I have read one nice argument on forums some time ago and I use it since: for the reliability (and security) of the OSS software in general - what other solution (than OSS) allows you to check YOURSELF that it does not contain some backdoors selling your precious data to your competitors?
And for the FOSS esspecially: what other company could pay literrary tens of thousands mutually independent (as worldwide homed) software auditors (as there are involved in any bigger FOSS project, as every sniffer wants to show himself by finding some flaw)?
I use to quote sir Winston Churchil in this context, who said (not sure if word by word, but for sure about this) "I never believe any statistics except of that I did falsified myself". Next I ask the question of the second paragraph and this really makes people at least to reconsider.
Absolutely agree. My very first reaction was: if such a PR market is getting unclaimed, I have to speak with leaders of my favoured politic party - they gain PR potential and I can get some money for IT contract;-)
However, forming single-issue political parties is generally a "bad thing".
... are actually represented in the government and able to influence things way beyond their mandate since their limited platform allows them to trade support on all kinds of issues in exchange for their favorite issue.
Regarding the single-issue political parties look at life-cycle of the "green movement" wave since 80th of last century. I can not speak for outside EU, but in the European area they started as single-issue political parties and, even recognizing several unlucky excesses, they grow into mature "full hearted" political parties. After bringing the issue into top politics and getting the worse problems and threats solved parliamentarian way, the social push on the issue faded and the same faded the share of green parties in the parliaments. I thing this is fair and beneficiary to all.
Actually I see big parallel of the pirate movement with the green movement. Just think about these similarities:
* Parties established by "non-professional" politics, as the "last resort" to save the really big troubles ahead, which importance part of society oversees and the other does not believe is avoidable due to politicians. And politicians, pushed by big money interests, taking decisions which moves all closer and closer to some hardly reversible cataclysm (yes, the big nature disasters (greens tried to avoid) and big public riots (pirates tries to avoid) are similarly deadly in my opinion).
* Laughed at the beginning due its told naivety and inadequate program.
* Surprisingly flooding parliaments in the above-single-state areas once society realizes the issue seriousness and gets believe in the possibility of change.
However there is one major (positive) difference, which should be noted:
About a half of European pirate parties has "opened government" (meaning absolute and uncensored access not only to outputs, but to any internal background information for any government decision for all citizens) and "direct democracy" (meaning replacement of the old parliamentary government system, necessary when all decision makers had to confer at the same point in space and when fastest transport were horse riding, by some system allowing more direct and unbiased participation of everybody's opinion on the decisions taken, based on modern technical means) in their programs.
I hope this point will spread into the whole pirate movement and in such case I forecast even longer life-cycle and bigger importance to pirate movement than the green one had.
Pushing as hard as you can on a single issue and ignoring the rest of the world is ok when you are a non-governmental pressure group but not when your goal is to be in the government.
Absolutely agreed. Just i would like to present "closer scale" look into the pirate party, Czech Pirate Party this case (preparing for its first parliament votes this June).
I myself was part of the "silent majority", voting different parties, not loyalty based but program and party history based. I was never (and still I am not) member of any politician party. However I proudly became "registered supporter" of the CPP once I noticed, they have this status along to the full regular party membership.
This status requires same member fees as the full membership and grants you full access to all internal forums and meetings, however your votes are counted separately and are treated just as recommendations. However this sense of detail shows, what I think is typical for pirates movement: technocratic, sophisticated and theory of systems based ruling mechanisms. Why I like this status is, that it allows you to judge the party before eventually becoming full member and as such to have your name forever associated with it some way.
However I can say from my experience (and I did get access to internal forums of several, various oriented, politic parties before) the
Are you trying to say that something about the Windows Operating system is causing this ATM to fail?
Why not? This is just application of the more general rule: Windows Operating system is causing IT gadgets to fail.:D
Now thinking twice, there should be obligatory warning note on the Windows distribution boxes, similar to the tobacco ones: Windows Operating system can damage and/or spy your software and hardware, expose you to criminal prosecutions and open your system to hackers and viruses. That would maybe do (and maybe not, many users are unteachable).
Excuse my maybe wrong idea, as EU citizen I may not get all US laws right, but: Is it not illegal to refuse somebody's right to consume (even if by private company) publicly (on the opened market) offered commercial service merely due to skin color, sexual orientation or religion in the U.S.A.? In EU it definitely would lead to the big court process against the company... (And any eventual EULA containing such statement would be called void in that statement.)
As a Russian citizen disillusioned in my country and its people, and currently seeking for a more sane place to live without unfounded delusions of grandeur, I can testify to the above points.
Nice to hear such people did not die in Russia still. (I knew there are such since Moscow protestants in 1968.) Crossing fingers for you to get to some sane country (hint: travel west direction;-) ).
This isn't to say that Russia is the only country to which such a description applies... *glances in the general direction of the smoking ruins in Iraq and coughs*
And some more... *looking towards Tiananmen Square direction, which is the same as direction to Tibet from my house*
I am from the Czech republic, the country (and me myself) less than 20 years ago under the communistic Russia occupation. Reading other comments to this I have to protest:
1) The respective comment writers did evidently never experience living in the totalitarian communistic society.
2) Russia and communists were allways and are still exploiting the worse and lowest human feelings and motives.
3) They are skilled in using the propaganda based on that any points of view, that people living in the democracy can believe (or even imagine), are terribly improper when applied to the totalitary ruled society and its rulers acts. I ensure you from my own experience, that applying democratic rights to the totalitarian rulers is just supporting of the evil, believe it or not.
4) Many crisis in the past (Cuban one being just the one most sound to the West) shows, that any single concession to the Russian threats just leads to making them more and more aggressive and expansive, while they never fullfilled their threats face to face someone, who simply said "I will no way retreat, so do what you intend to." (Again, Cuban crisis is just one of such events. It is not occasional, that destruction of USSR and Warsaw pact (what was really the big world's peace threat) began after Ronald Reagan's ruling, many years told to be the one who's non-compromising will launch the WW III.)
So conclusions:
1) Please do not let to get foxed by democratic retoric of rulers, who have no connection to democracy at all (as in Berliner crisis, Vietnam and Corean war you did (I am not accusing, just commenting), what lead to literary milions of deaths in our countires).
2) Do never step back before Russian threats, as in fact only showing the weakness is what can lead them to some aggressive and destructive actions, not showing the morale and strength. Take this as the long history (longer then just the last century) approved fact.
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I have read one nice argument on forums some time ago and I use it since: for the reliability (and security) of the OSS software in general - what other solution (than OSS) allows you to check YOURSELF that it does not contain some backdoors selling your precious data to your competitors?
And for the FOSS esspecially: what other company could pay literrary tens of thousands mutually independent (as worldwide homed) software auditors (as there are involved in any bigger FOSS project, as every sniffer wants to show himself by finding some flaw)?
I use to quote sir Winston Churchil in this context, who said (not sure if word by word, but for sure about this) "I never believe any statistics except of that I did falsified myself". Next I ask the question of the second paragraph and this really makes people at least to reconsider.
The short answer is "too late". The long answer I do not know, obviously ;-P
Absolutely agree. My very first reaction was: if such a PR market is getting unclaimed, I have to speak with leaders of my favoured politic party - they gain PR potential and I can get some money for IT contract ;-)
However, forming single-issue political parties is generally a "bad thing".
... are actually represented in the government and able to influence things way beyond their mandate since their limited platform allows them to trade support on all kinds of issues in exchange for their favorite issue.
Regarding the single-issue political parties look at life-cycle of the "green movement" wave since 80th of last century. I can not speak for outside EU, but in the European area they started as single-issue political parties and, even recognizing several unlucky excesses, they grow into mature "full hearted" political parties. After bringing the issue into top politics and getting the worse problems and threats solved parliamentarian way, the social push on the issue faded and the same faded the share of green parties in the parliaments. I thing this is fair and beneficiary to all.
Actually I see big parallel of the pirate movement with the green movement. Just think about these similarities:
* Parties established by "non-professional" politics, as the "last resort" to save the really big troubles ahead, which importance part of society oversees and the other does not believe is avoidable due to politicians. And politicians, pushed by big money interests, taking decisions which moves all closer and closer to some hardly reversible cataclysm (yes, the big nature disasters (greens tried to avoid) and big public riots (pirates tries to avoid) are similarly deadly in my opinion).
* Laughed at the beginning due its told naivety and inadequate program.
* Surprisingly flooding parliaments in the above-single-state areas once society realizes the issue seriousness and gets believe in the possibility of change.
However there is one major (positive) difference, which should be noted:
About a half of European pirate parties has "opened government" (meaning absolute and uncensored access not only to outputs, but to any internal background information for any government decision for all citizens) and "direct democracy" (meaning replacement of the old parliamentary government system, necessary when all decision makers had to confer at the same point in space and when fastest transport were horse riding, by some system allowing more direct and unbiased participation of everybody's opinion on the decisions taken, based on modern technical means) in their programs. I hope this point will spread into the whole pirate movement and in such case I forecast even longer life-cycle and bigger importance to pirate movement than the green one had.
Pushing as hard as you can on a single issue and ignoring the rest of the world is ok when you are a non-governmental pressure group but not when your goal is to be in the government.
Absolutely agreed. Just i would like to present "closer scale" look into the pirate party, Czech Pirate Party this case (preparing for its first parliament votes this June).
I myself was part of the "silent majority", voting different parties, not loyalty based but program and party history based. I was never (and still I am not) member of any politician party. However I proudly became "registered supporter" of the CPP once I noticed, they have this status along to the full regular party membership. This status requires same member fees as the full membership and grants you full access to all internal forums and meetings, however your votes are counted separately and are treated just as recommendations. However this sense of detail shows, what I think is typical for pirates movement: technocratic, sophisticated and theory of systems based ruling mechanisms. Why I like this status is, that it allows you to judge the party before eventually becoming full member and as such to have your name forever associated with it some way.
However I can say from my experience (and I did get access to internal forums of several, various oriented, politic parties before) the
Are you trying to say that something about the Windows Operating system is causing this ATM to fail?
Why not? This is just application of the more general rule: Windows Operating system is causing IT gadgets to fail. :D
Now thinking twice, there should be obligatory warning note on the Windows distribution boxes, similar to the tobacco ones: Windows Operating system can damage and/or spy your software and hardware, expose you to criminal prosecutions and open your system to hackers and viruses. That would maybe do (and maybe not, many users are unteachable).
Excuse my maybe wrong idea, as EU citizen I may not get all US laws right, but: Is it not illegal to refuse somebody's right to consume (even if by private company) publicly (on the opened market) offered commercial service merely due to skin color, sexual orientation or religion in the U.S.A.? In EU it definitely would lead to the big court process against the company... (And any eventual EULA containing such statement would be called void in that statement.)
As a Russian citizen disillusioned in my country and its people, and currently seeking for a more sane place to live without unfounded delusions of grandeur, I can testify to the above points.
Nice to hear such people did not die in Russia still. (I knew there are such since Moscow protestants in 1968.) Crossing fingers for you to get to some sane country (hint: travel west direction ;-) ).
This isn't to say that Russia is the only country to which such a description applies... *glances in the general direction of the smoking ruins in Iraq and coughs*
And some more... *looking towards Tiananmen Square direction, which is the same as direction to Tibet from my house*
I am from the Czech republic, the country (and me myself) less than 20 years ago under the communistic Russia occupation. Reading other comments to this I have to protest:
1) The respective comment writers did evidently never experience living in the totalitarian communistic society.
2) Russia and communists were allways and are still exploiting the worse and lowest human feelings and motives.
3) They are skilled in using the propaganda based on that any points of view, that people living in the democracy can believe (or even imagine), are terribly improper when applied to the totalitary ruled society and its rulers acts. I ensure you from my own experience, that applying democratic rights to the totalitarian rulers is just supporting of the evil, believe it or not.
4) Many crisis in the past (Cuban one being just the one most sound to the West) shows, that any single concession to the Russian threats just leads to making them more and more aggressive and expansive, while they never fullfilled their threats face to face someone, who simply said "I will no way retreat, so do what you intend to." (Again, Cuban crisis is just one of such events. It is not occasional, that destruction of USSR and Warsaw pact (what was really the big world's peace threat) began after Ronald Reagan's ruling, many years told to be the one who's non-compromising will launch the WW III.)
So conclusions:
1) Please do not let to get foxed by democratic retoric of rulers, who have no connection to democracy at all (as in Berliner crisis, Vietnam and Corean war you did (I am not accusing, just commenting), what lead to literary milions of deaths in our countires).
2) Do never step back before Russian threats, as in fact only showing the weakness is what can lead them to some aggressive and destructive actions, not showing the morale and strength. Take this as the long history (longer then just the last century) approved fact.