Which shouldn't imply that other courses of action would have been a significant improvement over what actually happened.
All previous US ecnomic downturns ended _much_ faster. That certainly implies to me that New Deal style socialism is not the right answer to an economic downturn.
You've also ignored the rest of my post where I argued that the Great Depression was originally caused by economic interventionism, in the form of a newly established central bank making credit too cheap, leading to rising speculation.
In fact the boom that's happening right now _is_ much like the early 20's boom - a centrally controlled banking system is making credit too cheap, resulting in rampant speculation and buying on margin (only now it's larger scale, and we call it "hedge funds"). When there is a free market in banking, rising speculation and the resultant demand for credit lead to a corresponding increase in interest rates, causing a decrease in speculation on credit, and an increased level of investment in bonds rather than stocks and other risky investments. In fact, this used to happen bacck when many nations had free banking.
My mention of the Libertarian Party was on-topic because the poster I was replying too said he would not vote Libertarian because he believed that the Great Depression was caused by the free market. I believe I've made a decent case (considering the limited space in a post) that this is not true.
If economic freedom is your thing, there's plenty of unfettered capitalism going on in Russia. Go take a look; you might like it there.
It happens that I am originally from a formerly communist country (take a look at my name) so this was a poor move on your part. Russia's pathology is the result of corrupt government officials selling out wholesale to so-called businessmen and other gangsters: selling off formerly state-owned industries at far below the market value as special favors, and generally passing a bunch of laws that favor the so-called "oligarchs". This is not a free market.
Nontheless, despite the pain that Russia and some other post-communist nations are feeling, ultimately the process they are going through will lead to a far better society if they can get the corruption under control. I visited Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic recently and already they are much better off than they were under Communism.
America: Love It Or Leave It!
I'm not a flag-waving patriot-at-any-cost 'merkin. I believe that many radical reforms are necessary. Just not the same ones as you. Please argue with facts and logic instead of name-calling.
Despite the revisionism in many textbooks, the Great Depression was _not_ caused by the free market. The rampant speculation during most of the 20's was caused by the artificially loose credit enabled by the then-new Federal Reserve System keeping interest rates artificially low. Many speculators bought on margin due to the cheap rates, keeping the spiral going, until the whole thing collapsed. After that, the resulting depression was made far worse by FDR's New Deal policies - employment and output kept falling throughout much of FDR's term of office, bottommed out, and did not significantly rise again until the US entered WWII. This can clearly be seen in any graph of key economic indicators during the Depression.
I encourage you to study the subject further (and to vote Libertarian - the government screws things up just as much by messing with our economic freedoms as it does by messing with our social freedoms).
Voluntary socialism is compatible capitalism, if you want to look at it that way.
However, I wouldn't even grant that the GPL is socialist; it just requires a different model of exchange of value. If you write a program based on my code, then instead of paying me in up-front fees or royalties, you pay me by freeing the source for my use and that of others. Yes, this does create positive externalities for those who contribute little or nothing. But so does the practice of science or medicine or law.
RMS responsible for X being free.
on
Wired on RMS
·
· Score: 1
Wether they are or not is irrelevent. GNU/Linux would not have happened as fast or on as big a scale if the core X code weren't free.
Arguably X in general would not have won the Unix windowing system wars if it were not free.
RMS responsible for X being free.
on
Wired on RMS
·
· Score: 1
The heavy lobbying of RMS to keep X free so it could be used for the GNU system is one of the biggest reasons MIT agreed to make X free.
Disclosure requirement == non-free
on
QPL 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
That's called "discriminating against fields of endeavor".
Also, RMS said he felt that a similar provision on the original NPL made it non-free.
BillGs own employees admit he will commit fraud to protect his monopoly!
On the other hand, the last time Bill did an OS demo, it was Win98 that crashed. So maybe his programmers are not even bright enough to doctor the Linux source code enough to crash on demand.
Muth should have read his own company's memo which said FUD wouldn't work against Linux. Yet here he is spewing a huge wad of FUD and sending his spam-monkeys to slashdot with their usual "Microsoft is so awesome, Linux sux" bullshit that no one here is going to buy anyway. Should we assume based on this that MS is settling their antitrust case?
Everyone with CVS commit access is on gnome-hackers (this being like 250 people at last count). The purposes of gnome-hackers was originally supposed to be just administrative stuff, and it is moving back to that purpose now that development discussion has moved to gnome-devel-list. So there is really no core team per se.
Why is Sun obsessed with creating all these weird almost open source but not quite licenses? Solaris is there mainl to sell Sun hardware, services and add-on products, these businesses would do just as well if Sun made Solaris truly open. I mean, who's going to compete with Sun in the Solaris support business?
It really seems like they are trying to get everyone to fix bugs and add features for them, but still maintain the control and the revenue stream. I'd like to be able to say that people will see through this sort of thing, but Qt got plenty of third-party patches under the old license, and I'm sure MySQL and qmail still do.
I'm actually willing to use proprietary software in some cases, but licensing tricks like this really annoy me.
Sure, they can trademark the term "Tetris", but if they try to claim a copyright on the look and feel of the Tetris game concept, it should be fought in court. If a look and feel copyright were allowed to stand, it would set a dangerous precedent. Imagine if Apple had been able to copyright some of their GUI interface ideas, and thus control them for 95 years. Imagine if visicalc had copyrighted the spreadsheet interface.
One problem is that there is no good way to use Microsoft Foundation Classes with Wine, and most newer apps are written to MFC rather than to the Windows APIs directly.
User profiles are per machine, as far as I know. That's exactly the problem. My Unix settings port with no effort, my Windows settings have to be set up anew on each machine.
That's nice. And how do you let a user keep the same settings between different machines if their config data is all in a central registry?
For every unix box I log in on at work, my environment reflects my preferences. On NT my environment reflects the preferences of whoever uses the box the most, so basically I can't use any NT box but the one on my desk.
I'd wager the typical nerd's reaction to the night sky is not "We're so insignificant by comparison" but "We're going to go there someday and make it ours."
Linux is helping to enable access to the worldwide information infrastructure. Poor people cannot afford the cost of Microsoft software or the high-end hardware needed to run it decently. And on the internet, everyone has a say and no one can be effectively sileneced by being ignored by the mainstream media.
Gicing a voice to the voiceless is the first step to giving power to the powerless.
Furthermore, we live in a world where increasing power comes from access to information and the ability to communicate your message. The open source movement is a very important part of taking that power back from a few large corporations with political influence, and giving it back to the people.
Hacking free software will ultimately do more to change the world for the better than volunteering at a food bank, if that is where your skill lies.
(For the record, I've done various "traditional" types of volunteer work, most notably tutoring inner city schoolchildren - the best forms of chairty, I think, are helping people acquire the skills and means to succeed on their own, rather than direct handouts. For a striking example of the handout ethic gone horribly awry, see the American welfare state).
Open Source Software will Own the OS Market
on
After Linux-Apple?
·
· Score: 1
Within 10 or 20 years free software will own just about every segment of the OS market. Most likely Linux will be the top dog, though special-needs niche systems like eCOS or RTEMS for embedded development or *BSD for BSD bigots will have a place. Proprietary systems like Windows or MacOS will have a legacy existence at best.
It's not even because open source solutions will be technically superior in all ways. Maybe in some ways they won't be. MacOS is a lot more novice-friendly today than GNOME or KDE will be for a while, I'd bet. But that doesn't really matter. As long as the open source solution is technically good enough (or even close to good enough) you can't compete.
Free software makes operating systems into a commodity and proprietary systems cannot compete on a commodity level. It's true some may establish themselves as "premium" brands but it would take a damn lot of technical superiority to make the user's while.
Although most of the information is solid, the author claims that a copyright, like a trademark, can become invalidated if you fail to enforce it. This is not the case.
Slashdot Mirror
Which shouldn't imply that other courses of action would have been a significant improvement over what actually happened.
All previous US ecnomic downturns ended _much_ faster. That certainly implies to me that New Deal style socialism is not the right answer to an economic downturn.
You've also ignored the rest of my post where I argued that the Great Depression was originally caused by economic interventionism, in the form of a newly established central bank making credit too cheap, leading to rising speculation.
In fact the boom that's happening right now _is_ much like the early 20's boom - a centrally controlled banking system is making credit too cheap, resulting in rampant speculation and buying on margin (only now it's larger scale, and we call it "hedge funds"). When there is a free market in banking, rising speculation and the resultant demand for credit lead to a corresponding increase in interest rates, causing a decrease in speculation on credit, and an increased level of investment in bonds rather than stocks and other risky investments. In fact, this used to happen bacck when many nations had free banking.
My mention of the Libertarian Party was on-topic because the poster I was replying too said he would not vote Libertarian because he believed that the Great Depression was caused by the free market. I believe I've made a decent case (considering the limited space in a post) that this is not true.
If economic freedom is your thing, there's plenty of unfettered capitalism going on in Russia. Go take a look; you might like it there.
It happens that I am originally from a formerly communist country (take a look at my name) so this was a poor move on your part. Russia's pathology is the result of corrupt government officials selling out wholesale to so-called businessmen and other gangsters: selling off formerly state-owned industries at far below the market value as special favors, and generally passing a bunch of laws that favor the so-called "oligarchs". This is not a free market.
Nontheless, despite the pain that Russia and some other post-communist nations are feeling, ultimately the process they are going through will lead to a far better society if they can get the corruption under control. I visited Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic recently and already they are much better off than they were under Communism.
America: Love It Or Leave It!
I'm not a flag-waving patriot-at-any-cost 'merkin. I believe that many radical reforms are necessary. Just not the same ones as you. Please argue with facts and logic instead of name-calling.
Despite the revisionism in many textbooks, the Great Depression was _not_ caused by the free market. The rampant speculation during most of the 20's was caused by the artificially loose credit enabled by the then-new Federal Reserve System keeping interest rates artificially low. Many speculators bought on margin due to the cheap rates, keeping the spiral going, until the whole thing collapsed. After that, the resulting depression was made far worse by FDR's New Deal policies - employment and output kept falling throughout much of FDR's term of office, bottommed out, and did not significantly rise again until the US entered WWII. This can clearly be seen in any graph of key economic indicators during the Depression.
I encourage you to study the subject further (and to vote Libertarian - the government screws things up just as much by messing with our economic freedoms as it does by messing with our social freedoms).
Voluntary socialism is compatible capitalism, if you want to look at it that way.
However, I wouldn't even grant that the GPL is socialist; it just requires a different model of exchange of value. If you write a program based on my code, then instead of paying me in up-front fees or royalties, you pay me by freeing the source for my use and that of others. Yes, this does create positive externalities for those who contribute little or nothing. But so does the practice of science or medicine or law.
Wether they are or not is irrelevent. GNU/Linux would not have happened as fast or on as big a scale if the core X code weren't free.
Arguably X in general would not have won the Unix windowing system wars if it were not free.
The heavy lobbying of RMS to keep X free so it could be used for the GNU system is one of the biggest reasons MIT agreed to make X free.
That's called "discriminating against fields of endeavor".
Also, RMS said he felt that a similar provision on the original NPL made it non-free.
BillGs own employees admit he will commit fraud to protect his monopoly!
On the other hand, the last time Bill did an OS demo, it was Win98 that crashed. So maybe his programmers are not even bright enough to doctor the Linux source code enough to crash on demand.
Muth should have read his own company's memo which said FUD wouldn't work against Linux. Yet here he is spewing a huge wad of FUD and sending his spam-monkeys to slashdot with their usual "Microsoft is so awesome, Linux sux" bullshit that no one here is going to buy anyway. Should we assume based on this that MS is settling their antitrust case?
Everyone with CVS commit access is on gnome-hackers (this being like 250 people at last count). The purposes of gnome-hackers was originally supposed to be just administrative stuff, and it is moving back to that purpose now that development discussion has moved to gnome-devel-list. So there is really no core team per se.
What I'd like to know is if it will be done with
a proprietary compiler, or if there will be a GCC
port for IA64.
Given that VA Research sells boxes based on some of those other architectures, I doubt the site will neglect them too much.
Perl Emacs? Wash your mouth out with soap!
Why is Sun obsessed with creating all these
weird almost open source but not quite licenses?
Solaris is there mainl to sell Sun hardware,
services and add-on products, these businesses
would do just as well if Sun made Solaris truly
open. I mean, who's going to compete with Sun
in the Solaris support business?
It really seems like they are trying to get everyone to fix bugs and add features for them,
but still maintain the control and the revenue stream. I'd like to be able to say that people will see through this sort of thing, but Qt got plenty of third-party patches under the old license, and I'm sure MySQL and qmail still do.
I'm actually willing to use proprietary software in some cases, but licensing tricks like this really annoy me.
Sure, they can trademark the term "Tetris", but
if they try to claim a copyright on the look and
feel of the Tetris game concept, it should be
fought in court. If a look and feel copyright were
allowed to stand, it would set a dangerous precedent. Imagine if Apple had been able to copyright some of their GUI interface ideas, and thus control them for 95 years. Imagine if visicalc had copyrighted the spreadsheet interface.
The site seems to be slowly falling over.
One problem is that there is no good way to use
Microsoft Foundation Classes with Wine, and most
newer apps are written to MFC rather than to the
Windows APIs directly.
User profiles are per machine, as far as I know.
That's exactly the problem. My Unix settings port with no effort, my Windows settings have to be set up anew on each machine.
That's nice. And how do you let a user keep the same settings between different machines if their config data is all in a central registry?
For every unix box I log in on at work, my environment reflects my preferences. On NT my environment reflects the preferences of whoever uses the box the most, so basically I can't use any NT box but the one on my desk.
I'd wager the typical nerd's reaction to the night sky is not "We're so insignificant by comparison" but "We're going to go there someday and make it ours."
Interesting difference in perspective, eh?
Linux is helping to enable access to the worldwide information infrastructure. Poor people cannot afford the cost of Microsoft software or the high-end hardware needed to run it decently. And on the internet, everyone has a say and no one can be effectively sileneced by being ignored by the mainstream media.
Gicing a voice to the voiceless is the first step to giving power to the powerless.
Furthermore, we live in a world where increasing power comes from access to information and the ability to communicate your message. The open source movement is a very important part of taking that power back from a few large corporations with political influence, and giving it back to the people.
Hacking free software will ultimately do more to change the world for the better than volunteering at a food bank, if that is where your skill lies.
(For the record, I've done various "traditional" types of volunteer work, most notably tutoring inner city schoolchildren - the best forms of chairty, I think, are helping people acquire the skills and means to succeed on their own, rather than direct handouts. For a striking example of the handout ethic gone horribly awry, see the American welfare state).
Within 10 or 20 years free software will own just about every segment of the OS market. Most likely Linux will be the top dog, though special-needs niche systems like eCOS or RTEMS for embedded development or *BSD for BSD bigots will have a place. Proprietary systems like Windows or MacOS will have a legacy existence at best.
It's not even because open source solutions will be technically superior in all ways. Maybe in some ways they won't be. MacOS is a lot more novice-friendly today than GNOME or KDE will be for a while, I'd bet. But that doesn't really matter. As long as the open source solution is technically good enough (or even close to good enough) you can't compete.
Free software makes operating systems into a commodity and proprietary systems cannot compete on a commodity level. It's true some may establish themselves as "premium" brands but it would take a damn lot of technical superiority to make the user's while.
Although most of the information is solid, the author claims that a copyright, like a trademark, can become invalidated if you fail to enforce it. This is not the case.