Hooray! I live in Tom Davis' district, and he is finally doing something that I can really stand up and cheer for. I'm going to write him, thank him, and encourage him not to back down.
Anybody else get the feeling that a few decades from now they will make a film about the life of RMS, documenting his idealistic youth and subsequent descent into madness, loneliness, isolation, and poverty? It may bo something like Basquiat, but without the heroin addiction. He'll just have an early coronary instead. He will be burried in that famous cemetary in France, the one where Jim Morrison is burried. The French will of course claim that it was the evils of America that drove him mad.
The film will play in art-house cinemas in major cities for a few days. RMS will be forgotten in America after that, but in France they will erect statues and even name a street in Paris after him.
This is what the RMS bunch never gets. If you let the other side set the language of the debate, they start out with a huge advantage
No, the RMS bunch gets this quite well. RMS himself got it right from the very beginning by claiming to be an advocate of "free" software when in reality he is an advocate of public software (as in public education or public broadcasting). In fact, he was so successful that even I am forced to use "free", albeit capitalized as a proper name, so that people won't just glaze over and not know what I'm writing about.
That's short term thinking. What are you trying to do? Make next quarter's numbers look good so your stock will go up? Now we all know where that leads. Think longer term, at least past next Tuesday. This is like accepting points on your mortgage in exchange for a significant rate reduction.
No problem asynchronous logic will be. To program some say difficult but they weak minded people are. Excuse me, I have to post a response to the story on Slashdot about logic asynchronous now.
Don't forget to follow the money. This is a "nonprofit" that takes foundation money. Of course foundations never come out and say "we're all a bunch of Leftist Europhiles living off the wealth of our 19th century ancestors who were capitalists so we're full of guilt and think socialism is just grand even though we like fancy things that people living in real socialist countries could never have". Instead they say they promote "social justice" and crap like that.
So, they may not be crackpots, but they are lapdogs of the Left who know where the money comes from, how to please the money, and how to say the right things so the money won't stop coming. Go ahead and mod me down or mod me "Funny" if you like, but a lot of you out there have experienced it first hand, and know I'm right.
First they help you,
then they ignore you,
then you invade your neighbor,
then they skunk you,
then they ignore you,
then they threaten to skunk you even harder
-Saddam Hussein
First they ignore you,
then they change channels.
-Carrot Top
First they listen to you,
then they get screwed,
then you get fired,
-Neville Chamberlin
Now for the serious side: Passive resistance only works when the enemy holds itself out to be civilized and cares what other people think. It worked against the Brittish in India for these reasons. Ghandi knew that; I don't know if he ever explicitly elucidated that, but he was able to make enough people understand so that they followed him to success.
Neville Chamberlin worked opposite a force that was neither civilized nor concerned with world opinion. Passive resistance against the nazis was doomed to fail. They saw people as raw meat to be consumed.
MSFT does not hold itself out to be "civilized" in any way analogous to the way a nation holds itself out to be civilized. MSFT is a business, and as such it regards cut-throat competition as a positive ideal. Any appeal to MSFT to be "nice" because "it's the right thing to do" understandably falls on deaf ears.
The "caring about what others think" aspect does come into play in the form of advertising and public relations. Both sides have their wins and losses in that arena.
Therefore, it makes sense to compete ruthlessly with MSFT in the business world, and try to change people's minds as much as possible. This is exactly what's happening, but neither side appears to have moral superiority as in Ghandi vs. the Brittish. Instead, this is more a fight of Liberal vs. Conservative where both sides have a different moral base and therefore arrive at different conclusions.
At some point in the future, we will have the canonical set of computing applications that have been meticulously audited. At that point, they will all be Open Source because economics dictates that in the long run firms tend to make zero economic profit. The source will be open, but the point will be moot. Virtually nobody will find a reason to mod. Programming will be primarily the undertaking of postgraduates, who will produce truly novel applications about as often as difficult proofs like Fermat's are proved. Undergraduates will learn about the basic algorithms and study the canon source much as engineers now learn about circuits such as the superheterodyne radio circuit.
Now, although we are in an economic downturn, I don't think we are quite at this level yet. The current reduced need for programmers may be part of the process I'm describing, but it's in the early phases. However, I dare say Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be coders because if they do, there may not be any fences left to ride by the time they hit the job market.
There's something that going to the movies can provide that DVDs can't. The movies provide the whole "going out" experience, and the crowd. How many times have you gone to a movie and remarked "when that happened, the whole crowd laughed, yelled, groaned, etc."
Staying at home with a DVD and the microwave is lame. Dinner and a movie is cool.
Better yet, we may see more innovation in theatres like the Cinema and Drafthouse. If you've never been to one of those, you don't know what you're missing.
Well, the first paragraph you quoted is plainly false. A search warrant was requested and denied in the Moussaui (sp.?) case. Had it been granted, it could have prevented 911. And of course there is the roving wiretap issue.
The 2nd paragraph is just more rhetoric. There is no citation to the USAPA. We are expected to take the EFF at its word that it provides "sweeping new powers" and "eliminates checks and balances".
I guess these organizations have their loyal core of followers that will take them at their word, but I'm not one of them. If the EFF and ACLU provide more scholarly arguments that include citations to the USAPA and logical arguments as to why they are unconstitutional and/or unjust than I'd like to see them.
I scanned the EFF piece, and nothing lept out that really bothers me. Take roving wiretaps for example. That had to be done because crooks were getting cell phones, using them for a while, then ditching them. Under the old system, they could only tap the phone, not the crook. If I have unwittingly invited the next Mohommad Atta into my kitchen to use the phone, go ahead, tap it.
I've got an open mind, but they are going to have to make a more compelling case against this. I seriously doubt the whole thing is bad. Perhaps there are a few line items that should go, but I haven't seen anything that leaps out as unconstitutional on its face. Campaign Finance Reform disturbs me far more than this, and as far as I know/. hasn't said a word about that.
I'll give ya' one thing though: USA Patriot Act is a stupid name for a law. Pulllleeeze! They should have called it the cute cuddly kitten, Mom and apple pie law. Just try to vote against that, why dontcha?
I still don't know what a dark ride is, but the signal/noise ratio on that website was scary enough. I tried to hold out as long as I could. When I looked down at the edge of my screen and saw "loading http://www.laffinthedark.com/sounds/sal001f.wav 5 of 17" I knew I could stand the terror no longer.
This reminds me of a precedent involving non other than Sen. Edward Kennedy, and another legislator (Sen?) Kassebaum. The Kennedy-Kassebaum bill contained a clause that forbade lawyers from explaining how people could protect their assets from Medicaid. The bill passed. It never made it to the Supreme Court. Instead, the Justice department under Janet Reno (she did some things right) decided that it was a violation of the 1st ammendment on its face. They publicly stated that their policy would be not to enforce it. The law still remains on the books as an ugly blotch. Estate planning lawyers advise their clients that it's still on the books, then they go ahead and tell them about the DOJ decision, then they violate the law.
Yes. It's sad. Fixing the law is the right thing to do. Aspects of the DMCA are on par with the K-K restriction. Of course IANAL, but if I were faced with this situation I'd just go ahead and violate the law which is what people are doing. Then either the DOJ will make a similar policy decision, or someone will go to SCOTUS. If SCOTUS can't see this for what it is, then buy a gun because we'll need another revolution to fix it.
Mathematica, MatLab and the like should all be independently verifable simply by the inputs and results and also by the inclusion of results of those programs in peer-reviewed scientific journals
Likewise, the universe is subected to the same black-box testing by experimental physicists and various other scientists.
Yes, that's right. God wrote Universe 1.0 and released it as proprietary software. No source. Just a manual with lots of difficult rules like "thou shalt not commit adultry". Sure it works for the simple stuff, but a lotta good it does when you're trying to find a substance that will laze at 560 Angstroms, and if you wanna selectively negate the gravitational field you can just forget about it. He didn't even give His customers a chance to sign the EULA. He just squeezes 'em out through a fleshy tube and says "this is how it is".
So, a bunch of enterprising Angels got together in the basement and tried to come up with an alternative to compete with this monopoly, and what happened? He turned up the heat.
This little parable, at the very least, explains why RMS is an atheist. To choose any other path, we would have to cast himself in the role of Satan. It also explains why Free Software advocates inevitably become hyprocrites.
(overheard in deepest, darkest bowels of the White House and/or the Skull and Bones fraternity house) OK, Fine. We were looking for an excuse to let the ChiComs have it anyway. Now we can maintain our short position in semiconductor fabs and get that foosball table we've been wanting. Just make sure to withdraw military support after the election.
I'm not really that cynical. I actually agree with GWB more than half the time. It's just that making GWB jokes in irresistable. I don't really believe there are any such evil conspiracies in the
I tried not being angry and my blood pressure rose 50 points. So now I cuss people out all the time and occasionally smack them around. I feel a lot better.
Seriously, if you are a natural "type-A aggressive" personality, how is doing the Hank Hill clench going to help you? I think it's dangerous to give people advice like "don't be angry". They need to do some studies on these type-A aggressive people that show yoga/exercise/boxing etc... will help them. Then, instead of saying "don't be angry" you can give them positive advice like "punch the bag for a while".
I forget who said it, but "you can't motivate somebody with a negative". IIRC, it was some famous baseball player who said that.
Ever since I read in the World Book Encyclopedia when I was a kid that the ocean contains something like 9 pounds of gold for every man, woman and child I've wondered when somebody would find a way to get it. I know people have been working on it, and I had heard about evidence of a naturally occuring gold-fixing bacterium before. Apparently, some ores contain gold structures that look like organs or excrement from bacteria.
Just Google using gold/ocean/bacteria as search terms and you'll find some interesting stuff.
This is why I laugh when some idiot on CNBC says "gold is a good investment". Not only has it been a crappy investment historicly, but mining tech is always improving. One good breakthrough to get the gold out of seawater and poof! It's just that gold has been doing well lately, so now you've actually got people pitching gold the way they pitched dot-coms.
However, I can understand why the gold stocks make sense. When the price of gold goes up just a little, pits that were worthless suddenly become valuable. Paradoxicly, companies with low grade ore pits actually get a bigger boost (of course it works painfully in the other direction when the price of gold falls).
So, if you don't believe that companies that rely on a valuable commodity won't find a way to make it cheaper coughChipFabscough! then by all means buy gold and sock it away in your basement.
Perhaps the "code is law" comparison came from the phrase "legal code" or similar? Perhaps it's a metaphor rather than a direct equivalency? Perhaps the article was extending that metaphor in a light-hearted way while making an entirely unrelated point, rather than trying to argue the finer points of what Grand Meaning the metaphor contains?
I understand this point of view, and this is probably how most people see it. "legal code" is indeed very much like "software code". Unfortunately, there is a lot of manipulative rhetoric associated with the Public vs. Private debate in software. For example, people making a big fuss over how "software piracy" is not the same as killing a crew and taking a ship. Some even go so far as to call piracy "sharing". So... when I see a phrase like "code is law" being repeated like a mantra around the internet, I tend to look for ulterior motives. In other words, there are a lot of semantic games being played by advocates. If you haven't been following the game, it may not make any sense.
And no, Free Software is nothing like Public Schools
The Free Software movement is very much like the movement for Public Education--in its early years. Remember, the FSF was started in what... 1984? It's arguable that prior to the establishment of the FSF the Free Software movement didn't exist. Yes of course there was open source software before that, just as there were probably free schools before the Public Education movement. Compared to Public Education, Free Software is just a baby.
Compare this history of the Public School system written by Blacks with an axe to grind and this less colorful history of the Public Education movement.
Now, compare both histories to the nascent Free Software movement. We already have some interesting parallels. First, we have idealists and visionairies that organize and characterize the early movements. Next, we have inputs from businesses. For the Public Schools, it's factory owners. For Free Software it's RedHat and IBM. The next step in Free Education was getting the taxpayer to pay for it, and establishing an accepted source of revenue (property taxes)--that made it Public Education. The Free Software movement is just beginning that phase. Government funding for Free Software is mostly stealth and/or ad hoc.
What I am projecting (and would like to see us avoid) is a situation where the Public is compelled to use software that is taxpayer funded and/or regulated.
None of the Free-Software "zealots" I've met are advocating an exclusively state-run system of software development
Of course not. They know nobody would accept that now. Instead, they are advocating things like a "preference" for GPL software on government-owned computers. That's just a stepping stone towards what they really want, which is a state-controlled software industry.
In fact the "proprietary" side is much closer to being state-supported
This argument only makes sense if you don't believe in IP rights. At this point, many people jump up and argue that IP was never recognized as a right when the constitution was framed. Well, liberty for Negroes and suffrage for women weren't recognized rights either. Morals have changed. So, the proprietary companies are no more state supported than any other citizen that enjoys police protection for their property.
Would you argue that Esso is in the public sector because the details of how their major product works are disclosed to the public, and people are free to re-create it on their own? As opposed to a private sector company like KFC, whose recipe is secret...
I would argue that the degree to which either business depends on IP is irrelevant in determining to what extent they are in the public sector. Relevant issues are whether or not they receive special tax breaks and subsidies, and to what extent they are regulated.
I enjoyed the article, but I dislike the fact that this tends to enforce the idea that code==law.
Code isn't law. Protocols are like law. Code that follows (or breaks) the protocols is not law, but more like agents under the law. Saying that code==law is like saying that drivers are the motor vehicle code.
Now, certainly it should be illegal to misrepresent code as being compliant to a protocol when it isn't (e.g., MSFT Kerberos). However, the code itself shouldn't be illegal--only the misrepresentation.
The distinction is important, because certain Free Software zealots are trying to use the code==law argument to convince people that software should be Public (they like to say Free when what they really mean is Public, like the Public School System), and perhaps even that private software should be outlawed.
Slashdot Mirror
Hooray! I live in Tom Davis' district, and he is finally doing something that I can really stand up and cheer for. I'm going to write him, thank him, and encourage him not to back down.
Anybody else get the feeling that a few decades from now they will make a film about the life of RMS, documenting his idealistic youth and subsequent descent into madness, loneliness, isolation, and poverty? It may bo something like Basquiat, but without the heroin addiction. He'll just have an early coronary instead. He will be burried in that famous cemetary in France, the one where Jim Morrison is burried. The French will of course claim that it was the evils of America that drove him mad.
The film will play in art-house cinemas in major cities for a few days. RMS will be forgotten in America after that, but in France they will erect statues and even name a street in Paris after him.
This is what the RMS bunch never gets. If you let the other side set the language of the debate, they start out with a huge advantage
No, the RMS bunch gets this quite well. RMS himself got it right from the very beginning by claiming to be an advocate of "free" software when in reality he is an advocate of public software (as in public education or public broadcasting). In fact, he was so successful that even I am forced to use "free", albeit capitalized as a proper name, so that people won't just glaze over and not know what I'm writing about.
Our species has a track record of fucking up the environment for the sake of profit
OK, Karma to burn...
1. Shove asteroid into Earth orbit.
2. ???
3. Profit!
That's short term thinking. What are you trying to do? Make next quarter's numbers look good so your stock will go up? Now we all know where that leads. Think longer term, at least past next Tuesday. This is like accepting points on your mortgage in exchange for a significant rate reduction.
Isn't Vermont already a little bit like that?
No problem asynchronous logic will be. To program some say difficult but they weak minded people are. Excuse me, I have to post a response to the story on Slashdot about logic asynchronous now.
Don't forget to follow the money. This is a "nonprofit" that takes foundation money. Of course foundations never come out and say "we're all a bunch of Leftist Europhiles living off the wealth of our 19th century ancestors who were capitalists so we're full of guilt and think socialism is just grand even though we like fancy things that people living in real socialist countries could never have". Instead they say they promote "social justice" and crap like that.
So, they may not be crackpots, but they are lapdogs of the Left who know where the money comes from, how to please the money, and how to say the right things so the money won't stop coming. Go ahead and mod me down or mod me "Funny" if you like, but a lot of you out there have experienced it first hand, and know I'm right.
First they help you,
then they ignore you,
then you invade your neighbor,
then they skunk you,
then they ignore you,
then they threaten to skunk you even harder
-Saddam Hussein
First they ignore you,
then they change channels.
-Carrot Top
First they listen to you,
then they get screwed,
then you get fired,
-Neville Chamberlin
Now for the serious side: Passive resistance only works when the enemy holds itself out to be civilized and cares what other people think. It worked against the Brittish in India for these reasons. Ghandi knew that; I don't know if he ever explicitly elucidated that, but he was able to make enough people understand so that they followed him to success.
Neville Chamberlin worked opposite a force that was neither civilized nor concerned with world opinion. Passive resistance against the nazis was doomed to fail. They saw people as raw meat to be consumed.
MSFT does not hold itself out to be "civilized" in any way analogous to the way a nation holds itself out to be civilized. MSFT is a business, and as such it regards cut-throat competition as a positive ideal. Any appeal to MSFT to be "nice" because "it's the right thing to do" understandably falls on deaf ears.
The "caring about what others think" aspect does come into play in the form of advertising and public relations. Both sides have their wins and losses in that arena.
Therefore, it makes sense to compete ruthlessly with MSFT in the business world, and try to change people's minds as much as possible. This is exactly what's happening, but neither side appears to have moral superiority as in Ghandi vs. the Brittish. Instead, this is more a fight of Liberal vs. Conservative where both sides have a different moral base and therefore arrive at different conclusions.
Computers will always need programming
Clocks will always need winding.
Sewing machines will always need treddling.
Locomotives will always need coal-tenders.
At some point in the future, we will have the canonical set of computing applications that have been meticulously audited. At that point, they will all be Open Source because economics dictates that in the long run firms tend to make zero economic profit. The source will be open, but the point will be moot. Virtually nobody will find a reason to mod. Programming will be primarily the undertaking of postgraduates, who will produce truly novel applications about as often as difficult proofs like Fermat's are proved. Undergraduates will learn about the basic algorithms and study the canon source much as engineers now learn about circuits such as the superheterodyne radio circuit.
Now, although we are in an economic downturn, I don't think we are quite at this level yet. The current reduced need for programmers may be part of the process I'm describing, but it's in the early phases. However, I dare say Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be coders because if they do, there may not be any fences left to ride by the time they hit the job market.
It'll be as dead as...
...movie theatres after TV.
...Live music after radio.
...theatre after movies.
...radio after TV.
There's something that going to the movies can provide that DVDs can't. The movies provide the whole "going out" experience, and the crowd. How many times have you gone to a movie and remarked "when that happened, the whole crowd laughed, yelled, groaned, etc."
Staying at home with a DVD and the microwave is lame. Dinner and a movie is cool.
Better yet, we may see more innovation in theatres like the Cinema and Drafthouse. If you've never been to one of those, you don't know what you're missing.
Well, the first paragraph you quoted is plainly false. A search warrant was requested and denied in the Moussaui (sp.?) case. Had it been granted, it could have prevented 911. And of course there is the roving wiretap issue.
The 2nd paragraph is just more rhetoric. There is no citation to the USAPA. We are expected to take the EFF at its word that it provides "sweeping new powers" and "eliminates checks and balances".
I guess these organizations have their loyal core of followers that will take them at their word, but I'm not one of them. If the EFF and ACLU provide more scholarly arguments that include citations to the USAPA and logical arguments as to why they are unconstitutional and/or unjust than I'd like to see them.
I scanned the EFF piece, and nothing lept out that really bothers me. Take roving wiretaps for example. That had to be done because crooks were getting cell phones, using them for a while, then ditching them. Under the old system, they could only tap the phone, not the crook. If I have unwittingly invited the next Mohommad Atta into my kitchen to use the phone, go ahead, tap it.
I've got an open mind, but they are going to have to make a more compelling case against this. I seriously doubt the whole thing is bad. Perhaps there are a few line items that should go, but I haven't seen anything that leaps out as unconstitutional on its face. Campaign Finance Reform disturbs me far more than this, and as far as I know /. hasn't said a word about that.
I'll give ya' one thing though: USA Patriot Act is a stupid name for a law. Pulllleeeze! They should have called it the cute cuddly kitten, Mom and apple pie law. Just try to vote against that, why dontcha?
I still don't know what a dark ride is, but the signal/noise ratio on that website was scary enough. I tried to hold out as long as I could. When I looked down at the edge of my screen and saw "loading http://www.laffinthedark.com/sounds/sal001f.wav 5 of 17" I knew I could stand the terror no longer.
This reminds me of a precedent involving non other than Sen. Edward Kennedy, and another legislator (Sen?) Kassebaum. The Kennedy-Kassebaum bill contained a clause that forbade lawyers from explaining how people could protect their assets from Medicaid. The bill passed. It never made it to the Supreme Court. Instead, the Justice department under Janet Reno (she did some things right) decided that it was a violation of the 1st ammendment on its face. They publicly stated that their policy would be not to enforce it. The law still remains on the books as an ugly blotch. Estate planning lawyers advise their clients that it's still on the books, then they go ahead and tell them about the DOJ decision, then they violate the law.
Yes. It's sad. Fixing the law is the right thing to do. Aspects of the DMCA are on par with the K-K restriction. Of course IANAL, but if I were faced with this situation I'd just go ahead and violate the law which is what people are doing. Then either the DOJ will make a similar policy decision, or someone will go to SCOTUS. If SCOTUS can't see this for what it is, then buy a gun because we'll need another revolution to fix it.
Hey, maybe next they will build a PC that fills an entire room and doubles as a central heating system. Oh... wait...
The Everquest economy will go bust in ~2 years
How do I take a short position?
Mathematica, MatLab and the like should all be independently verifable simply by the inputs and results and also by the inclusion of results of those programs in peer-reviewed scientific journals
Likewise, the universe is subected to the same black-box testing by experimental physicists and various other scientists.
Yes, that's right. God wrote Universe 1.0 and released it as proprietary software. No source. Just a manual with lots of difficult rules like "thou shalt not commit adultry". Sure it works for the simple stuff, but a lotta good it does when you're trying to find a substance that will laze at 560 Angstroms, and if you wanna selectively negate the gravitational field you can just forget about it. He didn't even give His customers a chance to sign the EULA. He just squeezes 'em out through a fleshy tube and says "this is how it is".
So, a bunch of enterprising Angels got together in the basement and tried to come up with an alternative to compete with this monopoly, and what happened? He turned up the heat.
This little parable, at the very least, explains why RMS is an atheist. To choose any other path, we would have to cast himself in the role of Satan. It also explains why Free Software advocates inevitably become hyprocrites.
That has nothing to do with human rights, it's just a political issue. --FooBarWidget on Slashdot.
Can I quote you like this in my .sig?
(overheard in deepest, darkest bowels of the White House and/or the Skull and Bones fraternity house) OK, Fine. We were looking for an excuse to let the ChiComs have it anyway. Now we can maintain our short position in semiconductor fabs and get that foosball table we've been wanting. Just make sure to withdraw military support after the election.
I'm not really that cynical. I actually agree with GWB more than half the time. It's just that making GWB jokes in irresistable. I don't really believe there are any such evil conspiracies in the
NO CARRIER
Assembly: Listen to you young whipper-snappers whine. In my day we walked through 10 miles of printouts without any shoes, and we liked it!
Then raw binary spoke up and said: Feet? You had feet?
(The punch line is stolen from somebody, but I can't remember who)
I tried not being angry and my blood pressure rose 50 points. So now I cuss people out all the time and occasionally smack them around. I feel a lot better.
Seriously, if you are a natural "type-A aggressive" personality, how is doing the Hank Hill clench going to help you? I think it's dangerous to give people advice like "don't be angry". They need to do some studies on these type-A aggressive people that show yoga/exercise/boxing etc... will help them. Then, instead of saying "don't be angry" you can give them positive advice like "punch the bag for a while".
I forget who said it, but "you can't motivate somebody with a negative". IIRC, it was some famous baseball player who said that.
Ever since I read in the World Book Encyclopedia when I was a kid that the ocean contains something like 9 pounds of gold for every man, woman and child I've wondered when somebody would find a way to get it. I know people have been working on it, and I had heard about evidence of a naturally occuring gold-fixing bacterium before. Apparently, some ores contain gold structures that look like organs or excrement from bacteria.
Just Google using gold/ocean/bacteria as search terms and you'll find some interesting stuff.
This is why I laugh when some idiot on CNBC says "gold is a good investment". Not only has it been a crappy investment historicly, but mining tech is always improving. One good breakthrough to get the gold out of seawater and poof! It's just that gold has been doing well lately, so now you've actually got people pitching gold the way they pitched dot-coms.
However, I can understand why the gold stocks make sense. When the price of gold goes up just a little, pits that were worthless suddenly become valuable. Paradoxicly, companies with low grade ore pits actually get a bigger boost (of course it works painfully in the other direction when the price of gold falls).
So, if you don't believe that companies that rely on a valuable commodity won't find a way to make it cheaper coughChipFabscough! then by all means buy gold and sock it away in your basement.
Perhaps the "code is law" comparison came from the phrase "legal code" or similar? Perhaps it's a metaphor rather than a direct equivalency? Perhaps the article was extending that metaphor in a light-hearted way while making an entirely unrelated point, rather than trying to argue the finer points of what Grand Meaning the metaphor contains?
I understand this point of view, and this is probably how most people see it. "legal code" is indeed very much like "software code". Unfortunately, there is a lot of manipulative rhetoric associated with the Public vs. Private debate in software. For example, people making a big fuss over how "software piracy" is not the same as killing a crew and taking a ship. Some even go so far as to call piracy "sharing". So... when I see a phrase like "code is law" being repeated like a mantra around the internet, I tend to look for ulterior motives. In other words, there are a lot of semantic games being played by advocates. If you haven't been following the game, it may not make any sense.
And no, Free Software is nothing like Public Schools
The Free Software movement is very much like the movement for Public Education--in its early years. Remember, the FSF was started in what... 1984? It's arguable that prior to the establishment of the FSF the Free Software movement didn't exist. Yes of course there was open source software before that, just as there were probably free schools before the Public Education movement. Compared to Public Education, Free Software is just a baby.
Compare this history of the Public School system written by Blacks with an axe to grind and this less colorful history of the Public Education movement.
Now, compare both histories to the nascent Free Software movement. We already have some interesting parallels. First, we have idealists and visionairies that organize and characterize the early movements. Next, we have inputs from businesses. For the Public Schools, it's factory owners. For Free Software it's RedHat and IBM. The next step in Free Education was getting the taxpayer to pay for it, and establishing an accepted source of revenue (property taxes)--that made it Public Education. The Free Software movement is just beginning that phase. Government funding for Free Software is mostly stealth and/or ad hoc.
What I am projecting (and would like to see us avoid) is a situation where the Public is compelled to use software that is taxpayer funded and/or regulated.
None of the Free-Software "zealots" I've met are advocating an exclusively state-run system of software development
Of course not. They know nobody would accept that now. Instead, they are advocating things like a "preference" for GPL software on government-owned computers. That's just a stepping stone towards what they really want, which is a state-controlled software industry.
In fact the "proprietary" side is much closer to being state-supported
This argument only makes sense if you don't believe in IP rights. At this point, many people jump up and argue that IP was never recognized as a right when the constitution was framed. Well, liberty for Negroes and suffrage for women weren't recognized rights either. Morals have changed. So, the proprietary companies are no more state supported than any other citizen that enjoys police protection for their property.
Would you argue that Esso is in the public sector because the details of how their major product works are disclosed to the public, and people are free to re-create it on their own? As opposed to a private sector company like KFC, whose recipe is secret...
I would argue that the degree to which either business depends on IP is irrelevant in determining to what extent they are in the public sector. Relevant issues are whether or not they receive special tax breaks and subsidies, and to what extent they are regulated.
I enjoyed the article, but I dislike the fact that this tends to enforce the idea that code==law.
Code isn't law. Protocols are like law. Code that follows (or breaks) the protocols is not law, but more like agents under the law. Saying that code==law is like saying that drivers are the motor vehicle code.
Now, certainly it should be illegal to misrepresent code as being compliant to a protocol when it isn't (e.g., MSFT Kerberos). However, the code itself shouldn't be illegal--only the misrepresentation.
The distinction is important, because certain Free Software zealots are trying to use the code==law argument to convince people that software should be Public (they like to say Free when what they really mean is Public, like the Public School System), and perhaps even that private software should be outlawed.