the IIPA should immediately cease use of any and all OSS.
That means - no linux embedded products ie network routers, high def tvs etc, no linux server farms for the Hollywood cgi-rendering farms, no apache, and no Google!
I wish i could open source some of these people's skulls with an axe.
I wonder how that will work out?
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
Have gnu, will travel.
It's not flawed logic.
It's flawed English, both semantically and syntactically ("does not give due consideration to the value to intellectual creations.")
The logic is faultless. What these vendors of proprietary software are saying is that open source competition will reduce the value the market assigns to their products.
The question is whether you share the unspoken assumptions: that this is a bad thing, and that the government should do something about it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Someone has had too much time on their hands and the funding they need to attempt to pursue their own evil and misguided fantasies.
If I say that you can look at and/or download the source code of my software and you do that, there is absolutely nothing at all illegal, hurtful, incorrect or damaging about that.
Either these idiots need to find morality or just actually first try to understand the things they champion against.
There are far too many people and business' involved in open source software for this kind of group of lunatics to be able to sway any kind of popular opinion.
The group needs to be publicly confronted, humiliated and disbanded.
They will have a pretty hard time convincing a
judge that they have any kind of argument.
- Open source software generally doesn't work very well, so who would even want it? - Someone gave their software away per the agreement so even if the law were in effect, it would be immaterial. They'd have to file the case for anyone to be charged of anything, why would they do that? - The US government is an enemy of capitalism.
The ARMY and others use Open Source so it will not be easy to shut that down.
does the 301 in 'Special 301 watchlist' have anything to do with non-profit incorporation... ???
Could someone please point me to the section of the article which substantiates the claim that open-source is equivalent to piracy?
I've read the entire article, and the only thing I can find is the *article author's interpretation* that the document says encouraging the use of open-source software is in the same category ("Special 301 watchlist") as piracy. For one thing, saying they're in the same category is not the same as saying they are the same - just like shoplifting and murder are in the category of "criminal behavior" but that doesn't mean "they are the same thing".
As far as I can see, the article says that companies are complaining that countries that encourage the use of open-source are interfering with the market forces by producing a bias against closed-source competitors. While I don't agree that this is a legitimate complaint, I can accept the argument that undo preference for open-source software could cause countries to use less capable (free) software over more capable (purchased) software - if an open-source equivalent is inferior to some closed-sourced software. No doubt, open-source advocates would absolutely consider this kind of bias to be evil if those same countries reversed their position and said that they favored closed-source software over open-source competitors.
At this point, I'm considering Slashdot's interpretation of events to be unfair and biased. Why am I getting used to seeing news stories misinterpreted when I visit Slashdot? The fundamental thrust of this article seems to be: companies producing closed-source software are evil, and piracy isn't bad - it's just inaccurately labeled as bad by the same people who hate open-source; i.e. anti-piracy/anti-open-source is merely an attempt by money-grubbing companies to control the market. Both of those "lessons" are flawed.
Solaris, which is in parts open source as well off course ;-)
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
For example, in March 2009, the Ministry of Administrative Reform (MenPAN) issued Circular Letter No. 1 of 2009 to all central and provincial government offices including State-owned enterprises, endorsing the use and adoption of open source software within government organizations. While the government issued this circular in part with the stated goal to "reduc[e] software copyright violation[s]," in fact, by denying technology choice, the measure will create additional trade barriers and deny fair and equitable market access to software companies.
There they go using backwards English again. They admit that Indonesia was trying to reduce copyright violations with this advice. Then they turn around and claim that adopting OSS solutions creates trade barriers that deny them fair and equitable market access. Whiskey Tango, Foxtrot? Did these guys go to a special school to learn how to talk like that?
If OSS is so hard to compete against maybe you should give some thought to your business model and realize that it needs some serious fixing. No, easier to get the government to take out the competition for you. Lazy Bastards.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Since the fall of the republic last year we have converted to a fascist state.
Beware if you are in business for yourself and you live in the United States.
You are now considered an enemy of the state because you compete against government corporations.
If you make a car, then chances are your going to be attacked in some way...probably through industrial espionage. Government owned businesses like the Government Motors corporation we have in the USA do not like competition.
Expect any part of your supply chain to be a target if it is in the USA for example: http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/toyota/toyota-consumer-safety-advisory-102572.aspx
Microsoft is a government sanctioned software monopoly. I suspect open source is going to have a _really_ rough time of it.
With this kind of climate, I think it is ripe for a patent attack on open source, leading to open source being banned or more likely regulated by the government.
(You must go through a government agency first before you create a open source project.)
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I suspect that the consumer electronics companies that are using open source software may be slightly upset about being classed as a pirate.
Linux is illegal! You are breaking the law, and hurting yourself and your family with your ILLEGAL SOFTWARE. Your ip has been noted and is being forwarded to the SPA with a reccomendation that they investigate your CRIMINAL ACTIVITY. Please destroy all your unpatriotic linux software before the government finally cracks down on you people and you all end up as lampshades or soap.
Goodwill and Salvation Army have made serious efforts to put each other out of business. One of them (I forget which) sued the other, back in, oh, the late eighties, over the right to sell rags to China. If I recall correctly, I read this in the Wall Street Journal.
Several years ago, some of the second-hand stores here in Minneapolis/Saint Paul shut down. The way I heard it (anecdotal word-of-mouth), larger local business interests pressured the city to impose reporting requirements too burdensome for the second-hand places to bear. Similarly, years ago, you could volunteer at a food co-op and get a discount. Now there's not a single co-op left in the Twin Cities that accepts volunteers. Same (anecdotal) story: bigger business interests (Whole Foods?) pressured regulators to impose reporting requirements too burdensome for the co-ops to justify using volunteers (you had to treat "volunteers" as real employees and do all the paperwork that goes with it.)
-kgj
A hockey stick graph, then they'll be like: "Hey we gotta save the foss (note they will pronounce it kile floss without the L).
This activity smells highly of Microsoft's tactics. Do we really want Microsoft's business goals affecting our foreign policy?
Tell 'em, "Under me buccan hat, arrrr."
It appears to me that the IIPA's own web site is hosted on the Open Source Apache web server. It's a little hard to tell because the Server header has been customised and there may be some sort of hardware loadbalancer in front of the server. Anyway the 404 page and the directory listings certainly look like Apache.
...go fark yourself. ARRRR
C-faring? Real pirates code in R.
it poisons minds. Not to defend democrats or obama, but i think the republicans would be a bigger threat. They are the ones more friendly to huge companies. Obama is farless authoritarian than Beck and his ilk paint him out to be. Now thats not to say hes not, he is still a lot more than the mainstream left wants to believe, but nowhere near what the teabaggers say. And really man, read the definition of Fascism, we have been for a long time, under democrats and republicans alike. This is the problem with the system, the dems and reps like to have fanboy wars without really understanding that there isnt much difference. It doesnt matter who is at the helm when the ship has run aground.
boycott blackball blacklist these clown, irs audit .... microscope
the manner and level of regulations you have are geared towards preventing monopolies, and assuring product/service quality and government conformity. you dont have any regulations against corporations abusing their power.
Read radical news here
By their nature - a focus on increasing profits at all costs - the corporation is inherently amoral. Oh, they may choose to act in a moral or responsible manner for sure, but there is nothing inherent in the concept of a corporation that actually encourages that attitude.
If a company discovers its product is a health hazard, its in their best interest to cover it up, try to fix the problem as quietly and quickly as possible - and carry on, all the while hoping no one notices or sues them. Anything else will reduce sales, open them up to lawsuits and consequent penalties, and decrease profits.
As I see it (and IANAL), the chief problem is that we allow corporations to act as individuals. If the presidents & officers of corporations were personally (and financiallly) liable for the actions of a corporation, then we might get less objectionable actions from companies and more responsibilities. OTOH who would want to be a corporate head?
Currently a corporation has *more* rights than a private individual, and less liability in many ways (they can be fined etc, but don't go to jail).
I don't support Communism, it hasn't worked, but that fact doesn't mean that its opposite, Capitalism, is inherently perfect either.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Read their report on Indonesia for example.
They start off by condemning the amount of piracy that happens in Indonesia. That part is probably accurate and fair.
However, then things go from sane to really, really screwy. They start the puzzling paragraph with
What can one take away from this letter? That the BSA would rather have you pirate Microsoft products than use Linux? That we should use trade embargoes (and given history, probably even military force) to enforce sales of Adobe, Microsoft, and Oracle products?
This is just crazy. It would be one thing but for the RIAA, the MPAA, and the BSA to sign off on that is pretty darned scary.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Boobies!
Maybe that was the meaning of 301 if such proposal is taken into account.
You know there is such a thing as market socialism, right?
People get the concepts of capitalism, free markets, socialism, and communism far too confused.
So if we presume that a hunk of information like software constitutes a form of capital, then open source of any variety most definitely is socialist (it's seeking to distribute said capital broadly instead of concentrating it in the hands of a few), and thus not capitalist in the loose sense, but most certainly not communist in the modern sense (its distribution is anything but centrally controlled), and thus it is most certainly compatible with three free-market.
Of course those like me who deny the legitimacy of copyright entirely (thus undermining the premise that something like software constitutes capital) would look like communists in the original sense to those who disagree, but we in turn see the very presumption of copyright to be contrary to the free market on scarce physical goods (by legislating what can and cannot be done with peoples' own equipment), which certainly takes precedent over the market on infinitely reproducible intangible goods.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Then I use Open Source!
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
The IIPA writes:
weakens the software industry and undermines its long-term competitiveness by creating an artificial preference for companies offering open source software and related services, even as it denies many legitimate companies access to the government market. Rather than fostering a system that will allow users to benefit from the best solution available in the market
In other words it's saying that a preference for free software is a distortion of the free market that's relevant to import-export (because the competing non-free software would quite likely come from the US). It's an awful big stretch from there to claiming it's a barrier to trade, which is really what they need to be able to legitimately complain about it, but still their argument makes slightly more sense than it's been credited with by TFA.
Dear IIPA,
Maybe if you'd use open source software like Drupal or Plone or ANYTHING other than MS Frontpage (according to the meta tags), your website wouldn't suck so much.
xoxo
commie scum running linux, openoffice, chromium and firefox...
Because when the market is allowed to run free, far beyond what the weak-minded regulators envisioned of it, it definitely doesn't cause any problems. That's why me and my friends are going to build a capitalist paradise at the bottom of the ocean, where we can develop science and industry without interference, and nothing will go wrong at all.
AARRGGG.
Dude... "arg"? What kind of pirate says "arg"? Everyone knows it's "ARRRRR!" Other valid alternatives include: YARRRR, YUHARRR, or other variations therefore. A trailing G should only be used in cases of pain or discomfort. For example: "AAARG, I've been run through by ye blade!", or "ARRRG, I think that wench had ye crotch rot".
Maybe the pirate lives in the Castle of Aarrggg. (Along with the the Holy Grail.)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
greedy fucks, when will you realise that no one likes you, or what you do?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/09/2242230/Submit-Your-Comments-About-ACTA
This is exactly why comments on proposed regulations are important. The IIPA's comments have been submitted, and now *must* be considered (though of course it can be dismissed) by the regulatory body. The Section 301 review actions were exactly what that period of comment was for.
If you didn't get a comment in on the deadline, you missed your chance to present an opposing voice that also *must* be considered.
The problem is that both sides of the argument are not being played exclusively by humans.
You see, sociopaths and psychopaths don't care about logical flaws in their arguments. They don't even blink. They just keep on bullshitting their way forward with charm and eloquence, and the real people who would be mortified to be caught in an obvious fallacy and who would either stumble or concede a point are at a serious disadvantage because the sharks just keep on swimming and eating.
The words in these arguments are being used by each side for entirely different reasons. Humans use words to communicate and understand one another and attempt to reach fair and equitable solutions to the given problems. Psychopaths, by contrast, have one prerogative; Destruction and Consumption, and words for them are merely tools used to confuse and manipulate as they advance their agenda. Witness the entire economic crisis and the various wars and the whole 'terrorism' thing.
Interestingly, there a reason psychopathic individuals appear less frequently in societies which grew historically from small communities and tribes. There is a natural genetic weeding out of those who carry the "Creep Gene". They got pushed off the ice when nobody was looking and afterwards everybody in the tribe sighed with relief. (Psychopaths require large systems to hide within so that when they use people, they can avoid collective awareness of their activities. But when people start to compare notes and talk openly about their experiences, shitty people are quickly recognized.)
Psychopaths carry a number of genetic anomalies, and in America those genes have been allowed to express and multiply, largely because the society started with a mass-incursion through colonization (based on massive destruction, slavery and rampant consumption, activities which drew psychopaths like honey from all around the globe, much like the Haitian child abuse and slave trade which spiked after the chaos of the Earthquake, remained the defacto norm until today), rather than on self-weeding societies based on tribal and small community ethics. The psychopath concentration in the US and other countries founded on colonization is many times greater than those which were not. Globally, the estimate of the sociopath-to-human ratio is somewhere around 6%. But that spread isn't balanced across countries. In the US, for instance, it is up around 30%. --That is, around one in three people are entirely selfish game players who are incapable of genuine compassion, who thrill at the pain of others, and who seek only to consume and to feed their darkness. One in three. This is the source of the whole, "Greed is Good," model of society.
But we won't have to put up with it for much longer. Psychopathic societies are automatically set up to self-destruct. Psychopaths are incapable of long-term planning; they are the cancer which kills the host. This much is very clear. Each year we grow that much closer to total melt-down.
-FL
nmap seems to think they are running Sun Solaris. You can not tell me there is not at least one open source application on that service with that list of ports.
PORT STATE SERVICE
20/tcp closed ftp-data
21/tcp open ftp
25/tcp open smtp
80/tcp open http
110/tcp open pop3
113/tcp closed auth
143/tcp open imap
443/tcp open https
587/tcp open submission
636/tcp open ldapssl
993/tcp open imaps
995/tcp open pop3s
50000/tcp closed iiimsf
50002/tcp closed iiimsf
Living in Chile
I'm still waiting to see how March 8th turns out.
And the U.S. tries to get more Nazi laws passed... Can't say I'm surprised. Viacom has swat teams patrolling the streets to mace children and take away unofficial products.
The article summary (and the Guardian articles) mis-state that countries are being cited "because they encourage the use of open source software." In fact, in reading IIPA's Special 301 recommendations for Indonesia and Brasil, those countries are being cited because they are trying to require by law the use of open source (in government usage). That's very different from simply encouraging FOSS use as the summary suggests.
What would one expect the position of an intellectual property trade organization to be regarding countries that are trying to outlaw the use of commercial intellectual property?
Further, as indicated in the linked briefs, the issue of open source treatment is only a small one in the context of much larger intellectual property issues. To suggest that countries would be put on a watchlist simply "because they encourage the use of open source software" is to ignore the many other and weightier intellectual property concerns that have nothing to do with open source software. (Just because we're an open source community doesn't mean everything is an open source issue.)
There's nothing significant here.
Socialism is when the government forcefully confiscates someones time, money or resources and gives it to someone else.
OSS is 100% voluntary
I'll grant you that the majority of free software is voluntary, but about 5% (number pulled from where the sun doesn't shine) of free software is produced by government agencies and funded by tax-paying citizens. For example, VistA CPRS, the medical record system developed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, is free software.
That should be remunerate (note remuneration is not just monetary).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Make sure you wear a shirt like this just to show your Capitalist devotion to Communism.
could we find a comment like this in the ACTA treaty??? treating countries as inferior because they advocate open-source software?? treating people who develop and/or release it as criminals because that very action goes against ?IP????
You're a ninja.
(Or the Dread Pirate Roberts...)
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.
If I cook hamburgers in my back yard and give them to my friends and neighbors, is this equivalent to stealing from McDonalds? (ie, piracy)
Even if it is not broken, hack it anyway! You'll learn something in the process!!
Since these companies consider open source as the equivalent to piracy, then we should not find a single bit of open source on any of their systems.
If there is open source software on their systems, then the offending companies should either:
1) remove all vestiges of open source on their systems within 3 to 6 months.
2) force the IIPA to recant their lobbying efforts.
3) remove themselves from the IIPA
Way too quick to attempt the quashing of OSS, my little corporation! Only just yesterday had we learned of your attempts at imprisoning of the common man with DMCA and ACTA. Now, just now in an attempt of the equivalent of a "one-two" punch do you try to destroy what is left of our very liberty with a lobbyist group! Just how much is the populace capable of absorbing prior to a public lynching?
Thats because in Soviet Russia, software open sources you
Now THAT would shut them up!
There are ups and downs to many solutions out there. One of my current projects involves XML files and migration into databases (Oracle or MS SQL - both commercial) larger than the application memory limit on 32 bit windows machines let alone the (practical) limit on any editor. Since I'm stuck having to use windows, I needed a solution to split them up, so I had a perl script (free) written that does the job beautifully. The files would be hard to manage if there were too many of them, so the sizes are still large. (70-100M) TextPad (commercial) or saxon-b's XQuery engine (FOSS) to run searches and analysis, but if I am doing anything simple with XML app configuration files, transforming table name lists into SQL create scripts, or non-XML text processing, I use Notepad++ because it's simply better than TextPad AND free, but doesn't handle larger files easily. While our main product is MS SQL-based, our internal project tracking system is MySQL/PHP/Apache with a dash of MS SQL (we have bulk licenses anyways) for convenience.
Anyone who's worked IT (not just tech support) knows that FOSS practically is your trade, or you'd go broke in license fees. Sure, where I work we have some commercial products we work with, but much of the bulk of the business core is custom-built and on platforms we didn't have to pay for. Using the equivalent reasoning of smart business decisions only becomes a problem to the MAFIAA companies when the decisions are in the public eye. (government) Heavy users of IT (including those who work IT) should be using the least costly, most agile solution. Sorry, but that means that a lot of commercial firms will lose out. That's market forces for you. People who whine about that aren't so much capitalists as casting themselves as an obsolete feudal lord in the 21st century. If you're main trade is moved in on, you either adapt and become better, or become obsolete. This is what software is all about.
The only problem I see with mandating (as opposed to recommending) FOSS everywhere might be slow development in the long run but could make software writers more free agents who get contracted at the drop of a hat to interpret and expand a dead project that they built infrastructure on. Much like civil engineers obtain contracts.
Than that means that most US companies are Pirates. I am willing to bet that you can not walk into any company in the US or that is US based, with an IT department and not find any open source software or platform up and running. I'll even go so far as to say that the company that this person is employed by is running some open source "product" ! I wonder how some of these MORONS get jobs
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
If your a Commercial Broadcast Station, your part of the largest most dangerous cult on Earth and all you spew is fascist propaganda, and "psyop fluff noise" to keep the public from being informed about the real shit that fuckin matters.
If your a Representative, your an OATH BREAKER
(an exception for Ron Paul and Kucinich - except what does it matter? In an age of electronic vote tabulation devices which have broken the chain of custody, elections are now whatever bullshit officials say they are)
If your a Corporation, your the new Mafia, except you use soft weapons to kill now.
Which brings us to HOW do they do this?
BANKS.
How do they get away with it?
Senators broke their OATH OF OFFICE
Senators of BOTH "(R) and (D)"
You have NO representation.
Your Senator doesn't give a fuck what you say.
You can't vote em out cause the media makes them be the only one on your ballot, and the electronic vote tabulation devices do the rest.
But India hasn't been that much contributor to open source, the very idea of open source came from Richard Stallman and his army, who is American (I guess). Most of the open source developers are in US and Europre. I wan't US and France, Germany, and blah blah blah countries on Special 420 list.
You'll never see a ninja's code. A ninja's box is programmed to act like it was still yours.
Heh... Then join the pirate party. That is exactly their line : if you know anything about computers, in the legal world of today, you are a pirate. Join your party !
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Can't we recycle lobbyists into a useful resource like some kind of biofuel?
Capitalism is poison! They did always things with evil!
The mentality behind these types of decision is childish at best... Open-source, Freeware, Public Domain has been around for many MANY years and is kindly donated by the authors and users who create such programs, photos, music, texts and pretty much anything else they want to showcase to the world as their work... It's taking pride in one's own masterpiece which a lot of companies dont seem to have because the almighty buck speaks louder than pride... Nuff said!
Microsoft lost me as a customer. They frequently asked me on my legal copy of their product if I didn't want to be a thief anymore. There was no reason to buy software which told me to be a thief. I don't use Microsoft products at all, Microsoft itself taught me about usable alternatives and life in a microsoft-free world.
Major music and film labels lost me as a customer. I don't buy their CDs, I don't buy their DVDs, I even don't watch their movies in cinema. Why should I when I can't use their CDs and DVDs legally on the hardware I have? I have learned to see these limitations as a major drawback, to the extend that it makes their music and movies worthless to me as a whole. It's tainted, poisoned. I don't use pirated copies of that either. Why should I steal rat poison from the store just to eat it because I didn't pay for it? These companies made me learn to life in a world without their music, without their movies. And again, living without these products made me watch less and more specific TV, listen to less and more defined radio.
I should thank Microsoft and these companies for having made my life better in many respects - more time for important things, more money for important things, less brain-damaging and nonsense things, more concentration on things that really matter. I don't as it wasn't their effort nor their intend.
If you claim me to not protect your copyrights for I use Open Source you just annoy me. I do use Open Source because I value copyrights very high. But if you dare to mark my very own work illegal and lessen my wealth from that work you don't give me another chance than to reconsider my position on copyrights.
cb
Arrrrrrr! Ye be spyin' me flag!
"I never get lost because everybody tells me where to go"
Yo buccaneers, hoist the Jolly Rodger and kealhaul the chair throwing scrubber!
Socialism its self however is fundamentally not greedy, or at least personally greedy (maybe it is greedy from societies perspective
It's entirely fundamentally greedy. If you are part of the movement, the sales pitch is power. If you are a part of the "masses", then pitch is money. Indeed, the whole idea of socialism is "educate" people into believing that they must join up with the "socialist powermeisters" in order to get more goodies for themselves.
This is my sig.
This seems like a pretty ridiculous move to consider opensource on the same level as piracy. Totally unrelated issues at hand here.
No, no, lemme place it right in front of your nose. After ranting and raving about piracy, CD/DVD burning (eh???), and whatnot, here is their recommended action for 2010:
The circular letter endorses FOSS, it doesn't mandate it. Yet, IIPA wishes Indonesia to recant? Why? What logic, besides outright greed, connects suggesting gov't entities use FOSS with denying fair and equitable market access?
Want more? Look on page 3 of that pdf under the title "Government Procurement Preference Denies U.S. Software Companies a Level Playing Field", and read this little tidbit about 20 times to get it into your head:
"Rather than fostering a system that will allow users to benefit from the best solution available in the market, irrespective of the development model, it encourages a mindset that does not give due consideration to the value to intellectual creations. As such, it fails to build respect for intellectual property rights and also limits the ability of government or public-sector customers (e.g., State-owned enterprise) to choose the best solutions to meet the needs of their organizations and the Indonesian people."
1. How does encouraging the use of FOSS "not give due consideration to the value to intellectual creations"????
2. How the hell does anyone dump any logic and come to the conclusion, "As such, it fails to build respect for intellectual property rights..."???
3. Keep in the front of your mind this is to the USTR, not some article. This is a plea to enact action between the USTR and Indonesia, not some blog entry. Therefore, stating, in public effing record, that Indonesia is wrong, wrong, wrong for encouraging the use of FOSS (regardless that its use is not mandated) begins to show the true feelings behind this IIPA travesty.
Others have said it better, this is IIPA et. al. crying, "You aren't using our software! That's not fair!!!"
Still think "bias" is the right term? Come on!