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ESR Dismisses PRC "Official Linux" Announcement
webmaven writes "Eric S. Raymond reacts in this LinuxToday story to the recent press regarding the Chinese government oficially adopting Linux. He dismisses the story as untrue, and furthermore states that the principles of the PRC are incompatible with the voluntary cooperation that is the spirit of the Open Source movement." But it's not just China. Apparently Cubans like Linux too. So read Eric's essay and decide for yourself whether this is good, bad or all just hot air. Comments?
That would blow away his rabid victimization -- he claims that Christians are evil and wicked because we persecuted his "spiritual forbears".
If so, that's really annoying and depressing. Yeah, some Christians did exactly that, and other Christians are trying to do it now. Then again, I doubt that very many Quakers have any hand in that stuff, and the last time I checked, they were Christians too.
It's fine -- in fact, admirable -- to object to objectionable acts by members of a given group, but Raymond generally seems to go a step farther and claim that the objectionable acts are characteristic of the entire group, and are furthermore necessitated by membership in that group. With a self-selected group like Christians or communists or Nazis, that's not nearly as scary as it would be with an "ethnic" or "racial" group, but it's still unjust and goofy. We've had a rash of very public violence in the news these past few months, and the balance of the perpetrators were people with strong anti-government and pro-2nd-Amendment views. Would Raymond care to be lumped in with those characters? I doubt it very much -- after all, he hasn't shot up any JCC's and I can't imagine that he would condone such a thing, much less do it himself. Similary, the fact that Hitler may have been a pagan tells us absolutely nothing about the racial or political views of other pagans, Eric Raymond included. If he's gonna generalize unreasonably, I guess it's good to be consistent and do it to himself, too, but he's really getting worked up about nothing.
Incidentally, my devoutly Catholic friend Tom would never condone any persecution of Raymond for his beliefs. Tom has pagan friends and he considers their beliefs as silly as they consider his -- but since they're all nice people, they don't hassle each other about it. I don't crawl up his ass with my atheism, either, and we get along just fine.
Kind of sad.
That strikes me as unfair. I don't know about Raymond, but speaking for myself (unlike Raymond, I'm unable to speak for anybody else
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
In the late 19th century, there were a whole bunch of political movements that we would call "left-wing". Several of these movements, not just Marx's, called themselves "Communist". Sometimes they took one another's theories and techniques, and sometimes they bickered (sounds familiar, eh?). A big chunk of the Communist Manifesto is devoted to flaming other movements, such as utopian socialism and anarchism, that were popular at the time.
Over the past century, some of the ideas that circulated through these movements, such as the legalization of trade unions, became pretty much mainstream. Some, such as the inevitable immiseration of the working class, became pretty much discredited. Some, such as full employment, are still being argued about (this particular issue is big in France, as I recall). Newer movements, such as environmentalism and gay rights, have added ideas and issues to the mix that Marx and his buddies never considered.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
In general, whenever a free speach issue appears on /., we all react in the most liberal manner. We don't want our rights taken away; we don't want anyone's rights taken away. We agree that people have the right to say just about whatever they want as long as it is not slanderous or libellous. We also all seemed to feel that the moderation system here on /. was a good way of keeping offensive comments from being to much a part of the community without violating the rights of induviduals to make those comments.
Yet now, the /. community has turned around. Many people are taking offence at the idea that China may (or may not) adopt Linux as the "official" OS. We're getting mad because they have perpetrated numerous human rights violations. We think that licences should forbid countries like the People's Republic from using Linux.
By endorsing such ideas, we are just as much in violation of the ideas of free speach.
I agree that China has done many things that are evil and wrong. I don't support their corrupt idea of "comunism." But it is wrong to tell the Chinese government that it can't use Linux because the government is evil.
Making it impossible for the Chinese to use Linux because of human rights violations would be like telling a member of the KKK that they can't buy rope because they will use that rope to kill some one. It would be like telling a satanist that they can't get up on a soap box in a park and rant because some one might take offense.
Here in the US, we have a Bill of Rights. This bill protects our citizens from many things. But why is it that as soon as an idea is not covered by the Bill of Rights (i.e. China, because they are not memebers of our union and, therefore, don't have to abide by the Bill of Rights), we feel that the Bill of Rights no longer applies?
If China wishes to use Linux, it is their right, not because they are a large, oppressive superpower and can take what they want; not because they adhear to the Bill of Rights; not because we like them. It is their right because it is the fundamental right of all people, and through the people, the countries in which the people live, to improve themselves and speak their minds.
I am sorry to rant on like this, but I feel that there is something of a double standard here and I felt the need to point it out.
I agree, in theory, that China using Linux looks bad for the Linux community, but if we deny them the right to use Linux (via licensing etc.) are we not just as bad? Aren't we then supporting the very thing we wish to stop?
Rhapsody in Numbers
ESR is apparently right about this thing being a rumour and not much more. You will know this for yourself if you follow the links he gives instead of just reading the comments about his article. Here is what the original press release said:
GraphOn Corporation, (Nasdaq: GOJO) (www.graphon.com), a Silicon Valley web-enabling software company, today announced it has established alliances that it believes will afford millions of users throughout China Internet and network access to powerful server-based applications and speed adoption of Linux® as China's operating system of choice.
Presumeably somebody from Yahoo called the guy and got this quote:
"Enthusiasm for Linux is coming from the very highest level of the Government in China," says Robin Ford executive vice president of GraphOn.
Which was miraculously transformed on Slashdot into this:
YAHOO UK is reporting that the People's Republic of China will be naming Linux as its "Official Operating System"
Anyone can see how rediculous this whole chain of events was. I read Slashdot for facts, not for unsubstantiated rumours that generate threads containing articles consisting mostly of groundless speculation that get moderated up. This whole affair should be embarrassing to all of us - if it isn't, there is something wrong. What are we going to do to try to make it not happen again? The last thing we need is for Slashdot to gain a reputation as primarily a rumour mill - that's not what it is, I know that and you know that. But one fiasco like this can undo the good effects of dozens of informative, useful threads, as far as the clueless industry press is concerned.
That was my rant about truth and the need to pursue it. Now another short rant. ESR was completely wrong to have used this opportunity for publicizing his own political views. But, thanks a lot for debunking this thing for us.
This in no way means that I don't think China or any other country shouldn't enthusiastically adopt Linux, or the product of any other open-source effort, politics be dammed.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
I am stuck to open source.
This is getting too much similar to:
Arms are just a tool, drugs instead are BAD.
For the great american people (and maybe some poor european) encription and technology is good and it must be widespread, so we can defend ourselves from the government.
Chinese instead are to be considered unable to use the same tecnology for the same reasons...
When I'll see (I won't: its a hoax) the chinese gov. make other osses illegal or using this os for bad things I will flame them. In the mean time they can do with linux anything as can everybody else. And I'm quite happy with it.
Just as long as the chinese people have free access to source code, all of this is good.
Please just don't be afraid if someone who has done LOTS of bad mistakes gets one right.
Paranoia must be a tool, not a master.
About free-is-everything argument:
The fact that the chinese people (not some chinese, one billion chinese) are adopting any technology is just another naive illusion.
You must have bucks to do choices in the technology arena.
Or have institutions back choices for you instead.
Surely the first is better. In this case it simply isn't an option because software can be free as in speech, seldom as in beer (and seldom*1'000'000'000 is a BIG number) but knowledge of IT (even at consumer level) COSTS REAL BUCKS. (just imagine TCO*1'000'000'000).
Should any significant increase in tech knowledge occur for that 1'000'000'000 as a mass THIS WOULD BE GOOD no matter who does it.
How it is done is an ethical problem not a tech or outcome problem.
Or do you think that backing a fascist coup as in Chile is ethical or acceptable? (but obviously you can discuss if it has been good) I guess (and hope) we have same ideas on the morality of bombing the Casa Rosada and desaparecidos.
There was a project in Mexico2 years ago to make Linux the official operating system in all state Mexican schools, even with a company quoting for the project. Unfortunately, a new administration put the project on hold.
Well, how do you think they would have felt if it had been a matter of state security personnel sniffing about the distinction and siding with the communism in Marx's works? But, honestly, I don't remember seeing any mention of the USSR in ESR's essay. I do, however, distinctly remember him contrasting China's human rights with the US's, but failing to note that the US merely *exports* its human rights abuses. Well, unless you're young and black, of course...
"Free software is about freedom. The only thing that can happen by China's adoption of GNU/Linux is more freedom."
Uh, or millions of people will say "Oh, Free software is written by a load of Commie Red Hippies.", and go off and buy Windows 2000.
One or the other.
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Dream on. The Chinese OS aim't Linux. It is Chinese 2000: support 8 million chinese characters (under 200kb memory), GUI interface, natural language, Java VM,voice input, development language in chinese, and many more. The best of all, the whole OS under 5MB. Try to beat that Linux.
And your point is?
All officially atheist countries are oppresive:
Therefore all atheists are oppressors?
Therefore no non-atheists are oppressors?
Therefore no non-officially atheist country is oppresive?
I think you are trying to make a point but you haven't got the guts to come out and say it. Even as an AC... Sad really.
There are no religions (or non-religions) that have acheived official national status that *haven't* commited an atrocity or two, but I'm sure you'll point out why your religion's were *special* or *justified* somehow.
I am an atheist and I couldn't give a s***t about the professed religion or lack of it of any regime, unless they use it as an excuse to beat the crap out of people.
Tom
Sorry, but Socialism, even the democratic kind, cannot optimize social welfare. Without accurate prices that reflect costs, you lose too much efficiency.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
1. No country that has ever set up a "communist" system has managed to meet the exacting criteria of those sympathetic to communist ideals...well, after the full story came out, at least. A lot of pro-communists in the US and other countries loudly applauded Stalin's economic and government re-organizations even as he was quietly exterminating ethnic and social groups. "I have seen the future, and it works", one wrote during this period. So, either communism is a system that can never work (since it's been tried in so many places and seems to mysteriously and instantaneously become something else, according to proponents), or it's just a fraud.
2. The Chinese government has absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese people (unless it, say, forces Linux on the people as the only permissible OS). No one, not even ESR, has objected to the growth of Linux in private hands in China. He, and I, and others, object to a totalitarian regime endorsing and adopting an OS we like. As I mentioned in another post, that's partly (for me) because it can only make the PRC government more efficient at oppressing its people.
3. Actually sorta true. As long as you keep your head down and don't challenge, criticize, or disagree with the government, there is increasing liberty, of a sort. I like to think of it as the first sign of the end for the PRC. If the PRC started using Linux as the information infrastructure for its administration, that might be stalled or reversed, though.
4. Pinochet sure as Hell ain't my friend. Nor is the current leftist regime in Haiti that our president re-established and propped up, or any of a few dozen other despicable folks/groups you and I could get together and brainstorm a list of. Just as the Chinese government != the Chinese people, the US government != US citizens. Hell, I don't even consider the US government my friend. There's "where the fuck" I find the moral standing.
Posted by Nr9:
..the guys who used simplified chinese and Pin YIN ... GAN NI NIA ...TZAO!!!>TA MA DE JEE BAI.. GO BACK , take ure simplified CHINeZSE AND TZE SHIR. ALso, PRAy TO MAO ZHU SHI and KiSS DENG'S DEAD BODY.. .ALSO SAY HI TO MR. JIANG FOR ME.. >and LET HIM known that he's a fuckin eunuch... hHgo back and zhong tien cuZ thats all GON FE Know how to DO.
extremely well written.
clearly shows why the GON FE Chinese government shouldn't be trusted and should never be trusted
ANY GON Fe's reading this? comon u gon fe shit? yea.
Even if you force people to use a free[dom] operating system, you are not advancing freedom. You're right about societies changing slowly, and a gift of freedom from a government is no gift.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
What makes you think that the Chinese government is not trying their best to improve life of people in China? Look at what the economical reform has done for the people during the last two decades or so. Have you ever been there yourself? I lived there in the 60's and early 70's, and my last visit clearly showed tremendous improvement in terms of people's quality of life. Honestly, I don't think it's much better here in the US any more. When you make a comment like this, make sure you have done enough research. Otherwise, it will only be a biased opinion.
OTOH, I agree with your point about bad-apples not making much of a point about the religious system to which they belong. But the point was that ESR didn't think so -- he (based on private emails) feels privileged to judge other faith systems on some very spurious bases. Sorry, the man's a jerk.
TWW
Posted by Nr9:
ehehheh... nnot CHINA.. China IS GON FE AND CAN go Gan TA DE NIA
TAIWAN is BESTEST
For example, the Communist Manifesto explicitly states that industrial workers are the true proletariat, while peasants are rather useless from a revolutionary standpoint. Mao turned that on its nose. Furthermore, the entire proletariat is global, and independent of nationality, while the Chinese government promotes intense xenophobia when it suits its needs. Finally, the people have little to no say in government -- the People's Congress being little more than a "yes organization" for the Politburo and senoir officials like Li Peng and Jiang Zemin. It is a "People's Republic" in the minds of very few. I think my friends that I work with here in the US who hail from mainland China would all agree (some of them having grown up in prison camps thanks to the Cultural Revolution).
You silly twit, this announcement is about the communist government *forcing* its citizens to use Linux. That's not choice.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
In a feudal economy, the lower class consists of peasants. Feudal systems place all sorts of restrictions on peasants (they can't just pick up and move, for example), but the feudal lord's power over the peasants is also constrained (he can't just evict them, either).
In a capitalist economy, the lower class is the proletariat (a.k.a. "the working class"), who own their own labor power, but can only sell it to members of the bourgeoisie (a.k.a. "the bosses"). If you're in the proletariat and you can't find anyone to buy your labor, you're SOL.
The bourgeoisie buys the proletariat's labor for as little as it can pay, and sells the products of the labor for as much as it can charge, to whoever is willing to pay. (There's the alienation of labor -- once the widget leaves the worker's hands, he or she has no special relationship with it.)
The bourgeoisie can then plow the profits into exploiting the workers further: for example, skilled craftsmen, who own their own tools, get replaced by unskilled (therefore easy-to-replace, therefore low-paid) factory workers whose tools (the factory machines) belong to the bourgeoisie.
Marx and Engels predicted that economic forces would (a) drive businesses in every field to either merge with or bankrupt competitors, creating monopolies protected or controlled by business-friendly governments; (b) drive the bourgeoisie to tighten the screws further and further on the proletariat, until everyone in that class was paid no more than enough to survive. Then, they thought, the proletariat would get sick of it all, seize control of all these centralized industries, and manage them for the benefit of all of society rather than for profit.
We all know it didn't work out that way, but in the 1880s, this was not an unreasonable theory.
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On the topic of XIX century capitalism:
At least in the UK, rapid industrialization significantly depressed median incomes (or at least our estimates of median incomes) due to the mechanization of agriculture. These people flowed into the large cities to work in the factories; the surplus of unskilled labour pushed rates to the very bottom.
Unfortunately, rather than taking up the slack and improving production, rates stayed there. There was simply no upward pressure on wages. Life in the cities was crowded and disease-ridden, resulting in a drop in estimated life expectancy.
This doesn't mean that agrarian feudalism was a walk in the park, though. It was nasty and brutish. Nor am I rejecting my own cushy existence which is made possible by industrialism. I merely make the observation that for several generations the industrial revolution, although inevitable, resulted in a significant downturn in standards of living.
The same trend occurred to a lesser extent in the US's new england states and in Canada, merely time-shifted.
I hope that when you take all this into account, the increased poverty, the disease, the overall wretchedness, you'll come to the conclusion that capitalism, despite where it has brought us, was a poor alternative to agrarian feudalism for the great majority of people. It is a characteristic of any major social-economic revolution; look at post-Communist Russia.
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
What a naive statement, I really doubt that this man has a clue, what repressive means. Does he think that repression is isolated to china? I'm living in the Nordic countries, and "I" have had my share of repression. Even my share of "peeking" into my mailbox, and "looking" over my shoulder to see what I'm doing at work. But "we" all KNOW, that this only happens in China. We, here in the FREE western world, we don't really have to live like this. Has anyone ever had a dirty cop ruin their lives in the west? And, wow, I sure can remember how simple and easy it came to me, to get justice into my own situation, when the need was there. Yes, everybody was so sympathetic and democratic about it. The sad truth is, that repression is absolute in the west... because here people have been successfully brainwashed.
I think you mean 'oligarchy'; it's hard for a 'plutocracy' to exist on barely-existent wealth.
Because in a pseudo-Communist state that never had a well-developed economy, there's not that much to steal unless, say, you loot the wealth for formerly succesful countries.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Except that in many feudal societies, the lord had the power of life-or-death over his vassals in the very real sense of using various sharp pointy things to kill (unarmed) peasants who resisted him in any way.
Unless you start your own business, with or without capital. Even in an industrial economy, there are lots of niches for people to start their own businesses. That's how those big businesses started in the first place.
True, but incomplete. The proletariat also sells its labor for as much as it can get, and the consumers of the products pay as little as they can get. That's what happens with a economic system based on free association and free choice.
This really has little to do with a free market and everything to do with the circumstances of the industrial revolution (nor is universal, since unionization - another great free-market activity, mostly - resists the replaceability). Now, in the information age, the situation is turning around, and people decry capitalism because unskilled workers have trouble keeping and getting jobs and skilled workers become more important.
Something to think about...
1. Don't talk/judge about the 'communism' until you have lived there (there is *no* real communist country in this world - get a clue).
2. China *does* have more money than you could ever imagine. Who do you think made a 'wall street crash' 3 (or was it 2?) years ago?! It has even been public in US newspapers, but you US fools prefer to ignore that fact, and act like "Nah, that couldn't be!".
3. Chis *is* doing a lot in order to improve the standard of life. Since 99% of you have never been there, you have NO CLUE about that. Get a ticket, and take a look for yourself, and TALK TO THE PEOPLE. Don't read what your dumb newspaper tell you.
4. If you count the number of people that China has slaughtered, and then count the number of people US has slaughtered - you'll keep quiet. So simple.
5. If you have your 'freedom', why do I see you ever 2nd day complaining about your 'freedom'? "They listen to us", "they follow us", "they watch us", they do this, that... Are you blind, or just hypocrits!?
6. Get facts straight before talking public. What you think is 'sufficient knowledge', will make other people laugh. Before judging about China, its people, religion and government - go there, spend few years, and then make judgements. But no, it's easier to sit in front of your screen, point to favourite news page, and feed your brain with it. And it's assumed to be "right". Because you are "right" and "free".
How lame...
[no, I'm not a Chinese, but I have been living there, and I have been living in 'democracy', and in 'communism' in Europe - I've seen that - you haven't. That makes the difference.]
Before you are so hasty to bash the Chinese, remember that they didn't elect their own government. I think that it's good ( for the Chinese people ) that the government there are adopting linux, even though I don't like their government
ESR does not speak for me on this. He can keep his libertarian politics and naive statements about communism to himself.
As usual, ESR could not loose an oportunity to promote himself. I don't feel represented by him and refuse to admit his atitude. Ho cares if Linux is adopted by China, Cuba or Mars? It is free software, which means any peoble is free to use it, not only those blessed by ESR. And please read the Open Source (TM) definition at http://www.opensource.org/osd.htm to see that open-source software must have ``5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups. The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.''
I chose ESR. You got a problem with that?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I reckon
Who would believe in penguins,unless he had seen them? Conor O Brien - Across Three Oceans
I'm having a hard time resisting the urge to laugh my ass off at my workstation.
/.'ers is by far the most amusing part of this. Some are so taken in by their ideology that even a victory among users becomes a loss when the users aren't politically correct. A few good old "eat the bourgoisie" revolutionary leftists are still around, and their reasons for liking free software get them flamed by the very same conservatives who complain about how those "damn liberals" keep imposing their political correctness on them.
There seem to be a few coherent views coming out here:
1) China = communist = bad, ergo if the Chinese government likes Linux, this must be a bad thing.
2) China = communist = bad, but that has nothing to do with Linux.
3) China = big, ergo if Linux use is encouraged in China this must be a good thing.
Now, some responses to those arguments:
1) China != stupid. China contains its fair share of competent, capable people who make decisions based on the conditions as they see them. China is under pressure to reduce software piracy, at least in those sectors of the economy that they genuinely have control over. Linux comes without expensive licensing and can be copied freely. I doubt that any Linux user in China uses it for ideological reasons - the economic reasons are strong enough.
2) China's political system and economic philosophy has little to do with anything. It isn't hard to find so-called capitalist nations that have controlled about as much of their economy and repressed just as many freedoms. This doesn't excuse China for anything, but it does make the communist vs. capitalist thing an old, tired joke that we would all be best off forgetting about. What reaction would see after a similar announcement by, say, the government of Saudi Arabia, a country at least as oppressive as China and far less considerate of its working class.
3) Chinese market for computers != big. Maybe in the future the Chinese market will be so wealthy and large that its OS preferences make a major difference in the world. At the current growth rate, perhaps another 25 years will do it. In 25 years, God only knows what the computer industry will look like. I would be surprised if anything that much resembles Linux is still in use then. Until then, what OS China uses is of diminishingly little importance.
As far as I can tell, this announcement of Linux as "offical OS of the PRC" is overblown far beyond any real significance. I still can't figure out exactly what it means - I suspect it means nothing. Calling it a lie strikes me as a knee-jerk response of someone too wrapped up in his own politics to look rationally at anything. People in China aren't going to stop stealing MS Office anytime soon, I assure you.
Perhaps free software has an appeal to traditional Marxists for ideological reasons. It does to me. (I might call myself a Marxist, but only to people who I know will get pissed off because of it - few Marxists will actually have me.) "From each according to his ability, to each accroding to his need" strikes me as a better description of free software than any of the neolibertarian prattling I've heard. Certainly Marxism can be more easily twisted to explain free software than anarcho-capitalism can - as demonstrated by the logical somersaults of the open source libertarian right. But, it's probably pointless to debate the relative Marxism of Linux - Marx didn't write much about computers, so don't expect to find too much genuine insight in software development in Das Kapital.
No, watching the reaction of
It's hard not to laugh. A word to the conservatives from an old-fashioned leftist: you are falling into the same trap that your hippie parents found. When you judge something for its ideological merits before you judge its utility, you will quickly find you've made fools of yourselves.
Well, it's nice to know that so many of you people claiming to be Leftists are in with greedy, capitolist members of the Republican party on this one. It just goes to show that in the end all pro-government people look alike, reminds me of Animal Farm.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
However, they needed to be posted due to the enormous number of people using Communism (and its stigma) to tar Linux.
I'd take living in 19th century america over living in any feudal or communist society that has ever existed. Certainly, it had flaws (particularly in the far-from-completely-free market and far-from-protected legal rights), but it had a lot more opportunity and freedom.
Does anyone give a rats ass about the "official OS" of China? I know I don't. seth
This is a very interesting article indeed.
Mainly, because it has brought to light an inherent hypocrisy in Mr. Raymond's thinking and, perhaps, in the Open Source community.
If Open Source is to be "free", then it cannot put limitations on those who would approach it and use it. To be truly free, Open Source must allow everyone, even those whom we may view as evil (China, Microsoft, Nazis etc.) equal access and participation.
Unfortunately, this article shows that there is not true, unconditional freedom in Open Source. Rather, there is freedom only for those who meet certain criteria (Do you hate Microsoft, do you hate China, etc.). This is, in effect, another manifestation of "All Animals are Equal, but Some Animals are More Equal than Others" and is not substantively different from asking "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?". If you answer wrongly, the door is shut and barred against you. Let me ask this hypothetical question, would Mr. Raymond move to ban additions to LINUX from Microsoft, if they followed the rules? I think the answer, from this article and other statements he has made, would be 'yes'. Even if he did not ban them, I think it is a safe assertion from the tone on these boards that others would make it their life's goal to drive them away.
In a way, it can be argued that this is a manifestation of the same strain that we see as a vexing element in GPL. GPL, I would argue, while well intentioned, is inherently totalitarian in execution, because it prohibits one from releasing anything that is less "free" than GPL. Doesn't true freedom of action have to allow one total freedom of action, even if that freedom results in actions we don't agree with? Mr. Stallman has said, in a recent interview, that your 'freedom' ends at my nose, in effect saying that you are free as long as you don't coerce or harm me. But GPL is inherently coercive by dictating another's behavior. If I make changes to code I have obtained using GPL, I am not impeding your access to the code to which I had access, I am impeding your access to the code which I have derived from it. Thus, you still have your space, and I mine, but the GPL is dictating how to use my space. The GPL, and this statement, return to a conception of freedom that is basically, you are free, as long as you do what WE think you should do with freedom. And that conditional freedom, is, by its very nature, not freedom.
The policies of the Government of China are irrelevant from the strict standpoint of Open Source computing. They are relevant in other areas, but not this. If they contribute, follow the license meticulously, and do everything by the book, then their participation cannot, in good conscience, be excluded. The same would be true if the American Nazi Party wanted to contribute, the PLO, the IRA, or the Abortion Rights Action League or President Clinton for that matter. As long as they follow the rules, there is no basis for excluding them. Equal access means just that, even if we have to share the space with people whose views in other areas and contexts we find odious.
I would strongly recommend reading "The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrick Hayek for an excellent analysis and exposition of how well-intentioned attempts to "guide" freedom ultimately lead to totalitarianism. I would argue, based on this article in particular, that Open Source MAY be heading down the road to serfdom.
Yes, communists are not intrinsically evil in that joining the Communist Party does not make horns grow out of your head. But if you look at history, you'll see that communism turned out to be a particularly bad idea
Shame on you! Every coder knows that there is a difference between the idea and the implementation. It's been implemented rather badly... but that does not mean that the idea is a bad one.
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"In Cyberspace, no one can hear you be sarcastic"
There I was, all prepared to slag off ESR for "presuming to speak for the whole Linux community", when he goes and apologises for it in advance.
My only problem is the bit about the "repressive ideals of Communism".
It's worth noting that there *are* *no* communist states in the world today, whatever they choose to call themselves. Every country which has tried to become communist, has ended up being something else. If you want to know why, read Animal Farm.
... and yeah, the Chinese Government sucks, and it'd do Linux a whole lot of harm if people in general thought that the average Linux hacker had any sympathies with them.
--
Here's a Q for you:
Who gave the orders?
I believe it's pretty well documented that the KS incident involved panicking (poorly-trained, perhaps?) Nat'l Guardsmen under continual harrassment by the students -- that they were NOT earlier ordered to butcher anybody who stood in their way.
The PRC can hardly claim that it's armored columns were panicking, or that they were moving on the Square at nighttime on a simple mission of containment.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
ESR is hoping this is a hoax, as opposed to actually believing it is. Will he retract if it turns out to be true?
His problem with China adopting Linux is purely political (which after reading the LinuxToday article is what I came away with). And though I don't disagree with his sentiment, I don't see that there's a way he can stop it from happening. There's no control group watchdogging Linux that can actually keep a specific customer (let alone an entire country) from using it.
-------------------------------------------
Great..."Badges. badges. We don't need no stinking badges..."
Just because China likes Linux does _not_ mean that Linux is somehow intrisically communist. Most countries, including communist ones use almost entirely Windows, which doesn't make BillG a communist. Also, why does everyone think that just because _most_ communist ideals are mistaken, that they all are? Can't there be certain issues that communists and capitalists agree on, even if for different reasons? There is a line between communists and capitalists, but that line is not everywhere. Nice people are communists, nice people are capitalists. Bad people are communists, bad people are capitalists. Communists just don't understand the free market, and generally don't understand democracy, but that doesn't make everything they do eeeevil.
Engineering and the Ultimate
It does sound alittle fishy, doesn't it? But if it's true, ESR does not speak for me, nor I suspect alot of my fellow geeks. I'm all for anything that could get China moving towards a 'free' society more quickly. Using linux probably isn't going to spark a revolution out there, but it may open their citizen's eyes up alittle more to alternative ways to doing things. And in an ironic way, this is an admission by their government that they weren't 'on the ball' - they were afterall using Windows long after linux had been proven as a technically superior platform. The thought of freeing 1/6th of the world population in one fell swoop is enticing.. but if there's one thing I've learned about governments and societies it's that change occurs slowly. There will be no slashdot effect in China.
--
1) People here who are saying that the PRC is not communist aren't (necessarily) doing it because they're communist{s/ sympathizers :)}. The fact is that about half of the PRC's GDP comes from the private sector, and that Deng XiaoPeng's "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" isn't really...socialism, in a lot of ways. In China Wakes, Nicholas Krystof discusses this and ends up saying that the PRC is fascist, or authoritarian. Structurally and Economically speaking, "communist" just doesn't fit, except that in America, it's a catch-all for anything that's Bad(tm). See completely random usage of "that's so GAY," for corroborating case studies.
2) Just because the PRC government is bad doesn't mean that the Chinese people are bad. Don't forget that.
3) Things have changed a bit, i hear, since the bubble bu...sort of deflated, but from what i've heard, most of the people in the PRC don't currently give a crap about the government one way or the other. They will, I'd bet money on it, but right now they don't.
4) General Pinochet was our friend. The guy(s) in Guatemala were our friends. Suharto was our friend. With friends like that, where the fuck do you find the moral standing to say who is your enemy?
-k. ^-^ ^D
Obviously the Linux philosophy is incompatable with these bastard's thinking but it suits them to pretend they like anything which squares up to raw capitalism.
Sod 'em, sod the lot of 'em.
TWW
Then do clarify what point you were "actually" making, instead of spending all your time spouting GNU propaganda.
I don't know for certain that Marx originated the idea, but he certainly made heavy use of it.
And I don't think the fact that there were abuses of the peasantry invalidates the point of the alienation of industrial labor. It's just a different deviation from the ideal of a person who is working skillfully, with dignity, and enjoying the benefits of their own labor.
Well, that's a pretty fine distinction there, given how the two are intertwingled.
I think there's a good argument to be made that much of the technology of the Industrial Revolution was shaped by and for capitalism, and that the effect, coincidentally or by design, was to widen the gap between owners and laborers, and to bring about just the situation of "alienation of labor." But that's a longer argument that I have time to get into right now ...
Well, yes, but if you take the steps to keep that mass of little capitalists from coalescing into a few cartels and monopolists, is it truly laissez-faire anymore?
At any rate, I consider the fact that we do need to worry about cartels and monopolists under capitalism (witnes the Microsoft-DOJ trial) as very good evidence that capitalism, in any sort of "pure" form, does tend to the concentration of capital in very few hands. A situation that is not especially friendly to "little" things like freedom and democracy ... which are not synonomous with "free-market capitalism."
If the State of New York was to declare Linux as the Official State Operating System of New York, not only would it be front page news [1] on Slashdot, but the story would generate an endless stream of comments a la "This is great! Let's hope other states follow suit!"
It wouldn't matter (much) if, after that declaration, the New York government website was run on NT. The recognition would be enough.
So whats the big deal when China announces that it declares Linux its official OS? Isn't the same? Why the apprehensive reaction?
I put forward three possibilities:
1. Asians are liars and are not to be trusted.
2. We're afraid someday they will create Hongkong Linux, which will be just like RH 6 except the root password will be the same on all installs and only known by the PRC.
3. It's 1953, and if we don't watch out, the Commies will invade the US and make us all eat rice and work making nukes.
4. Slashdotters are snobs.
The right-leaning among us (i.e. 'libertarians', the new, hip political affiliation), as would most people I guess, are spending a lot of breath denying that there is any semblance between the goal of everyone using free software, and the goal of everyone owning an equal share of their aggregate possessions. For one thing, both are ideals, illustrated by both movement's failures to meet them.
The real problem with this stream of denials though, is that if the valid differences aren't being pointed out by the vocal reacters. There is only a sense of "no, there's no such thing" without any illustrative arguments.
Now, my choice of what government I'd want to live under aside, I dare say that open or free software has better potential to thrive in a moneyless, mostly egalitarian (and yeah, authoritarian) environment, than it does in the uber-free markets endorsed by the libertarians. If every programmer in China were ordered to work on Mozilla, it would have a better chance of success than it does in a world where one dominant and unchecked software company makes piles by not only leveraging the barriers to entry of its main market, but using that to capture other markets and construct barriers to enter those as well. FWIW, I bet RMS would agree.
I dont underestimate the ability of China to get things done. Did you hear how China intends to eliminate the Y2K problem from its airlines? Dilbertians can only wish that sort of thing were possible here.
It seems as if Slashdotters would rather have all AOLers and their ilk running swiss-cheese Linux installs, than have the government of the most populous country in the world take up our flag.
It's prejudice, and if you've been on the receiving end of any prejudice, you know it.
RomulusNR
[1] That is, if Slashdot had a news page other than the front.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
There is a huge, gaping hole where your knowledge of the feudalistic and oppressive Chinese emperors (and the powers behind the throne) should have been.
Oh, and remember to smile when the WoD "cops" break down your door in their hunt for drug users.
In order to deflect talk of Linux being a "communist enterprise", we need to be clear about the relationship of Free Software (Open Source) to communism. Free software does create a "commons": a sort of publicly-owned property, collectively maintained for the good of all. Karl Marx didn't invent that either, it's a critical aspect of every community, and most capitalistic enterprises would wither without a publicly-owned infrastructure to support them. Consider, for example, that money is part of that infrastructure. That's the message I'd like to carry to the press: having a commons, helping our neighbors, and protecting our freedoms should not be equated to communism.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
Right on! The average salary index of HK citizen to the Mainland is about 4:1 and the US Consumer Price Index is higher than Hong Kong. US software is always *very* expensive if you import into China. This is the cause. There is a big market over there but you cannot capture it, this is your marketing failure. You can be so lame to yell they are disregarding copyrights, you are the one who try to sell something and make it out of reach in the first place! Simple supply and demand interaction here, if you fail to supply the product at the right price the black market will take over.
If that's your definition of communism (that the government runs all and owns all), then China hasn't been communist since the late seventies. The PRC has allowed private ownership of property and private economic ventures since at least that time, and probably before (remember "to grow rich is glorious"?).
If you look at history, you'll see that communism turned out to be a particularly bad idea. But if you looked at the 19th century, you'd come to the same conclusion about capitalism. Don't forget that communism was a reaction to the horrors of the industrial-capitalist state. No doubt libertarianism, especially the objectivist strains, is a reaction to the horrors of the communist state. I don't hold any great hopes for libertarian utopias, however.
I think that you misunderstand the central concepts of communism. The ruling class is supposed to govern for the benefit of the working class (the workers are presumably the bulk of the population). The benefit or ill of individual citizens is secondary to the "big picture" and the good of the masses. Dissolving and collectively owning property is the means to the end, which is a government for the people; a state without individual property is presumably a state of peers (this is demonstrably false, but is rarely pointed out) with interests in common.
Chinese and Russian communism started out on what Marx would consider the absolute wrong foot - agrarian economies, where they had to appeal to small landholders and tenant farmers, and had to go through the process of accumulating capital to industrialize - and it goes without saying that communism is probably the worst system for accumulating capital. With ongoing industrialization, they created further class distinctions. Perhaps they did it better than the nineteenth-century western economies, and perhaps not, but it certainly wasn't pretty and the result isn't pretty.
As for ESR, I think that he should get his knee looked at. It's perfectly possible to indulge in volunteerism in a communist society; it's perfectly possible to indulge in volunteerism in a capitalist society, too. (Of course, in Eric's libertarian-anarchist political ramblings, there's nothing but volunteerism). Still, volunteerism is whollly tangential to developing in an open-source environment; the point is, and always was, to promote further and faster development for the sake of development and developers rather than venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.
--
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
marx did not argue that human nature was inherently good, in fact, he would have laughed off the whole problem of human "nature" as a naive and bourgeois. under bourgeois ideology human relations are mediated by things, and that being the case, the natural question for a prisoner of bourgeois thought to ask is "what is human nature." for marx, the essence of human nature was its ability to change.
i get a kick out of you slashdumbers ranting about what you think is marxism without knowing anything about either marx or the history of marxism.
This follows the format of typical ESR bullshit. First, he speaks for the whole community, realizing much of it will not agree. Next, he goes on to smear Richard Stallman: "the clumsy rhetoric of some of our past ambassadors." Finally, he tells use we don't want China to use Linux. What's this guy's problem? I mean, Raymond has been a lazy jack-ass who's biggest contribution to free software was a rewrite of a minor mail utility. Yet at every opportunity, he claims to be the spokesperson for this whole community. He also takes every opportunity to make unjustified cheapshots at the guy who made this whole revolution possible. Why does slashdot keep running bullshit from this glory-monger?
To my knowledge, which isn't much about how the communist governments gained control (been years since I studied that), they didn't follow Marx's guideline. Marx said that the prolotariates would rise up, create a "prolotariate dictatorship," and then communism would come about. Which basicly means Marx never thought much at all on the whole 'how will Communism emerge' nor did he really explain how it would work. Mostly, Marx just explained faily accurately history in terms of economics and the eploitation of the working class.
So, I'm not sure if these communist nations should be called true communism, or thought of in conjunction to Marxian communism.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
He said "ambassadors", not "ambassador". He's probably referring to Stallmanistas in general and other folks who make people unfamiliar with the movement queasy about it.
why is every idiotic ranting from erik raymonde worthy of mention? if his stuff is news, why isn't that of every other 2 bit libertarian simpleton in the news as well? equal time for equal idiots!
The practices of communist china have gone far beyond gun control, or any other issue you mention. For many years people went to school only to sing songs about Mao, bow to pictures of Mao, and praise him.. lots of learning there! They were not allowed any knowledge of the outside world, they were expected to survive on rations for a month that you would use up in a week, I could go on forever. To make a point, people in china were starving while visitors to china were given 7 course meals, everyone in a high position was bound to be accused of something.. people were brutally tortured and frequently killed because someone else was going to be killed if they did not point out "capitalist roaders" so they made up a list of victims.. people were tortured when they could not produce ridiculous amounts of crops, and land lords were treated horribly simply because they owned property. If you owned something or showed individuality or seemed TOO SMART you were considered bougeoise.. (sp?) Anyone who lived in China at the time, or has researched it thoroughly, should know EXACTLY why Tiannenman square happened. Mao has died, but his power seems to live on. ERS does not seem to be speaking against the people of china, but if you look at China's history and everything they have done to their people, you will see that the open-source movement goes against everything the Chinese government has been after for many years.. I'd say since not the fall of Feudal China.. but the fall of the Kuomintang.. another repressive government that overthrew the monarchy, but was quicky overthrown by communists. If you were a member of the Kuomintang, which was likely because everyone was back then.. you were likely to be tortured and stigmatized and labeled as "black" your whole life. And no I don't mean black as in african, I mean black as in not red, or communist.
China is also one of the governments that is very weak--if not ideologically against--intellectual property. i hope they continue to pirate the shit out of everything over there. the chinese government is the only hope in balancing the tremendous amount of power some of these global organizations and firms are garneshing. everyone condemns china, but they're really no different from the u.s. or any other government. no country has more "tianemen squares" than the u.s. how else do you think this continent was populated? rape_and_pillage_baby....so many people are so *naive* about western powers, yet go and condemn china. if it's not a hoax, this is great p.r. for open source. also, believe it or not, the open source movement has more in common with the ideals of communist china and it's adherence to more collective forms of property ownership (although a handful still run things) and the "west" where a handful of fat white guys run *and* own everything (including stupid ass patents and the radio spectrum).
intellectual property is for people without intellects.
So did the US, until 1976.
Many books were copied in the US and the author lost all rights to them, simply because of the US's strange pre-Berne copyright laws.
Is it just me, or has ESR really lost it? I can't think of anything worthwhile to come from the fsckwit since that whole "you can have my job" fiasco.
However, he's right to denounce China. Supporting a totalitarian regime is wrong. Not speaking out against things that are wrong gives them tacit support. This is not to say I support his politics. I think his brand of Liberatarianism is just as wrong as a totalitarian regime, whether it's Communist, Fascist, or the supposedly democratic choice we have in the west of exchanging one tyrant for another every few years.
Linux has been built democratically. Not democracy in the sense of choosing one out of a number of tyrants. I mean democracy in the sense of the community having an effective voice in how things are to be done, with the knowledge that some people might be better than us as that work, and letting them do it instead.
Linux has been a fine demonstration of the power that can be unleashed in everyday people, organising autonomously, working as and when they want, towards a common goal. These principles can be compared to those that underpin socialism, and we have a responsibility to answer questions that start with that comparison. My answer? Yes. The principles are the same. Linux as an entity is not socialist, and the people that work on Linux may not consider themselves socialist, but the very working methods they use are socialist.
-- "This is the Space Age, and we are Here To Go" - W.S.Burroughs
@#$%@#$% Who can say One billion people adopting (and extending in the future) a GPL OS isn't HISTORY??? Who cares about MS, DOJ, SUN whatever. I think the whole "Wow! An OS of 1 billion people!" is somewhat overblown. How many of those one billion people have a computer? How many of those one billion people have even -seen- a computer before?
At least in the UK...
UK was actually a place where the industrialization caused an unusually painful social shock. The decline in the standard of living was much lower in the continental Europe and the US. In fact, had Karl Marx chosen to live in, say, Italy or Switzerland instead of London, "Das Kapital" might never have been written and the history of the XX century would probably have looked quite different.
In any case, the original question was whether the people of the XIX century considered capitalism a bad idea. Here I'd like to point out the difference between capitalism and the industrial revolution. Capitalism, after all, is nothing more than social and economic freedom. It is defined in opposition to both feudalism (where the social structure is stratified and rigid, and economic rights are subject to political power) and communism (where individuals are not supposed to own the means of production). Clearly, it is not an accident that capitalism flowered at the time of the industrial revolution, but these are still two different phenomena. Most of the social problems that you mention are a direct consequences of industrialization and while one can argue that capitalism did nothing to alleviate these social consequences (as both feudalism and communism would have tried to do), it did not directly cause them. It is major upheavals, be they techno-economical (industrialization) or politico-social (post-communist Russia) that cause mass suffering -- capitalism just happened to have appeared at the same time.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
When ??
You talking about something that happened 100 years ago ??
Any examples ?
I wonder how all those Finns, Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Germans, Poles, Czhecks, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Moldovians, Croats, Afghans, Chechenyans, Ukranians, Belorussians, even Russians -- the list could go on a lot longer -- who've been murdered at the behest of (if not by) the USSR in the name of the world revolution would view academic sniffings about the distinction between communism in Marx's works and communism as implemented in real world.
I don't know what your problem is people, but I completely agree with him. You may have your little disputes with ESR, but he is right this time, so quit making personal shots at him.
Got HTML? Want LaTeX? Try html2latex
I happily criticize the US government more than any other government when it comes to rights abuses. I do criticize many other governments. I will also readily admit that the US government has supported despicable regimes.
But to claim that the US government is even remotely as bad as the PRC government is ludicrous, and I have to suspect you of vast ignorance or outright lying if you continue to try to claim that.
Oh, yes. There doesn't actually happen to be any governmental support for the Tibetan freedom movement, and the US and the UK governments both have gone to great length to keep Chinese dignitaries from being confronted with protesters supporting Tibetan freedom, but of course it's all the work of the Evil West.
How can ESR, speaking for the whole community, say that?
Either it's free of politics and everyone, can enjoy
OSS/FSF, whatever, or we just have changed govt/business
regulations to the monarchial and racistic opinion of
a couple of persons most of us never met.
Why's that so if Linux is adopted by This-And-That US govt dept, everyone is pissing hot,
but if Yahoo is running a hoax to test the community reaction, ESR comes to the stage
and the sh*t begins? Or maybe Mr. Raymond forgotten that US govt for years had been infecting its own black
citizens with mortal viruses and Mr. Clinton had to apologize, which couldn't return dead, but oh,
we are politcorrect again and dressed in white. Or should I say that US it the only country used nuclear power in military? There are many outstanding programmers, ESR among them. But have you ever heared about good politician?
KuroiNeko
No wait. There is just one point here.
I am stuck to open source.
Open source is great, but it does not exist in a vacuum, moral or otherwise.
This is getting too much similar to:
Arms are just a tool, drugs instead are BAD.
Weapons are just tools, drugs are just tools.
For the great american people (and maybe some poor european) encription and technology is good and it must be widespread, so we can defend ourselves from the government.
Chinese instead are to be considered unable to use the same tecnology for the same reasons... When I'll see (I won't: its a hoax) the chinese gov. make other osses illegal or using this os for bad things I will flame them. In the mean time they can do with linux anything as can everybody else. And I'm quite happy with it.
It's inherent within the GPL and LGPL to allow anyone, including the Chinese government, to use Linux. I would be first to oppose not allowing the PRC government to use Linux, if only because it would invalidate the meaning of the license. However, I would not be happy because it would make an oppressive government more capable of oppressing its people.
When you're talking about the Chinese people getting hold of Linux, that's completely different from the Chinese government using Linux. Yes, the Chinese people are poor and most have difficulty getting computer equipment. However, a non-trivial amount (1 million or more, supposedly) have both computers and internet access. They can only get the benefits of Linux for their own purposes through getting Linux for themselves - the Chinese administration using it wouldn't do them any good. Trying to argue that that it might is just wishful thinking.
Or do you think that backing a fascist coup as in Chile is ethical or acceptable? (but obviously you can discuss if it has been good) I guess (and hope) we have same ideas on the morality of bombing the Casa Rosada and desaparecidos.
I disapprove completely of the various interventions my government (to use a strained phrase) has carried out in South America and around the world. I have to honestly admit I'm not familiar with the Casa Rosada or the US government (I'm assuming it was them) bombing them/it, but on a moral and practical level, I've given my opinion.
That may be true for americans, however I don't think it is. Whitout giving ant examples, i'd like you to think about "reaganomics" for a while. Then think about Guatemala, Haiti Eastern-Timor and so forth. Yes, it is true that the Chinese government is brutally focing their ways on tibet, which is equally wrong. Furthermore, anyone that has studied the very least marxism, knows that there is very little resamblance between marxism, leninism, stalinism etc. The libertian naive ideas that ESR presents on his homepage is in reality far more opressive.
Of course, that may be because those countries are developing countries. Until the early 20th century, the US was essentially a developing country as well, and the US didn't honor patents or copyrights either (although in the US, it was mostly patents and copyrights of other countries that weren't honored).
As for China, yes, it isn't nice what their regime is doing. But I don't see any alternative right now. Do you think the Chines people would be better off if China fell apart like the USSR did? And how much of what the US doesn't like about China is about communism, and how much is about their traditionally strict approach to individual freedoms? Or, even if China could turn on a dime and become just like the US, what would a billion new cars and a billion new voracious consumers of energy and plastics do to the world?
It seems to me that China has lots to be criticized over. But so does the US. There are plenty of human rights violations, deaths due to government policies, and political corruption going on right here.
Just to point something out about the use of the atomic bomb to end WWII (since others will bother with those of your other points that aren't correct - some are)...Try looking up the recently-declassified information uncovered by reputable news agencies about "Operation Olympic". (Olympic was the incredibly horrific plan to invade Japan, and had American and Japanese casualties estimated in the hundreds of thousands and millions, respectively.) While you're at it, take a look at what Japan was planning to do in the event of American landings (among other things, kill all Western POWs they had - you can look this up from the same sources). Then explain why the use of the atomic bomb, which killed far less people than conventional bombing of Japanese cities had, was the worse choice.
Oh, and get real about the Japanese intent to surrender. They were unwilling to "lose" the war and wanted to keep their territories gained by their aggression. When Japan did surrender - after two cities were atomically bombed - there was an attempt at a coup by the hard-liners.
Fact: over 80,000,000 people have been murdered by communist regimes. Did anyone notice? Does anyone care?
I think you're confusing fascism with the specific fascist regime of Nazi Germany. Fascism does not imply that a government is oppressive (unless you consider government control in and of itself to be oppressive).
China is not a good example of communism. They are communist in name only. I think you should read more about communism, and then take a look at the Chinese government, and you'll see that they're nothing alike. I sincerely hope that you aren't learning about world politics from Doonesbury. Here I agree. While I actually share the same opinions as ESR concerning how bad the Chinese government is, I was rather taken aback that ESR would assume to speak for everyone on this matter. I think he crossed the line by stating this. He should not be attributing his personal thoughts and beliefs to the entire Linux community.99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again...
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Well, most Fortune 500 companies couldnt care less if the Chinese government shoots a couple of dissidents now and then tho. They're all with their fingers in deep in China, in good company of most western leaders who seem to suffer a common bout of lost memory on state visits there. Linux should probably 'hail' things like this as 'corporate victories'; do you think Microsoft would object to having people forced to use NT at gunpoint? I think Mr. Gates would find this an excellent strategy.
*sarcasm = "on"*
I agree it was more than a little presumptuous for ESR to think that he could speak out and say that the ethos of the open source/Linux/et al movements were incompatible with totalitarianism. But don't be too rough on him - he just misjudged the crowd.
*sarcasm = "off"*
Propaganda? Or supporting a statement. The world may never know...
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!
<sigh>
99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again...
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Think of a wonderful open-source product that is fully documented in Chinese or worst, in Chinese pidgin English.
Would you profit of it? Would they profit of your contributions?
--
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
No, your original post. The one I replied to in the first place.
In a capitalist economy, the lower class is the proletariat (a.k.a. "the working class"), who own their own labor power, but can only sell it to members of the bourgeoisie (a.k.a. "the bosses"). If you're in the proletariat and you can't find anyone to buy your labor, you're SOL.
First of all, the workers can set up small businesses, the importance and tenacity of which Marx severely underestimated (he believed that they'll all die out very soon). Second, in the feudal society, if you are landless and cannot find a lord to let you onto his land, your situation is much, much worse.
The bourgeoisie buys the proletariat's labor for as little as it can pay, and sells the products of the labor for as much as it can charge, to whoever is willing to pay.
Isn't this how any market works? Just in the same way the workers try to sell their labor for as much as they can, and buy products for as little as they can.
(There's the alienation of labor -- once the widget leaves the worker's hands, he or she has no special relationship with it.)
Bzzzzzt. Nope. The alienation of labor is a name for the situation when some people (bourgeoisie) own the means of production and other people (workers) own the labor. Medieval craftsmen, for example, owned both the means of production and labor, so there was no alienation. It was industrialization that created the massive alienation of labor: tools became too big/expensive/specialized for the worker to own.
in the 1880s, this was not an unreasonable theory.
Well, it was not a particularly unreasonable theory, but it still has far too many huge and obvious holes in it. Especially considering the impact it had on the world.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Ok the commies are speaking :) :) )
:) )
;)
Frankly Open Source has little to do with comunism. Yes, it has several threads that are very idealistic. But I consider them not to be proper to Open Source but to the present conditions of the software distribution. Probably if the problems with such guys as Microsoft were not so acute, then Open Source would present a more typical capitalist face.
This dissidence feels like comunism to many. However I think that we could label it as christianism. In fact the problem is that Open Source pretends to furnish something for everyone. No more no less. It is this hallmark that everyone turns around.
However Comunism does not stop here. Frankly Comunism has also too many faces. So let's stop on the more "populist" one and which some states have adopted as an oficial ideology.
1. Comunism pretends to offer people a "bright future" where several rights will be fullfilled (a materialist variant of Eden/Paradise/Nirvana)
2. Comunism considers the group to be the decisive force in decision taking (NOTE: State does not exist in the "final" Comunist world)
3. Comunists consider that society should be lead be a group of "enlightened" people through its Socialist epoch (i.e. the Communist Party)
4. Due to several considerations, it is pretended that, under Comunism, money will be unecessary (so in Socialism money is considered as a evil
5 Higher ranks of the capitalist/socialist society are considered to be unrreliable on trying to attain Communism. So Communists try to rely their efforts on lower layers of society.
Now let's see Open Source world.
1. Open Source does not claim "bright futures". Its claim on future conditions is technical and based in real technical problems many developers face today.
2. Open Source does not consider a group to be a decisive force. In Open Source we have everything. Starting from such giants like AT&T, running through Linus and his lieutenants, and ending on groups where any change is a small modification on the CVS tree. Besides the most important is that most projects are individual (well that is also Communist, somehow, but that's completely other trend...).
3. Open Source does not pretend on enlightened minds and gurus to lead the movement (apart of some trying to become such...
4. On Open Source money is not evil. No one forbids you to get something for your work. The problem is not to create barriers to source code distribution. The rest remains in the clouds...
5. Open Source does not pretend on class squirmishes. Open Source does not ask who you are and how much money you have. Open Source goes against Property Software. But that is an historic result of thousands of disgruntled developers and users. It is because those who hold behind Property Software had several times fired their guns against Open Source. But there are many Property Software developers who have any problems with Open Source.
The commies spoke
This ESR guy's prejudice is showing.
:v)
Free is free is free. You can't say "I believe in freedom except...", Voltaire sorted that one out some time ago.
Trying to build resentment or otherwise restrict open source software is not what it is all about. You will not progress the freedom of anyone by attempting to impose restrictions on them.
Vik
--
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
At least not if we're talking the type that frequents Slashdot. I don't think the politics of envy, as in "Screw whoever has more than you, because they must have cheated to get it," was ever a primary tenet of Libertarianism.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
who said that the KR were nice, I was just ment that the bombing GAINED some support, not that it changed the KR in any way
Maybe China came to it's sense's after we sent them ZDnet and Microsoft .Sending those two over there was punishment enough.Lets send ESR next.
I have no beef with Chinese people (aka, "people in China") using Linux and customizing it for their own uses and needs, or retaining their own cultural identity. I have every beef possible with the Chinese government (aka, "those guys who ordered student protesters run over with tanks") using it for its own purposes (including using force to "retain" the "Chinese cultural identity" it supports this week).
As I recall very few countries pay anything other than lip service to 'human rights' - the record in the US (for example) is pretty bad..
Read the amnesty international reports for China and compare them with other developing countries in Asia (or better, the arab nations ), and decide for yourself whether they are substantially different from the others.
Dude, you have to realize that most of this was in response to the threat from Soviets. Some of these actions were mistakes but you have to understand that there is fundamental difference between USA and say, China. .. well, intelectually challenged.
.. I don't get any help from goverment in US. Why should hispanics, blacks and indians get money from goverment ( they do ..) ...
...
If you don't , then you are simply
BTW. Ha
If you find anything in constitution that supports your claim, let me know
And finally, if it bothers you so much - get the fuck out of this rotten western world.
Go enjoy fruits of revolution to places like Cuba, China etc
You have a choice to do that . their people don't.
Thanks for everyone on this thread who managed to
keep their mind calm.
I also apologize if my previous post offended
someone. Please, get me right. Vast majority of
/. readers have no idea about communism/socialism/how-do-you-call-it
But some people who never lived in former SU or
nowadays China tend to confuse nations and regimes and
to make judgements on what they have neither idea nor experience of.
If you think someone is worse just because he is different,
look at yourself again. There's not so much difference. That's it. Sorry again.
KuroiNeko
So the price of free software is: People I don't like shouldn't say nice things about it.
Is Joey Mcarthy back?! Is Eric afraid of being called a red. Hmm, one of those might be true.
Who cares if it becomes the choice OS for serial killers or haibitual shoplifers. Its software. The worst press is can receive is people like ESR who turn computers into politcal pawns. Eric makes it sound like Pol Pot himself came over and killed a few people with a Linux floppy.
You may dislike the PRC for x amount of reasons, but their OS shouldn't be one of them.
So you have this old assumption that the rich exclusively own the means of production and the workers and the poor are entirely out of the loop, but the validity of that assumption is starting to crumble, and it is taking the distinction between workers and owners with it. The process is only in its very early stages, and it is still true that the overwhelming majority of capital is held by the small minority of the wealthy. Still, it's a good and interesting thing.
The disparity between rich and poor does no favors to capitalism or the free market. People fret over class divisions, and plan acts of violence, instead of engaging in fruitful voluntary trade.
If the ownership of capital were more or less evenly distributed throughout society (and we appear to be moving in that direction), I think we might find ourselves in the paradise Marx hoped for. But maybe we can get there by free market mechanisms rather than violent revolutions and central control.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
I know everyone else has gotten their two cents in here but ESR is starting to bug me so much anymore that I don't think I can leave this alone.
I am very concerned that Raymond sees open source advocacy as a way of promoting Libertarianism, and only secondarily as a way of promoting open source software. My concern is not unfounded; I used to be a Libertarian (even a member of my local Libertarian Party) and these people will try to co-opt any cause or group that might help boost them to major party status. That's not a criticism of Libertarians so much as it is a criticism of an electoral system that makes such desperate measures necessary, but either way this is the sort of behavior that caused me to part ways with Libertarians long before my political views began to change.
I think that in addition to sending the very clear message that the open source movement is not a Communist movement, we should send the message that it is not a Libertarian movement either. The open source movement is not about politics, and there is room for both Libertarians and Communists, as well as (in US terms) Republicans, Democrats, Jesse Ventura, Jesse Jackson, Jesse Helms, Jesse Duke, and even Anarcho-Greens such as myself.
Personally I would be a lot more upset if the Christian Coalition started using some code I'd written than I would be if the Chinese government did, but that's just the risk we take with open source. If we start putting limits on who can use our code and who can't, we'll be right back where we started and that just sucks.
So what if Pat Buchanan/Slobodan Milosevic/Saddam Hussein/Queen Elizabeth/[insert your favorite despot] can use Linux? You and your friends and your political allies can use it too! Even better, unlike Microsoft/Sun/whoever, the open source community isn't making money off of these people (or if they are, it's at their discretion).
I don't know if you can say that open source is apolitical, but you can definitely say that it is compatible with a very wide range of political viewpoints and does not really prove any of them (or proves all of them, take your pick).
o What about blacks in U.S ? Are they allowed to use Linux ? o What about Hindu Programmers in silicon valley who write most of the code in U.S. Are they allowed to use Linux ? (Remember there is a Hindu Fundamentalist Govt. in India) o What about Sadaam Hussein ? Should he switch to democracy before using Linux ? o What about "The Guy" (as per your next president George W Bush) in Pakistan. Should he bring Navaz Sharif into power before using Linux. o Don't use Linux to let us know your political views. Tell them to your cat.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Here's the thing:
Poor people have a better chance to access technology....that old 386 is now a web-server...
Information propigates...people read and learn. Information gets into and out of the country.
Repression relies on ignorance. Technology can help remove ignorance and spread the message to people that, "it doesn't have to be like this." Don't underestimate the power of Open Source and freedom: in many ways China hasn't changed much in thousands of years but as we all know, the spread of information can change things faster than almost anything else. Maybe we can "embrace and extend" China...
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
GNU/Linux if gree for anybody to use if they accept and abide by the GPL license it is released under. This includes Cuba and China weather it tis the 'Official OSS' of anything or just 'the peoples choice'. A very fundamental freedom that RMS rightly won't let us forget is very important. Information wants to be free. This freedom is exactly what PRC, Cuba, and any other Communist or dictatoral State cannot allow. I don't worry about what China can do to GNU/Linux, I worry about what GNU/Linux (and the 'free speech, not free beer' concept) can do to China.
zenray
ESR is wrong to assume the announcement by the Chinese is untrue.
I was watching Channel 31 which is an experimental
Community TV station in Sydney.
They do a lot of Chinese and Multicultural TV.
One item was a news broadcast that showed the
launch of "Team-X Chinese Linux". There was
almost as much glitz as a Windoze launch and
Open Source, Linux and it's benefits to Chinese
IT was touted everywhere. The Chinese Govt is
apparently making large funds available for
R&D.
It was actually quite a big deal - it's for real.....
Well, if you multiply even a small number by a billion and then divide by a few hundred, those few hundred are still pretty rich.
TWW
all you guys sound like you want to start the trials again, remarkably facist for slashdot.
$var = <STDIN>
$var =~ s/\\$//;
this is slashchomp
But you take it too far!
You're saying that ESR is a money-grubbing phony trying to spread Linux
money-grubbing? I never said that. I never implied that (it could possibly be interpreted by my "big business buddies" comment; that was my mistake).
(and no, I don't preface it with GNU, GNU stuff can be used on any OS and isn't unique to Linux)
No no no. You don't get it. GNU IS the operating system. Linux is not an operating system, it is a kernal. But Linux is not GNU software so we call the system GNU/Linux, that is the GNU operating system plus the Linux kernal.
Think of what we use that are part of the GNU system:
The FSF has been coding the GNU OS for 15 years now. Without GNU there would be no Linux, no KDE, no 'Open Source' movement, no Red Hat, Debian, or Mandrake. Without GNU, you would be using Windows right now. Linux is a great kernal. But Linux is smaller part of the whole system. We call this operating system GNU.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!
The PRC's government adopting Linux (thankfully not true) has nothing to do with the Chinese people adopting Linux. That is already happening, and that is very cool, because it puts power in the people's hands.
The idea of any despicable government officially adopting something I like makes me a bit queasy. The idea of such a despicable government getting a more efficient information infrastructure with which to monitor and track its people with as well as administer its control over them makes me significantly queasy. It should bother anyone who thinks about it and who has some degree of principles.
Besides, what if China decided upon this official OS (or maybe an "easy-monitoring" distro) as the only one its people were permitted to use for computing? Everyone here hates the Microsoft "monopoly" that happened through consumer preference - would y'all be willing to tolerate a real, government-enforced monopoly (just as long as it's your favorite OS)?
And when Cuba goes democratic and free-market (about a month after Castro dies, unless they get a bunch of well-meaning economic "advisors" like Russia did), you won't see the need to justify everything on a Cuban web page with ideology.
Oh, I think Marx hit the nail on the head with his "alienation of labor" idea -- that is, industrial labor is qualitatively different from agrarian/craft labor, because (1) the laboror is no longer in control of the "means of production", so he is working for somebody else, not himself, and (2) industrial labor treats the worker as an automaton, not as a real human.
Well, alienation of labor was not a bad idea (I'm not sure if Marx came up first with it, though), but I'd like to point out that in a lot of situations the pre-industrial peasants were "working for somebody else" because they didn't own the land. Besides, treating the worker as an automaton is a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, and not necessarily capitalism.
both stand for the concentration of working capital and the means of production in the hands of a few
Not true. Laissez-faire capitalism assumes a large mass of competing capitalists. If the means of production become concentrated in the hands of the few, monopolies and cartels appear and the invisible hand breaks down.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
There are really cute pictures of stallmann giving a talk in Beijing.
---
Dev elpizw tipota, dev phoboumai tipota eimai lephteros http://euclidian.org
I have no respect for the Chinese government, and I think I agree with ESR on the political points. However, the more things the Chinese depend on, which they have no control over, the better. We could cripple their technology by something as simple as inserting democratic messages in source code -- they would need to spend thousands of hours ferreting them out. (This wouldn't have to be the kernel source, thousands of apps have source as well.) Source code has more potential for "subliminal channels" than almost anything. (And only a totalitarian country would fear subliminal channels. -- useless against the US, where you can transmit info in a thousand other ways.) In fact, the Open Source movement is a phenomenom that should force anti-free-speech dependant governments to the bottom of the pile, as long as goverment officials don't sell them nuclear secrets for personal gain.
ESR certainly doesn't speak for me. He has no right to claim that he speaks for me. I was all for the idea of China adopting Linux as an official OS, and it also makes sense, considering that GNU/Linux is the current choice of Richard Stalin^H^Hlman. (I don't mean that as a slur, either. I'm a pinko leftie communist at heart. :)
ESR needs to realize that not everyone in the free software movement is an opensource libertarian.
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
--
pieces divagating about "open-source communism"; the clumsy rhetoric of some of our
past ambassadors may have made that outcome inevitable."
... so he couldn't resist getting some RMS-bashing in. And he complains about snideness in others !?!
--
ESR shows lack of respect for the Linux/Open Source community by his claim of libertarianism as the universial value of the community while only a minority believes in libertarianism. The community should not tolerate further hijacking of Linux by ESR any more.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
Look guys... I really think this whole China/Linux thing is a non-issue. First, I agree with ESR that the story is probably mistaken at best and most probably fraudulent. But what if it is true? So what! Who cares?
Linux is not about politics. It's not about communism, democracy, monarchism, or even libertarianism. Yes, many Linux developers and users have strong views on these subjects. I have strong views myself. But that's not what Linux is about.
Linux is about technology. It's about the freedom to use the best technology available, and if what's available is not the best, improve it until it is the best. If China chooses to use Linux, so be it! I think it's great: a billion+ people who use Linux as their default OS? Are you kidding me? This is great!
We don't need to get involved in the politics. Using an OS is not a political statement. And I think the best thing for us to do is to totally ignore this. Why waste our time, energy, and ideology arguing about something that doesn't really matter and we couldn't change even if we wanted to?
Worse, to the extent that you get involved in the politics you will lose focus on the technology. Don't you think there's a good reason why Linus tries to remain aloof from all this kind of stuff?
-- Slashdot sucks.
I stated very clearly at the beginning of my original post that I despise communism; I never said that there should be mere government handouts for minorities either.
And as for the Soviets, 2 wrongs don't make a right. The lives of people in the Third World are no less precious than those of Americans; the brothers, sisters, and mothers of each of the untold thousands of victims of US global arrogance are just as bereaved as any of the comparatively very, very few American victims of terrorism by others. And American foreign policy still is based on realpolitik: the lives of other people around the world are of interest only insofar as much as they serve US foreign policy interests; so many people who have resigned in disgust from the State Dept. can tell you that.
I also said that there _is_ a difference between America and China; the Chinese are much less hypocritical. And the anti-Chinese propoganda makes the situation there appear to be worse than it is in reality.
Best
S
Neat thought about comparing Communism and Open Source.
Interpretations of that event differ. But even if what you say is correct, the use of that bomb on civilians was wrong. America could have taken some of the Japanese to a demonstration of the bomb instead. The Japanese were not idiots. And even if, somehow, the first bombing could be justified, there is no way to justify Nagasaki.
In any case, many of the documents to which you refer only point out the degree to which Americas leaders went to justify their horrendous act. There were equally plausible alternatives; the generals wanted a real test of that bomb; no one can deny that.
"My only problem is the bit about the "repressive ideals of Communism"."
True, there are no true communist states in the world today. Nonetheless, we can look to Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao for examples of "repressive ideals". There is one, big, huge repressive ideal that makes me reject the whole of communism and socialism.
Subordination of the individual. Under communism/socialism, the group is more important than the individual. Put another way for those that don't see anything wrong with this, communism supports the majority over the minority. Incidentally, I don't like pure democracy for exactly the same reason.
If communism/socialism is done voluntarily, as demonstrated by certain US communal societies (Amana, Oneida, Kaweah, Shakers, etc), then there is no problem with it because it's still individuals making choices. But when a government steps in and tries to mandates communism/socialism, then things start getting screwed up big time. (There are governments today that call themselves "socialist", but this is a different socialism than advocated by Marx)
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You stupid fuck, where in the announcement does it say the Chinese government is "forcing" anyone to use Linux?
Grow up.
There are times when I disagree with ESR, but I for one am thankfull today that he is on our side. The chineese govt might indeed go whole-hog for linux, as it would prevent them from having to deal with the capitalist pigs from Redmond, but I'm glad that someone is willing to stand up for the community and let it be known the our ecomomic model is only one facet of Linux and/or OpenSource.
Dojo: defanging browsers so you don't have to
US and Natives -- the US could have burnt the blankets that were infected with small pox, not put a bounty on the major food of the Natives on the plains, not sent the Natives from the swamps to the Plains and vica verca, and finally not attacked a camp of women and children celibrating 'cause acording to Custer "they look like they were doing a war dance" Culteral revolution is comparable to the US action against the natives though. Millions of natives did die because of the US, and Millions of Africans too, although those that died from overwork assult and rape tended to get lost in the paper work of the early US
No matter that such official Chinese government sponsorship might add a quarter of the planet's population to our user base; if this is "world domination", we'll want none of it.
I find this statement outrageous, esp. from ESR who coined the term OpenSource as a non-political substitute for "free software" and now abuses his (btw. well earned) authority to air his personal political views as those of us all.
I for one have no problem if one quarter of the planet's population embraces Linux instead of using a non-free OS (and readily exported commercial US product, I might add) and that ESR blatantly denies them their right to do so is an insult, not only for the Chinese people, but for every programmer who wrote free software as a gift to all people under the premise that it shall be used, distributed and improved in a free manner by everyone who wishes to do so.
Don't get me wrong, I also feel pity for all the victims of the Chinese dictatorship, but I also think that free software is a better means of spreading the idea of freedom than dogmatic cold-war reflexes and in the (IMHO very unlikely) case that this is not a hoax, at least for one time, the Chinese government had showed more mental flexibilty than ESR's anti-communist rant.
Poor ESR. He is under the delusion that China is "communist". As if...what is the point in quoting Marx when dealing with a country which is no longer even Maoist? Side-issue, however.
He is quite right to want to have Linux distanced from the brutal murdering regime sitting in Beijing.
If Chine feel no obligation to respect human rights agreements how the hell can we expect them to respect a software licence?
First of all, any witnesses sent to any such demonstration might not have been believed.
Second of all, the detonation at Trinity was quite sufficient for a "real test".
There's far more potential for clashes between capitalist America, with it's ideals of profit, personal gain and personal success, yet America has no issue with Open Source at all. Indeed, many companies (IBM, Hewlett Packard, Netscape, Intel, Creative Labs, Corel, etc) have dived whole-heartedly into the entire Open Source movement.
In the end, you can ALWAYS interpret Open Source principles in such a way as to agree with your own personal political and/or theological viewpoint, and you can ALWAYS make use of Open Source to advance yourself, no matter what you believe or where you are.
To argue that China "can't" adopt Open Source is as ludicrous as claiming IBM would never release the code to it's Java compiler. Sorry, but if IBM can see past it's prejudices, to take advantage of an emerging philosophy, so can anyone else.
IMHO, it's more important and more useful to debate -whether- something is happening, than to argue blindly that it can't be.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Facism isn't something that a political system "degenerates" into. Fascism is a political ideology with well developed theory behind it (which, of course, many of us disagree with.) As such, most people who decry something as 'Fascist' are just showing their ignorance.
Now, I do not call ESR a fool, but I do know that there are going to be sloppy thinkers who will characterize the Linux movement by his eloquence (or lack thereof), rather than by Linux's capabilities. As Niven also said, "Ad hominem arguments are quick and effective, but they are still fallacious."
The best thing to do is simply let ESR speak his piece and for us to go on doing what we're doing... improving Linux.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
You've got the mortality numbers way off. From PBS (a source I think I can trust for historical data):
Faced with the nightmarish conditions of the voyage and the unknown future that lay beyond, many Africans preferred to die. But even the choice of suicide was taken away from these persons. From the captain's point of view, his human cargo was extremely valuable and had to be kept alive and, if possible, uninjured. A slave who tried to starve him or herself was tortured. If torture didn't work, the slave was force fed with the help of a contraption called a speculum orum, which held the mouth open.
Despite the captain's desire to keep as many slaves as possible alive, Middle Passage mortality rates were high. Although it's difficult to determine how many Africans died en route to the new world, it is now believed that between ten and twenty percent of those transported lost their lives.
These factors were true at all stages of the slave trade. The Africans who captured and sold members of other tribes, the Americans that bought and transported them, and the final slaveowners who bought them were handling what they considered to be valuable merchandise.
Now, this is far from excusing or justifying the slave trade. C'mon, it was slavery, and everyone who was involved was a party to kidnapping, abuse, rape, and occasionally murder, no matter whether it was legal at the time. But to use inaccurate hyperbole in the tradition of Harriet Beecher Stowe (her novel UNCLE TOM depicted the slavemaster Simon LeGree, who worked his slaves to death and bought new ones since "it was cheaper" - even though anyone actually doing that would have been ruined inside of a year) just makes getting to the real atrocities harder.
If you were China, would you trust Microsoft not to put in a backdoor for the NSA? I certainly wouldn't. And why is everyone so negative about this? After all, the average Chinese Linux user doesn't shhot people in the back of the head for a living.
'scuse me, but bullshit. Can you say "transistor"? How about "telephone"? "Modern locomotive"? "Bessemer steel process"? "Personal Computer?" Hell, let's just make that "computer"...
Get real. The U.S. has been whooping ass technologically since it stopped killing itself in its Civil War. Maybe if the rest of the industrialized world hadn't been bombed to shit in WWII, it wouldn't be so. But it was.
Japan has a history of improving on American innovations. Germany has a history of solid engineering. Russia has a history of sucking technological ass. It was a damn backwater til the Bolsheviks came along, and it ended up competing neck and neck with the U.S. technologically until the fall of the USSR. Russian science is a wee bit underfunded at the moment, along with the rest of the nation. It's certainly no more a leader than the U.S. Taiwan? Get real. It's a manufacturing center.
I'm not going to defend the People's Republic of China, a lot of their actions are indefensible. What I find highly annoying are political statements like "principles of the PRC are incompatible with the voluntary cooperation that is the spirit of the Open Source movement." It's great that ESR has an opinion and finds the PRC's track record reprehensible but to say that its incompatible with Open Source seems disingenious at best.
The incompatibility with voluntary cooperation would mean that Open Source software shouldn't be used by or in corporations as most definately are not about voluntary cooperation. So if he's going to condemn the PRC's use of Open Source software for being contrary to voluntary cooperation then he should also condemn IBM, SGI, Dell and anybody else who has recently jumped on the Open Source bandwagon. Sure, the mentioned companies haven't run over students with tanks, but thats not even what he seems to have referred to in his rant.
I'd also state that he has to openly rebuke a lot of the more vocal members of the Open Source community. Voluntary cooperation? A lot of people support piracy or leaked code as a means to an ends. That isn't voluntary cooperation.
"We tend to believe that Microsoft is an evil empire, and it didn't get there with the government's help. The classic monopolies all came from unregulated markets..."
;-)
Gee, I bet you learned that in a government-owned school
Seriously, though. If you get to the root of it, corporations cannot exist without official government approval. A corporation is a legal entity recognized by governments, that have distinct rights from individuals. This legal fiction allows the owners to avoid personal and individual responsibility for their actions.
Microsoft is a corporation. It could not exist without the official approval of the Washington State and US Federal Governments. If Bill Gates had to compete on his own without the extra legal protections that incorporating gave him, it is extremely doubtful that he could have done it. And if he had done exactly the same actions as an individual that gave MS Corporation a 90% market share, he would have been thrown in jail or sued up the wazoo years ago.
Let Billy Boy play by the exact same rules as you or I, and there's no way he can create a monopoly off of a shoddy product.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
A Chinese warship running linux versus an American warship running NT (Remember the Yorktown?)
Of course, that's just on top of all the American Indians who will killed by more traditional means.
None of which is meant to excuse any actions of the Chinese government, which currently has a much worse human rights record than the USA. But the USA can and should be doing much better - for starters, our foreign policy is often abysmal on human rights issues, we have the largest prison population (real number and per capita) in the world, and we are just about the only developed nation where the government claims the right to murder its own citizens.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The histories of China and the US are meaningless to compare. No one alive in the US has owned a slave, for example. No one alive participated in the the anti-Native-American atrocities in the 19th century. (Though I have one friend who had an great-grandmother who was on the Trail of Tears.) We still have the damnable Bureau of Indian Affairs (the sole US government body I would want dissolved before the IRS and the BATF), but their abuses have relatively minor in the last few decades. And, on the other side, no one alive in China sent conscripts to work to death on the Great Wall, for example.
:-) ), but none of them are as egregious as the violations of, say, 1800s America (since we've presumably had time to learn), or modern China. China has a far worse current amount of rights abuses and restrictions, and they've had just as much time to learn from the mistakes of their ancestors and our ancestors. The US government has definite problems, and I don't consider it my friend, but the Chinese goverment makes it look virtually angelic by comparison.
The only valid comparison that can be made of the US and the PRC governments is their contemporary state. The US engages in various rights violations (I'm a libertarian, I can probably write a longer list than you can in a given amount of time
GNU propaganda :)
You have a good point though. I'll cut it out. I just had to get something out of my system.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!
If somebody uses it as an argument against Linux, then we have to refute it. It doesn't hold so it won't be hard.
There is a point I haven't seen mentioned here, and is the price. While in the USA, Europe and the first world in general the price of Linux may not be major concern, it IS for people in Latin America, Africa and obviously China, among others. Somebody mentioned in /. (so it must be true :-) that the average salary in china is like 30 US$ a month. That's why 97% of the software in China is pirated (honestly I still can't understand why do they buy the remaining 3%). The same happens in Cuba. How do you expect that somebody can buy a piece of software that costs several months salary?
Using Linux as their official OS gives the PCR gov. the freedom of not be pressed ALSO by software licensing. And it also gives them control over the software thy're using. Now that I see it, I guess that all goverments should be using software based on Open Source oficially.
In the end, they are just scratching their own itch. And thats good with OS, it works no matter the political point of view. Too bad for Eric... :-)
The German Workers' Party name was changed by Hitler to include the
term National Socialist.
Thus the full name was the National Socialist German Workers' Party
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP)
called for short, Nazi.
By the end of 1920 it had about three thousand members.
While the victims of the Nazi Holocaust are continuing to receive
their just place in history, it is important to note that they are
not the only victims of mass murder. A far greater holocaust was
committed by those supposedly working in the name of all humanity,
rather than those working in the name of the "master race." This is
the Red Holocaust, committed by socialist dictators from Stalin to Mao
to Pol Pot. Their victims have not yet received their full measure of
remembrance, those who supported these dictators have not yet received
their full measure of disgust.
The crimes are immense in scale and in magnitude. The USSR was founded
on a basis of mass murder and deliberate starvation: the Russian Civil
War, the Red Terror and the Reds' forced confiscation of food from the
peasants, lead to millions of deaths. This was prior to Stalin: upon his
succession, he began to use the security apparatus in order to arrest
and kill people on a virtually random basis. Much like the factories
under central planning, the security organs had quotas to fulfill:
one of the artifacts to have survived the era shows that Stalin drew
up lists of each region, with two categories. One category would
indicate imprisonment, going to the slave labour camps. The other
category would indicate immediate death. Stalin often would put notations
on the list, such as "A further 6,000 for the Krasondar region,"
with a stroke of the pen, wiping out a further 6,000 lives.
It was believed among top communists that there was a certain percentage
of the population that opposed the regime and had to be done away with.
But in typical communist fashion, this was not something that could be
left to the discretion of low level cadre. After all, iron, steel, pigs,
wheat production, and virtually everything else economically had to be
defined by a quota to assure that lower level cadre were guided in their
work.
It may be utterly incomprehensible to those outside such a totalitarian
system that such cadre were also given quotas of people to murder, but
it was consistent with the idea of central planning and control.
From Moscow NKVD (a predecessor to the KGB) headquarters an order would go
out to some small towns or villages to kill so many "enemies of the people,"
and soon enough the local henchmen would report back that the task was
completed.
That such orders would be given is incredible enough. That the local
official would obey them is unbelievable. Why did "quite ordinary decent
human beings, with a normal hatred of injustice and cruelty" carry out
these merciless purges and executions? Simple: through sweating, trembling,
fear. Consider what Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov, in their book appropriately
titled Empire of Fear, wrote about what a friend, who is called M-, said of
his experience,
as an N.K.V.D. official in a country town in the Novo-Sibirsk region. The
number of victims demanded by Moscow from this town was five hundred.
M-went through all the local dossiers, and found nothing but trivial
offenses recorded. But Moscow?s requirements were implacable; he was
driven to desperate measures. He listed priests and their relatives;
he put down anyone who was reported to have spoken critically about
conditions in the Soviet Union; it was more than M-'s life was worth
not to fulfill his quota. He made up his list of five hundred enemies
of the people, had them quickly charged and executed and reported to
Moscow: "Task accomplished in accordance with your instructions."
M-...detested what he had to do. He was by nature a decent, honest,
kindly man. He told me the story with savage resentment. Years
afterwards its horror and injustice lay heavy on his conscience.
But M- did what he was ordered. Apart from a man's ordinary desire
to remain alive, M- had a mother, a father, a wife and two children.
Throughout this period Stalin was particularly concerned about Ukrainian
nationalism and their opposition to collectivization. This was a major
reason for Ukrainian opposition to Moscow and a source of support for
Ukrainian exiles abroad planning for an independent Ukraine, and being
given aid to that end by Nazi Germany. One strong base for this opposition
was the peasant. In the early 1930s Stalin created a famine. He blockaded
the Ukraine and would not let food in, and he sent cadre on systematic
forays against the peasants to uncover any food they might be hiding.
Even warm bread was taken off peasants tables and seed grain for the
next planting was expropriated; dogs and cats were shot.
About 5,000,000 Ukrainians died from hunger and disease as a result.
But, there was another source of nationalism, its culture-carriers.
The communists therefore shot Ukrainian writers, historians and composers,
Ukrainian officials too considerate of the Ukraine; and even itinerant,
blind folk singers. Those with "bourgeoisie sensitivities" might find the
following from the memoirs of composer Dmitri Shostakovich to have its own
chilling horror.
Since time immemorial, folk singers have wandered along the roads of the
Ukraine....they were always blind and defenseless people, but no one ever
touched or hurt them. Hurting a blind man-what could be lower?
And then in the mid thirties the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Lirniki
and Banduristy [folk singers] was announced, and all the folk singers had
to gather and discuss what to do in the future. "Life is better, life is
merrier." Stalin had said. The blind men believed it. They came to the
congress from all over the Ukraine, from tiny, forgotten villages. It was
a living museum, the country's living history. All its songs, all its music
and poetry. And they were shot, all those pathetic blind men killed.
Why was done?...here were these blind men, walking around singing songs
of dubious content. The songs weren't passed by the censors. And what
kind of censorship can you have with blind men? You can't hand a blind
man a corrected and approved text and you can't write him an order either.
You have to tell everything to a blind man. That takes too long. And you
can't file away a piece of paper, and there's no time anyway.
Collectivization. Mechanization. It was easier to shoot them.
And so they did.
Turning now to communist China, its Cultural Revolution during the 1960s
was a tumultuous period. The communist party was split between those who
supported Mao?s desire to continue the glorious communist revolution
and those who were more pragmatic, the so called "capitalist roaders."
No one could be neutral in the bloody conflict for power between these
two groups. Military units fought each other, even with cannon and tanks;
students waged pitched battles with machine guns and grenades given them
by military sympathizers. The victors in one battle or another would then
systematically purge the opposition, subjecting them to torture and mass
execution. How many died in this internal conflagration cannot be counted.
In this struggle, Mao and his supporters could trust no intellectual or
scientist of any sort, especially in the governing of any organization.
For this reason it was customary in these years to put fanatical communist
radicals, regardless of their lack of experience or knowledge of their job,
in charge of universities, schools, scientific institutes, hospitals,
and intellectual associations of one sort or another. Consider the following
experience related by a Chinese scientist when Shan Guizhang, a fanatic and
ignorant radical, was appointed to head one of China's most prestigious of
institutes, the Institute of Optics and Precision Instruments in Changchun.
Now Shan had read Tales of the Plum Flower Society, a spy thriller about an
entirely fictional effort to break a Kuomintang espionage network in the
Academy of Sciences. The chief Kuomintang agent was named Peng Jiamu,
also a name, unfortunately, of a real scientist working at the institute.
Incredibly, Shan believed that scientist Peng was in fact the real life
spy in the book. So, fully understandable in the context of the "Cultural
Revolution," Shan had 166 scientists at the institute arrested as spies,
along with local accountants, policemen, workers, and even nursery
attendants. Some were beaten to death; some others committed suicide.
Sufficient proof of spying was the existence of a radio or camera at
home or the ability of a person to speak a foreign language. After thus
purging the institute of these "spies," Shan was promoted to a provincial
Party committee.
In China, millions suffered and died because of Mao Tse-Tung's ideas.
Like the Great Leap Forward of 1958: totally unrealistic food production
quotas were created. Production figures were thus falsified. Under the
delusion that the country had plenty of food, Mao demanded that the people
make steel. They did, often using homemade furnaces. The steel, of course,
was worthless, the country had not been growing food while producing steel,
and the result was a massive famine.
It was the same as the total suppression of the agricultural free market
by the Soviets, an identical gigantic human experiment with productivity
by command. Unwilling to learn from these disastrous results, blinded by
their love of Marxism, the Chinese communists did the same thing once they
had gained complete control over mainland China and had prepared their
peasants. Within a few years all land and farms were taken over by the
government, collectives called communes were built, and all farmers
became, in effect, not only factory workers, but forced conscripts
in a national agricultural army. In many communes they lived in
dormitories, woke to bugles, ate their food in mess halls, and lined up
after breakfast to be marched off with flags flying to carry out their
group tasks and meet the communes quota.
This was true communism. It was the dream of those who believed that
government could build a society to improve the lot of the poor and
feed the needy. Here was total reconstruction, the revolution for
which Mao tse-tung had worked and fought. Of course, what this meant
was that those communist officials put in charge of a commune or
agricultural region, could not afford to underfill their quotas.
All, thus, exceeded them and food production soared. China was
becoming an agriculturally rich country. The experiment had worked,
or so it seemed to the government and to well wishers abroad. But all
these statistics were a sham. They were only on paper.
The actual results were absolutely disastrous. Catastrophic.
Men, women, and children starved to death in the communes and fields,
in the villages and towns, and cities. While food production records
were being broken the emaciated bodies began to pile up and soon their
numbers, even to top party rulers, became undeniable. By 1962 the worst
famine in world history was underway.
How many died in this is much in dispute. There are figures as high as
40,000,000 dead. A well documented estimate is 27,000,000. If we take
this figure as close to the actual number, it is as though the total
population of Canada had starved to death in two or three years.
Beyond that, the Cultural Revolution, which took off during 1966 and finally
screeched to a halt with the death of Mao in 1976, involved young people
continuing to beat, threaten, terrorise those in positions in power --
specifically, those in positions of power who stood opposed to Mao's radical
ideas. Red Guards, students who had mobilised in the name of Mao, killed
those they considered "capitalists" and when doctrinaire disputes burst
out, each other.
Pol Pot created the setting for the "Killing Fields." It was the "year Zero"
and random murder was part of creating the new society. Cambodia is still
coming to terms with the Khmer Rouge and their crimes, though Pol Pot
himself is thankfully dead.
This is but a sample of the crimes committed in the name of socialism.
We must not forget those imprisoned or killed in Eastern Europe. There
are the martyrs of East Germany and Poland in 1953, the freedom fighters
who fought for Hungary's freedom in 1956, the Czech protesters squashed
by Soviet power in 1968, the brave members of Solidarity suppressed in
1980-1981, and we should not allow ourselves to forget those shot trying
to cross the Berlin Wall.
Socialism in other parts of the world has been just as murderous. There was
the Red Terror in Ethiopia, under Halie Mariam Mengistu. Angola and
Mozambique were torn to shreds by Communist movements, often with the
help of the Soviet Union and satellite states. There has been murderous
Red repression in Nicaragua and Cuba.
In short, wherever communism was tried, it meant murder, terror,
repression and the subjugation of the individual by the state. Yet
this world wide holocaust, whose estimated dead range from 100 million
to upwards of 150 million, is barely remembered.
The primary reason for this lack of remembrance is the connivance of
Western socialists. The ideas which they advocate: that the state can be
the primary agent for change and ensuring equality in society, their
contempt for the individual and their total unwillingness to allow
individuals freedom are strikingly similar in form, if not in content
to what the Red murderers wished. As sympathy for socialism exists in
all important institutions in the West, from government to academia,
it has been difficult to clear the air about the crimes from the Left,
certainly a far more difficult struggle than detailing the crimes of Nazi
Germany.
However this struggle should not be abandoned. It is necessary that the
millions who have died are remembered; what happened was a warning.
If we forget it, it will only open the door for the nightmare happening
again in the new millennium.
That ESR would not want to be in any way associated with these Butchers
is well taken.
I'm willing to bet that at least one person in this forum will stand up and tie this to Microsoft somehow ;) "Oh yes! More FUD By the Evil Empire!"
Seems to me that the Linux is more related to communism than capitalism. People working together for the good of the community rather than there own gain. Microsoft ( and other software companies ) are classic capitalism, i.e. Screw you so I can have more. I wonder if Linux will go the same way as communist countries. Become corrupt, weak, and eventually collapse. I hope not. KEEP THE IDEALS.
Your argument presupposes only two alternatives:
1) anti-communist atrocities and pro-US atrocities
and
2) pro-communist atrocities and anti-US atrocities
You forgot a third alternative, namely, that along with his hatred for Chinese sponsored atrocities like Tiannamen and forced abortions, he is also opposed to US sanctioned atrocities like Haiti, Cambodia, etc.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I knew this would happen. A reasoned discussion begins to divagate and the next thing you know, divagation is everywhere.
I sickens me, but I digress.
If linux alienates Fortune 500 companys, ESR suddenly looses a lot of money in speaking fees. Whats bad for ESR is bad for the 'community', at least, in his mind...
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Any attack - be it nuclear or conventional - which intentionally targets civilian populations is unjust, whichever just war theory you choose to subscribe to. This is true for Hiroshima, for Dresden, or for Hitler's air campaign against London.
Whether Hiroshima killed fewer people than a conventional land/sea operation would have has been endlessly debated. But it is irrelevant. It intentionally destroyed hundreds of thousands of civilians - men, women and children. That cannot be justified with any number of military personnel.
While it might be ironic that some countries like that would choose Linux...look at it this way: it can't hurt. In fact, it can only help. Hopefully people will embrace the free (in both senses) nature of Linux and Open Source and the FSF's ideals, and demand the same from their government.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
There is a huge, gaping hole where your knowledge of the feudalistic and oppressive Chinese emperors (and the powers behind the throne) should have been.
Oh, and remember to smile when the WoD "cops" break down your door in their hunt for drug users.
As oppressive as feudal china was I must adjust my statement somewhat. China is just as oppresive as anytime in the last 200 years, while the US has made decent strides towards less oppression.
And when the Cops break down my door they better damn well have knocked politely and shown me a search warrant first, or they'll be facing the business end of a large arsenal of weapons.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
This is the classic way for the pink homo sapiens versions on this planet to bug us proud Asians. Ofcourse you are sitting cowardly behind your desk, because you are affraid of me. Come here and I will show my allmighty martial arts to slaughter you like a pig. What culture do you have? Right, none at all! Go rape your father. He produced you by fucking one of his chickens on his farm and then one of his pigs. That's why you are either pink or white. You are ofcourse chicken, in this case litterally and your little sister is a pig.
Oh and by the way, you Americans fight like cissies! Asians have true fighting technique!
We are 1/5 of the earth's population, because we are the chosen one. We belong to this planet.
Now go fuck your sister and stop bugging me with your unoriginal/coward bullshit.
But the page is generated by Microsoft Frontpage 3.0 ... at least they're running RH, though.
-- His eyes were cold. As cold as the bitter winter snow that was falling outside. Yes, cold and therefore difficult
If there is one thing that Linux is most certainly about it is Fallafelism.
So why must this retarded Penis-valian keep opening his mouth ? China, communism, Marxism, whatever. ESR take a hint . SHUT THE FUCK UP. >YOU ARE a RETARD, INVOLUNTARILY UNEMPLOYED (because no'body in their right mind's going to hire a gun-toting racist like you. You ARE a Communist, just like RMS (St. IGNUCIUS or whatever). AND ESR IS A RACIST. He just doesn't like those G00Ks. Hey, if the Gooks want to use Linux, then so be it. LEAVE THEM ALONE, ESR !!! AND LASTLY....GO FARM YOUR DINGLEBERRIES, ESR.
I speak for myself when I say that I believe his other comments on the China are misplaced, even wrong.
Its obvious that ESR was right in his swipes at RMS, telling him to "shut up and show me the code". I mean all he [rms] does is write brain-dead papers and project hard-core right-wing political viewpoints on the linux community. I mean, all he ever wrote was Gcc, I mean, what a lame little program. The open source community could have gotten along just fine with out it, now fetchmail on the other hand, how could we ever live with out it?
Seriously though, who ever elected ESR as our 'spokesperson'? Who voted for him? Certainly not I. as far as I can tell, he wrote Cat B and its successors (witch, ironically RMS calls 'Marxist utopianism'). Look, his writings convinced Netscape to open there code, and just look where they are now! RMS put a lot of hard work into actually coding and setting up the GNU system, like it or not GCC stands for what he believes in, all RMS does is write papers to appeal to corporate types so they can pay him lots of money to come and talk to him about how great 'open source' is.
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
No we do not have trouble with our Ls. We don't have any Ls, thank you. No Ls, no problem.
Lee Kai Wen
Taiwan, ROC
Between the ideas behind open source & free software, and the claimed ideology behind Communist China. It is only tangential, but I can see a so-called "communist" country claiming that they are much the same for exactly the same reasons that opponents of open source & free software call it "a bunch of commie tripe."
When I heard Communist China wanted to make Linux their official distro on "ideological grounds" I laughed out loud. The thought of _anything_ being freely distributable in that country is ludicrous. They would immediately restrict the distribution of any distro they settled on, and would probably be scanning the comments in the code to weed out anything that would be considered detrimental to their sovereign state.
Free Software is a concept wherein individuals contribute code to a community of programmers and users. In the world of free software, while it is not impossible for a single individual or group to profit from such a contribution, the overall effect is that the entire body of programmers and users within the software community benefit overall from individual contributions, and is a bit harder for an individual to profit singly from such a contribution.
This is, in fact, _very_ close to _some_ of the ideals behind Marx's communism, and by extension Communist China. The main difference is that Communist China, while professing these ideals, is ruled by a dictatorial body that comes down ruthlessly and fatally on _anyone_ who opposes them. They are, in effect, not a "communist" government at all -- they are state socialism to the core, and in their grim pursuit of whatever it is they think they're upholding, they murder without remorse.
On the other hand, I could post on Slashdot and say "I think ESR/RMS/CmdrTaco/Whoever is a single-celled idiot" and while I might get moderated down and find a lot of flames crowding my in-box, I doubt very much that the jack-booted thugs would come a-pounding on my door.
Free Software is not communism, because communism is an ideology rooted the historical develeopment of _government_ and _economics_. However, Free Software has a lot in common with _anarchism_, which shares _some_ of communism's ideology and terminology (since many of their more formal concepts were formed at the same time, and Marx and Bakunin -- an anarchist "leader" -- were contemporaries).
I don't know that I really consider ESR's response to be "authoritive" -- it sounds much to knee-jerk for that -- but I also feel that Communism and Open Source/Free Software have little, very little, to do with each other.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
I also hope that Eric continues, in the midst of offering to speak for all of us, to make his gratuitous swipes at "past ambassadors" and their comsymp ways. We're much better represented by someone who keeps on top of this stuff for us and makes sure that, above all, everyone knows that we ain't no steenkin' commies.
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Michael Hall
mph.puddingbowl.org
[I agree with most of that, but:]
/. isn't helping much, either.)
ESR was right to distance us from the Chinese government, just in case someone in the press tries to skew the story. (Call me a liberal, but they're still pretty odious, someone had to say something.)
Nice try. I dunno what rock you find your news under, but in the grander media scale, (1) bringing attention to that sort of thing, and then (2) refuting it by flatly shrugging it off, will make it even more fodder for the easily titillated media mind.
If GWB kept telling everyone that he didn't do coke, would the media believe him? Of course not. They don't now. He stops talking about it, they -- for the larger part -- stop covering it.
(Good job, Slashdotters.)
Remember, There is no liberal or conservative bias in the news. There is only ignorance bias.
(And honestly,
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
China has officaly started alowing the practice of Chistianity and budism in its borders, in strictly controled situations, therfor it could not be considred 'athiest'
As an athiest myself, I deplore the idea of restricting worship. Athism is not the desire to remove religion from the world, it simply the disbelife in god, nothing more.
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
McCarthy was a power mad drunk, Who ruined a few dozen peoples lives. Communism is a power mad system that has murdered millions and enslaved hundreds of millions of people. I'll take Joe McCarthy over Joe Stalin any day.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
From what I read, Australia doesn't want to "strengthen its self-identity by getting rid of the monarchy". They voted to keep it.
Without meaning to be too critical, I wonder if you realize that your comments have a slight paternalistic quality to them.
I'm glad you don't want to see western culture dominate the world, but it looks like a good share of the rest of the world disagrees with you. Yes, there's something attractive about the idea of "preserving" Chinese or French or Guatemalan culture. However, that decision properly belongs to those whose culture it is. For Chinese culture, that would be us Chinese.
And, whether it be western technology, or education, or All in the Family and the Smurfs (or, for you British, the Tele-Tubbies), we are making the choice for western culture over our own in a thousand way every day.
I often hear well-meaning westerners say things like "It's a shame how westernized your country is becoming". While I appreciate and understand the sentiments, I think they stem from a certain cultural naivete.
For them, the appeal of Chinese culture is its "exoticness", and they bemoan seeing that getting supplanted by things which they see as banal or commonplace. But to us, Chinese culture is commonplace.
Imagine if I were to say, "It's a shame you Brits have abandoned your traditional custom of eating crumpets at tea time. I really hate seeing traditional English culture being supplanted by that American 'time is money' philosophy." Your choosing not to sit down to tea and crumpets is no more a cultural issue for you than eating with a fork instead of chopsticks is for me.
The fact is, I prefer Elton John to Chinese opera. So why can't I listen to it?
...like it's a return to McCarthyism! Just listen to what he has to say:
"Any "identification" between the values of the open-source community and the repressive practices of Communism is nothing but a vicious and cynical fraud..."
"I am certain that even that minority would
not care to be associated with the totalitarian and murderous government of Communist China..."
"But the prospect of being "identified" with the bloody-handed gerontocrats behind the Tianamen Squaremassacre would be, I believe, genuinely revolting and insulting to all of us."
Apparently, he's not blowing steam at all at Linux here, but rather, as he put it, "Open-Source Communism." Truth be told, he looks like just another Communist hater, caught "Red Handed."
Marx viewed socialism as an transitional state between Capitalism and Communism. He had this silly notion that if everything went socialist, then it would turn communist naturally afterward. This is absurd because government fat cats are just as unwilling to give up their power and money as corporate fat cats are. Marx was naiive in thinking that communism is even possible in the first place, and the Wrong-wing Republicans are wrong in believing the lie that the USSR was communist. In this day and age, 'communist' has become a synonym for 'totalitarian' and the truth falls by the wayside because of it. We like to say that China is a repressive government and so we call it 'communist' even though China is in bed with many international capitalistic business interests. It scares the living hell out of wrong-wingers to admit that a totalitarian regime can be capitalist-friendly, because it pokes holes in their ideology.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
So these guys(including ESR) see themselves not only geeks in hacking, but also politics, huh? Given that the American population are predominantly affected by the "selective reporting" practice of the US new media, I really cannot pick a reason why we should care about ESR's political speech. After all, ESR is just a little bit more than an ordinary, salary-receiving American programmer.
They're just GOOKS dammit. Can't you just forgive their :flied lice", and "steamed lice" ,,,...and Rinux...not Linux....
Let's think about the real reason that these countries would do this. America has been a technology leader for most of her history. She has also been a free democracy. In the case of oppressive Communist countries, America has limited or denied exports (case in point, look at the list of specific countries that are on the denied list. IIRC, both China and Cuba are on that list).
Now, a technology that is robust and powerful comes out, and that can be run on commodity off-the-shelf hardware, which can be clustered to build a "poor-man's supercomputer." It stands to reason that these countries would flock to it.
--Storm
Hey, many of us (including me) disagree on ESR's words here. But then, how many wrong things (TM) have I said in my life?
And: it takes people who are very emotional and controversial to promote visions. These people make mistakes, have ideas that not everyone shares, etc.
But we need people like ESR anyways. Alone the fact that he made us discuss about OS being a political issue or not, was worth his comment.
It is important to loudly disagree on his words, if you have a different standpoint. But no ESR-bashing, please.
I wonder how all those Guatemalans, Columbians, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Peruvians, Bolivians, Chileans, Argentines, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Indonesians, Timorese, Iranians, Iraqis, Haitians, Angolans, Congolese, Zairians--the list could go on a lot longer--who've been murdered at the behest of (if not by) the US in the name of anticommu^W corporate profits would view ESR's righteous sniffings about "freedom, increased choice, and *voluntary* cooperation." He might try reading Michael McClintock's _Instruments of Statecraft_ or Mark Danner's _Massacre at El Mozote_ before pontificating on the subject of human rights again.
can you name one 'officaly religious' contry that *Isn't* opressive?
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Well now we can chose if we want to be called communists or nazis! Perhaps we should mention that we don't want the sympathy or love of any *ism.
Of all the registered I would say 85% of them are LUG members and die hard fans which use Linux as main O/S or have MS crapware completely wipe out. Most of the other users, dual-boot at least to play some games. No matter how bad MS products are, apparently most people either like surfing in doze and outlook. Getting those pirated software is much much harder now but it is still possible and the SAR govnt is going to fine someone buying pirated software. It is a gangsters' business. For a copy of NT it would be like a bit cheaper than a box of Slackware, still I refuse to use them - that just speak for itself in terms of quality. Even if MS products are free, I still prefer Linux and OSS. So count me in 371.
Will you retarded COMMIES just stop whining. They're just GOOKS. ESR is a gook too. He just won't admit it.
All of these people have registered independently. Which means that they communicated to the outside world.
I can't help thinking this is a Good Thing.
(BTW, Cuba has 36 registered users.)
Examples from the present century are endless:
the atomic bomb drop on Japan (critical historians have pointed out that Japan was going to surrender and that the drop was a test),
purposely igniting the civil war in Guatemala during the 50's (55,000 dead),
installing and vigorously propping the brutal Pinochet in Chile,
deposing Iran's democratic goverment to reinstall
the Shah and a brutal dictatorship in 1953,
supporting and funding Israel's continued brutal and underreported bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, including hospitals and schools, as well as their continued reign of terror against the Palestinians through the systematic ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories and Jerusalem,
Corporate diamond interests are behind the recent savage civil war in Sierra Leone (a diamond-rich country); when one government refuses them the concessions they want, the start a civil war,
the continued oppression of hispanics, blacks, and native americans through various not-so-subtle misallocations of government and corporate dollars
the perpetuation of underpaid and exploited underclasses in Third World countries to keep the standard of living high in the "First World"
extensive and pervasive use of prison labor by corporations to cheaply manufacture goods and provide services (this phenomenon finds America at her most hypocritical with respect to the Chinese)
As for Tiannamen Square, the US alone has instigated innumerable such instances among its puppets in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, the Phillipines, the former Iran of the Shah, Israel and Palestine, Latin America. Trust me, if there were to ever be a popular revolt here, do you really think the goverment will not use real bullets to suppress it?
At least the Chinese are honest; the West and Western capitalist do even worse things, but are more sophisticated in their use of propoganda to fool people. I wish I had more time for details and references, but other posters appear to be doing the job
What more needs to be said? Anyone who seriously thinks the PRC is no more oppressive than liberal democracy needs to get their heads out of their ideology. Think.
I find it disturbing that so many people are either ignorant or willing to ignore the obvious truth. We mustn't let our disdain with having others presume to speak for us distort our judgement when they speak truth.
One of the things I like about Linux and Free software is that lots of people can use it to fit with their own ideals. If the PRC wants to use linux and focus on the parts of the ideals that fit with Marxism they should go right ahead. I'll use it and focus on the bits that fit with my ideals. And ESR will focus on what fits with his.
We all get better software out of it.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
"Way to go!" this is possibly the most /.
aposite comment I have ever read on
-sjf
The _main_ miss of comunism, or alike, is not :)
...
stupidity in subconcepts, but trying to build
peace on earth without Jesus. Every other such attempt
will fail, too. They build on other's blood, while
had to build on their's own. Guess no need to show
parallels with French's Revolution etc.
Let these few be capitalists, leaving my beliefs
in peace
P.S. Im Russian, so I saw that thing in action
Typical bsd losers! Your bsd license is not even good enough for toilet paper. Does bsod comes free as well? Fuck off asshole
"I also said that there _is_ a difference between America and China; the Chinese are much less hypocritical. And the anti-Chinese propoganda
makes the situation there appear to be worse than it is in reality. "
Have you been to China? The reason that they seem less hypocritical is that the government is the only one who has control of the media. They also historically have been very good at playing the "victim" card, when in fact they have used this role to justify their "response" as merely "defensive".
You have to be in China to know what I am talking about. To get any kind of clue from the information the is permitted to leave China in any formal medium is suspect at best. I suppose that a personal friend in China would also be a decent source of information.
People don't come out and protest in obvious ways, they are done in very subtle ways. If they were overt about it, they would be locked up and shut up. To protest the Tiananmen Square Massacre, students would go out into the square and hold small bottles in the air and drop them to watch them smash on the concrete. The stupid wai-guo-ren (foreigners) don't have a damn clue. And thus, it never makes it on the news. To break the small bottle is siginificant. Deng XiaoPing was the dude who ordered the tanks to crush the students. The Chinese word for small bottle is also "xiao ping" (with diffent tones). A quite subtle protest indeed.
To simply read the party line from China and believe it carte blanche, without looking at the dissonance of context that it is stated, is foolish.
The Chinese do not have a free press as a watchdog to the governments actions, we do. This ultimately is the liberating difference. The free-flow of information will not allow covert operations to occur so easily. They will still occur, but less so.
There was a HUGE famine in China in the late 1950's. We didn't know about it until about 25 years later. We found out this information from demographics. The Chinese government still does not admit that there was a 2-3 year famine that killed tens of millions.
This would and could not happen in a society that permits the truth to be revealed.
More interesting info here....http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel/
OTOH, I'm not sure his political comments are terribly well-placed. Evangelists like ESR tend to leap onto any news item on Open Source and try to fit it to their political agenda which in turn risks tarring us all with the same brush. Most Linux users, myself included, don't have much of a political agenda. I use Linux because I think it's cool and not because of any idealisms, and I think the vast majority of us would agree. Anyone who reads advocacy newsgroups knows just how bad misplaced advocacy can sound.
On the gripping hand (IHNRP, IJLTS "OTGH") if China want to adopt Linux, then good for them. The whole point of Open Source is that it is available to everybody and not just people whom the evangelists happen to like.
I just wonder if the Chinese Government would consider themselves bound by the GPL ...
-- Arm yourself when the Frog God smiles.
> Third, I do not believe that millions of African > lives were lost. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps.
This statement is as ridiculous and as unfounded as the denial of the Holocaust, perhaps more so. Slave boats frequently had a survival rate of only 10 percent (from capture to ship to market to plantation-or-whereever to work). For a given x million slaves who survived the journey (where x is greater than 3-I don't remember exactly), this translates into tens of millions who lost their lives.
Hiroshima was and still is a HUGE industrial center. It was a military target, a civilian target would have been Osaka ot Kyoto.
(patting clothing to extinguish flames)
Good point. ESR doth protest too much. On the other hand, maybe he was just trying to get more press coverage for its own sake.
Whether or not China's government does or does not meet some Communist ideal hardly matters; what is does demonstrate is what a Communist government naturally degenerates into.
If you put all the power into the hands of the state, eventually the state will become a kleptocratic plutocracy.
China is Communism in its ultimate form.
. . . Is incompatible with mindless ideological orthodoxy -- which happens to be the root cause of the abuses in China, as well as a favorite passtime of the annoying Libertarian comissar who we call "Eric Raymond".
Will he next inveigh against users who advocate gun control? Those who remain neutral on the issue? Will he declare that Linux may not be used by those whose religion he doesn't approve of? By Democrats? Microsoft employees? ATF/FBI employees? It's not like anybody will give a rat's ass if he does, but it's still ridiculous.
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
..only suggests the democratic socialist ideas of Trotsky (he was Snowball in "Animal Farm") and the socioanarchist ideas of Bakunin should be examined more closely. There is a paradox inherent in the so-called dictatorship of the Proletariat of Stalinism; an egalitarian system such as true socialism cannot peacefully co-exist with the inequality of totalitarianism. Seeing this, Stalin eviscerated Russian socialism, and expelled or killed party figures of the Left Opposition, such as Trotsky. Marxism ceased to exist in Russia after 1927, but Stalin kept the rhetoric. Also, take note of the undermining of America's democratic system by Big Business; Capitalism, being an inequal economic system, is destroying democracy, an egalitarian political system.
There's a heap of issues here...
Firstly, I rather like living in a culturally diverse world. I don't want to see western north atlantic culture domainte the world. I like the fact that France wants to remain French, China wants to remain Chinese, and Australia wants to strengthen its own self-identity by getting rid of the monarchy (although I'd rather we keep them for now in the UK).
And MS, both through its profit-centric worldview, and through it attempts to create a computational monoculture, does tend to be a vehicle for US culture.
So I approve of China adopting Linux, and Chinese-izing it.
On the other hand, I dont like the fact that China maintains its identity through such oppressive means. So a government (rather than grass roots) endorsement is a bit of an embarassment.
If Linux makes computing and information more accessible to the Chinese people, that would be good. It would be wrong to punish the people for the sins of the government (contrast Iraq, where UN estimates say 250,000 to 500,000 children have died due to medical supplies stopped by sanctions). At the same time, just as some medical supplies can also be used by the military, computing technology can also be used by the government to monitor the people.
So I don't see the issue as black and white as ESR does. I would rather our reactions to China were built up cooperatively from a grass roots level, just as our development has been, rather than being spoken for when I for one haven't yet reached a conclusion on the issue.
Having said that, ESR is spot on when he says that this will be used as ammunition against Linux for those who use 'communist' as an obscenity. The links between open source and anarchism, libertarianism, or scientific-collaboration are all stronger than the parallels with communism.
However open source rests uneasy with capitalism, and there are many who believe that everything which is not capitalism is communism.
No one is accusing the people, but instead the government. The government is certainly responsible for its actions.
Read my post again, about "mindless ideological orthodoxy". I'm willing to give Raymond credit for not killing anybody, but he is a great fan of the same kind of ideology-first/reality-second crap that Mao was so fond of. Yeah, his ideology is somewhat less noxious than that of Chairman Mao, but nobody ever thought Communism would end in the collectivization of the Ukraine until it happened. I don't trust these world-savers who have One Simple Solution (the acronym is purely accidental!) to all our problems. It's a crock.
And by the way, the Cultural Revolution was not conducted by the government. It was a mostly decentralized mob movement. Mao just made some announcements and got out of the way. The rhetoric of the Cultural Revolution bore a creepy resemblance to current US conservative rhetoric in many ways; for example, it was asserted that academics were corrupting youth by de-emphasizing the teaching of values. It was also asserted that government officials had abandoned values and turned to pragmatism. Mao launched the whole thing, basically, by way of pursuing a power struggle (which he won, in the short term) against officials who he believed to have turned away from the core values of the nation -- in their case, communism. Sound familiar?
The abuses and excesses of the PRC are well known and are repugnant to me, but that doesn't mean that, if sombody else objects to it, I am required to agree with them about everything else. Until the Republicans finish consolidating their power, this is still a somewhat free country.
In any case, my intent was not to trivialize the suffering of the Chinese people, and if I gave that impression I apologize.
In closing, it should be noted that many right-wing/libertarian boneheads, in contrast to your remarks, assert that gun control is indeed a step on the road to totalitarian communism, and is therefore equivalent to communism itself. You've heard the rhetoric, you don't need me to recapitulate in detail. I may have jumped to conclusions in assuming that Mr. Raymond holds that view himself; if so, and if I was wrong, that's the only thing I implied that I'd care to retract.
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
Lets assume I stole Mozilla code, work my ass off to improve it. Now it is a bit more stable and support a little merely cosmetic features but nothing fancy (to minimize my cost) and sell it for $50 Will you buy it or are you going to buy it in large quantity? Remember Mozilla 4.7 is fairly stable now and it should be better in future release.
Probably 80% of the eastern indians died without ever seeing a white man. They were killed by their own people who had contracted European diseases. In total, those diseases had a 95% attrition rate. Far and away the worst epidemic ever to hit the world. Worse by far than the Black Death. But also completely unavoidable, given our lack of knowledge about the spread of disease.
Yes, we did the western and southern indians a bad deal, but that was by NOT respecting private property rights, as any good capitalist should be expected to do. To the extent that they suffered, it was not capitalism's fault. It was plain old theft and fraud.
Don't believe me, try doing some research.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
From the article:
"In the past, I have avoided presuming to speak for the whole Linux community. This time, however, I think I may safely say that this news will come as a vast relief to all of us."
Has he ever avoided speaking for the community? I hadn't noticed. In fact, when he wrote all that rot about "Take my job please" didn't he mention how hard it was being "the spokesperson for the community"?
The People's Republic of China is of course just a hollow dictatorial government, trying to further its own agenda by adopting linux as the official OS. (That is if it even happened - read the article) But why does ESR feel he has to speak up and in some cases speak for the linux community on every issue? He presents himself as the face that we show people that are not in the linux community. I hope that isn't truel
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I'd be more worried about the GPL than about Communism. The Chinese government and many companies have long been rather relaxed about copyright and licensing issues. This was one of the major sticking points in Chinas MFN status.
If China adopts Linux in a big way, what are they likely to do with the GPL?
I'd bet that you'd see Chinese companies take lots of GPL source closed, modify and sell it, without any legal action possible against them.
Of course that's not to say that it can't happen anyway. Lots of countries do not recognize Copyright and licenses. But by making Linux "Standard" for China, it is just a lot more likely and will probably include a lot more projects/products.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
I suggest you go to Tiananmen some day and put up a sign something on the order of "Fuck Communism" and see what happens. Whether they fit YOUR definition of what communism is or isn't is totally irrelevant. It's what THEY believe. And they believe (and call themselves) they are communists.
How can you even compare this to the 20 milling dead in Stalins purges, or Tiananmen Square, or the faimine in North Korea, or the Chinese occupation of Tibet, etc etc etc?
Come on. America is not perfect, I 'll grant you that. But our system is one of the few where you actually have the right to make statements like that without fear of the gov't knocking down your door. If you actuallly lived in one of those communist regimes talk like that would get you dead or at best in a forced labor camp.
For all its faults I still think our system (USA) is the best one out there and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
-JeremyH
In a November 10th Yahoo-UK story http://uk.news.yahoo.com/991110/22/ax8w.html, the government of Communist China is alleged to have said that Apple Pie will be adopted by that country as its official dessert and that "There is a strong identification between communist China and the tasty good dessert" Authority for this statement is traced to a press release by GraphOn www.graphon.com.
This story appears to be untrue. The only GraphOn press release I can find that mentions China is http://www.graphon.com/News/pr-china991102.html from 2 Nov. This is a routine announcement of a partnership with a private firm in Hainan. There is no mention of any Chinese government sponsorship or action to make Apple Pie "official".
In the past, I have avoided presuming to speak for the whole Apple Pie community. This time, however, I think I may safely say that this news will come as a vast relief to all of us. Insofar as it has politics at all, the pie-sharing movement promotes freedom, increased choice, and *voluntary* cooperation. Any "identification" between the values of the pie-sharing community and the repressive practices of Communism is nothing but a a vicious and cynical fraud.
There are a few of us who have a soft spot for the theoretical Communist ideal of "from each according to his ability, to his each according to his need"; but I am certain that even that minority would not care to be associated with the totalitarian and murderous government of Communist China -- unrepentant perpetrators of numerous atrocities against its own people.
It may be too much to hope that this statement will head off a flurry of snide opinion pieces divagating about "pie-sharing communism"; the clumsy rhetoric of some of our past ambassadors may have made that outcome inevitable. But the prospect of being "identified" with the bloody-handed gerontocrats behind the Tianamen Square massacre would be, I believe, genuinely revolting and insulting to all of us.
No matter that such official Chinese government sponsorship might add a quarter of the planet's population to our taster base; if this is "world domination", we'll want none of it.
............
What's with the knee jerk reaction? So communists like Linux. It's a good OS. Why shouldn't they like it?
...now I have lost the little respect I had left for ESR.
He enjoys his 5min of fame a little too much, he wants to be seen and quoted everywhere.
He is nolonger an advocate of free software but of his own ego.
This community really needs to say "Enough!" and distance it self from him.
He's not a good spokes person, he should keep HIS thoughts to him self and only say what the community feals, but it's late for that now.
"On the other hand, I dont like the fact that China maintains its identity through such oppressive means"
You seem to be ignorant. The chinese politicians have never wanted to preserve the chinese culture and identity. They don't give a dog's crap about it. Have you ever heared of the "cultural revolution"?
Thanks ESR, I am happy you are a person of principles, of sane principles.
Yes, I have not forgotten the horrors of Tyenan men square.
Sigged!
Have you ever registered at any Chinese language sites? Can you even *view* the characters? I would be willing to bet that a higher percentage of Chinese can read English than Westerners read Chinese. They don't tend to get involved with Westerners because......well, you fill in the blank. If you knew how much Linux research is being done in the PRC and Taiwan, you might not be so happy. Trust me, it's alot. Check:
http://cle.linux.org.tw/CLE/e_index.shtml
I'll assume that you are going from greek, which would mean:
So kleptocracy would be rule of the thieves?
Shalom.
-- Slashdot sucks.
should love the fact the your GPL commie brothers over there have endorsed Linux. And Cuba as well, proof that the GPL and Stallman are nothing more than puppets of the next Commie uprising. Stick with an American license, BSD. Nuff said.
Wow, I thought you guys were more intelligent than that. All I see is everybody missunderstood ESR. On purpose?
He is NOT saying he is contrary to chinese people using Linux! (ok, I will repeat this sentence: He is NOT saying he is contrary to chinese people using Linux, got it?). He is saying he's against an official endorsement by the chinese hierarchy. Got it? See the difference??
Yes the USA is a democracy, but you do have some fairly shady organisations with some very dubious practices.
The regimes in places like Chile and Argentina were supported, if not actually put there, by the CIA. Think of the number of disappeared people there.
Similarly, the USA funded and armed Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, only to have it backfire when Iraq ceased to be a fried. Other examples of this include Afghanistan and Pakistan, also armed by the US in order to subvert Russia.
Neither ESR or RMS should open their mouths when it comes to linking free or open-source software with politics. However, RMS is closest on this - the price of freedom is vigilance.
I've got some inside information, folks. The PRC is not only using Linux, they have already made kernel modifications. A friend of mine in China managed to slip me a few source files that were very interesting.
In particular, I found the following comments:
/* This routine replaces the inefficient original version developed by lazy capitalist pigs. */
/* This structure is dedicated to the people's resistance against decadent western culture. No more Levis! */
/* This was intended to be portable, but the capitalist running dog Torvalds f*cked it up. */
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
For Americans to condemn China as repressive is quite hypocritical; how quickly we forget centuries of slavery that cost millions of African lives to build the plantation econonmy, or the millions of Native people who had to be swept aside in the name of "manifest destiny". The PRC never did anything like that! Nor should we forget that the U.S. currently has the largest incarcerated population in the world; this slave labor is used by many corporations, including Microsoft Dan Axtell dax@mail1.nai.net
I'd say the US has come a long way in 200 years, while China is still just as oppresive as it ever was, maybe more so. At least the US government is trying to improve the quality of life for its people, and USUALLY doesn't go around slaughtering people who disagree with its policies.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Please tell me how many people have been murdered by the US government in Columbia, SC? Last time I was there it was pretty peaceful....except the nught before the USC-Clemson game. USC got murdered as usual.
And BTW, the Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge....aided, trained and protected by the Communist Chinese.....several to the leaders were either born in China or were of Chinese ancestry. I suggest you get you head out of the books and into the world. It'll help you grow up.
You are a moron. ESR didn't bash the people, just the govt.
Not all of the United States has the death penalty.
Only some of the states in the US have the death penalty. And a vast majority of the executions are in two states, Texas and Florida.
The Federal Government does have the death penalty for some murders of federal agents while involoved with drugs and mass terrorism, but the Federal Governemnt hasn't put anyone to death since the Supreme Court re-instated the death penalty.
I don't think it's accurate to say the "US has a death penalty" when not all of the US has one.
I try to keep an open mind. But every Communist nation I know of has fallen to corruption. And I think that may be the probplem. Archimededs (I think) said that a monarchy (power of the one) is the best form of government but has so much potential for corruption. Aristocracy (power of the few) still has great potential for corruption but not so much as a monarchy. At the lower end of the spectrum is Polygomy (power of the many, or, what we call democract) where corruption is low but the government isn't very efficient.
I think the problem is design vs implementation. Marx had a noble idea, a classless society where everyone is equal. But the implementations sucks. It could be simply that the form of government that works well on paper goes to hell in practice.
I think the problem is that the government distributes the wealth. In a capitalism, virtually all of the weatlth is distributed by the people in our Free Enterprise system. This system secures against corruption because people have a choice to do business with these people or not (unless there is a monopoly which our government keeps a close eye on). This unlike communism that is an Aristocracy (power of the few) where have no choice about whether you want to do business with the government. If this government becomes corrupt, you still have to deal with them because they own all the businesses and all the wealth. By greed and selfishness, this government degrades to oppression.
Well this is my theory in any case.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!
The spokesperson for Linux should be someone who advocates it on technical merits, and not by shoving politics down everyone's throat. Perhaps we should have a vote for an 'official linux spokesperson?'
Oh and your contry (UK) doesn't have a history of its own? cough Colonies cough India cough
-JeremyH
AP newswire 11/11/1999. Historical German Document Uncovers Nazi SuperComputer.
"Amazing but it seems to be true" Linus Torvlads was quoted as saying when we showed him the top secret documents which prove that Nazi Germany was planning to proclaim the yet to be developed Linux OS as the prefered operating system for the Nazis. Nazix was going to the standard OS for the entire third reich once it was developed. "Ve hav velt dat ze open zourse linux zyztem is perfekt for ze nazis" Adolph Hitler was rumored to have said.
Eric Raymond was quoted as saying "This is abusrd, how could the nazis have planned to use something that didn't exist yet. Silly... it's just Silly."
Eric continued "I think I can speak for the entire Linux community when I say that even though we love guns we are not nazis, nor are we affiliated with the nazis in any way. It's just absurd"
The whole idea of OSS is that OSS software is open to anybody, that includes countries like China. They can do as they see fit. If they want to make linux their official OS, whatever they mean by that, it is their legal right to do so.
Perhaps it is a good thing to realize that if you are giving your software away under GPL like licenses, you enable governments of countries like Iran, China and Iraque to use your software in any way they want to. If you don't want that, don't release it under GPL. After all any software you write can be used against you or somebody else.
Things like encryption are considered to be weapons by the US government. While this on it self is rediculous, it is good to realize that your software may be used in ways you don't appreciate. An OSS database for instance can be used to create and maintain a database of enemies of the public republic of china.
I'm not a license expert but wouldn't it be possible to exclude certain parties of using your software in a license. I.e. would it be possible to state in the license that you don't want government institutions of the republic of china to use this software? I'm sure many people don't like the idea of supporting certain regimes.
Jilles
They have trouble with their "L"'s. How do they pernounce Linux over there? Chinux!
I have just lost what little respect for ESR that I may have had over this. What does Tinamen Square have to do with China using computers at all, let alone software that works?
I don't use Linux because it is free. I use it because it is the best solution. The Chinese don't use it because it's free either. It's not like they pay for Windows.
ESR was right to distance us from the Chinese government, just in case someone in the press tries to skew the story. (Call me a liberal, but they're still pretty odious, someone had to say something.)
The real story here, though, is market niches.
Microsoft and the other commercial OS companies have had trouble selling their wares in up-and-coming countries like China because their stuff is too darned expensive. Consumers in the industrialized world can drop $100 on an operating system without blinking, but that's prohibitively high in the third world. That's one of the reasons software piracy is so widespread in certain foreign lands. This is a market opportunity for free software.
Linux has advanced by seizing market niches which Windows couldn't handle. Here are a bunch more: Russia, India, China, Indonesia, etc. In fact, a team of Indonesian academics recently volunteered for one open source project I keep tabs on. Seems they're thinking along these same lines. If we can get half the world's population using Linux, how long will the U.S. and Europe hold out?
The mainstream media now see ESR as a spokesman for Open Source in general and for Linux in particular, and it seems like most geeks are hard-core libertarians. ESR could use his media visibility to argue for libertarian political goals, instead of arguing that Open Source software is good for people of all political stripes.
As one of the people who has a soft spot for "from each according to his ability...", I am glad that he passed up his most recent opportunity to do this.
(Note that in his article, ESR does not criticize the Chinese government's control over the economy; the only specific Chinese atrocity he mentions is the Tiannamen Square massacre.)
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
I have generally remained neutral in the pro-ESR, anti-ESR debate. Reading his comments on China definitely moves me closer to the anti-ESR camp. While I despise communism, ESR's approach to the subject is nothing but pure (and yes, naive) demagoguery of the worst kind. There is not a single atrocity committed by the Chinese that has not been exceeded by corporate capitalism and the governments that more-or-less serve their interests. ESR is clearly pandering to those interests that pay his consulting fees. That's fine as long as he does not claim to speak on behalf of everyone.
I truly hope that Linux and the free software movement continue their global advance, whatever the local colorings are. In a corporate capitalist country like the USA, this movement may take on capitalist overtones; in China it may take on communist overtones; in Iran it may take on Islamic overtones. But the movement as a whole belongs to the World.
If Linux/Open Source/Free Software is too good for the PRC, then it's certainly too good for the corporate capitalist interests that ESR appears to desire to serve and please.
One quick rant -- What sort of crap is this(China in general, not just this case)? Has anyone noticed that even though China is (I'll be lenient) a cruel dictatorship (as neglegent as cruel, I'd wager), the "Free World" rushes to embrace the Chinese Gov.? Let's face it, the low cost of producing things their has completly tossed the notions of "equality, liberty, and justice" (most humans notions, at any rate) out the window. That being said, I'd rather see them using an Open Source OS than Windows. Maybe it'll stir the embers of freedoms in their dictatored hearts or something. At the least the masses could afford it :) and the rich wouldn't be OS advantaged as well.
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
Point taken. Im not trying to start a flame war. Im just saying that just because we (US/Uk, etc) have done some of the same does not make Chinas actions right.
-JeremyH
It's not just the US that armed Iraq.
Iraq had French AMX tanks and Mirage fighter/bombers. It was a French Exocet that hit the USS Stark in 1987.
Iraq also had Chinese tanks and APCs, at the battle of Khafji...those brewed-up pieces of Iraqi armour were Chinese. They also had a number of Brazilian and Soviet block armor.
Saddam's bunkers were built by West German firms.
The pipe for Saddam's super gun to rain death down on Israel...it came from the UK.
The vast majority of Iraqi aircraft and armour was Soviet bloc.
I know it's prbly easy to blame the US for everything, but sometimes it's just not accurate.
I heard that the Jews and Nazis like Linux too.
These two subjects should be associated together, as they are not related. If you has a moral objection against a totalatarian state who has murdered its citizens, would the same objection hold true for a republic who murdered its citizens too -- ie Kent State May 4, 1970?
The Chinese government might declare air an officially good thing, in which case all of you people better stop breathing before being called communist. What of it if the Chinese like Linux and want to use it as their main operating system? It would probably be worse PR if they wanted the U.S.A. to switch to Linux, let's say by funding Reverend^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HJudge Jackson to slam Microsoft and so on. BTW, I wonder we have not yet had a conspiracy theory. But what problem has ESR with the Chinese deciding or not that they want to use Linux? It seems he is so intent on red-bashing that he does not mind if he gets mud all over his face in the process. While the original article might have been a hoax, I fail to see why it would have been bad.
For Americans to condemn China as repressive is quite hypocritical; how quickly we forget centuries of slavery that cost millions of African lives to build the plantation econonmy, or the millions of Native people who had to be swept aside in the name of "manifest destiny". The PRC never did anything like that! Nor should we forget that the U.S. currently has the largest incarcerated population in the world; this slave labor is used by many corporations, including Microsoft Dan Axtell dax@mail1.nai.net
Absolutely true. You haven't got the right example though, Britain essentially invented concentration camps. Done during the Boer War.
We have also sent fighter planes to Indonesia of late.
The comment I was replying to was talking about the USA, hence the response.
As long as they stick to GPL we cannot and should not have any problem with it. Let's leave politics to politicians?
Gimme a break! Germany, Japan, Russia and Taiwan certainly have a history in leading the technology, but you seem to be very nationalist in thinking that America has led the technology. It's just not true!
Oh well, some people will never change.
ok let's say that china isn't communist because you think communism is all nice and dandy and China contradicts your conception of pure communism. ok, but you can't argue that China and North Korea are officially atheist. Let's see how many atheists try to claim that these countries that claim to be officially atheist (and the only officially atheist countries are oppressive ones such as China and North Korea) aren't really atheist. Because admitting that wouldn't make atheism look so good right?
I like pie.
The Federal Government has the death penalty. Some states do as well. 'Nuff said.
Well, if you want to make China responsible for all the misdeeds of Communists, in all fairness you have to make the US responsible for all deeds of Capitalists.
How about WWII, which was started by a capitalist country, and resulted in fifteen million deaths, including six million Jews and countless Gypsies and other groups killed for no reason other than sheer cussedness?
OK, so the Nazis were our enemies, but what about our friends? We were allies with Stalin, after all. How about our friends in South America who "dissappeared" dissidents and gave their children to government officials who couldn't have babies? How about our friends in the Phillipines who robbed their own country bankrupt?
Of course Tiananmen was wrong; annexing Tibet and stamping out Buddhism there was wrong. And I'm not a US basher. As a US citizen I think our country has been as benevolent an empire/superpower as any country ever in that position has ever been, which while not saying much, is something.
It's just time to grow up and stop pretending some kind of ideological force field protects your country from doing wrong just as bad as any other country. It's like the management at my wife's company, who when presented with a budget for computer security, wrote a memo back that it wasn't a problem because the "integrity of the software" would prevent any problems from occuring. Systems are only secure because somebody secures them, and goverments are only decent when people hold them to account.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
ESR says he has tried to avoid speaking for the whole Linux community in the past. I take it this time he's saying he is speaking for us.
ESR, however, absolutely *can not* dictate what country, no matter how much he may disagree with their political ideology, decides to favor a particular operating system.
I suspect this is an essay ESR wrote without thinking through his initial emotional knee-jerk reaction and given a bit more time he may come to regret.
This won't be the last we'll hear out of him regarding this issue. Generally, in the past, I've found his writings to at least be able to hold up to most arguments. This one has no logical base on any level.
Lisa
www.grrl.org
From the "Que es Linux Cuba?" page:
...
..."
"Linux in Cuban Society:
"Linux is a system that can have a special impact in the process of the computerization of Cuban society since it is not tied to any commercial company. Linux constitutes an economic alternative for its character of freedom, and a good development platform for its character of openness. Additionally, it is a development platform much fairer than other commercial operating systems, for it offers the option of much more democratic participation, depending on the talent, the creativity and the labor of those who use it.
"...philosophically, a system built and developed on a basis of cooperation and solidarity by its users everywhere, from the mutual aid of those who freely work to make it better every day, constitutes the paradigm of a common endeavor. In our country, where collective labor, solidarity and the cooperation of all concerned to attain the advance toward new goals are vital for the development of society, Linux, more than a technological graft, instead becomes a completely organic component.
Again, wow. You're saying that ESR is a money-grubbing phony trying to spread Linux (and no, I don't preface it with GNU, GNU stuff can be used on any OS and isn't unique to Linux) for his own greedy purposes. But yet, instead of encouraging the adoption of Linux by a huge purchaser (like a lot of greedy folks wanting to make a buck off the PRC government), he's gratified that it isn't actually happening. Why? His own principles.
It's people like you who are acting "ideologically pragmatic" and trying to squelch principles, not ESR.
Oh, I think Marx hit the nail on the head with his "alienation of labor" idea -- that is, industrial labor is qualitatively different from agrarian/craft labor, because (1) the laboror is no longer in control of the "means of production", so he is working for somebody else, not himself, and (2) industrial labor treats the worker as an automaton, not as a real human. Based on my experience in factory work, I think he was 100% correct there. And he was justifiably outraged at the horrific abuses going on in the factory sweatshops of the early 1800's.
Now, Marx was completely wrong about the nature of the human problem (Marxian thought holds that people are fine, generous, and unselfish by nature, and if we can only get the social structures right we can create utopia), about "historical inevitability" and the natural progressions of societies (so wrong, that Lenin had to drastically revise Marx to explain Russian Bolshevism, as KM taught that it would be impossible for a society to move directly from a peasent/agrarian state to a Communist state without industrialization first -- precisely what did happen in Russia). And, of course, so awfully wrong about the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the "withering away" of the State that it would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
Also, keep in mind that there are in fact many options besides Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" and Smith's "invisible hand" of laissez-faire capitalism. In fact, both stand for the concentration of working capital and the means of production in the hands of a few -- the difference being who those few are (Communists choose goverenment officials, Capitalists choose captitalists). For one alternative, try a search for "Distributism", or simply read some of the political works of G. K. Chesterton, such as What's Wrong With The World
and even if the International Association of Child Molesters and Mafia Nazis "endorsed" Linux as their offical OS, I couldn't care less. Linux is free software. full stop. I wonder what ESR would say if a quarter of the world's population was encouraged (or forced) to use Microsoft products? And this is the case for most of the remaining three quarters already (see www.bundesregierung.de for an example)
You try putting up a sign that says "Fuck Democracy" in any place populated in America and see what happens. If the police don't specifically come (esp the facist ones we have in small towns), it will definately get torn back down.
Reminds me of the time people in a suburban Philadelphia apartment were in danger of eviction because they had a big ol' American flag in their den viewable through their window. The excuse from their neighbors? "We don't want our neighborhood to be run by goddamn hippies."
Communism fails, because it ignores (perfectly natural and acceptable) aspects of human nature which bugger up the machinery.
Have a care for a simple-minded atheist, and reword that so that your point is clearer.
I'm trying to understand what you're getting at.
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