political prisoners are being liberated, workers are taking over factories, farmers are redistributing land
Ah, yes, given that you're essentially advocating mass murder (after all, what are those revolutionaries expected to do if they meet serious resistance, when they know they're to perform key aspects of the revolution at a specific time?), destroying data on peoples' past behavior is a mere trifle.
But I won't argue anarchy with you, since I haven't researched it sufficiently.
I do, however, thank you -- for making your agenda, which I gather is the agenda of most anarchists, crystal clear in a public forum where many might otherwise have deluded themselves into believing it is "non-violent".
(In a USENET discussion years ago, someone, perhaps replying to my post, called themselves a "non-violent communist". In private email, I asked them why that isn't a self-contradiction. After some discussion, he ended up explaining just why he approved of various extremely violent actions committed against vast numbers of people by the former Soviet Union. By which time I suspect even he realized he should fairly drop the "non-violent" from his self-identification.)
IMO, a truly robust, well-engineered system for human society need not start by locating an existing one, then violently overthrowing and replacing it, attempting to impose itself on the others, but can simply grow up "from scratch" and prove itself out so that it can be adopted voluntarily by independent, thoughtful observers.
That proponents of both communism and anarchy rarely attempt to do the latter, and instead tend to scheme as to how to accomplish the former, not only reveals their real agenda -- not that of building a lasting society, but of dominating others under whatever guise they choose -- but strongly suggests the system they impose won't work over the long haul. Not that systems based primarily on respect for the law, for individual property rights, and democracy-based governance have never overthrown existing systems, but they seem to flourish in proportion that they start out from scratch, and they also seem to produce populaces less prone to rioting when the governing system breaks down, as a result of natural or artificial disaster.
If you're thinking of overthrowing the USA, you should take that into account -- your might be underestimating the resiliency of the people. If you wish to pick a weaker target -- a populace less willing and able to protect against imposition of a new regime -- while taking control of significant resources, you might want to target those populaces most recently, and for longer times, under systems like communism.
Generally, I believe, despite many problems, the USA is full of people like myself who believe your cure is far worse than the disease you claim to see. So you're likely to encounter resistance not only in the form of people protecting their own property, but each other's.
That is, should I detect that your "revolution" has begun, even if it doesn't threaten me personally, it is not out of the question that I'll track you down and kill you, to defend my nation's Constitution as well as my neighbor's property rights.
That shouldn't surprise or alarm you, since you're clearly ready to die for your "cause". (Or, at least, ready to murder for it.)
But the odds of your dying a failure might be much, much greater than you currently believe.
Given that, you might reconsider your goals. Take a careful look at exactly what you consider wrong with the current system, and rather than jumping immediately to the conclusion that it's so "inhumane" or whatever that you're justified in proposing mass murder to "repair" it to a "humane" state, formulate a plan of action that allows people to voluntarily convert to your system, even if starting out in small increments, and further that is designed (in as impersonal fashion as possible) to accommodate the likelihood that your views, upon which your system's success depends, might turn out to be wrong.
For myself, I'm hardly likely to kill you, because, as a property-rights-supporting, pro-freedom, individual-initiative-appreciating American, I make such violence my last resort.
Given the record of success of anarchy (as well as communism), though, I can see why people like you make it your first resort, and thus devote your energies towards convincing enough people to join you in violence that your personal, short-term success will be more greatly assured.
(After all, if your system was so successful and wonderful, wouldn't people be clamoring to get into one? In which case, you wouldn't be advocating violence, and instead choosing education and non-violent political action.)
Not that I'm an expert on the claims of anarchism (I've read through some of the FAQ) or on your claims, but...
...it seems to me that, instead of focusing on founding a society on the destruction of certain forms of information (which is all you seem to be talking about, e.g. eliminating credit-card debt records but not the memories of people who remember those who've borrowed and then not paid back -- or does this hint at your real goal?), you should consider focusing on founding a society based on the ability to treat people with kindness and compassion even in the face of mountains of negative information about those people.
More to the point, you seem to be substituting technical solutions ("let's delete all the files!!") for societal solutions ("let's ignore all the files!"). The former is typical of communism, anarchism, and a plethora of other political (often atheistic) models for society; the latter is typical of Christianity (by which I mean the primitive, or original, kind) and other religions that stress the importance of humans accepting each other despite past sins (and in some cases because they suggest the "reward" for those sins are inherent in the universe, God, whatever, therefore humans need not take vengeance upon themselves).
Given the choice between living in a society where all information has been deleted (and where it'll inevitably grow back, as "The State", the self-appointed rulers of the anarchic revolution, collects new information on its political enemies) and in a society where information is consider property, property is valued, but the people continue to progress in their education whereby they learn that a given person's past behavior is not so useful as a strong indicator of how they will behave, I'll choose the latter every time.
Why? Mainly, because if that thesis -- that past behavior is only a weak indicator of future behavior -- turns out to be wrong, the former society will undergo huge dislocations as part of finding that out, while the latter society will have more opportunity to progress in some other direction -- one that accommodates new views regarding "reality", and probably differing views of it among its populace.
But that's because I'm generally more inclined to support societal structures that allow for the possibility that our "pet views" turn out to be wrong, thereby granting those structures the ability to survive, perhaps flourish, as they realize exactly how wrong my views were, even in my own absence.
(I tend to view communism, and what I know of anarchism, as having that fundamental flaw: the inability to cope with its founding views turning out to be not entirely correct, if not entirely wrong, over time, without the entire social structure they impose being overturned. And I do mean to use the word "imposed" -- having read both Marx and the anarchy FAQ, it's 100% clear to me that these systems are impositions on societies, just like most any other systems.)
Oh, and the wonderful thing about the system I suggest you consider is that, unlike the system you propose (of destroying information belonging to others), you can go and implement it now, thereby better peoples' lives and society right away, without imposing at all on those who are unwilling to participate.
For example, you can preach forgiveness of those who've trespassed, loving one's enemies, and so on, and every heart you change will better the world, because you'll have convinced someone to ignore all those files you currently think you have to destroy.
And hardly anybody will really be bothered that you've changed those hearts...except maybe some people in power who might try to kill you, but you're already prepared for that, I assume. (You are talkin' revolution, right?;-)
E.g. look at Nelson Mandela. Do you think he would have done more good in better society worldwide if, instead of being a stellar example of loving and forgiving his enemies while and after in prison, he'd continued resenting them and took revenge on them afterwards by destroying all records on crimes in South Africa?
I don't. The latter might have temporarily relieved many prisoners there moreso than he did as an outgrowth of the former. But he would not have inspired so many to seriously consider, and perhaps put into practice, ignoring claims of past sins when it comes to treating others as their brothers and sisters.
And remember: The Internet interprets destruction of records of past behavior and routes around it.;-)
One use of such information is to keep track of "failures" in a public, open way, just like Open Source itself.
Such information can be useful for more than just people searching for projects to work on.
For example, someone researching the abilities of various software-licensing paradigms to quickly recognize and cut losses on failing (e.g. not useful enough) projects might find the information on such a site quite useful.
The upshot is while some might judge projects listed on such a site to be "failures", careful examination of the goals of such projects, and the costs of their failing (the costs to end users), compared to the opportunities to move to newer projects that might "subsume" them, could paint a picture of Open Source as being quite a successful way to develop and deploy software (which I happen to think it is anyway, but welcome any and all opportunities for objective analysis to be brought to bear on the subject -- which requires the sort of data posted on this site).
Which is more important, competition or efficiency?
Compiciency, of course! Or effetition, maybe?
("It's a dessert and a floor wax!";-)
Remember the Second Amendment
on
Virtual War
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· Score: 2
Considering the general issues raised in the/. submission, I'm reminded of why I've come, over the years, to view the Second Amendment to the Constitution (as interpreted by groups such as the NRA, essentially) as more and more crucial to the preservation of freedom in the USA, and in the world, to the extent it serves as a model for the rest of the world.
In short, the willingness to fight, kill, and die, for one's own, or one's neighbors, is best kept as personal -- and perhaps as local -- as possible.
Otherwise, as the responsibility for defending a people's freedoms flows towards a central organization, inevitably so will the authority for deciding when, and under what circumstances, to project force under that banner.
Of course, by itself, the Second Amendment isn't anything approaching a cure-all in terms of stopping all sorts of abuse.
But, without the clear message that individuals must take responsibility for preserving their own security, safety, and freedoms, it seems, historically as well as (to me, anyway, given human nature) logically inevitable that the abuses of freedoms, the balkanization of peoples, the destructions of entire peoples based largely on a perceived threat they pose to a wealthy minority, etc., will increase.
(Other important individual responsibilities that help society repel such things include defending freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, and defending the basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- note that "life" here ideally starts at the moment of conception, since a society that dismisses the unborn as unworthy of protection is likely to erode its notion of innocence of children over time.)
Now that I view sociopolitical issues from this standpoint, I realize that I can't claim I'm nonviolent just because I don't, and intend never to, own any firearms, and further don't feel inclined to commit violence to preserve, e.g., my own personal property. (I'm less sure about what I'd do as my own family members' lives, and my life, gets involved; that's okay, I think, and just as well.)
After all, if my personal property was stolen, I'd report it to the police, and that invokes a system of violence by proxy, something I could (for the most part, unless I choose to not be a good citizen and follow pertinent laws, in which case I could say "entirely") choose to not do.
Similarly, if I vote in favor of legislation that authorizes a local, state, or federal government to restrict other people, I'm authorizing violence, again, by proxy.
I therefore now take my responsibilities in these areas much more seriously. I'm not "pro-gun", but since I'm unwilling (as a Christian) to require others to commit violence to forward the agenda of gun control (due to being unwilling to suffer violence in the attempt to implement it myself, e.g. as if I was a BATF agent or something), I find myself generally opposed to gun-control legislation.
Generally, having tried to put into practice what I see the Golden Rule as requiring of me, I find myself much less supportive of various sorts of legislation which I might have long-ago supported, and even opposing things about which I might have been neutral -- because violence committed on my behalf, with my approval (explicit or tacit), is morally pretty much the same as if I committed that violence.
So when it comes to things like the initial and final invasions of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, my initial opinions became radically changed within pretty short order. Not so much because I went from being "pro-law-enforcement" to "anti-law-enforcement", but because I went from thinking it was great those BATF agents put their lives on the line to "take out" some extreme fringe militant group to seriously doubting whether their lives (the BATF agents), and certainly the lives of so many innocent Branch Davidians, were worth putting on the line so a bunch of Americans (possibly including myself) could feel more "comfortable" knowing that their guns had been taken away.
And these days when someone says (including here on/.) something like "I favor gun control because knowing people like whoever have guns doesn't make me feel safe", I have to laugh...
...because, properly, government doesn't exist to make people feel safe. And if it tries to accomplish that, it ends up serving not only the peoples' own delusions (on both sides, e.g. fearing certain elements overmuch, such as the Branch Davidians, and fearing others too little, such as the old Soviet regime, for example), but its own self-interest as well, by continually trying to scare the people into inviting it to grant it further powers that intrude into the peoples' freedoms.
(This change in my own thinking has been somewhat stunning. Applying my own logic to the War on Drugs leaves me, a lifetime opponent of the use of even recreational drugs due to my religious convictions, seriously questioning much of what I used to take for granted as being legit when it comes to government activism on behalf of the anti-drug agenda of mine. Certainly I reserve my own rights to "fight" on behalf of that agenda myself -- I won't give up freedom to speak out on it, for example -- and I do think a War on Drugs has the marginal advantage over the coming War on Guns, morally speaking, that drugs aren't nearly as important as guns when it comes to what it takes to preserve, versus merely enjoy, liberty -- but the assumption I long held that legal prohibitions were "obviously necessary" for drugs have nearly completed vanished. I no longer have any moral justification to ask DEA agents to put their lives on the line to make sure my neighbors aren't smoking crack, shooting heroine, especially using marijuana or growing hemp. Whatever support I have left for such prohibitions is on much shakier, short-term ground.)
I encourage everyone to consider reasoning about their favorite "issues" from this standpoint: does the position you advocate require someone else to be imposed upon if they disagree? Does it require other parties to threaten, perhaps use, force (i.e. violence) to impose your will on your behalf? If so, are you personally willing to implement that violence and take the risks that stem therefrom -- thereby advocating your position as a means to ensure that the violence used to impose your will is collectively agreed upon and carried out in a less emotional state by professionals? Or are you advocating that position simply because you assume you won't have to face the results yourself, including the results when the use of force is imperfect, as will inevitably happen from time to time? Would you die for your position, as America's Founding Fathers were willing to do (and many did) for the freedoms they carved out via their limited-government approach to creating a nation?
Considering the incredible ability the USA has had (for decades now) to impose its will on others, I often think it's amazing we don't commit worse abuses than we have to date (e.g. bombing aspirin factories with innocent people inside, to take one obvious example).
But with Americans increasingly favoring gun control, and not even wanting investigations into things like the Elian raid, in the presence of important legal questions...
...I think we may well be on our way towards becoming a truly Evil Empire, unless we can begin to teach our children to think first about what they're willing to endure to impose their wills on others, before buying into the idea that simply convincing a bunch of legislators to allow even the most responsible law-enforcement agencies in history to do so on their behalf somehow allows them to escape personal moral responsibility for the results.
In this context, I'm pretty much convinced that 99% of all gun-control advocates are not so much "non-violent" as combinations of hypocrisy and cowardice, because I don't see much "grass-roots" efforts involving going door to door (in cities, suburbs, or rural areas) asking neighbors to turn over their weapons. Nor do I see signs saying "Gun-Free Zone" in front of peoples' houses, the way one now takes "Smoke-Free" or "Drug-Free" signage for granted.
Perhaps gun-control proponents will prove me wrong, and take up their own charge to remove guns from the American countryside without waiting for government to do it for them. (More properly, by first viewing themselves as intrinsically part of that government.)
(My guess is, those who do that, will consist largely of people who end up concluding they were wrong-headed to advocate gun-control anyway. E.g. if 80% of US women aged 18 thru 21 were "drafted" into an unarmed militia whose sole purpose was to remove all handguns from the American countryside, I bet the percentage of Americans who "support gun control" would go way down, even if it was the most effective way to get the supposedly desired results, and even assuming this approach would have the lowest casualty, as well as highest compliance, rates; the advocates of gun control are, in my estimation, unlikely to send themselves or their daughters into the fray, preferring to "feel safe" by remote control.)
Linux (LNUX and RHAT) Stock Performance
on
Lineo Plans IPO
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· Score: 3
A couple of posts here make some incorrect assertions about Linux stocks.
Here are the facts as I know them.
RHAT IPO'ed at a (split-adjusted) price of $7 per share. It is now trading at around $20 per share. It hasn't been below 2x its IPO price for a very long time now, and I'm not sure it ever traded at or below that level. (It actually IPO'ed at $14/share, started trading in the high 40's or so, IIRC.)
LNUX IPO'ed at $30/share. It is now trading at around $50, though it's been as low as $38 or so. In much less than a year (and even less than RHAT's publicly-trading lifetime), it's therefore been at least a 1.2x gainer for anybody in on the IPO.
So much for what RHAT and LNUX did, in terms of setting their IPO price, and are doing now according to the market.
For several months, starting roughly October 1999 and ending sometime early this year (January or so), Linux stocks generally had a phenomenally huge valuation as defined by the market, i.e. the public, but a relative shortage of available stocks. I.e. many people wanted to own Linux-related stocks and placed a high value on them, and the shortage of such stocks drove their values even higher.
This actually started a bit around RHAT's IPO, since it debuted on the market at, say, around $25, so people who bought it right then at that price haven't really lost much (except the opportunity to throw that cash somewhere else, where it might have gained more), if anything.
But it was the October-January period where things really got insane.
The most obvious result was that when LNUX started trading, people who were in on the $30 IPO price and sold right ASAP got prices in the $300/share range for awhile. Even weeks later it was still well above $100 (but see charts instead of relying on my memory).
Other Linux starts that weren't open-source "plays", such as Corel (CORL), got similarly goosed. Even stocks that people thought were Linux stocks (ADSP comes to mind) got very goosed.
People who bought these stocks because of an unreasoning love of the "Linux" phenomenon rather than looking at market dynamics generally lost out, unless they did it early enough to sell to others who were even less reasonable and thus bought at a higher price.
This happened in very short periods for the not-really-Linux plays (ADSP), and not-quite-so-short periods for the semi-Linux plays (CORL).
But even the pure Linux/open-source stocks, RHAT and LNUX, both saw huge run-ups in their prices in roughly a "bell curve" form, i.e. followed by run-downs.
In RHAT's case people who bought in early, especially at IPO time, did not get particularly burned. So far. Ditto with people who bought late (i.e. in the last couple of months or so), taking into account the present state of tech stocks, the markets generally, uncertainties about the economy, etc.
(In contrast, IIRC, MSFT was in the 100's for awhile in the past six months, and is now hovering in the high 60's; I'm pretty sure there's no intervening split.)
The most-burned people are those who bought LNUX off the IPO, right out of the gate, at 300 or so. These people must have never heard of "limit orders", and I felt bad for them the moment I saw those ridiculous prices.
Personal disclaimers start here.
I was in on the RHAT and LNUX "open-source friends" (my phrase) IPOs, so I got 400 shares of RHAT at $14/share, 140 of LNUX at $30/share, and turned a tidy profit on RHAT by selling early during the Linux phenomenon in a series of trades, first to reclaim my moderately tenuous cash position (100@72), then to take advantage of what I thought, then, were sufficiently inflated prices that I wouldn't cry in my chocolate milk if they went higher (100@110, then 200@120). It was tempting to cry when I learned the huge tax impact of short-term cap gains and I thought maybe if I'd held out for the year, I'd do better, but history appears to be well on its way to vindicating my decision after all.
Unfortunately, I, too, got somewhat caught up in the excitement over LNUX, seeing it gyrate around, so bought up 60 shares (mainly to round it out to 200), making my net purchase 200@90, so I'm presently in a loss position. This kinda hurts, since I'd considered selling at 127 to turn it into a donation to a charity, but not being able to reach my e-broker and generally dragging my feet meant I didn't understand well enough how to do that in a tax-advantageous way (turns out there's a multi-week lead time anyway). Once I lost that opportunity, I decided the cash I'd raise by selling wasn't worth it for the donation I'd make, and the need I saw isn't so great or so immediate.
So, I'm quite happy holding on to 200 LNUX and having no RHAT shares for now, because I've felt for some time that LNUX is more like the kind of company I, personally, would want to own/work for/whatever, though probably by a nose. (I am a RHAT customer, though to a modest degree; I've bought maybe 10-15 of their Linux packages over the past few years.)
Strictly speaking, I haven't realized any losses yet, and even though my present LNUX holdings are in an unrealized loss position, since they stem from profits made on RHAT, my net tradings in the 9 or so months I've done online trading (I'm a definite newbie) have been quite positive, realized and unrealized (the latter just for the moment, of course, but maybe even if LNUX went to $0 Monday; I haven't run the numbers on this).
Since cash isn't something I'm needing these days, it's quite easy for me to follow the usual advice about holding on to quality stock for the long term. I haven't done detailed analyses of any public companies vis-a-vis their earnings, but since I want to do something with the cash I had sitting around, and VA Linux (LNUX) consistently shows up as being a quality company (or, at least, a company that's about producing quality products), it makes sense to leave it there. (I've used other cash to invest in a couple of other stocks, BTW -- major companies known for quality that happened to hit hard times and, in my offhand opinion, got hit by market overreactions. I haven't sold these stocks, even though each has seen a significant run-up in the 30-50% range within a few months of my purchases, and I'm not sorry I'm holding on to them even though they're both basically back where they were when I bought them! Again, because they're quality companies, as far as I can tell, and I can't think of anything better to do with the cash.)
I will be very (pleasantly, I hope) surprised if I'm still holding on to these 200 LNUX shares in another 3 years, since this whole idea of not spending cash on toys still feels kinda new to me. (Gotta admit, the best investment I ever made was getting married; most of this "I" stuff really represents decisions made with at least some support from my wife, who is financially much more brilliant than I, but who is too busy and maybe too gun-shy to make online trades. I couldn't believe it, though, when those two other stocks were lookin' good, she said something like "I've got to get our retirement-fund accounts onto a trading system so you can trade those too!" -- sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.;-)
Without getting into silly speculation and such, I do have some reasons to believe LNUX will do particularly well over the long term. If I had a bunch more cash sitting around, I'd probably buy more right now at $50 (and I sure as heck would have at $40).
That kind of play helped out my position on one of those other stocks: I bought 100@41, but then it dropped another 10 points, so obviously I'd miscalculated the depths to which the market would over-react. So I bought another 200@31, and though it's hovered lower on occasion, generally it's been well above my net purchase price of ~34. Needless to say that makes me very happy, but it's still unrealized gains, and that tactic works only when you've got the cash (I don't know enough about margin trading or other stuff; I'm talking simple buy/sell transactions, usually limit orders on volatile stocks like LNUX).
So, aside from some hoped-for goose on short-term trading of those 60 LNUX shares, which never materialized (and, besides, I told myself I was happy to own a round 200 shares even if the price went down, and that turns out to have been right), I've generally traded from the perpective of valuing the company's record of quality, deciding when it was under-valued (the other two stocks) or over-valued (RHAT), taking into account my cash position (need cash, have cash, whatever), and that has worked out fine, considering the novice I am.
But during this period the market has become quite a bit more savvy, IMO; IPOs are no longer seeing the ridiculous opening-day run-ups they were in 1998 and 1999 (maybe earlier; can't remember when I started watching CNBC instead of TWC or TNN regularly during the day;-).
That suggests it might be harder to get as ridiculously lucky as I've been over the past year by trading with such short-term horizons.
But it also suggests maybe the time to start doing some long-term buying is approaching, as the ridiculously-over-inflated valuations come down to somewhat-over- and kinda-over- and even gee-isn't-that-kinda-under-valuation levels we're beginning to see.
Maybe the low prices will set the stage for a whole new round of newcomers into the sexy stocks of the coming day (techs generally, surely? but instead of Linux/biotechs/wireless, what?), newcomers who buy at outrageous prices and break LNUX's opening-day record (which it still holds, last I heard)...
...but I don't suggest any of y'all count on it, unless you're willing to use "play money" (which is basically how I treated most of that initial investment in RHAT and most everything it turned into when I sold it).
As far as ADSP, CALD, CORL, LinuxOne (LINX), and now Lineo, as well as others, frankly, I just don't get excited about partial-open-source companies. I don't think they "get it" well enough to truly compete in the space. The business models for pure OSS companies like RHAT and LNUX are tricky enough to get right; how can management of on-the-fence companies be quick enough to see and act on changes in the OSS landscape when they're still basically pining for the '80s-style proprietary models, hoping to recreate some of MSFT's magic? I generally don't care for loosely-focused organizations anyway, so it's not just an OSS issue for me -- though I do feel holding on to 200 LNUX shares is true to the notion of "putting your money where your mouth is". (Strictly speaking, I've generally not felt OSS itself is a huge money-making proposition, so much as an end-user-freeing proposition. See my old posts defending "free software" and the GPL on gnu.misc.discuss for examples of my thesis that OSS will end up being a "pull" concept in that it's only when the end users insist on it that it'll truly succeed. Since I don't expect it to be monopolized, I don't see a handful of companies make $Billions on it due just to that phenomenon, and that's (mainly) why investors and investor "types" have avoided getting into the "push" side of it (the side that creates the software). I figure they'll come along once they realize that closed software becomes so much less valuable as users demand OSS, due to new factors weighed into purchasing decisions (say, multiply cost of product by 5 to get long-term costs to us if it's closed-source), at which point they'll have to choose between to relatively similar avenues for software, closed or open, in terms of profit potential, or find some other field to exploit.)
And, as tough a time as LNUX and RHAT seem to have had for some, I think it's safe to say they've fared better for most than any of the partial-OSS stocks out there to date. (Note I don't consider companies that adopt Linux, like IBM, as a "partial play", but maybe I should. Haven't paid attention to IBM stock, though.)
And, from the beginning, I've been concerned about the substitution of "Linux" for "open source" or "free software" in the mind of the market as the phenomenon that's really going on here. As important as Linux is, I see it more as the poster child of OSS than as the most prominent of only a few success stories, especially in the long run, and we're only in the second or third inning of this nine-inning game IMO. That's why the "Linux hysteria" didn't ever bite me -- I just hoped it'd keep biting others long enough for me to turn a quick profit on those 60 LNUX shares, oh well -- and why I don't think the underlying value of pure-OSS companies like RHAT and LNUX have been in any way diminished over the past year, even if the "Linux" phenomenon (in the stock market anyway) has come and gone.
In particular, I'm still cherishing some technical issues I see as giving OSS some huge theoretical advantages that are only barely being recognized now, but might come to pass in a big way over the next 20-30 years. I've stopped talking about these in detail; not only do non-OSS enthusiasts, and even OSS enthusiasts, find my notions a bit "out-there", to realize them requires doing some things that even RMS has tended to resist (and I don't mean "loosening" the GPL in any way, nor do I mean his resistance is, for now, particularly harmful or wrong-headed).
So, I'm definitely not getting rich off of any of these stock trades, and don't expect to. But I don't need to be rich, since I'm incredibly handsome, and people like me! (Yeah, right.;-)
Seriously, though, if I decide I need a bunch of cash, rather than try to trade stocks for it, I'll probably go do some consulting work or something. I kinda miss programming, actually...not doing it is starting to feel weird, but I haven't figured out which pet project to work on first....
've heard that fighter aircraft have inherently unreliable software
If that's so, it's an interesting illustration of the overall system's requirements imposing lower quality standards on components of that system.
To wit: the article (I presume; haven't read it, but have read similar ones on the same topic) discusses the importance of achieving a 100% quality rate on a given chunk of software.
Now, that software is merely one component in a much larger system.
Actually, these larger systems nest "outwards". I.e. the shuttle itself is a larger system than the software it contains, but so is NASA a larger system than the shuttle; so is the US government larger than NASA; so is the USA larger than the government; so is the planet's population larger than the USA; etc.
In this case, there are specific reasons I can suggest account for the 100% quality requirement that might otherwise go unnoticed:
Failure resulting in death of participants, and especially of non-participants (humans), is not an option.
However, failure resulting in not launching, not even building it in the first place, especially not building it within some timeframe, is an option. That is, failure of the "commitment to quality" approach to actually deliver the component on a "timely" basis is an acceptable option.
The world generally will admire a program such as the space shuttle less if it crashes and burns frequently, killing/maiming people and destroying equipment, than if it succeeds on the extremely rare occasions on which it is tried -- perhaps even less than if it never happened in the first place.
A delay in a shuttle launch costs, overall, far less than the cumulative risks of premature shuttle launches. (Challenger demonstrated that.)
(Yes, there's some overlap there, but these are subtly different points, that might apply independently in other projects. E.g. a not-publicly-visible project might have no risk of embarrassment should it fail in one way vs. another, but have a huge risk of $$$ loss.)
Compare these elements to fighter aircraft, where the software is part of a somewhat different set of larger systems:
The deaths of participants and non-participants is expected by most everyone of this sort of system and the activities around which it revolves.
On the contrary, the sorts of failures that result from failing to launch a fighter plane, or never having designed it in the first place, are generally not so well-tolerated.
The world will likely fear a non-existent fighter plane, even one that has 100% success in its flight-control software (doesn't require rebooting) but is launched extremely rarely (it's hard to build) or too late, far less than it will a large fleet of existing, dangerous fighters that have even a 10% "kill" rate of its pilots per year.
A delay in a fighter-plane deployment can literally cause lost wars. In that sense, the loss of pilots due to poor design is a calculated positive compared to the loss of a nation's (and/or its peoples') freedom.
Of course, I'm making pretty much everything up, above, so don't bother arguing details or interpretations with me -- I have no idea whether they're correct or not.
But, they're probably correct enough to illustrate why it's probably okay for us to be using highly buggy computers on a poorly designed (for the way it's being used now, anyway) Internet rather than, as another post on this thread put it, using typewriters and plain paper.
Not that there aren't wonderful advantages to deploying 100% correct software components in a large-scale, much-buggier system! "Creeping quality" is not a bad thing at all, since it allows people working on the system to worry less about various portions of it as they try to debug it.
But, the effort to deploy such perfect components may well outweigh the utility of doing so, overall, given the pertinent timeframe.
In particular, when trying to deploy such a perfect component in a large, buggy system, it can be hard figuring out which component can be made so "perfect" and still be useful in that (presumably speedily-evolving) system by the time it's ready!
So maybe it's appropriate to view almost everything we deal with on the Internet as a very early alpha-stage prototype after all.;-)
He's loaded the cops up with guns and now they do the bulk of the killling in NYC. And are shooting people who are unarmed!!!!!
You're blaming Giulani?? Have you compared the rate of such shootings under his administration with the rate of previous administrations, or are you just joining the Hillary For Senate Campaign of Lies?
I should have known better than to try to inject logic into a conversation about law
The problem is not the injection of logic into a conversation about law. In fact, my statements are entirely grounded in logic; to the extent they are not, they are unsupportable.
A mistake so many people -- perhaps "computer types", especially -- make when it comes to discussing legal issues is that they assume there is some "objective truth" that everyone usefully agrees to, leaving the "law" (the courts, judges, legislation, etc.) to merely determine how that truth is to be implemented in human (and corporate) lives.
Whether there is an "objective truth" is not the issue per se -- it's the assumption that one can base the legal system on the belief that everyone recognizes and agrees to it.
So the mistake people make is not so much saying, e.g., "either MS owns the code or it does not", because that may well be determinable in an objective-truth sense.
No, the mistake is when they go on to say "and because that is determinable a priori, there is no need for parties involved in a dispute over said ownership to fully document the relevant transactions", for example.
The proper framing of these issues may well start with "either/or", but for most any useful conclusions to be reached, the very next steps must include "forking" that either/or into a variety of statements such as "Party A claims Fact M at Time T", "Party A claims Fact M' at Time T'", "Party B claims Fact N at Time S", and so on.
And each of these statements is, in turn, a claim, i.e. "Party B claims Party A claimed Fact M at Time T".
And since we're discussing whether Party B should take some action at Time P to head off potential problems at Time P+N, we must, logically, recognize the probability of a variety of claims made by various parties.
Only after we've accounted both for all the distinct claims and the potential future claims can we begin to reasonably assess legal strategy.
The FSF has done this, both well and wisely, not only IMO, but in view of the history it has had to date with various challenges to its dealings.
It's not unlike quantum mechanics vs. Newtonian physics. (Not that I'm an expert on either, but....)
I.e. in Newtonian physics you can say, definitively, that Particle P is at Location X,Y,Z moving at Velocity V in direction A,B, or some such thing. Given a set of particles with such precise information, it's easy to conclude the likelihood of collisions, etc.
In "reality", aka quantum mechanics, we can't say these things about any particle. Now, sure, it's tempting to assume that, at some level, there is such information encoded somewhere (outside our universe, i.e. outside our realm of perception), but we can't observe that level of detail for any particle.
But what we can do is make educated guesses about probabilities of the future behavior of particles based on past observation.
The processing required to assess the likelihood of collision among a given set of particles becomes not only harder, but intractable (impossible to determine yea or nay) in certain circumstances (at least, that's the impression I get).
So, yes, certainty is a wonderful thing, and to some extent all our logic is based on it, but to assume we can establish the certainty of any particle -- including a concept like "MS owns the code or it does not" -- before it ever becomes an issue is to make a potentially fatal mistake.
This is non-sense. Either MS owns the code, in which case both the GPL AND the copyright assignment are invalid, OR MS does NOT own the code, in which case both the GPL AND the copyright assignment ARE valid.
You seem to be confusing binary logic with reality -- "either MS owns the code...or MS does NOT own the code".
In reality, whether MS asserts ownership is orthagonal to whether the FSF acknowledges that ownership, which is in turn orthagonal to how the courts would rule in the end, which is in turn orthagonal to whether the courts would issue an injunction against further distribution by the FSF prior to the trial (say, in response to a motion for preliminary injunction by MS).
If that statement doesn't make sense to you, and if my lawnmower analogy doesn't help (see one of my messages from yesterday), then it's unlikely I'll be able to educate you via/. posts. Take some law courses, consult a good IP lawyer who can teach these basic concepts, etc.
But I will try one more tack: the idea of a "universal truth", which is the context in which you've written your objections to my logic, is one that is less and less acknowledged, IMO, in today's US judicial system (as well as its politics and populace)...
...but even if the concept of such a thing was wholeheartedly embraced by the entire population and zealously pursued by the courts, it still would be unreachable -- only more or less approachable.
In reconciling the different views, or interpretations, of that one "universal truth" (say, about the legality of the FSF's continued use of the Microserf-authored code fragment), the courts would treat a signed release such as the FSF demands as being worth more than its weight in gold, when it comes to protecting the FSF's ability to continue distributing that code fragment, avoid punitive damages, and even avoid a judgement against it.
If there is some argument why the FSF needs written notices and copyright assignment while the rest of us are safe with on-line notices and the FSF holding copyright, I'd like to understand it.
Well, think it through! Use deductive logic, for example. Consider the alternatives, and see how viable they are compared to the current model.
Public domain: there's no single organization that holds records of contributions to the public domain, even just for single projects, that I'm aware of. So if MacroEvil Corp decides to try to stop PING (PING Is Not GNU), the PD clone of GNU, from being distributed by filing lawsuits against distributors claiming ownership of major chunks of code, there's no easy way their PD status can be confirmed or even spoken for in court.
Collective copyright ownership (the Linux-kernel model): if MacroEvil acquires, say, 20% of the copyrighted code, it can successfully stop distribution for a substantial period of time. Even if it claims to own that much, it could stop distribution for quite a while.
Corporate ownership: if RedHat is bought up by MacroEvil, they can turn RPM (for example) into a proprietary app overnight, and can use legal tactics to hassle anyone who continues to use its GPL'ed predecessors if they're truly cynical about the state of copyright law (and who knows what laws might be passed in the future to make this scenario feasible).
Church ownership: if Scientology bought up 20% of the individual copyrights to Linux, how successful do you think they'd be in stopping its continued distribution should they decide Linux posed a significant threat to them?
Government ownership: if they don't want you distributing something, they can warn you. If you don't listen, they can send armed agents to your home, knock down your doors, and take all your computers. A massive government/media campaign to, say, encourage The People to favor "returning The People's code to The People", i.e. take it out of your hands, precedes this action, causing some 70% of the populace to not only support the use of force, but reject any attempts by Congress to investigate its propriety.
Non-profit organization ownership: The FSF somehow gets "taken over" by proprietary-software zealots and tries to sue people who continue to distribute GNU under the GPL. Here, not only do all the defendants have clear rights under copyright law and the GPL itself since the FSF made all those assignment-form-based agreements, the US government, as far as I've been able to determine, takes a good hard look at whether the FSF loses its NPO status (among other possibilities) due to turning its back on its own mission.
So, if you don't, as an individual, think you should "have to trust the FSF" in a way the FSF doesn't quite trust its contributors, extend the quoted phrase -- "have to trust the FSF more than...who or what?" You're receiving code from someone (you didn't write it, obviously) under some terms (let's assume you mean Open Source, aka free software, or maybe just GPL'ed software). Who do you trust more to let you continue using and redistributing the software than the FSF, or a similar non-profit organization? What keeps that person or organization from "changing its tune" down the road? Would more of those of us who actually contribute code trust the entity you appoint more than we already trust the FSF (or some other non-profit, since your question doesn't really pertain to the FSF as it does to the FSF's requirements for assignments)?
In particular, perhaps you should consider that the FSF's special efforts (and tedious ones at that) to secure clear, documented rights to distribute its core GPL components to you in the first place constitute a substantial reason to trust what it distributes to you in the second place?
(Socioculturamathematically speaking: trust generally erodes for each pair of hands in a transaction; therefore, the FSF must substantially raise the trust bar to ensure the level of trust it wants users of its GNU system to be able to place in it. Your claim that "either we can trust it or we can't" tilts at the windmill of black-and-white logic: in fact, you cannot trust electronic copyright assignment, period. You can, however, assign a trust value to it generally, and significantly narrow that interval in specific cases. I'm arguing that the FSF's distributions of GNU have among the most trustworthy copyright assignments you're likely to encounter in source code, GPL'ed, Open-Source'd, or otherwise, because of its mission, its nature as a non-profit, and the large population of people who entered into signed agreements with it to maintain that very trust.)
IANAL, but I have yet to learn of any option quite as good, given all the risks, tactics, etc. I've seen or been warned about to undermine the GPL, as signing all pertinent copyright over to a well-run NPO (and I do hope the FSF is sufficiently well-run in this regard).
Disclaimer: IANAL, and, in particular, I haven't enough expertise in non-US and International law to even think about evaluating the relative feasibility of using "offshore" methods of protecting GPL'ed code (and other free software) from legal and other forms of attack on continued free redistribution.
Pardon me while I say "huh?" If someone is claiming something is being illegally distributed, it does not MATTER that the copyright is assigned to FSF. By the same logic you apply in paragraph one, the programmer who had no right to distribute it into the linux kernel HAS NO RIGHT TO ASSIGN COPYRIGHT TO FSF.
Please talk to a lawyer before you make statements like that in the future, especially in public forms. IANAL, but IMO you don't know what you're talking about.
Let me put it more simply. You decide to spend a few hours mowing your lawn, but your lawnmower does not work. So you go to your neighbor and ask to borrow his. He says "fine, go ahead", you bring it home, and start mowing.
His wife comes home, yells at him for not mowing their yard, and, on the spur of the moment, he says "but our lawnmower was stolen".
She says "hey, our neighbor [you] was using a lawnmower just like ours when I drove by, I'm going to call the police because it's obvious he's the one who stole it -- his own stopped working, and obviously he didn't go out and buy one that's exactly like our 2-year-old model!"
So she calls the police while her husband tries to escape her wrath by staying very, very quiet.
As the police handcuff you and haul you off to jail, based on the clear evidence and the testimony of the wife (as well as the silence of her husband), ask yourself this one question:
Do you wish you'd gotten the husband to sign a statement saying he was loaning you his lawnmower for the day in the first place?
The issue is basically the same: whether party A is considered to be criminally liable for using something that party B claims belongs to it depends to a substantial degree on whether party C, which party A could reasonably be considered to have thought owned the disputed property, made what appeared to be a legal transfer of that property to party A in the first place.
If you had gotten that signed agreement in the above scenario, the police would likely take it into evidence, maybe consider whether you'd forged it, but mostly focus on the dispute among (and possible false report filed by) your neighbors, leaving you alone to mow your yard. (If they take the lawnmower, at least you remain free.)
Similarly, if Microsoft claimed both Linux and, say, GCC contain substantial amounts of code belonging to it, and the FSF has a copyright assignment on file for that code while nobody has any such assignment on file for Linux, it's less likely the courts would order that distribution of GCC cease pending trial than Linux. Similarly, the threat of a finding against distributors of GCC would be lower than of Linux, especially the threat of punitive judgements.
In the GCC case, the legal issue would mostly revolve around whether the Microsoft employee had behaved properly in signing over that code; the FSF would be considered to have acted improperly only if something like knowingly accepting an improper assignment could be proved.
In the Linux case, the legal issue would start by asking whether Linux contains code Microsoft can show it had a copyright for. Once that's answered "yes", Linux's ability to be freely distributed is seriously damaged, and while the courts would certainly look carefully at how this situation came about, the burden would more squarely rest on vendors of Linux to show they didn't know the code belonged to Microsoft than it would on vendors of GCC.
IMO, from a legal as well as social standpoint, the FSF's approach to handling the code-copyright issue is on significantly surer footing than the approached used by the Linux kernel.
(That isn't surprising, since the FSF, unlike probably any of the significant contributors to the Linux code base, hired actual intellectual-property lawyers to recommend the best way to protect GNU against all sorts of potential attacks. That doesn't mean they indeed came up with the best answer, but it does mean that if those lawyers believed the Linux model was better, the FSF would likely have loved to choose that over the tedious form-filling method it currently uses for core components of GNU. The main remaining question, of course, is whether the FSF itself can be trusted to have good, up-front motives -- again, best to ask a lawyer to what extent a US non-profit organization that seeks contributions, even in the form of source code, can turn against its previously stated aims and goals.)
Re:Open Source movement == Communism.
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I hate to tell you this guys, but for those of you who think Open Source != Communism, you are sadly mistaken. You can continue to delude yourself but it doesn't make it any less true. People who want to "open source" hardware, ALL proprietary software, and now radio and probably TV and music? Why not just come out and say it? All property should be community property and everyone takes whatever they need from others.
Okay, everyone all together now: "All property should be community property and everyone takes whatever they need from others."
There, feel better?
No, you're right, there's no such thing as the "excluded middle" in logic, so you must be right that anyone who doesn't argue for the most extreme forms of intellectual property (what I like to call "intellectual privilege", for a variety of reasons, e.g. the gov't takes it away after a fairly limited amount of time and places into the public domain -- kinda like how it treated Elian Gonzalez, heh;-) must therefore be arguing for the most extreme forms of communism.
You want MS Office 2000? No prob, just download it. MS wants a copy of your latest program? No problem, they download it. Clinton wants the latest copy of Playboy? No problem, he breaks into a magazine shop and takes it. Want free Internet access? No problem, just crack passwords and dial up.
Let me get this straight. You're saying these things aren't happening now?? "According to Janet Reno and Clinton lawyer Bob Bennett, the magazine shop had been given more than enough time to liberate the latest issue of Playboy, so the use of force to obtain 10 copies of that issue for `important White House activities relating to a dire shortage of interns' was way past due, justifying the raid of the store by 50 BATFP agents." -- ABC News, 2000-07-09.
Communism doesn't do anything for people but use them as slaves for the sake of fattening the government and the people in power..
Gee, almost like how America's supposedly "compassionate" combination retirement-home, health-care-facility, and mental-ward otherwise referred to as "The Federal Government", post-FDR anyway? (Okay, you don't quite have to be among the elite ruling class in the USA to enjoy a top-flight lifestyle while you're forced to pay for the stupid, avoidable mistakes made by people you've never met by a government that has never really cared...but it sure helps to be friendly with that elite, if you don't want your stock valuations sued out from under you.)
i.e. look at the Soviet Union and Fidel Castro in Cuba. NOTHING good has ever come out of communism. NOTHING.
Oh, come on. What about hockey? Ballet? "Hot Cuban Chicks", as the wags put it? You think Russians and Cubans would naturally have come up with these things without the direct intervention of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, and the helpful influence of Mao, Pol Pot, etc.? Keep in mind most of the very best hockey players and ballet dancers would have been couch potatoes like me ("I coulda been a contendah!", says I) if it weren't for the prospect of becoming a mere statistic in the latest Communist-sponsored "mass re-education"....
Remember that open source kiddies.
Remember that open source kiddies what? Did you run out of money before you could buy a verb or something?
This whole stupid movement will collapse like the ponzi scheme it is when people realize that they may want to get PAID to do the WORK that they HAVE done in case they some day want to retire without living in a complete [****]hole on a meager social security or welfare income.
Ah, but by the time we retire, our leaders will have Taken Over, the Great RMS will rule the world, and he will give each of us of the crumbs of his great wealth and power! Can't wait to run NASA, the National Weather Service, and The Weather Channel, myself...or did you think I wrote GNU Fortran because I actually write in that hackforsaken language?? Hahahahahaha!!
This is what's happening with ILOVEYOU: users are manually running an executable
No, they aren't. Just ask them what they think they're about to do before they do what you say they're doing. They're highly unlikely to say "I'm going to manually run this executable".
More likely, they'll say "I want to see what's in this file!". And that's what double-clicking an icon is for. (Except in certain contexts, when a sizable percentage presumably knows double-clicking runs a program. Reading email is clearly not one of those contexts.)
The fact that they aren't shown what's in the file, but instead have arbitrary code with the equivalent of Unix `root' privileges executed on their system, in an environment where tight integration among applications basically guarantees easy access to all sorts of personal data, makes this a highly preventable, as well as insidious, bug in the design of Microsoft software.
IMO, the biggest enabler of this bug was the decision by Microsoft, at the highest levels, to deploy Windows 9x as an "easy-to-use" OS for people wanting access to the Internet.
Even at the time that decision was made, Microsoft certainly had more than enough expertise to know it was a technically unsupportable one, from a security standpoint. I.e. they knew the Internet was hostile, that Win 9x was unsecure, that their highly integrated software made even security-by-obscurity basically irrelevant, and that their targeted user base had no expertise in securing themselves against the inevitable problems.
(At least, I really doubt I understood these issues better as a 16-year-old in the mid-'70s than the geniuses at Microsoft did circa 1995. Actually, even in the late '70s, I couldn't understand how these newfangled personal computers could fit a whole OS in 64K, until I was stunned to find out they'd ignored the whole timesharing security model. The viruses that swept the PC- and Mac-using world were never a surprise to me, of course, nor to most anyone else hacking timesharing systems before the PC generation.)
The estimates I've heard of losses are in the $Billions, but I agree Microsoft won't have to pay a dime (i.e. they won't recall Win 9x for all Internet users).
And bear in mind I'm not saying MS should have taken steps to prevent people using Win 9x for Internet use. They should have made it clear it wasn't suitable, and left it up to end users to decide whether to install 3rd-party software that let them ride the 'net. Of course, that wouldn't have earned MS the huge extra $Billions in income, or the huge additional stock valuations, which is why they didn't do the obviously "right" thing.
BTW, my wife, whose responsibilities include an IT department at the world headquarters of a well-known institution, was, needless to say, not happy about the ~36 hours of organization-wide downtime suffered due to this bug. Especially when I said "gee, don't y'all have your SMTP servers reject any incoming email that have unrecognized, or code-bearing, attachments?", she said "no, we can't make our [MS-based] software do that", and I pointed out that it was a topic often covered as being fairly easy to do on the qmail mailing list. I had assumed, obviously erroneously, that last year's Melissa had convinced everyone to get their act together, disable certain kinds of attachments, etc. Not that I pay much attention to viruses: I run GNU/Linux, and use a dialup (no static IP), among many other things. The only time I see virus-protection software being run is when it's being run on someone else's computer!
Why businesses willingly pay $Millions to Microsoft so they can get "flashy" software that causes them random downtime of days per year, with "nobody to sue" as the anti-Open-Source FUD goes, is something I have yet to be able to explain using logic. (Using psychology or anthropology, however....)
You're blind if you don't see the massive control these corporations have over our government
Yeah, like the way Microsoft kicked the Justice Dept.'s butt all the way to El Paso, or the way Big Tobacco wiped the states suing it off the map, or the way the drug companies...etc...etc....
And, man, that was real impressive how the dreaded Time Warner/AOL merged entity broke into the Gonzalez household without a valid court order and removed a scared 6-year-old at gunpoint after beating up one of the few members of the media that bothered to hang around after one of their lawyers suggested the media not cover the raid!
Oh, wait, you say those white vans weren't TW/AOL vans? Maybe we can blame GM for making 'em, or something...I dunno....
Math lesson:
Mega-corporation + huge security force + weapons of mass destruction + ability to write new laws + ability to get away with ignoring any laws that restrict them in an inconvenient way + widespread delusion that it's the main source of security, comfort, and joy in the "common man's" life
=The US Government
I mean, yes, I'd love for our society to look much more seriously at the various ideas floating around regarding removing all sorts of government regulations and the effects of past court rulings (unconstitutional ones, perhaps?) propping up corporations, or perhaps I should say corporatism, today.
I'd also like to see corporate-sponsored crimes, such as perjury (e.g. certain Microsoft testimony in the trial widely considered willfully false, or people claiming obvious stuff is "not obvious" when they attempt to patent it), much more zealously prosecuted.
I happen to think steps like these might well be necessary to reasonably restore the balance of power between individuals and corporations.
But they're unlikely in a sociopolitical environment in which the US government is likely to decide that, when it comes to its unilateral disarmament against what it considers its enemies, the last entity it'll disarm against, after doing so against China, Vietnam, and so on, will be the American people. (After all, the US government is busily, and to some extent successfully, making the opposite -- the people disarming themselves against the most powerful military/police force in all of human history -- become a reality. Needless to say, it's really only those with a totalitarian view of governance that favor our going in that direction, whether they recognize their views as such or not. And a nation that refuses to prosecute its Chief Law Enforcement Officer for blatantly lying under oath in court in a case involving a citizen's civil rights is not likely to have set the stage for less abuse of the few legal protections we all still have against things like rampant corporatism.)
In the meantime, I suspect (no hard figures to back it up) that the "density" of corporate ownership among the American people is among the very highest in the world...
...so I can hardly blame so many American citizens for using any additional sociopolitical firepower they can muster beyond their own "individual" voice and vote -- such as their various corporate faces -- to do battle against an increasingly anti-Constitutional government, as well as against plenty of competition both here in the USA and abroad.
One of my many hopes is that the Internet, and forums like/., will render impotent many of the past mammoths of oppressive human organizations, such as mega-corporations and governments. Most of the anti-corporate propaganda I see seems to stem from a narrow view of what truly constitutes the enemy. The enemy is not freedom of choice, or billions of people exercising freedom of choice, which is fundamentally what drives most corporate success! But an enemy includes granting humans the opportunity to foist the bearing of responsibility for their own mistakes onto others, under the protection of some sociopolitical construct enforced by the threat of violence, and both governments and corporations depend, to varying extents, on that very enemy for much of their support -- much moreso than do churches, religions, and non-profit organizations, the first two being frequent whipping-boys of many of the same folk who go around complaining about globalism, corporatism, etc.
(E.g. Christianity preaches giving to the poor, but it takes a government to put a gun to your head, in effect, saying "you pay us 30% of your earnings, and we'll give that to the poor...if you smile while you do it, that means you're compassionate!")
In summary: you can't reliably and safely reduce the power of the corporation without carefully and consistently reducing the power of the government -- that type of organization which gives the corporation the ability to exist in the first place, and that supports the viability of its actions with its military might.
Hey, Garth Brooks is an okay guy. Yes, it's hard to admit this after his years-ago effort to eliminate sales of used CDs, but seeing his recent stints hosting Saturday Night Live (especially the earlier -- first? -- one in which he does a great parody of himself in a sketch showing three "real cowboys" sitting around a campfire discussing what things they miss from home or whatever), he seems to be able to poke fun at himself, his image, etc.
(No, I don't have any copies of his music, but when I've heard it, it hasn't exactly grated on my nerves or anything.)
Far far better to drink a glass of wine with dinner, or have a beer with a friend, than to drink oneself into oblivion or to sit around drinking lemonade--a far worse oblivion.
Huh?? I drink lemonade and various other non-alcoholic drinks, and basically never drink alcohol. Exactly how am I living in a "far worse oblivion"?
Not that I haven't had someone "push" alcohol on me on rare occasion; I have, and as a teenager I actually sipped some "sangria" (sp?) as a result. And a couple of times I've had a drink by accident -- i.e. thinking it was non-alcoholic.
But how does my not drinking something which I find literally distasteful make my life so miserable in your view?
BTW I also have never killed anyone, nor cheated on my taxes, nor had sex with someone who's under the age of consent. Guess I'm just one of those horrible "extremists" through and through...!
Of course. That's what was meant. I figured everybody understood that.
Probably most do. If only everyone did!
Still, keep in mind we're living in an age where megacorporations are drooling over the (mythical?) potential of charging for every person's every use -- not just purchase -- of a published work (like a song or movie on DVD).
In that context, it isn't surprising there are people who read "our" shorthand and conclude that, literally, the GPL forces anyone who changes Linux (licensed under the GPL) to make those changes public, even if those changes were purely for personal use!
That's why I try to avoid such shorthand in forums such as these. (And, BTW, don't always succeed -- the wording I used in my message wasn't precisely correct.)
Actually they don't have to "feed... back to him" they just have to make them available.
No they don't. You can modify Linux all day long, use those modifications, and never have to distribute the patches to anyone else.
Of course, if you effectively distribute the modified version of Linux (i.e. with someone else's copyrighted code), then you have to include the full source.
From the perspective I had in school, the worst part of the whole deal was that local residents and the state government had too much say in the way the school was run.
Nice sentiment, but it doesn't "scale" well.
What you're saying, in essence, is that since you don't like the decisions made locally, you'd prefer to see those decisions overridden by a larger, more powerful, more remote force -- in this case, the US Federal Government.
So not only are you willing to give up the extra local control you can (and should) exert over your local officials to a more faceless, less accountable (to you and your local community) organization...
...you're willing to participate in enforcing your choice (that of giving up your local control) on everyone else, not only in your local community (those with whom you disagree), but in all local communities in the USA.
You make this decision because you don't agree with how the "dumb local folk" ran things.
What will you do when the Feds don't run things right? Campaign for One World Government?
When you succeed at that, what will you do when that fails you?
The answer: at that point, there will be nothing left that you can do. You will no longer have the option of moving to a community filled with "more enlightened" people, because the OWG you promoted rules over them with the same tight-fisted self-assurance as it did over your previous community.
So go ahead, push your "bigger is always better/smarter/faster" agenda, but keep in mind that there are many of us out here who truly understand what a delusion that is, and we're willing to do whatever it takes to preserve our freedoms, even if that happens to, on occasion, inconvenience you by also preserving yours.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, yes, given that you're essentially advocating mass murder (after all, what are those revolutionaries expected to do if they meet serious resistance, when they know they're to perform key aspects of the revolution at a specific time?), destroying data on peoples' past behavior is a mere trifle.
But I won't argue anarchy with you, since I haven't researched it sufficiently.
I do, however, thank you -- for making your agenda, which I gather is the agenda of most anarchists, crystal clear in a public forum where many might otherwise have deluded themselves into believing it is "non-violent".
(In a USENET discussion years ago, someone, perhaps replying to my post, called themselves a "non-violent communist". In private email, I asked them why that isn't a self-contradiction. After some discussion, he ended up explaining just why he approved of various extremely violent actions committed against vast numbers of people by the former Soviet Union. By which time I suspect even he realized he should fairly drop the "non-violent" from his self-identification.)
IMO, a truly robust, well-engineered system for human society need not start by locating an existing one, then violently overthrowing and replacing it, attempting to impose itself on the others, but can simply grow up "from scratch" and prove itself out so that it can be adopted voluntarily by independent, thoughtful observers.
That proponents of both communism and anarchy rarely attempt to do the latter, and instead tend to scheme as to how to accomplish the former, not only reveals their real agenda -- not that of building a lasting society, but of dominating others under whatever guise they choose -- but strongly suggests the system they impose won't work over the long haul. Not that systems based primarily on respect for the law, for individual property rights, and democracy-based governance have never overthrown existing systems, but they seem to flourish in proportion that they start out from scratch, and they also seem to produce populaces less prone to rioting when the governing system breaks down, as a result of natural or artificial disaster.
If you're thinking of overthrowing the USA, you should take that into account -- your might be underestimating the resiliency of the people. If you wish to pick a weaker target -- a populace less willing and able to protect against imposition of a new regime -- while taking control of significant resources, you might want to target those populaces most recently, and for longer times, under systems like communism.
Generally, I believe, despite many problems, the USA is full of people like myself who believe your cure is far worse than the disease you claim to see. So you're likely to encounter resistance not only in the form of people protecting their own property, but each other's.
That is, should I detect that your "revolution" has begun, even if it doesn't threaten me personally, it is not out of the question that I'll track you down and kill you, to defend my nation's Constitution as well as my neighbor's property rights.
That shouldn't surprise or alarm you, since you're clearly ready to die for your "cause". (Or, at least, ready to murder for it.)
But the odds of your dying a failure might be much, much greater than you currently believe.
Given that, you might reconsider your goals. Take a careful look at exactly what you consider wrong with the current system, and rather than jumping immediately to the conclusion that it's so "inhumane" or whatever that you're justified in proposing mass murder to "repair" it to a "humane" state, formulate a plan of action that allows people to voluntarily convert to your system, even if starting out in small increments, and further that is designed (in as impersonal fashion as possible) to accommodate the likelihood that your views, upon which your system's success depends, might turn out to be wrong.
For myself, I'm hardly likely to kill you, because, as a property-rights-supporting, pro-freedom, individual-initiative-appreciating American, I make such violence my last resort.
Given the record of success of anarchy (as well as communism), though, I can see why people like you make it your first resort, and thus devote your energies towards convincing enough people to join you in violence that your personal, short-term success will be more greatly assured.
(After all, if your system was so successful and wonderful, wouldn't people be clamoring to get into one? In which case, you wouldn't be advocating violence, and instead choosing education and non-violent political action.)
Wow, that scares me on several levels, since my favorite song is named "Gates of Delirium"!!
More to the point, you seem to be substituting technical solutions ("let's delete all the files!!") for societal solutions ("let's ignore all the files!"). The former is typical of communism, anarchism, and a plethora of other political (often atheistic) models for society; the latter is typical of Christianity (by which I mean the primitive, or original, kind) and other religions that stress the importance of humans accepting each other despite past sins (and in some cases because they suggest the "reward" for those sins are inherent in the universe, God, whatever, therefore humans need not take vengeance upon themselves).
Given the choice between living in a society where all information has been deleted (and where it'll inevitably grow back, as "The State", the self-appointed rulers of the anarchic revolution, collects new information on its political enemies) and in a society where information is consider property, property is valued, but the people continue to progress in their education whereby they learn that a given person's past behavior is not so useful as a strong indicator of how they will behave, I'll choose the latter every time.
Why? Mainly, because if that thesis -- that past behavior is only a weak indicator of future behavior -- turns out to be wrong, the former society will undergo huge dislocations as part of finding that out, while the latter society will have more opportunity to progress in some other direction -- one that accommodates new views regarding "reality", and probably differing views of it among its populace.
But that's because I'm generally more inclined to support societal structures that allow for the possibility that our "pet views" turn out to be wrong, thereby granting those structures the ability to survive, perhaps flourish, as they realize exactly how wrong my views were, even in my own absence.
(I tend to view communism, and what I know of anarchism, as having that fundamental flaw: the inability to cope with its founding views turning out to be not entirely correct, if not entirely wrong, over time, without the entire social structure they impose being overturned. And I do mean to use the word "imposed" -- having read both Marx and the anarchy FAQ, it's 100% clear to me that these systems are impositions on societies, just like most any other systems.)
Oh, and the wonderful thing about the system I suggest you consider is that, unlike the system you propose (of destroying information belonging to others), you can go and implement it now, thereby better peoples' lives and society right away, without imposing at all on those who are unwilling to participate.
For example, you can preach forgiveness of those who've trespassed, loving one's enemies, and so on, and every heart you change will better the world, because you'll have convinced someone to ignore all those files you currently think you have to destroy.
And hardly anybody will really be bothered that you've changed those hearts...except maybe some people in power who might try to kill you, but you're already prepared for that, I assume. (You are talkin' revolution, right? ;-)
E.g. look at Nelson Mandela. Do you think he would have done more good in better society worldwide if, instead of being a stellar example of loving and forgiving his enemies while and after in prison, he'd continued resenting them and took revenge on them afterwards by destroying all records on crimes in South Africa?
I don't. The latter might have temporarily relieved many prisoners there moreso than he did as an outgrowth of the former. But he would not have inspired so many to seriously consider, and perhaps put into practice, ignoring claims of past sins when it comes to treating others as their brothers and sisters.
And remember: The Internet interprets destruction of records of past behavior and routes around it. ;-)
In this scene, the victim is persuaded to wear a large frog's head to a costume ball.
Of course, he doesn't know that the clasp is designed to slowly tighten over time, and cannot be opened...
Also, "chip-based compression" is probably already patented by the makers of Pringle's Potato Chips.
Wonder not do I.
Wrote Lisp Yoda did not.
Yoda Lisp did write!
Yoda character Lisp program generated by!
"No try is there. Only do."
Such information can be useful for more than just people searching for projects to work on.
For example, someone researching the abilities of various software-licensing paradigms to quickly recognize and cut losses on failing (e.g. not useful enough) projects might find the information on such a site quite useful.
The upshot is while some might judge projects listed on such a site to be "failures", careful examination of the goals of such projects, and the costs of their failing (the costs to end users), compared to the opportunities to move to newer projects that might "subsume" them, could paint a picture of Open Source as being quite a successful way to develop and deploy software (which I happen to think it is anyway, but welcome any and all opportunities for objective analysis to be brought to bear on the subject -- which requires the sort of data posted on this site).
Compiciency, of course! Or effetition, maybe?
("It's a dessert and a floor wax!" ;-)
In short, the willingness to fight, kill, and die, for one's own, or one's neighbors, is best kept as personal -- and perhaps as local -- as possible.
Otherwise, as the responsibility for defending a people's freedoms flows towards a central organization, inevitably so will the authority for deciding when, and under what circumstances, to project force under that banner.
Of course, by itself, the Second Amendment isn't anything approaching a cure-all in terms of stopping all sorts of abuse.
But, without the clear message that individuals must take responsibility for preserving their own security, safety, and freedoms, it seems, historically as well as (to me, anyway, given human nature) logically inevitable that the abuses of freedoms, the balkanization of peoples, the destructions of entire peoples based largely on a perceived threat they pose to a wealthy minority, etc., will increase.
(Other important individual responsibilities that help society repel such things include defending freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, and defending the basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- note that "life" here ideally starts at the moment of conception, since a society that dismisses the unborn as unworthy of protection is likely to erode its notion of innocence of children over time.)
Now that I view sociopolitical issues from this standpoint, I realize that I can't claim I'm nonviolent just because I don't, and intend never to, own any firearms, and further don't feel inclined to commit violence to preserve, e.g., my own personal property. (I'm less sure about what I'd do as my own family members' lives, and my life, gets involved; that's okay, I think, and just as well.)
After all, if my personal property was stolen, I'd report it to the police, and that invokes a system of violence by proxy, something I could (for the most part, unless I choose to not be a good citizen and follow pertinent laws, in which case I could say "entirely") choose to not do.
Similarly, if I vote in favor of legislation that authorizes a local, state, or federal government to restrict other people, I'm authorizing violence, again, by proxy.
I therefore now take my responsibilities in these areas much more seriously. I'm not "pro-gun", but since I'm unwilling (as a Christian) to require others to commit violence to forward the agenda of gun control (due to being unwilling to suffer violence in the attempt to implement it myself, e.g. as if I was a BATF agent or something), I find myself generally opposed to gun-control legislation.
Generally, having tried to put into practice what I see the Golden Rule as requiring of me, I find myself much less supportive of various sorts of legislation which I might have long-ago supported, and even opposing things about which I might have been neutral -- because violence committed on my behalf, with my approval (explicit or tacit), is morally pretty much the same as if I committed that violence.
So when it comes to things like the initial and final invasions of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, my initial opinions became radically changed within pretty short order. Not so much because I went from being "pro-law-enforcement" to "anti-law-enforcement", but because I went from thinking it was great those BATF agents put their lives on the line to "take out" some extreme fringe militant group to seriously doubting whether their lives (the BATF agents), and certainly the lives of so many innocent Branch Davidians, were worth putting on the line so a bunch of Americans (possibly including myself) could feel more "comfortable" knowing that their guns had been taken away.
And these days when someone says (including here on /.) something like "I favor gun control because knowing people like whoever have guns doesn't make me feel safe", I have to laugh...
(This change in my own thinking has been somewhat stunning. Applying my own logic to the War on Drugs leaves me, a lifetime opponent of the use of even recreational drugs due to my religious convictions, seriously questioning much of what I used to take for granted as being legit when it comes to government activism on behalf of the anti-drug agenda of mine. Certainly I reserve my own rights to "fight" on behalf of that agenda myself -- I won't give up freedom to speak out on it, for example -- and I do think a War on Drugs has the marginal advantage over the coming War on Guns, morally speaking, that drugs aren't nearly as important as guns when it comes to what it takes to preserve, versus merely enjoy, liberty -- but the assumption I long held that legal prohibitions were "obviously necessary" for drugs have nearly completed vanished. I no longer have any moral justification to ask DEA agents to put their lives on the line to make sure my neighbors aren't smoking crack, shooting heroine, especially using marijuana or growing hemp. Whatever support I have left for such prohibitions is on much shakier, short-term ground.)
I encourage everyone to consider reasoning about their favorite "issues" from this standpoint: does the position you advocate require someone else to be imposed upon if they disagree? Does it require other parties to threaten, perhaps use, force (i.e. violence) to impose your will on your behalf? If so, are you personally willing to implement that violence and take the risks that stem therefrom -- thereby advocating your position as a means to ensure that the violence used to impose your will is collectively agreed upon and carried out in a less emotional state by professionals? Or are you advocating that position simply because you assume you won't have to face the results yourself, including the results when the use of force is imperfect, as will inevitably happen from time to time? Would you die for your position, as America's Founding Fathers were willing to do (and many did) for the freedoms they carved out via their limited-government approach to creating a nation?
Considering the incredible ability the USA has had (for decades now) to impose its will on others, I often think it's amazing we don't commit worse abuses than we have to date (e.g. bombing aspirin factories with innocent people inside, to take one obvious example).
But with Americans increasingly favoring gun control, and not even wanting investigations into things like the Elian raid, in the presence of important legal questions...
In this context, I'm pretty much convinced that 99% of all gun-control advocates are not so much "non-violent" as combinations of hypocrisy and cowardice, because I don't see much "grass-roots" efforts involving going door to door (in cities, suburbs, or rural areas) asking neighbors to turn over their weapons. Nor do I see signs saying "Gun-Free Zone" in front of peoples' houses, the way one now takes "Smoke-Free" or "Drug-Free" signage for granted.
Perhaps gun-control proponents will prove me wrong, and take up their own charge to remove guns from the American countryside without waiting for government to do it for them. (More properly, by first viewing themselves as intrinsically part of that government.)
(My guess is, those who do that, will consist largely of people who end up concluding they were wrong-headed to advocate gun-control anyway. E.g. if 80% of US women aged 18 thru 21 were "drafted" into an unarmed militia whose sole purpose was to remove all handguns from the American countryside, I bet the percentage of Americans who "support gun control" would go way down, even if it was the most effective way to get the supposedly desired results, and even assuming this approach would have the lowest casualty, as well as highest compliance, rates; the advocates of gun control are, in my estimation, unlikely to send themselves or their daughters into the fray, preferring to "feel safe" by remote control.)
Here are the facts as I know them.
RHAT IPO'ed at a (split-adjusted) price of $7 per share. It is now trading at around $20 per share. It hasn't been below 2x its IPO price for a very long time now, and I'm not sure it ever traded at or below that level. (It actually IPO'ed at $14/share, started trading in the high 40's or so, IIRC.)
LNUX IPO'ed at $30/share. It is now trading at around $50, though it's been as low as $38 or so. In much less than a year (and even less than RHAT's publicly-trading lifetime), it's therefore been at least a 1.2x gainer for anybody in on the IPO.
So much for what RHAT and LNUX did, in terms of setting their IPO price, and are doing now according to the market.
For several months, starting roughly October 1999 and ending sometime early this year (January or so), Linux stocks generally had a phenomenally huge valuation as defined by the market, i.e. the public, but a relative shortage of available stocks. I.e. many people wanted to own Linux-related stocks and placed a high value on them, and the shortage of such stocks drove their values even higher.
This actually started a bit around RHAT's IPO, since it debuted on the market at, say, around $25, so people who bought it right then at that price haven't really lost much (except the opportunity to throw that cash somewhere else, where it might have gained more), if anything.
But it was the October-January period where things really got insane.
The most obvious result was that when LNUX started trading, people who were in on the $30 IPO price and sold right ASAP got prices in the $300/share range for awhile. Even weeks later it was still well above $100 (but see charts instead of relying on my memory).
Other Linux starts that weren't open-source "plays", such as Corel (CORL), got similarly goosed. Even stocks that people thought were Linux stocks (ADSP comes to mind) got very goosed.
People who bought these stocks because of an unreasoning love of the "Linux" phenomenon rather than looking at market dynamics generally lost out, unless they did it early enough to sell to others who were even less reasonable and thus bought at a higher price.
This happened in very short periods for the not-really-Linux plays (ADSP), and not-quite-so-short periods for the semi-Linux plays (CORL).
But even the pure Linux/open-source stocks, RHAT and LNUX, both saw huge run-ups in their prices in roughly a "bell curve" form, i.e. followed by run-downs.
In RHAT's case people who bought in early, especially at IPO time, did not get particularly burned. So far. Ditto with people who bought late (i.e. in the last couple of months or so), taking into account the present state of tech stocks, the markets generally, uncertainties about the economy, etc.
(In contrast, IIRC, MSFT was in the 100's for awhile in the past six months, and is now hovering in the high 60's; I'm pretty sure there's no intervening split.)
The most-burned people are those who bought LNUX off the IPO, right out of the gate, at 300 or so. These people must have never heard of "limit orders", and I felt bad for them the moment I saw those ridiculous prices.
Personal disclaimers start here.
I was in on the RHAT and LNUX "open-source friends" (my phrase) IPOs, so I got 400 shares of RHAT at $14/share, 140 of LNUX at $30/share, and turned a tidy profit on RHAT by selling early during the Linux phenomenon in a series of trades, first to reclaim my moderately tenuous cash position (100@72), then to take advantage of what I thought, then, were sufficiently inflated prices that I wouldn't cry in my chocolate milk if they went higher (100@110, then 200@120). It was tempting to cry when I learned the huge tax impact of short-term cap gains and I thought maybe if I'd held out for the year, I'd do better, but history appears to be well on its way to vindicating my decision after all.
Unfortunately, I, too, got somewhat caught up in the excitement over LNUX, seeing it gyrate around, so bought up 60 shares (mainly to round it out to 200), making my net purchase 200@90, so I'm presently in a loss position. This kinda hurts, since I'd considered selling at 127 to turn it into a donation to a charity, but not being able to reach my e-broker and generally dragging my feet meant I didn't understand well enough how to do that in a tax-advantageous way (turns out there's a multi-week lead time anyway). Once I lost that opportunity, I decided the cash I'd raise by selling wasn't worth it for the donation I'd make, and the need I saw isn't so great or so immediate.
So, I'm quite happy holding on to 200 LNUX and having no RHAT shares for now, because I've felt for some time that LNUX is more like the kind of company I, personally, would want to own/work for/whatever, though probably by a nose. (I am a RHAT customer, though to a modest degree; I've bought maybe 10-15 of their Linux packages over the past few years.)
Strictly speaking, I haven't realized any losses yet, and even though my present LNUX holdings are in an unrealized loss position, since they stem from profits made on RHAT, my net tradings in the 9 or so months I've done online trading (I'm a definite newbie) have been quite positive, realized and unrealized (the latter just for the moment, of course, but maybe even if LNUX went to $0 Monday; I haven't run the numbers on this).
Since cash isn't something I'm needing these days, it's quite easy for me to follow the usual advice about holding on to quality stock for the long term. I haven't done detailed analyses of any public companies vis-a-vis their earnings, but since I want to do something with the cash I had sitting around, and VA Linux (LNUX) consistently shows up as being a quality company (or, at least, a company that's about producing quality products), it makes sense to leave it there. (I've used other cash to invest in a couple of other stocks, BTW -- major companies known for quality that happened to hit hard times and, in my offhand opinion, got hit by market overreactions. I haven't sold these stocks, even though each has seen a significant run-up in the 30-50% range within a few months of my purchases, and I'm not sorry I'm holding on to them even though they're both basically back where they were when I bought them! Again, because they're quality companies, as far as I can tell, and I can't think of anything better to do with the cash.)
I will be very (pleasantly, I hope) surprised if I'm still holding on to these 200 LNUX shares in another 3 years, since this whole idea of not spending cash on toys still feels kinda new to me. (Gotta admit, the best investment I ever made was getting married; most of this "I" stuff really represents decisions made with at least some support from my wife, who is financially much more brilliant than I, but who is too busy and maybe too gun-shy to make online trades. I couldn't believe it, though, when those two other stocks were lookin' good, she said something like "I've got to get our retirement-fund accounts onto a trading system so you can trade those too!" -- sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. ;-)
Without getting into silly speculation and such, I do have some reasons to believe LNUX will do particularly well over the long term. If I had a bunch more cash sitting around, I'd probably buy more right now at $50 (and I sure as heck would have at $40).
That kind of play helped out my position on one of those other stocks: I bought 100@41, but then it dropped another 10 points, so obviously I'd miscalculated the depths to which the market would over-react. So I bought another 200@31, and though it's hovered lower on occasion, generally it's been well above my net purchase price of ~34. Needless to say that makes me very happy, but it's still unrealized gains, and that tactic works only when you've got the cash (I don't know enough about margin trading or other stuff; I'm talking simple buy/sell transactions, usually limit orders on volatile stocks like LNUX).
So, aside from some hoped-for goose on short-term trading of those 60 LNUX shares, which never materialized (and, besides, I told myself I was happy to own a round 200 shares even if the price went down, and that turns out to have been right), I've generally traded from the perpective of valuing the company's record of quality, deciding when it was under-valued (the other two stocks) or over-valued (RHAT), taking into account my cash position (need cash, have cash, whatever), and that has worked out fine, considering the novice I am.
But during this period the market has become quite a bit more savvy, IMO; IPOs are no longer seeing the ridiculous opening-day run-ups they were in 1998 and 1999 (maybe earlier; can't remember when I started watching CNBC instead of TWC or TNN regularly during the day ;-).
That suggests it might be harder to get as ridiculously lucky as I've been over the past year by trading with such short-term horizons.
But it also suggests maybe the time to start doing some long-term buying is approaching, as the ridiculously-over-inflated valuations come down to somewhat-over- and kinda-over- and even gee-isn't-that-kinda-under-valuation levels we're beginning to see.
Maybe the low prices will set the stage for a whole new round of newcomers into the sexy stocks of the coming day (techs generally, surely? but instead of Linux/biotechs/wireless, what?), newcomers who buy at outrageous prices and break LNUX's opening-day record (which it still holds, last I heard)...
As far as ADSP, CALD, CORL, LinuxOne (LINX), and now Lineo, as well as others, frankly, I just don't get excited about partial-open-source companies. I don't think they "get it" well enough to truly compete in the space. The business models for pure OSS companies like RHAT and LNUX are tricky enough to get right; how can management of on-the-fence companies be quick enough to see and act on changes in the OSS landscape when they're still basically pining for the '80s-style proprietary models, hoping to recreate some of MSFT's magic? I generally don't care for loosely-focused organizations anyway, so it's not just an OSS issue for me -- though I do feel holding on to 200 LNUX shares is true to the notion of "putting your money where your mouth is". (Strictly speaking, I've generally not felt OSS itself is a huge money-making proposition, so much as an end-user-freeing proposition. See my old posts defending "free software" and the GPL on gnu.misc.discuss for examples of my thesis that OSS will end up being a "pull" concept in that it's only when the end users insist on it that it'll truly succeed. Since I don't expect it to be monopolized, I don't see a handful of companies make $Billions on it due just to that phenomenon, and that's (mainly) why investors and investor "types" have avoided getting into the "push" side of it (the side that creates the software). I figure they'll come along once they realize that closed software becomes so much less valuable as users demand OSS, due to new factors weighed into purchasing decisions (say, multiply cost of product by 5 to get long-term costs to us if it's closed-source), at which point they'll have to choose between to relatively similar avenues for software, closed or open, in terms of profit potential, or find some other field to exploit.)
And, as tough a time as LNUX and RHAT seem to have had for some, I think it's safe to say they've fared better for most than any of the partial-OSS stocks out there to date. (Note I don't consider companies that adopt Linux, like IBM, as a "partial play", but maybe I should. Haven't paid attention to IBM stock, though.)
And, from the beginning, I've been concerned about the substitution of "Linux" for "open source" or "free software" in the mind of the market as the phenomenon that's really going on here. As important as Linux is, I see it more as the poster child of OSS than as the most prominent of only a few success stories, especially in the long run, and we're only in the second or third inning of this nine-inning game IMO. That's why the "Linux hysteria" didn't ever bite me -- I just hoped it'd keep biting others long enough for me to turn a quick profit on those 60 LNUX shares, oh well -- and why I don't think the underlying value of pure-OSS companies like RHAT and LNUX have been in any way diminished over the past year, even if the "Linux" phenomenon (in the stock market anyway) has come and gone.
In particular, I'm still cherishing some technical issues I see as giving OSS some huge theoretical advantages that are only barely being recognized now, but might come to pass in a big way over the next 20-30 years. I've stopped talking about these in detail; not only do non-OSS enthusiasts, and even OSS enthusiasts, find my notions a bit "out-there", to realize them requires doing some things that even RMS has tended to resist (and I don't mean "loosening" the GPL in any way, nor do I mean his resistance is, for now, particularly harmful or wrong-headed).
So, I'm definitely not getting rich off of any of these stock trades, and don't expect to. But I don't need to be rich, since I'm incredibly handsome, and people like me! (Yeah, right. ;-)
Seriously, though, if I decide I need a bunch of cash, rather than try to trade stocks for it, I'll probably go do some consulting work or something. I kinda miss programming, actually...not doing it is starting to feel weird, but I haven't figured out which pet project to work on first....
If that's so, it's an interesting illustration of the overall system's requirements imposing lower quality standards on components of that system.
To wit: the article (I presume; haven't read it, but have read similar ones on the same topic) discusses the importance of achieving a 100% quality rate on a given chunk of software.
Now, that software is merely one component in a much larger system.
Actually, these larger systems nest "outwards". I.e. the shuttle itself is a larger system than the software it contains, but so is NASA a larger system than the shuttle; so is the US government larger than NASA; so is the USA larger than the government; so is the planet's population larger than the USA; etc.
In this case, there are specific reasons I can suggest account for the 100% quality requirement that might otherwise go unnoticed:
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(Yes, there's some overlap there, but these are subtly different points, that might apply independently in other projects. E.g. a not-publicly-visible project might have no risk of embarrassment should it fail in one way vs. another, but have a huge risk of $$$ loss.)Failure resulting in death of participants, and especially of non-participants (humans), is not an option.
However, failure resulting in not launching, not even building it in the first place, especially not building it within some timeframe, is an option. That is, failure of the "commitment to quality" approach to actually deliver the component on a "timely" basis is an acceptable option.
The world generally will admire a program such as the space shuttle less if it crashes and burns frequently, killing/maiming people and destroying equipment, than if it succeeds on the extremely rare occasions on which it is tried -- perhaps even less than if it never happened in the first place.
A delay in a shuttle launch costs, overall, far less than the cumulative risks of premature shuttle launches. (Challenger demonstrated that.)
Compare these elements to fighter aircraft, where the software is part of a somewhat different set of larger systems:
The deaths of participants and non-participants is expected by most everyone of this sort of system and the activities around which it revolves.
On the contrary, the sorts of failures that result from failing to launch a fighter plane, or never having designed it in the first place, are generally not so well-tolerated.
The world will likely fear a non-existent fighter plane, even one that has 100% success in its flight-control software (doesn't require rebooting) but is launched extremely rarely (it's hard to build) or too late, far less than it will a large fleet of existing, dangerous fighters that have even a 10% "kill" rate of its pilots per year.
A delay in a fighter-plane deployment can literally cause lost wars. In that sense, the loss of pilots due to poor design is a calculated positive compared to the loss of a nation's (and/or its peoples') freedom.
Of course, I'm making pretty much everything up, above, so don't bother arguing details or interpretations with me -- I have no idea whether they're correct or not.
But, they're probably correct enough to illustrate why it's probably okay for us to be using highly buggy computers on a poorly designed (for the way it's being used now, anyway) Internet rather than, as another post on this thread put it, using typewriters and plain paper.
Not that there aren't wonderful advantages to deploying 100% correct software components in a large-scale, much-buggier system! "Creeping quality" is not a bad thing at all, since it allows people working on the system to worry less about various portions of it as they try to debug it.
But, the effort to deploy such perfect components may well outweigh the utility of doing so, overall, given the pertinent timeframe.
In particular, when trying to deploy such a perfect component in a large, buggy system, it can be hard figuring out which component can be made so "perfect" and still be useful in that (presumably speedily-evolving) system by the time it's ready!
So maybe it's appropriate to view almost everything we deal with on the Internet as a very early alpha-stage prototype after all. ;-)
You're blaming Giulani?? Have you compared the rate of such shootings under his administration with the rate of previous administrations, or are you just joining the Hillary For Senate Campaign of Lies?
The problem is not the injection of logic into a conversation about law. In fact, my statements are entirely grounded in logic; to the extent they are not, they are unsupportable.
A mistake so many people -- perhaps "computer types", especially -- make when it comes to discussing legal issues is that they assume there is some "objective truth" that everyone usefully agrees to, leaving the "law" (the courts, judges, legislation, etc.) to merely determine how that truth is to be implemented in human (and corporate) lives.
Whether there is an "objective truth" is not the issue per se -- it's the assumption that one can base the legal system on the belief that everyone recognizes and agrees to it.
So the mistake people make is not so much saying, e.g., "either MS owns the code or it does not", because that may well be determinable in an objective-truth sense.
No, the mistake is when they go on to say "and because that is determinable a priori, there is no need for parties involved in a dispute over said ownership to fully document the relevant transactions", for example.
The proper framing of these issues may well start with "either/or", but for most any useful conclusions to be reached, the very next steps must include "forking" that either/or into a variety of statements such as "Party A claims Fact M at Time T", "Party A claims Fact M' at Time T'", "Party B claims Fact N at Time S", and so on.
And each of these statements is, in turn, a claim, i.e. "Party B claims Party A claimed Fact M at Time T".
And since we're discussing whether Party B should take some action at Time P to head off potential problems at Time P+N, we must, logically, recognize the probability of a variety of claims made by various parties.
Only after we've accounted both for all the distinct claims and the potential future claims can we begin to reasonably assess legal strategy.
The FSF has done this, both well and wisely, not only IMO, but in view of the history it has had to date with various challenges to its dealings.
It's not unlike quantum mechanics vs. Newtonian physics. (Not that I'm an expert on either, but....)
I.e. in Newtonian physics you can say, definitively, that Particle P is at Location X,Y,Z moving at Velocity V in direction A,B, or some such thing. Given a set of particles with such precise information, it's easy to conclude the likelihood of collisions, etc.
In "reality", aka quantum mechanics, we can't say these things about any particle. Now, sure, it's tempting to assume that, at some level, there is such information encoded somewhere (outside our universe, i.e. outside our realm of perception), but we can't observe that level of detail for any particle.
But what we can do is make educated guesses about probabilities of the future behavior of particles based on past observation.
The processing required to assess the likelihood of collision among a given set of particles becomes not only harder, but intractable (impossible to determine yea or nay) in certain circumstances (at least, that's the impression I get).
So, yes, certainty is a wonderful thing, and to some extent all our logic is based on it, but to assume we can establish the certainty of any particle -- including a concept like "MS owns the code or it does not" -- before it ever becomes an issue is to make a potentially fatal mistake.
You seem to be confusing binary logic with reality -- "either MS owns the code...or MS does NOT own the code".
In reality, whether MS asserts ownership is orthagonal to whether the FSF acknowledges that ownership, which is in turn orthagonal to how the courts would rule in the end, which is in turn orthagonal to whether the courts would issue an injunction against further distribution by the FSF prior to the trial (say, in response to a motion for preliminary injunction by MS).
If that statement doesn't make sense to you, and if my lawnmower analogy doesn't help (see one of my messages from yesterday), then it's unlikely I'll be able to educate you via /. posts. Take some law courses, consult a good IP lawyer who can teach these basic concepts, etc.
But I will try one more tack: the idea of a "universal truth", which is the context in which you've written your objections to my logic, is one that is less and less acknowledged, IMO, in today's US judicial system (as well as its politics and populace)...
In reconciling the different views, or interpretations, of that one "universal truth" (say, about the legality of the FSF's continued use of the Microserf-authored code fragment), the courts would treat a signed release such as the FSF demands as being worth more than its weight in gold, when it comes to protecting the FSF's ability to continue distributing that code fragment, avoid punitive damages, and even avoid a judgement against it.
Well, think it through! Use deductive logic, for example. Consider the alternatives, and see how viable they are compared to the current model.
Public domain: there's no single organization that holds records of contributions to the public domain, even just for single projects, that I'm aware of. So if MacroEvil Corp decides to try to stop PING (PING Is Not GNU), the PD clone of GNU, from being distributed by filing lawsuits against distributors claiming ownership of major chunks of code, there's no easy way their PD status can be confirmed or even spoken for in court.
Collective copyright ownership (the Linux-kernel model): if MacroEvil acquires, say, 20% of the copyrighted code, it can successfully stop distribution for a substantial period of time. Even if it claims to own that much, it could stop distribution for quite a while.
Corporate ownership: if RedHat is bought up by MacroEvil, they can turn RPM (for example) into a proprietary app overnight, and can use legal tactics to hassle anyone who continues to use its GPL'ed predecessors if they're truly cynical about the state of copyright law (and who knows what laws might be passed in the future to make this scenario feasible).
Church ownership: if Scientology bought up 20% of the individual copyrights to Linux, how successful do you think they'd be in stopping its continued distribution should they decide Linux posed a significant threat to them?
Government ownership: if they don't want you distributing something, they can warn you. If you don't listen, they can send armed agents to your home, knock down your doors, and take all your computers. A massive government/media campaign to, say, encourage The People to favor "returning The People's code to The People", i.e. take it out of your hands, precedes this action, causing some 70% of the populace to not only support the use of force, but reject any attempts by Congress to investigate its propriety.
Non-profit organization ownership: The FSF somehow gets "taken over" by proprietary-software zealots and tries to sue people who continue to distribute GNU under the GPL. Here, not only do all the defendants have clear rights under copyright law and the GPL itself since the FSF made all those assignment-form-based agreements, the US government, as far as I've been able to determine, takes a good hard look at whether the FSF loses its NPO status (among other possibilities) due to turning its back on its own mission.
So, if you don't, as an individual, think you should "have to trust the FSF" in a way the FSF doesn't quite trust its contributors, extend the quoted phrase -- "have to trust the FSF more than...who or what?" You're receiving code from someone (you didn't write it, obviously) under some terms (let's assume you mean Open Source, aka free software, or maybe just GPL'ed software). Who do you trust more to let you continue using and redistributing the software than the FSF, or a similar non-profit organization? What keeps that person or organization from "changing its tune" down the road? Would more of those of us who actually contribute code trust the entity you appoint more than we already trust the FSF (or some other non-profit, since your question doesn't really pertain to the FSF as it does to the FSF's requirements for assignments)?
In particular, perhaps you should consider that the FSF's special efforts (and tedious ones at that) to secure clear, documented rights to distribute its core GPL components to you in the first place constitute a substantial reason to trust what it distributes to you in the second place?
(Socioculturamathematically speaking: trust generally erodes for each pair of hands in a transaction; therefore, the FSF must substantially raise the trust bar to ensure the level of trust it wants users of its GNU system to be able to place in it. Your claim that "either we can trust it or we can't" tilts at the windmill of black-and-white logic: in fact, you cannot trust electronic copyright assignment, period. You can, however, assign a trust value to it generally, and significantly narrow that interval in specific cases. I'm arguing that the FSF's distributions of GNU have among the most trustworthy copyright assignments you're likely to encounter in source code, GPL'ed, Open-Source'd, or otherwise, because of its mission, its nature as a non-profit, and the large population of people who entered into signed agreements with it to maintain that very trust.)
IANAL, but I have yet to learn of any option quite as good, given all the risks, tactics, etc. I've seen or been warned about to undermine the GPL, as signing all pertinent copyright over to a well-run NPO (and I do hope the FSF is sufficiently well-run in this regard).
Disclaimer: IANAL, and, in particular, I haven't enough expertise in non-US and International law to even think about evaluating the relative feasibility of using "offshore" methods of protecting GPL'ed code (and other free software) from legal and other forms of attack on continued free redistribution.
Please talk to a lawyer before you make statements like that in the future, especially in public forms. IANAL, but IMO you don't know what you're talking about.
Let me put it more simply. You decide to spend a few hours mowing your lawn, but your lawnmower does not work. So you go to your neighbor and ask to borrow his. He says "fine, go ahead", you bring it home, and start mowing.
His wife comes home, yells at him for not mowing their yard, and, on the spur of the moment, he says "but our lawnmower was stolen".
She says "hey, our neighbor [you] was using a lawnmower just like ours when I drove by, I'm going to call the police because it's obvious he's the one who stole it -- his own stopped working, and obviously he didn't go out and buy one that's exactly like our 2-year-old model!"
So she calls the police while her husband tries to escape her wrath by staying very, very quiet.
As the police handcuff you and haul you off to jail, based on the clear evidence and the testimony of the wife (as well as the silence of her husband), ask yourself this one question:
The issue is basically the same: whether party A is considered to be criminally liable for using something that party B claims belongs to it depends to a substantial degree on whether party C, which party A could reasonably be considered to have thought owned the disputed property, made what appeared to be a legal transfer of that property to party A in the first place.
If you had gotten that signed agreement in the above scenario, the police would likely take it into evidence, maybe consider whether you'd forged it, but mostly focus on the dispute among (and possible false report filed by) your neighbors, leaving you alone to mow your yard. (If they take the lawnmower, at least you remain free.)
Similarly, if Microsoft claimed both Linux and, say, GCC contain substantial amounts of code belonging to it, and the FSF has a copyright assignment on file for that code while nobody has any such assignment on file for Linux, it's less likely the courts would order that distribution of GCC cease pending trial than Linux. Similarly, the threat of a finding against distributors of GCC would be lower than of Linux, especially the threat of punitive judgements.
In the GCC case, the legal issue would mostly revolve around whether the Microsoft employee had behaved properly in signing over that code; the FSF would be considered to have acted improperly only if something like knowingly accepting an improper assignment could be proved.
In the Linux case, the legal issue would start by asking whether Linux contains code Microsoft can show it had a copyright for. Once that's answered "yes", Linux's ability to be freely distributed is seriously damaged, and while the courts would certainly look carefully at how this situation came about, the burden would more squarely rest on vendors of Linux to show they didn't know the code belonged to Microsoft than it would on vendors of GCC.
IMO, from a legal as well as social standpoint, the FSF's approach to handling the code-copyright issue is on significantly surer footing than the approached used by the Linux kernel.
(That isn't surprising, since the FSF, unlike probably any of the significant contributors to the Linux code base, hired actual intellectual-property lawyers to recommend the best way to protect GNU against all sorts of potential attacks. That doesn't mean they indeed came up with the best answer, but it does mean that if those lawyers believed the Linux model was better, the FSF would likely have loved to choose that over the tedious form-filling method it currently uses for core components of GNU. The main remaining question, of course, is whether the FSF itself can be trusted to have good, up-front motives -- again, best to ask a lawyer to what extent a US non-profit organization that seeks contributions, even in the form of source code, can turn against its previously stated aims and goals.)
Okay, everyone all together now: "All property should be community property and everyone takes whatever they need from others."
There, feel better?
No, you're right, there's no such thing as the "excluded middle" in logic, so you must be right that anyone who doesn't argue for the most extreme forms of intellectual property (what I like to call "intellectual privilege", for a variety of reasons, e.g. the gov't takes it away after a fairly limited amount of time and places into the public domain -- kinda like how it treated Elian Gonzalez, heh ;-) must therefore be arguing for the most extreme forms of communism.
Let me get this straight. You're saying these things aren't happening now?? "According to Janet Reno and Clinton lawyer Bob Bennett, the magazine shop had been given more than enough time to liberate the latest issue of Playboy, so the use of force to obtain 10 copies of that issue for `important White House activities relating to a dire shortage of interns' was way past due, justifying the raid of the store by 50 BATFP agents." -- ABC News, 2000-07-09.
Gee, almost like how America's supposedly "compassionate" combination retirement-home, health-care-facility, and mental-ward otherwise referred to as "The Federal Government", post-FDR anyway? (Okay, you don't quite have to be among the elite ruling class in the USA to enjoy a top-flight lifestyle while you're forced to pay for the stupid, avoidable mistakes made by people you've never met by a government that has never really cared...but it sure helps to be friendly with that elite, if you don't want your stock valuations sued out from under you.)
Oh, come on. What about hockey? Ballet? "Hot Cuban Chicks", as the wags put it? You think Russians and Cubans would naturally have come up with these things without the direct intervention of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, and the helpful influence of Mao, Pol Pot, etc.? Keep in mind most of the very best hockey players and ballet dancers would have been couch potatoes like me ("I coulda been a contendah!", says I) if it weren't for the prospect of becoming a mere statistic in the latest Communist-sponsored "mass re-education"....
Remember that open source kiddies what? Did you run out of money before you could buy a verb or something?
Ah, but by the time we retire, our leaders will have Taken Over, the Great RMS will rule the world, and he will give each of us of the crumbs of his great wealth and power! Can't wait to run NASA, the National Weather Service, and The Weather Channel, myself...or did you think I wrote GNU Fortran because I actually write in that hackforsaken language?? Hahahahahaha!!
No, they aren't. Just ask them what they think they're about to do before they do what you say they're doing. They're highly unlikely to say "I'm going to manually run this executable".
More likely, they'll say "I want to see what's in this file!". And that's what double-clicking an icon is for. (Except in certain contexts, when a sizable percentage presumably knows double-clicking runs a program. Reading email is clearly not one of those contexts.)
The fact that they aren't shown what's in the file, but instead have arbitrary code with the equivalent of Unix `root' privileges executed on their system, in an environment where tight integration among applications basically guarantees easy access to all sorts of personal data, makes this a highly preventable, as well as insidious, bug in the design of Microsoft software.
IMO, the biggest enabler of this bug was the decision by Microsoft, at the highest levels, to deploy Windows 9x as an "easy-to-use" OS for people wanting access to the Internet.
Even at the time that decision was made, Microsoft certainly had more than enough expertise to know it was a technically unsupportable one, from a security standpoint. I.e. they knew the Internet was hostile, that Win 9x was unsecure, that their highly integrated software made even security-by-obscurity basically irrelevant, and that their targeted user base had no expertise in securing themselves against the inevitable problems.
(At least, I really doubt I understood these issues better as a 16-year-old in the mid-'70s than the geniuses at Microsoft did circa 1995. Actually, even in the late '70s, I couldn't understand how these newfangled personal computers could fit a whole OS in 64K, until I was stunned to find out they'd ignored the whole timesharing security model. The viruses that swept the PC- and Mac-using world were never a surprise to me, of course, nor to most anyone else hacking timesharing systems before the PC generation.)
The estimates I've heard of losses are in the $Billions, but I agree Microsoft won't have to pay a dime (i.e. they won't recall Win 9x for all Internet users).
And bear in mind I'm not saying MS should have taken steps to prevent people using Win 9x for Internet use. They should have made it clear it wasn't suitable, and left it up to end users to decide whether to install 3rd-party software that let them ride the 'net. Of course, that wouldn't have earned MS the huge extra $Billions in income, or the huge additional stock valuations, which is why they didn't do the obviously "right" thing.
BTW, my wife, whose responsibilities include an IT department at the world headquarters of a well-known institution, was, needless to say, not happy about the ~36 hours of organization-wide downtime suffered due to this bug. Especially when I said "gee, don't y'all have your SMTP servers reject any incoming email that have unrecognized, or code-bearing, attachments?", she said "no, we can't make our [MS-based] software do that", and I pointed out that it was a topic often covered as being fairly easy to do on the qmail mailing list. I had assumed, obviously erroneously, that last year's Melissa had convinced everyone to get their act together, disable certain kinds of attachments, etc. Not that I pay much attention to viruses: I run GNU/Linux, and use a dialup (no static IP), among many other things. The only time I see virus-protection software being run is when it's being run on someone else's computer!
Why businesses willingly pay $Millions to Microsoft so they can get "flashy" software that causes them random downtime of days per year, with "nobody to sue" as the anti-Open-Source FUD goes, is something I have yet to be able to explain using logic. (Using psychology or anthropology, however....)
Yeah, like the way Microsoft kicked the Justice Dept.'s butt all the way to El Paso, or the way Big Tobacco wiped the states suing it off the map, or the way the drug companies...etc...etc....
And, man, that was real impressive how the dreaded Time Warner/AOL merged entity broke into the Gonzalez household without a valid court order and removed a scared 6-year-old at gunpoint after beating up one of the few members of the media that bothered to hang around after one of their lawyers suggested the media not cover the raid!
Oh, wait, you say those white vans weren't TW/AOL vans? Maybe we can blame GM for making 'em, or something...I dunno....
Math lesson:
I mean, yes, I'd love for our society to look much more seriously at the various ideas floating around regarding removing all sorts of government regulations and the effects of past court rulings (unconstitutional ones, perhaps?) propping up corporations, or perhaps I should say corporatism, today.
I'd also like to see corporate-sponsored crimes, such as perjury (e.g. certain Microsoft testimony in the trial widely considered willfully false, or people claiming obvious stuff is "not obvious" when they attempt to patent it), much more zealously prosecuted.
I happen to think steps like these might well be necessary to reasonably restore the balance of power between individuals and corporations.
But they're unlikely in a sociopolitical environment in which the US government is likely to decide that, when it comes to its unilateral disarmament against what it considers its enemies, the last entity it'll disarm against, after doing so against China, Vietnam, and so on, will be the American people. (After all, the US government is busily, and to some extent successfully, making the opposite -- the people disarming themselves against the most powerful military/police force in all of human history -- become a reality. Needless to say, it's really only those with a totalitarian view of governance that favor our going in that direction, whether they recognize their views as such or not. And a nation that refuses to prosecute its Chief Law Enforcement Officer for blatantly lying under oath in court in a case involving a citizen's civil rights is not likely to have set the stage for less abuse of the few legal protections we all still have against things like rampant corporatism.)
In the meantime, I suspect (no hard figures to back it up) that the "density" of corporate ownership among the American people is among the very highest in the world...
One of my many hopes is that the Internet, and forums like /., will render impotent many of the past mammoths of oppressive human organizations, such as mega-corporations and governments. Most of the anti-corporate propaganda I see seems to stem from a narrow view of what truly constitutes the enemy. The enemy is not freedom of choice, or billions of people exercising freedom of choice, which is fundamentally what drives most corporate success! But an enemy includes granting humans the opportunity to foist the bearing of responsibility for their own mistakes onto others, under the protection of some sociopolitical construct enforced by the threat of violence, and both governments and corporations depend, to varying extents, on that very enemy for much of their support -- much moreso than do churches, religions, and non-profit organizations, the first two being frequent whipping-boys of many of the same folk who go around complaining about globalism, corporatism, etc.
(E.g. Christianity preaches giving to the poor, but it takes a government to put a gun to your head, in effect, saying "you pay us 30% of your earnings, and we'll give that to the poor...if you smile while you do it, that means you're compassionate!")
In summary: you can't reliably and safely reduce the power of the corporation without carefully and consistently reducing the power of the government -- that type of organization which gives the corporation the ability to exist in the first place, and that supports the viability of its actions with its military might.
(No, I don't have any copies of his music, but when I've heard it, it hasn't exactly grated on my nerves or anything.)
Beware of any post that contains both the phrases "French Solution" and "Clinton could"...!
Huh?? I drink lemonade and various other non-alcoholic drinks, and basically never drink alcohol. Exactly how am I living in a "far worse oblivion"?
Not that I haven't had someone "push" alcohol on me on rare occasion; I have, and as a teenager I actually sipped some "sangria" (sp?) as a result. And a couple of times I've had a drink by accident -- i.e. thinking it was non-alcoholic.
But how does my not drinking something which I find literally distasteful make my life so miserable in your view?
BTW I also have never killed anyone, nor cheated on my taxes, nor had sex with someone who's under the age of consent. Guess I'm just one of those horrible "extremists" through and through...!
Probably most do. If only everyone did!
Still, keep in mind we're living in an age where megacorporations are drooling over the (mythical?) potential of charging for every person's every use -- not just purchase -- of a published work (like a song or movie on DVD).
In that context, it isn't surprising there are people who read "our" shorthand and conclude that, literally, the GPL forces anyone who changes Linux (licensed under the GPL) to make those changes public, even if those changes were purely for personal use!
That's why I try to avoid such shorthand in forums such as these. (And, BTW, don't always succeed -- the wording I used in my message wasn't precisely correct.)
No they don't. You can modify Linux all day long, use those modifications, and never have to distribute the patches to anyone else.
Of course, if you effectively distribute the modified version of Linux (i.e. with someone else's copyrighted code), then you have to include the full source.
Nice sentiment, but it doesn't "scale" well.
What you're saying, in essence, is that since you don't like the decisions made locally, you'd prefer to see those decisions overridden by a larger, more powerful, more remote force -- in this case, the US Federal Government.
So not only are you willing to give up the extra local control you can (and should) exert over your local officials to a more faceless, less accountable (to you and your local community) organization...
You make this decision because you don't agree with how the "dumb local folk" ran things.
What will you do when the Feds don't run things right? Campaign for One World Government?
When you succeed at that, what will you do when that fails you?
The answer: at that point, there will be nothing left that you can do. You will no longer have the option of moving to a community filled with "more enlightened" people, because the OWG you promoted rules over them with the same tight-fisted self-assurance as it did over your previous community.
So go ahead, push your "bigger is always better/smarter/faster" agenda, but keep in mind that there are many of us out here who truly understand what a delusion that is, and we're willing to do whatever it takes to preserve our freedoms, even if that happens to, on occasion, inconvenience you by also preserving yours.