There is a big difference (in my mind) between an anonymous sale (as happens in the Staples store) and a sought out contract with a specific individual (especially if you are contracting to produce a specific product for that contract which does not currently exist). There is also a big difference between selling an item that _might_ be used for ill gain, and designing an item specifically for a known imoral purpose.
This is a common misconception that I hear on Slashdot all the time, and it simply isn't true. Yes, corporate execs do have a fiduciary responsibility to the company, but that does not in any way preclude ethical or moral behavior. I would be quite surprised if you could find a case where a corporate exec was successfully sued for not exploiting people in order to increase profits. Corporations are run by people, and those people are either moral or immoral, ethical or unethical. Laws exist to protect against the immoral and unethical, but there is nothing about the structure of a company that will make a moral, ethical person do immoral and unethical things.
You are absolutely correct that all of the downright evil acts by corporations that you sited do really occur. They occur, though, because the people in charge of those corporations have low ethical standards. Not every airplane manufacturer, though, manufactures and sells weapons to the third world. Not every insurance company seeks to eliminate personal privacy. Not every clothing manufacturer employs kids in deplorable conditions. Not every oil corporation supports corrupt regimes.
I'm not sure exactly what you are calling for when you say that corporations should be regulated, so I won't directly accuse you of any particular beliefs. However, I will say (based on what is commonly meant when regulation is refered to) that I don't think regulation per se is the answer. The answer is instead (as I see it) to criminalize unethical behavior and punish those responsible.
Does anyone know if it would be possible to produce and sell a regionless dvd player while still licensing the necessary technologies, or do the require you to agree to implement region checking in order to give you the licenses?
I have admittedly heard very little about this particular film, and will refrain from judgement until I've seen it. I know that Sean Penn is capable of a better performance, and hope that he hasn't sold out (either out of laziness or the desire for a quick profit or easy Oscar). I think these reviews, though, help to make my point that truly playing a mentally handicapped or disturbed character is very difficult to do convincingly. Simply acting stupid gives a performance like what is described by the above reviews (whether or not they are acurately describing Sean Penn's performance in "I am Sam").
IAAA (I am an actor), and I can tell you from experience that playing a character with a mental illness is a very challenging role to pull off convincingly. It is not just about "acting retarded" as another reply to this post stated, but rather it is about trying to understand a mental state that you have never experienced directly and then being able to convincingly portray it to an audience in such a way that they can really believe the character is real. I haven't yet had the chance to see "I am Sam" or "A Beautiful Mind" yet, but I don't doubt for a minute that Sean Penn and Russell Crowe deserve their nominations.
I think you make a really good point here. Just because an observable is true, doesn't mean that human generated theories for why the observable is true are correct. This is a point that gets forgotten too often in the evolution debate because both sides of the argument seem to have an agenda to prove that their theory is right.
Just because evolution of species over time can be observed and therefore "proven", doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. It is perfectly reasonable to accept that a creator may have lent a hand to the evolution of species over time (or even just set up the physical laws so that it would occur on its own -- if God does exist, we can pretty well assume he's a bit more intelligent than the average human).
On the other hand, many of the criticisms against the creationist view placed here on Slashdot are absolutely correct. Many creationists take the fact that no absolute proof exists for the theories of evolution and use that to try to disprove the observables of evolution, which can only be done by denying the obvious (and thus completely losing any credibility with people who do not believe you on faith and look at the argument critically).
Disclaimer: I personally believe in both God and evolution (the observable portion). In fact, my belief really couldn't stand any other way. A lot of creationists use the argument that God set up the system so that things look different than they actually are, which is tantamount to saying he lied to us. Since this is not consistent with the God that I believe in, I don't believe it to be true. What I do believe is that God created the universe, and gave mankind a scientific mind that allows us to try to figure out the mechanisms he used. Theories about evolution's mechanisms are just that, theories. They may be true. They may not be true. They in no way prove/disprove the existence of a God.
The Occam's Razor test proves nothing, though. It is simply a test to decide which of two or more possibilities is probably true.
I'd also point out that Occam's Razor does not necessarily point to the non-existence of a creator. The universe (appears to be) a closed system, in which certain physical laws hold true. A creator is not necessarily a part of that system, and so concepts like time may not apply -- thus removing the requirement for a creator of the creator.
The universe, though, (appears to) be governed by the concept of time and converge on a single point of beginning. If it does have a beginning, then it must have been created by some outside force. Eventually, you must either come to some force which isn't governed by time (and thus has no beginning, and no need for a creator), or you must come to some force which isn't governed by Newton's laws (and thus has no need to conserve energy). From an Occam's Razor point of view, each of these seems to contain the same number of entities and is therefore equally likely.
Frustrating, I know. It helps to remember, though, that no matter what cool toys they release next, the card you buy will continue to function with exactly the same specs as it had when it was new.
Computer parts, however, are without a doubt the worst possible long-term financial investment anyone can possibly make (except maybe Enron stock). At least they're fun to play with.
I might be inclined to agree with you if he were advocating dropping the current Gnome code base tomorrow in favor of this technology. Instead, he's looking two major versions down the road (which we can figure is probably 3-4 years away).
I know it's selfish of me, but personally I want Tivo to be exactly as successful as it needs to be to survive, and no more. If everyone had a Tivo, it is likely that television with commercials would die out, and I'd have to pay more/watch more commercials integrated into the show itself. As it currently stands, commercials still pay for the TV I watch, and I can still ignore those commercials with my Tivo.
I will admit that I haven't read the GFDL in detail, so I can't speak intelligently to specifics. On the other hand, I stand by what I said about allowing people to modify and redistribute editorial writing. Unless every change is clearly marked, so that the reader can clearly see what is and isn't from my original writing, then I don't want someone else to have the ability to redistribute a derivitive work over which I have no control while putting my name anywhere on it. Neither do I want someone to be able to modify and redistribute my work without giving me proper credit. Between both of those desires, it becomes completely undesirable for me to allow someone to take anything I've written other than dry documentation and redistribute it with modifications. This is not to say that others should not release their works that way if they wish, just that I have no intention of doing so.
Because part of the usefulness of an IM client is having the people you want using it. I personally use Jabber whenever I can, but most of my contacts don't, and so I need to use whatever IM system they use in order to communicate with them.
Oh, and before anyone mentions it, I have no intention of telling all of my friends to go f*ck themselves if they won't use whatever open source IM system I happen to prefer.
What AOL needs to do is to develop a secure login for AIM and then start charging a nominal fee for AIM use. I know that most people I know who use non-AOL AIM clients don't do so because they're trying to cheat AOL out of the chance to make a profit off of IM but rather because AOL doesn't make a usable client for their platform. I know that I would be more than happy to pay a couple of bucks a month for the ability to use ICQ, but I refuse to start running Windows just so that I can have the ability to run AOL's client. AOL could even do a two-tiered system like Opera, where they put out a free client that has ads, but allow you to pay for the ability to use an ad free client (including third-party open source clients).
The GPL works with software because you have very few rights as it is to modify and redistribute the software. By granting you some extra rights (namely to freely copy and modify), the GPL can ask for you to give something back in return. If you don't want to give back, then you don't get to modify.
On the other hand, there are well-established fair use rights in published materials which you have regardless of whether the author specifically grants them to you. Since it is already legal for you to cite the work or create a device based on the work, the author has no legal basis from which to require you to do anything you don't want with your own work. Conversely, since you don't have the right to modify and redistribute the author's work, he/she can ask something further from you.
The biggest issue I have with copyleft of written materials is that I don't really think many of the same needs apply. I can see how a GPL'd piece of documentation might possibly be useful, since it could be helpful to have a large number of people working on the documentation. As far as other types of writing goes, though, I personally would not want someone else to have the right to take what I said and distort those words to their own use. Of course, that's just my opinion and other individuals are free to copyleft their written works as they like.
Some of us don't have anything to hide, and so we don't have a pressing need to make sure documents get destroyed in a timely fashion. On the other hand, comprehensive records can be very useful at some point to prove that you don't have anything to hide.
One of the biggest reasons in the business world (other than CYA) to destroy documents is due to space requirements. Ten years worth of paper trail can easily take up a small warehouse. With the advent of computer based storage, though, it is much more practical to keep comprehensive records for much longer lengths of time.
I could see how Bush might have an effect on whether or not the Justice department case against MS goes ahead (or goes ahead effectively), since he (sort of) controls the prosecutor. On the other hand, I fail to see how he can have any effect whatsoever on a civil case between two independent corporations.
I disagree. "papers" weren't the only problem the Soviet Union had, but I would definitely consider it to be one. A free society should not require a citizen to have identification with them at all times (or even when they travel), nor should a person be required to present his ID to a police officer upon demand. There are times when ID is appropriate, but a national ID is not necessary for any of these. I'm not saying that linking all of the states drivers licenses necessarily crosses the line in and of itself, just that I'm very worried that it is a first step towards things I don't want.
The Soviet Union actually did have pretty solid rule of law, it just didn't have necessary economic freedoms or governmental checks, which lead to widespread corruption (Russia, on the other hand, is currently lacking in rule of law). You're right about the civil rights, though.
You are right that the national ID would close some doors for terrorists, but since they would be just as aware of those new rules as you or I, they would just change their modus operandi in order to work around them. I could be wrong, but weren't all of the 9/11 terrorists in the U.S. legally, and didn't all of them fly under their own names?
they were called papers, and you had to have them on you whenever you travelled. If we called them that, I don't think they'd ever pass, but call them "linked drivers licenses" and you find that they're acceptable. How long before they stop being a drivers license, and become a general ID card that everyone is required to carry? I'm hardly a conspiracy theorist, but these scare me.
Incidentally, not one single terrorist will be stopped by this system. They'll just happily show their (quite legal) IDs and step onto the plane.
I really don't see WineX as a problem, since most developers aren't going to write to Linux anyway (look at gaming on the Mac for a comparison -- I doubt Linux will be able to get much if any above that level without massive market share increase). In fact, I would actually be inclined to think this could greatly help Linux in the long run. Game developers are in it for the money, and very few will take a risk with Linux in the hopes of converting users to Linux so they can play a game that isn't available on Windows. As long as WineX runs the Windows games as well/fast as Windows does, then the user doesn't lose anything by playing a Windows game with WineX over playing a native Linux game. On the other hand, if users have the option of playing all their favorite Windows gaming titles on Linux, more people will be inclined to move to Linux. The game companies aren't making Windows games because they love Microsoft, they're making Windows games because they sell more that way. Once Linux reaches a market share that rivals that of Windows, more and more game companies will start to see a benefit in creating Linux only games, which will further benefit Linux.
I know I shouldn't respond to trolls, but what the heck -- I feel like getting modded down as offtopic today. As a regular reader of the Wall Street Journal, I'd like to point out that they have generally been open to free software, if not downright friendly. A few months ago they even had an article on the front page of their market section about Ogg Vorbis. A lot of people on slashdot look at the slashdot flame wars about capitalist versus communist and assume everyone else thinks the same way. Therefore, they assume that as staunch supporters of capitalism newspapers and magazines like WSJ, Forbes, and The Economist will automatically take a knee jerk position that open source is evil, because it might harm the established capitalist big businesses out there. The truth, though, is that those papers & magazines care about the free market, not Big Corporation X. If you advocate elimination of copyright, or legislation that requires all software to be open source regardless of economic implications, then they will probably be against you (on the other hand, all three are generally impartial news sources who will report on both sides in a fair manner). On the other hand, if open source produces a better/cheaper product that ends up bankrupting Microsoft, Oracle and the other software giants, then they will applaud it for being innovative and raising the bar. Whether or not it looks like Marxist communism is irrelevant (it doesn't, but that's an argument for a different post in a different article).
The way I see it, there are two ways that this can be looked at. The knee-jerk paranoid reaction is that the rats are jumping ship, and the end of open source is looming just over the horizon. And it just might be true. Open source is a radical, untested business model, and as much as we slashdotters want it to succeed, it may just be a deeply flawed system that will never work long term and large scale. That's not the only way to read this, though, and I certainly hope a more positive view is the reality.
Every new industry goes through an initial period of boom, where everyone sees golden opportunities and jumps onboard. Eventually the market gets saturated with a lot of poorly conceived wannabes that jumped on, and it collapses under its own weight. When that happens, though, the market doesn't go away. Instead, the most solid competitors survive the collapse and come back stronger than ever.
So far, it seems that we are looking at the initial collapse right now and we can expect a few casualties. The survivors, though, will come back stronger than ever and take open source to the next level. Furthermore, open source has the unique advantage that the casualties don't disappear completely, but rather the failed companies' products live on due to their open nature.
When the big boys (IBM, Sun, SGI, etc.) with the resources to weather the storm start to jump ship, then I'll start to worry. Until then, I look at this as a sign that open source is ready to move to the next level.
That's not proof. Proof would be if you had told us how exactly they had done that. I know a bit about Gates and Jobs, and can't think of a single real example of them stabbing coworkers in the back. Sure, they can both be asses, and they both certainly have their faults. I think there are plenty of examples of Gates cheating competitors, but I don't buy either of them cheating their coworkers. Also, I believe both Gates and Jobs started out as the boss, so neither of them "moved up" through backstabbing or otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a big difference (in my mind) between an anonymous sale (as happens in the Staples store) and a sought out contract with a specific individual (especially if you are contracting to produce a specific product for that contract which does not currently exist). There is also a big difference between selling an item that _might_ be used for ill gain, and designing an item specifically for a known imoral purpose.
This is a common misconception that I hear on Slashdot all the time, and it simply isn't true. Yes, corporate execs do have a fiduciary responsibility to the company, but that does not in any way preclude ethical or moral behavior. I would be quite surprised if you could find a case where a corporate exec was successfully sued for not exploiting people in order to increase profits. Corporations are run by people, and those people are either moral or immoral, ethical or unethical. Laws exist to protect against the immoral and unethical, but there is nothing about the structure of a company that will make a moral, ethical person do immoral and unethical things.
You are absolutely correct that all of the downright evil acts by corporations that you sited do really occur. They occur, though, because the people in charge of those corporations have low ethical standards. Not every airplane manufacturer, though, manufactures and sells weapons to the third world. Not every insurance company seeks to eliminate personal privacy. Not every clothing manufacturer employs kids in deplorable conditions. Not every oil corporation supports corrupt regimes.
I'm not sure exactly what you are calling for when you say that corporations should be regulated, so I won't directly accuse you of any particular beliefs. However, I will say (based on what is commonly meant when regulation is refered to) that I don't think regulation per se is the answer. The answer is instead (as I see it) to criminalize unethical behavior and punish those responsible.
Does anyone know if it would be possible to produce and sell a regionless dvd player while still licensing the necessary technologies, or do the require you to agree to implement region checking in order to give you the licenses?
I have admittedly heard very little about this particular film, and will refrain from judgement until I've seen it. I know that Sean Penn is capable of a better performance, and hope that he hasn't sold out (either out of laziness or the desire for a quick profit or easy Oscar). I think these reviews, though, help to make my point that truly playing a mentally handicapped or disturbed character is very difficult to do convincingly. Simply acting stupid gives a performance like what is described by the above reviews (whether or not they are acurately describing Sean Penn's performance in "I am Sam").
IAAA (I am an actor), and I can tell you from experience that playing a character with a mental illness is a very challenging role to pull off convincingly. It is not just about "acting retarded" as another reply to this post stated, but rather it is about trying to understand a mental state that you have never experienced directly and then being able to convincingly portray it to an audience in such a way that they can really believe the character is real. I haven't yet had the chance to see "I am Sam" or "A Beautiful Mind" yet, but I don't doubt for a minute that Sean Penn and Russell Crowe deserve their nominations.
The patent is specifically for a low cost device attached to a PC. I seriously doubt the force feedback devices in military aircraft are "low cost"
I think you make a really good point here. Just because an observable is true, doesn't mean that human generated theories for why the observable is true are correct. This is a point that gets forgotten too often in the evolution debate because both sides of the argument seem to have an agenda to prove that their theory is right.
Just because evolution of species over time can be observed and therefore "proven", doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. It is perfectly reasonable to accept that a creator may have lent a hand to the evolution of species over time (or even just set up the physical laws so that it would occur on its own -- if God does exist, we can pretty well assume he's a bit more intelligent than the average human).
On the other hand, many of the criticisms against the creationist view placed here on Slashdot are absolutely correct. Many creationists take the fact that no absolute proof exists for the theories of evolution and use that to try to disprove the observables of evolution, which can only be done by denying the obvious (and thus completely losing any credibility with people who do not believe you on faith and look at the argument critically).
Disclaimer: I personally believe in both God and evolution (the observable portion). In fact, my belief really couldn't stand any other way. A lot of creationists use the argument that God set up the system so that things look different than they actually are, which is tantamount to saying he lied to us. Since this is not consistent with the God that I believe in, I don't believe it to be true. What I do believe is that God created the universe, and gave mankind a scientific mind that allows us to try to figure out the mechanisms he used. Theories about evolution's mechanisms are just that, theories. They may be true. They may not be true. They in no way prove/disprove the existence of a God.
The Occam's Razor test proves nothing, though. It is simply a test to decide which of two or more possibilities is probably true.
I'd also point out that Occam's Razor does not necessarily point to the non-existence of a creator. The universe (appears to be) a closed system, in which certain physical laws hold true. A creator is not necessarily a part of that system, and so concepts like time may not apply -- thus removing the requirement for a creator of the creator.
The universe, though, (appears to) be governed by the concept of time and converge on a single point of beginning. If it does have a beginning, then it must have been created by some outside force. Eventually, you must either come to some force which isn't governed by time (and thus has no beginning, and no need for a creator), or you must come to some force which isn't governed by Newton's laws (and thus has no need to conserve energy). From an Occam's Razor point of view, each of these seems to contain the same number of entities and is therefore equally likely.
Frustrating, I know. It helps to remember, though, that no matter what cool toys they release next, the card you buy will continue to function with exactly the same specs as it had when it was new.
Computer parts, however, are without a doubt the worst possible long-term financial investment anyone can possibly make (except maybe Enron stock). At least they're fun to play with.
I might be inclined to agree with you if he were advocating dropping the current Gnome code base tomorrow in favor of this technology. Instead, he's looking two major versions down the road (which we can figure is probably 3-4 years away).
I know it's selfish of me, but personally I want Tivo to be exactly as successful as it needs to be to survive, and no more. If everyone had a Tivo, it is likely that television with commercials would die out, and I'd have to pay more/watch more commercials integrated into the show itself. As it currently stands, commercials still pay for the TV I watch, and I can still ignore those commercials with my Tivo.
I will admit that I haven't read the GFDL in detail, so I can't speak intelligently to specifics. On the other hand, I stand by what I said about allowing people to modify and redistribute editorial writing. Unless every change is clearly marked, so that the reader can clearly see what is and isn't from my original writing, then I don't want someone else to have the ability to redistribute a derivitive work over which I have no control while putting my name anywhere on it. Neither do I want someone to be able to modify and redistribute my work without giving me proper credit. Between both of those desires, it becomes completely undesirable for me to allow someone to take anything I've written other than dry documentation and redistribute it with modifications. This is not to say that others should not release their works that way if they wish, just that I have no intention of doing so.
Good point.
Because part of the usefulness of an IM client is having the people you want using it. I personally use Jabber whenever I can, but most of my contacts don't, and so I need to use whatever IM system they use in order to communicate with them.
Oh, and before anyone mentions it, I have no intention of telling all of my friends to go f*ck themselves if they won't use whatever open source IM system I happen to prefer.
What AOL needs to do is to develop a secure login for AIM and then start charging a nominal fee for AIM use. I know that most people I know who use non-AOL AIM clients don't do so because they're trying to cheat AOL out of the chance to make a profit off of IM but rather because AOL doesn't make a usable client for their platform. I know that I would be more than happy to pay a couple of bucks a month for the ability to use ICQ, but I refuse to start running Windows just so that I can have the ability to run AOL's client. AOL could even do a two-tiered system like Opera, where they put out a free client that has ads, but allow you to pay for the ability to use an ad free client (including third-party open source clients).
The GPL works with software because you have very few rights as it is to modify and redistribute the software. By granting you some extra rights (namely to freely copy and modify), the GPL can ask for you to give something back in return. If you don't want to give back, then you don't get to modify.
On the other hand, there are well-established fair use rights in published materials which you have regardless of whether the author specifically grants them to you. Since it is already legal for you to cite the work or create a device based on the work, the author has no legal basis from which to require you to do anything you don't want with your own work. Conversely, since you don't have the right to modify and redistribute the author's work, he/she can ask something further from you.
The biggest issue I have with copyleft of written materials is that I don't really think many of the same needs apply. I can see how a GPL'd piece of documentation might possibly be useful, since it could be helpful to have a large number of people working on the documentation. As far as other types of writing goes, though, I personally would not want someone else to have the right to take what I said and distort those words to their own use. Of course, that's just my opinion and other individuals are free to copyleft their written works as they like.
Some of us don't have anything to hide, and so we don't have a pressing need to make sure documents get destroyed in a timely fashion. On the other hand, comprehensive records can be very useful at some point to prove that you don't have anything to hide.
One of the biggest reasons in the business world (other than CYA) to destroy documents is due to space requirements. Ten years worth of paper trail can easily take up a small warehouse. With the advent of computer based storage, though, it is much more practical to keep comprehensive records for much longer lengths of time.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer stamps?
Considering you have to be dead to get your face on a stamp, I'm sure there are people on Slashdot who wouldn't exactly see that as a negative.
I could see how Bush might have an effect on whether or not the Justice department case against MS goes ahead (or goes ahead effectively), since he (sort of) controls the prosecutor. On the other hand, I fail to see how he can have any effect whatsoever on a civil case between two independent corporations.
I disagree. "papers" weren't the only problem the Soviet Union had, but I would definitely consider it to be one. A free society should not require a citizen to have identification with them at all times (or even when they travel), nor should a person be required to present his ID to a police officer upon demand. There are times when ID is appropriate, but a national ID is not necessary for any of these. I'm not saying that linking all of the states drivers licenses necessarily crosses the line in and of itself, just that I'm very worried that it is a first step towards things I don't want.
The Soviet Union actually did have pretty solid rule of law, it just didn't have necessary economic freedoms or governmental checks, which lead to widespread corruption (Russia, on the other hand, is currently lacking in rule of law). You're right about the civil rights, though.
You are right that the national ID would close some doors for terrorists, but since they would be just as aware of those new rules as you or I, they would just change their modus operandi in order to work around them. I could be wrong, but weren't all of the 9/11 terrorists in the U.S. legally, and didn't all of them fly under their own names?
they were called papers, and you had to have them on you whenever you travelled. If we called them that, I don't think they'd ever pass, but call them "linked drivers licenses" and you find that they're acceptable. How long before they stop being a drivers license, and become a general ID card that everyone is required to carry? I'm hardly a conspiracy theorist, but these scare me.
Incidentally, not one single terrorist will be stopped by this system. They'll just happily show their (quite legal) IDs and step onto the plane.
I really don't see WineX as a problem, since most developers aren't going to write to Linux anyway (look at gaming on the Mac for a comparison -- I doubt Linux will be able to get much if any above that level without massive market share increase). In fact, I would actually be inclined to think this could greatly help Linux in the long run. Game developers are in it for the money, and very few will take a risk with Linux in the hopes of converting users to Linux so they can play a game that isn't available on Windows. As long as WineX runs the Windows games as well/fast as Windows does, then the user doesn't lose anything by playing a Windows game with WineX over playing a native Linux game. On the other hand, if users have the option of playing all their favorite Windows gaming titles on Linux, more people will be inclined to move to Linux. The game companies aren't making Windows games because they love Microsoft, they're making Windows games because they sell more that way. Once Linux reaches a market share that rivals that of Windows, more and more game companies will start to see a benefit in creating Linux only games, which will further benefit Linux.
I know I shouldn't respond to trolls, but what the heck -- I feel like getting modded down as offtopic today. As a regular reader of the Wall Street Journal, I'd like to point out that they have generally been open to free software, if not downright friendly. A few months ago they even had an article on the front page of their market section about Ogg Vorbis. A lot of people on slashdot look at the slashdot flame wars about capitalist versus communist and assume everyone else thinks the same way. Therefore, they assume that as staunch supporters of capitalism newspapers and magazines like WSJ, Forbes, and The Economist will automatically take a knee jerk position that open source is evil, because it might harm the established capitalist big businesses out there. The truth, though, is that those papers & magazines care about the free market, not Big Corporation X. If you advocate elimination of copyright, or legislation that requires all software to be open source regardless of economic implications, then they will probably be against you (on the other hand, all three are generally impartial news sources who will report on both sides in a fair manner). On the other hand, if open source produces a better/cheaper product that ends up bankrupting Microsoft, Oracle and the other software giants, then they will applaud it for being innovative and raising the bar. Whether or not it looks like Marxist communism is irrelevant (it doesn't, but that's an argument for a different post in a different article).
The way I see it, there are two ways that this can be looked at. The knee-jerk paranoid reaction is that the rats are jumping ship, and the end of open source is looming just over the horizon. And it just might be true. Open source is a radical, untested business model, and as much as we slashdotters want it to succeed, it may just be a deeply flawed system that will never work long term and large scale. That's not the only way to read this, though, and I certainly hope a more positive view is the reality.
Every new industry goes through an initial period of boom, where everyone sees golden opportunities and jumps onboard. Eventually the market gets saturated with a lot of poorly conceived wannabes that jumped on, and it collapses under its own weight. When that happens, though, the market doesn't go away. Instead, the most solid competitors survive the collapse and come back stronger than ever.
So far, it seems that we are looking at the initial collapse right now and we can expect a few casualties. The survivors, though, will come back stronger than ever and take open source to the next level. Furthermore, open source has the unique advantage that the casualties don't disappear completely, but rather the failed companies' products live on due to their open nature.
When the big boys (IBM, Sun, SGI, etc.) with the resources to weather the storm start to jump ship, then I'll start to worry. Until then, I look at this as a sign that open source is ready to move to the next level.
That's not proof. Proof would be if you had told us how exactly they had done that. I know a bit about Gates and Jobs, and can't think of a single real example of them stabbing coworkers in the back. Sure, they can both be asses, and they both certainly have their faults. I think there are plenty of examples of Gates cheating competitors, but I don't buy either of them cheating their coworkers. Also, I believe both Gates and Jobs started out as the boss, so neither of them "moved up" through backstabbing or otherwise.