You don't get it. They aren't claiming human behaviour would change (though some/.'ers are giving compelling reasons how/why it would change) but there are some people whose normal driving pattern means driving long distances on the highway to work, and others whose commute, etc means just driving around town. In rural states the problem is more pronounced because some people have to drive long distances on highways to get to stores/work/etc. I think Oregon qualifies.
As an avid GTA:VC'er (and while a real-life pacifist, a *very* violent player) I agree. However, I would think the onus is on the parent to decide what is and is not appropriate for their children. The age at which I would allow my children to play the game would depend greatly on how mature they were and how I felt it would affect them. I do not subscribe to the "magical age" viewpoint our laws are based on (where everyone magically attains a certain wisdom at a magical number age... woooooo!). That is just voodoo.
The determining factor for me would be whether the child was able to properly understand the jokes that are being made in the game. By the way, after playing the games I would have to think the creators are actually pretty peaceful folk in real life and would advocate a peaceful world, but they also appreciate stretching the boundaries of artistic expression and were after "just how violent and crazy can we make this and get away with it?" They also probably like violent games, and maybe even slasher flicks. EEEeeeevil! Slasher flick watching hippies! EEEEEvil!:)
I am sure you are trolling, but in case you are not, I would like to point out that yes, indeed, one can be wholly dedicated to the principals of Christ and still be an idiot. Whether one is an idiot for being a disciple is a whole different ball of wax.
Of course, the poster did not say anything like that, anyway. They said Rush Limbaugh is an idiot. No one before you has claimed he was a disciple of Christ. I certainly have never heard him make the claim. In fact he has generally claimed to follow no one but himself because he is "always right."
In his early radio days I respected him because it seemed to be true that he followed no one. But sometime around the ascension of Gingrich and his being given a TV show, he became a simple mouthpiece for the Republican Party and has not had an original thought since. It is sad, really. He used to bash everyone. Now he only pits Republicans (who can do no wrong) against Democrats (who can never get anything right) and backs whatever the Republicans have to say.
Of course I stopped listening to him regularly years ago, but once in awhile I hear him speak and it makes me sad to hear the neutered Rush. Oh well.
I realize slashdotters don't click on links unless they go to goatse.cx, but what I was talking about was the article that I linked to in which RMS was complaining about Stanko. He was complaining because Microsoft was going to be speaking at several conferences Stanko was organizing and the FSF was not going to be allowed to speak. Further, it was to be claimed that the FSF agreed with everything Microsoft said. Granted this is teh RMS point of view. Nevertheless, no I am not saying the AC was RMS.
I agree that it is a Good Thing to allow a compromise in the form of Open Source vs Free Software. I also agree with you that Free Software is the best way to go. However, I stand squarely on the side of RMS when it comes to confusion of terms. I think we should be clear and pedantic about technical and political issues, and this is clearly both. It is important that people understand that Free Software != Open Source. It is also important that people understand that Microsoft is against both.
It does not make sense to organize events purportedly supporting Open Source and/or Free Software and spread misinformation instead of truth. I can certainly understand why people would be against that.
I'm afraid I have to agree on most of that (except the bit about France being historically good, which could bear some analysis). I did not support the recent US actions, though if the promise of democracy in the middle east is truly achieved I will feel much better about it (so far, our current "leaders" have not measured up in terms of nation building, but then these things do take time). I am alarmed by the erosion of our constitution and what has passed for foreign policy over the past 50 years, and the mockery that has been made of democracy.
However the score is not nearly so bad as some would have it. The government still has to have elections of a sort, and still must try to form a congress that will pass laws by vote. Granted, most of this is predetermined (in the sense that congresscritters vote without real debate and indeed without even being present, and the next person to run for office is determined beforehand which often leads to the feeling that the winner of the election is determined beforehand) but they do not have absolute control and even among elites there is division (corporations at each others' throats, wealthy individuals being wildcards, etc).
Although some serious gnawing at the fringes of free speech has occurred and lots of news gets suppressed, even the most flamboyant stories get published at least once and with few exceptions people are able to say many things against the government.
I have compared Bush to Hitler (and indeed there are parallels both in his rise and his methods of war) but there is no real comparison when it comes to suppression of enemies or brutality in war. I was glad to to that at least the second Gulf War followed the model of the first in reducing casualties for *both* sides, something no other country would have tried. Likewise there has been a healthy amount of criticism and that criticism has been allowed a voice. Bush's supporters have found any excuse to quash that but for now they have pretend to follow the rules (they got away with a lot because of 9/11, but this sort of thing has been seen before).
I worry a lot about my country and I complain constantly about it. I do what I can as a citizen to at least be part of the movement to avert total disaster. But I have to say that at the end of the day I still feel the US has the best chance of being a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world. We have had many disasters of constitutional crisis , starting with George Washington going to war on domestic liquor and on through the Indian Wars, the Alien and Sedition Acts and such, Prohibition, 12/7/1941, the McCarthy Era, the Vietnam War, and so on.
I think the bombing of Pearl Harbor is something we should think back on now because it was the first bombing that led to illegal detainment of Americans on the basis of race with the claim that race was not the reason. People would say that the reason was Dec 7, just like they now say when we illegally detain people of Middle Eastern descent that it is because of 9/11. It was a lie then and it is a lie now, and one day we will remember it in shame.
But through all of these trials, America has made it, and we still have a democracy and a free press. Now that we have the internet, it is even more true (though there will always be some who try to make it a lie, like when violently anti government sites were suppressed in recent years). Ultimately there have always been and always will be people who hate freedom and try to keep the common man down, or boot "undesirables." Those people are undesirable to me, but the important thing is to make sure they do not win.
Acknowleging defeat to them is something we cannot do, and something true Americans will not do, which is why I say there is hope for the US. I know we have problems, and they should be acknowleged. But in some countries people don't even acknowlege their problems, or can't by law (like pretty much the whole middle east including Israel). At least here we can complai
Besides, it's not as if the binaries running the missiles would be getting PAID FOR by the recipients. IANAL, nor am I a GPL guru, but I understand that hardware running on GPL software is okay to sell as a "black box" as long as you don't charge for the Open-source software on it (hard to track or prove).
I don't think paying or not makes a difference here. It is true that the bombs/missiles would probably destroy their onboard computers, and indeed I would not be surprised given our technology worries that they are designed to do so. In the case of unexploded missiles/bombs one wonders if this counts as unintentional distribution. Of course we could always put the source code on the outside of the bombs along with the requisite "Hello Saddam" and suchlike messages....
Perhaps this is a question we should send to RMS, but I am sure he will ask we do not "distribute" missiles at him:).
But the poster clearly broke slashdot rules by reading the article! And not only that, they posted something relevant to the article which contained information about and from the article. This simply will not do and cannot go unpunished! Now if they had inserted some pseudo-technical references or some anti-microsoft rhetoric, that would be something. Where is the post on porting Linux to Geckos so they can be used in educational beowulf environments after a school lunch of hot grits with Natalie Portman presiding?
If you had read the article, you would know this tape is designed to stick to hard surfaces and not the dirt on them. In fact I would imagine it would not grip well in sand, for instance.
Actually, as far as I know, politicians make an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution as well. If you feel they're not upholding their oaths, maybe you need to talk to them about it. Regardless, you seem to be avoiding the question of what exactly was unconstitutional about the Iraq war. And as far as Ashcroft's actions are concerned, try to remember that the rights granted within the Constitution do not apply to people who are in this nation illegally.
This point is brought up a lot. BUt the simple fact of the matter is not everyone who was detained was detained because they were in the country illegally. When you start randomly rounding up people from other coountries, you are bound to nab a few illegal aliens, or people who you might suspect of committing a crime. But that is *not* what led to their detainment in the first place. Besides that, there are plenty of cases (some brought up in the popular press recently) in which INS says someone is an illegal alien but they aren't really because they did file all their paperwork and it was lost or mishandled by INS. INS needs serious revamping and 9/11 brought out only a few of the many problems with it.
It should also be considered that some of those detained were only detained because they had names similar to known terrorists. Or because they fit a profile. The government has not been incredibly forthcoming on how, how many, when, and why people have been detained, but it is clear some of them have been detained for almost three years now, still with no trial and no justification. Though some people are claiming the rights of the Constitution do not apply to them, I firstly disagree with this entirely, secondly point out that there are some international treaties which the US has signed which do grant these people some rights which we are now breaking. There is no justification for the way our government is currently behaving and it is clear they are loving every minute of this gross abuse of power.
I would also like to thank you for your participation in our nation's defense and this debate, and for your attitude in same. I agree with you wholeheartedly that the problem is not the military but the government, as usual.
Good point - I have always wondered, though, why the Axis weren't able to break that. It can't be *that* hard to find somebody who speaks Navajo who is willing to cooperate for a price, and a linguist who knows what the language is.
I haven't read a good academic writeup on this, but I have a few ideas. Firstly, afaik the language being used was never identified by the Axis, so they did not even know what to look for (thus security through obscurity). The language was not easily identifiable because it is not related to commonly used languages (afaik).
Also, there is a little problem of finding a native speaker of Navaho and getting access to them. There weren't very many of those to go around, and I would suspect they were all in the US (there are probably even less now). Once you have found one, you have to convince them to work with you. Now remember that the Nazis wanted to kill everyone who was not an Aryan eventually, and the Japanese had similar racial policies. How likely is that?
His opponents appear to be Free Software proponents opposing his ties with Microsoft, including making sure that Microsoft is represented at Open Source Conferences and RMS is NOT. I don't know much about this guy, but the referenced article makes him look pretty mean evil and nasty. I'm not sure I 100% agree with RMS on everything, but I think if he is sounding a call to warning it makes sense to wonder why. RMS a Microsoftie? Chyaahh.. Monkeys.. etc...:P
Oh, sure, I don't mind at all if only 100billion out of the 400billion hard earned tax dollars really goes to defense and the rest goes to Microsoft. Sure. And while we're at it, yeah it is better that the US does not have any weapons. Those weapons should go to more deserving countries, like France. The France that nuked Greenpeace for crying out loud.
No, forget France. Maybe the weapons should go to China instead. yeah....
Of course nothing says they aren't really running something else and pretending it is win2k. This is the NSA we are talking about, the agency that didn't(doesn't?) exist. I can just see them spanking some script kiddie now that tries a win2k exploit on their selinux server.
Thank you for your reasoned input to this debate. I have some points on your points...
In order to avoid being hypocritical here, my compelling arguments against the generalisation quoted above start with:
* Little or no open source software has been through the same level of testing and validation as military spec requires.
This is probably true. However, it is a process the military goes through for all software, so presumably it could be followed for OSS. I am not personally familiar with the process and what it entails (though some ac's seem to be saying they are) but it is obvious it is something the military and the OSS proponents would have to work out together. I do not think it is impossible or a show-stopper, but I agree it would need to be done.
* Little or no open source software has the support behind it that can be offered by the big commercial groups in terms of 24/7 fixing of problems in their own products, closed source or otherwise.
Are you really sure about this? IBM provides 24/7 and onsite support for Linux and open source products with the same sort of contracts they provide for their closed-source products. RedHat likewise provides 24/7 support for Linux. No this isn't support by going to #redhat on irc. It is real live tech support. In the case of IBM, as I was saying you can get IGS to come in and set up your entire implementation and then support it (by staying there and running things), if you pay the big bucks.
* Little or no open source software is as widely used and understood as the major closed source equivalents, which has implications for training and TCO.
Government employees have to be trained to use Windows and the applications they will be using, too. Granted, with Windows there is the fact most of these employees will have Windows running at home and therefore will be somewhat familiar with its use. But there are any number of custom apps they will have to be trained on in any case, so training is assumed. Linux may or may not require some additional training. This is part of your TCO assessment, yes.
But in the City of Largo, FL, no training was required when they switched to Linux because employees were only supposed to start their applications, and it was clear how they were started (doubleclicking on desktop icons or clicking on the menu icon) and the applications did not change.
Applications changing will be the greatest problem and cause of TCO skyrocketing. BUt this must be weighed in the face of similar problems stemming from mandatory upgrades to Windows which likewise break these applications. If these were open-sourced applications (even running on Windows) they could be modified. I think it is crazy when businesses use custom applications and do not retain rights to the source for internal use, because in every situation like that I have come across the application has become a ticking time bomb no matter the platform.
I think it is important to understand TCO and what it really means. Microsoft has a bad habit of trumpeting TCO and not including everything in the Total. Perhaps they use the same dictionary for their marketing documents that our Congress uses to understand the Constitution.
With Linux, there are retraining and support costs. With Windows there are support and licensing costs, and additionally the costs of dealing with an organization which threatens you with audits and suits if you do not buy enough software to suit them. There are costs associated with closed source and open source in themselves as a model. Closed source software gives you no source to work with if you have problems so you must rely on the company to provide you with fixes. This may or may not matter (some orgs will be in the same boat with open source bec
And that doesn't necessarily preclude a successful lawsuit, should the government choose to persue it. If a root exploit were discovered and widely used, and it affected government servers, and Microsoft chose not to do anything about it, I suspect they would be sued and the US would win.
You have got to be kidding me. DoD servers and other government servers crash and are exploited all the time because of bugs in software, and I have yet to see a single lawsuit against the makers of said software. This is not limited to Microsoft, BTW, but they were involved in some very high profile cases (like when the White House mail server crashed).
But not for the duration of the service contract or, again, there would be repercussions. While this is part of the way Microsoft controls the market, it is also a guarantee of service. If the OSS developer drops the project, there is no guarantee that anyone will pick it back up. It may be likely, but that's not good enough for many officials. Without something in writing, there's no real security in your purchase/training.
First off, you seem to be claiming that a service contract with Microsoft is magically different than one with RedHat. If there are repercussions with one, why not another? Secondly, if companies go out of business, their legal liabilities are wildly different. Thirdly, every software company in the world has loopholes in their service contracts. Finally, if it were really true that companies could successfully sue when they get screwed in their service agreements, why is it that it never happens? I mean companies get screwed all the time. Listen to the people who have actual experience dealing with companies with whom their companies had the service contracts you seem to think are so iron-clad and learn something about the real world.
"Restrictive" is a relative term. That's why I say, make all Open Source apps double-license - one Open Source license of choice, the other - binary only regular EULA with all its conditions. Let users choose which one they want. They will not call this software "restrictive", "cancerous" or any other names anymore.
To users of BSD Licenses, the GPL is Restrictive. I recognized it immediately from the many "Which is more free? GPL or BSD?" flamewars I have witnessed. The GPL is mentioned further on.
I think that it seems a little weird that the US military is on the one hand acting very anti opensouce, while on the other- it is actively funding its development.
Well, the DARPA thing was more an anti free speech thing, and anti-canadian. But then again, Canada is a haven for pot-smoking communist al-qaeda agents!;) (Well, to be fair, there were several terrorists caught trying to cross the Canadian border to execute attacks timed for New Year's Day 2000...)
The most anti Open Source thing they have done recently is accepting Microsoft's new licensing terms after finding out they had been charged far more than ordinary businesses would be charged for the same Microsoft Software. They accepted Microsoft's song and dance about giving them a discount, whereas the Germans were smart enough to say "forget you, man!"
I for one would support legislation that requires all government entities to use ONLY open source software. It is unconscionable that they are wasting taxpayer dollars on crappy software to which they do not even possess the source code. How do they know there are no trojans and backdoors in that software that could be revealed to our enemies?
I can see it now... "hi. yes, I'd like the source code for those precision guided bombs thanks. oh, but I understand a programmer used a GPL numeric class in the code. So that makes the entire codebase GPL, which if you read the licence...... post it on sourceforge will do fine thanks."
But they only have to provide the source to people to whom they distribute the binaries. Hmm.. I wonder if dropping the bombs on people would constitute distribution...;)
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Dude.. it's Papa Castro. He Knows.. :)
You don't get it. They aren't claiming human behaviour would change (though some /.'ers are giving compelling reasons how/why it would change) but there are some people whose normal driving pattern means driving long distances on the highway to work, and others whose commute, etc means just driving around town. In rural states the problem is more pronounced because some people have to drive long distances on highways to get to stores/work/etc. I think Oregon qualifies.
As an avid GTA:VC'er (and while a real-life pacifist, a *very* violent player) I agree. However, I would think the onus is on the parent to decide what is and is not appropriate for their children. The age at which I would allow my children to play the game would depend greatly on how mature they were and how I felt it would affect them. I do not subscribe to the "magical age" viewpoint our laws are based on (where everyone magically attains a certain wisdom at a magical number age... woooooo!). That is just voodoo.
The determining factor for me would be whether the child was able to properly understand the jokes that are being made in the game. By the way, after playing the games I would have to think the creators are actually pretty peaceful folk in real life and would advocate a peaceful world, but they also appreciate stretching the boundaries of artistic expression and were after "just how violent and crazy can we make this and get away with it?" They also probably like violent games, and maybe even slasher flicks. EEEeeeevil! Slasher flick watching hippies! EEEEEvil! :)
I am sure you are trolling, but in case you are not, I would like to point out that yes, indeed, one can be wholly dedicated to the principals of Christ and still be an idiot. Whether one is an idiot for being a disciple is a whole different ball of wax.
Of course, the poster did not say anything like that, anyway. They said Rush Limbaugh is an idiot. No one before you has claimed he was a disciple of Christ. I certainly have never heard him make the claim. In fact he has generally claimed to follow no one but himself because he is "always right."
In his early radio days I respected him because it seemed to be true that he followed no one. But sometime around the ascension of Gingrich and his being given a TV show, he became a simple mouthpiece for the Republican Party and has not had an original thought since. It is sad, really. He used to bash everyone. Now he only pits Republicans (who can do no wrong) against Democrats (who can never get anything right) and backs whatever the Republicans have to say.
Of course I stopped listening to him regularly years ago, but once in awhile I hear him speak and it makes me sad to hear the neutered Rush. Oh well.
I realize slashdotters don't click on links unless they go to goatse.cx, but what I was talking about was the article that I linked to in which RMS was complaining about Stanko. He was complaining because Microsoft was going to be speaking at several conferences Stanko was organizing and the FSF was not going to be allowed to speak. Further, it was to be claimed that the FSF agreed with everything Microsoft said. Granted this is teh RMS point of view. Nevertheless, no I am not saying the AC was RMS.
I agree that it is a Good Thing to allow a compromise in the form of Open Source vs Free Software. I also agree with you that Free Software is the best way to go. However, I stand squarely on the side of RMS when it comes to confusion of terms. I think we should be clear and pedantic about technical and political issues, and this is clearly both. It is important that people understand that Free Software != Open Source. It is also important that people understand that Microsoft is against both.
It does not make sense to organize events purportedly supporting Open Source and/or Free Software and spread misinformation instead of truth. I can certainly understand why people would be against that.
I'm afraid I have to agree on most of that (except the bit about France being historically good, which could bear some analysis). I did not support the recent US actions, though if the promise of democracy in the middle east is truly achieved I will feel much better about it (so far, our current "leaders" have not measured up in terms of nation building, but then these things do take time). I am alarmed by the erosion of our constitution and what has passed for foreign policy over the past 50 years, and the mockery that has been made of democracy.
However the score is not nearly so bad as some would have it. The government still has to have elections of a sort, and still must try to form a congress that will pass laws by vote. Granted, most of this is predetermined (in the sense that congresscritters vote without real debate and indeed without even being present, and the next person to run for office is determined beforehand which often leads to the feeling that the winner of the election is determined beforehand) but they do not have absolute control and even among elites there is division (corporations at each others' throats, wealthy individuals being wildcards, etc).
Although some serious gnawing at the fringes of free speech has occurred and lots of news gets suppressed, even the most flamboyant stories get published at least once and with few exceptions people are able to say many things against the government.
I have compared Bush to Hitler (and indeed there are parallels both in his rise and his methods of war) but there is no real comparison when it comes to suppression of enemies or brutality in war. I was glad to to that at least the second Gulf War followed the model of the first in reducing casualties for *both* sides, something no other country would have tried. Likewise there has been a healthy amount of criticism and that criticism has been allowed a voice. Bush's supporters have found any excuse to quash that but for now they have pretend to follow the rules (they got away with a lot because of 9/11, but this sort of thing has been seen before).
I worry a lot about my country and I complain constantly about it. I do what I can as a citizen to at least be part of the movement to avert total disaster. But I have to say that at the end of the day I still feel the US has the best chance of being a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world. We have had many disasters of constitutional crisis , starting with George Washington going to war on domestic liquor and on through the Indian Wars, the Alien and Sedition Acts and such, Prohibition, 12/7/1941, the McCarthy Era, the Vietnam War, and so on.
I think the bombing of Pearl Harbor is something we should think back on now because it was the first bombing that led to illegal detainment of Americans on the basis of race with the claim that race was not the reason. People would say that the reason was Dec 7, just like they now say when we illegally detain people of Middle Eastern descent that it is because of 9/11. It was a lie then and it is a lie now, and one day we will remember it in shame.
But through all of these trials, America has made it, and we still have a democracy and a free press. Now that we have the internet, it is even more true (though there will always be some who try to make it a lie, like when violently anti government sites were suppressed in recent years). Ultimately there have always been and always will be people who hate freedom and try to keep the common man down, or boot "undesirables." Those people are undesirable to me, but the important thing is to make sure they do not win.
Acknowleging defeat to them is something we cannot do, and something true Americans will not do, which is why I say there is hope for the US. I know we have problems, and they should be acknowleged. But in some countries people don't even acknowlege their problems, or can't by law (like pretty much the whole middle east including Israel). At least here we can complai
Besides, it's not as if the binaries running the missiles would be getting PAID FOR by the recipients. IANAL, nor am I a GPL guru, but I understand that hardware running on GPL software is okay to sell as a "black box" as long as you don't charge for the Open-source software on it (hard to track or prove).
I don't think paying or not makes a difference here. It is true that the bombs/missiles would probably destroy their onboard computers, and indeed I would not be surprised given our technology worries that they are designed to do so. In the case of unexploded missiles/bombs one wonders if this counts as unintentional distribution. Of course we could always put the source code on the outside of the bombs along with the requisite "Hello Saddam" and suchlike messages....
Perhaps this is a question we should send to RMS, but I am sure he will ask we do not "distribute" missiles at him :).
So unless Kyle's mom hates the DMCA, nothing can be done?
But the poster clearly broke slashdot rules by reading the article! And not only that, they posted something relevant to the article which contained information about and from the article. This simply will not do and cannot go unpunished! Now if they had inserted some pseudo-technical references or some anti-microsoft rhetoric, that would be something. Where is the post on porting Linux to Geckos so they can be used in educational beowulf environments after a school lunch of hot grits with Natalie Portman presiding?
If you had read the article, you would know this tape is designed to stick to hard surfaces and not the dirt on them. In fact I would imagine it would not grip well in sand, for instance.
Yes, but that was an iguana. Not quite the same thing, really...
Here in the US, we mostly discussed how to invade South Africa and Canada. ;) Education? What's that?
Actually, as far as I know, politicians make an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution as well. If you feel they're not upholding their oaths, maybe you need to talk to them about it. Regardless, you seem to be avoiding the question of what exactly was unconstitutional about the Iraq war. And as far as Ashcroft's actions are concerned, try to remember that the rights granted within the Constitution do not apply to people who are in this nation illegally.
This point is brought up a lot. BUt the simple fact of the matter is not everyone who was detained was detained because they were in the country illegally. When you start randomly rounding up people from other coountries, you are bound to nab a few illegal aliens, or people who you might suspect of committing a crime. But that is *not* what led to their detainment in the first place. Besides that, there are plenty of cases (some brought up in the popular press recently) in which INS says someone is an illegal alien but they aren't really because they did file all their paperwork and it was lost or mishandled by INS. INS needs serious revamping and 9/11 brought out only a few of the many problems with it.
It should also be considered that some of those detained were only detained because they had names similar to known terrorists. Or because they fit a profile. The government has not been incredibly forthcoming on how, how many, when, and why people have been detained, but it is clear some of them have been detained for almost three years now, still with no trial and no justification. Though some people are claiming the rights of the Constitution do not apply to them, I firstly disagree with this entirely, secondly point out that there are some international treaties which the US has signed which do grant these people some rights which we are now breaking. There is no justification for the way our government is currently behaving and it is clear they are loving every minute of this gross abuse of power.
I would also like to thank you for your participation in our nation's defense and this debate, and for your attitude in same. I agree with you wholeheartedly that the problem is not the military but the government, as usual.
Good point - I have always wondered, though, why the Axis weren't able to break that. It can't be *that* hard to find somebody who speaks Navajo who is willing to cooperate for a price, and a linguist who knows what the language is.
I haven't read a good academic writeup on this, but I have a few ideas. Firstly, afaik the language being used was never identified by the Axis, so they did not even know what to look for (thus security through obscurity). The language was not easily identifiable because it is not related to commonly used languages (afaik).
Also, there is a little problem of finding a native speaker of Navaho and getting access to them. There weren't very many of those to go around, and I would suspect they were all in the US (there are probably even less now). Once you have found one, you have to convince them to work with you. Now remember that the Nazis wanted to kill everyone who was not an Aryan eventually, and the Japanese had similar racial policies. How likely is that?
Just some ideas to consider.
His opponents appear to be Free Software proponents opposing his ties with Microsoft, including making sure that Microsoft is represented at Open Source Conferences and RMS is NOT. I don't know much about this guy, but the referenced article makes him look pretty mean evil and nasty. I'm not sure I 100% agree with RMS on everything, but I think if he is sounding a call to warning it makes sense to wonder why. RMS a Microsoftie? Chyaahh.. Monkeys.. etc... :P
Oh, sure, I don't mind at all if only 100billion out of the 400billion hard earned tax dollars really goes to defense and the rest goes to Microsoft. Sure. And while we're at it, yeah it is better that the US does not have any weapons. Those weapons should go to more deserving countries, like France. The France that nuked Greenpeace for crying out loud.
No, forget France. Maybe the weapons should go to China instead. yeah....
Of course nothing says they aren't really running something else and pretending it is win2k. This is the NSA we are talking about, the agency that didn't(doesn't?) exist. I can just see them spanking some script kiddie now that tries a win2k exploit on their selinux server.
Thank you for your reasoned input to this debate. I have some points on your points...
In order to avoid being hypocritical here, my compelling arguments against the generalisation quoted above start with:
* Little or no open source software has been through the same level of testing and validation as military spec requires.
This is probably true. However, it is a process the military goes through for all software, so presumably it could be followed for OSS. I am not personally familiar with the process and what it entails (though some ac's seem to be saying they are) but it is obvious it is something the military and the OSS proponents would have to work out together. I do not think it is impossible or a show-stopper, but I agree it would need to be done.
* Little or no open source software has the support behind it that can be offered by the big commercial groups in terms of 24/7 fixing of problems in their own products, closed source or otherwise.
Are you really sure about this? IBM provides 24/7 and onsite support for Linux and open source products with the same sort of contracts they provide for their closed-source products. RedHat likewise provides 24/7 support for Linux. No this isn't support by going to #redhat on irc. It is real live tech support. In the case of IBM, as I was saying you can get IGS to come in and set up your entire implementation and then support it (by staying there and running things), if you pay the big bucks.
* Little or no open source software is as widely used and understood as the major closed source equivalents, which has implications for training and TCO.
Government employees have to be trained to use Windows and the applications they will be using, too. Granted, with Windows there is the fact most of these employees will have Windows running at home and therefore will be somewhat familiar with its use. But there are any number of custom apps they will have to be trained on in any case, so training is assumed. Linux may or may not require some additional training. This is part of your TCO assessment, yes.
But in the City of Largo, FL, no training was required when they switched to Linux because employees were only supposed to start their applications, and it was clear how they were started (doubleclicking on desktop icons or clicking on the menu icon) and the applications did not change.
Applications changing will be the greatest problem and cause of TCO skyrocketing. BUt this must be weighed in the face of similar problems stemming from mandatory upgrades to Windows which likewise break these applications. If these were open-sourced applications (even running on Windows) they could be modified. I think it is crazy when businesses use custom applications and do not retain rights to the source for internal use, because in every situation like that I have come across the application has become a ticking time bomb no matter the platform.
I think it is important to understand TCO and what it really means. Microsoft has a bad habit of trumpeting TCO and not including everything in the Total. Perhaps they use the same dictionary for their marketing documents that our Congress uses to understand the Constitution.
With Linux, there are retraining and support costs. With Windows there are support and licensing costs, and additionally the costs of dealing with an organization which threatens you with audits and suits if you do not buy enough software to suit them. There are costs associated with closed source and open source in themselves as a model. Closed source software gives you no source to work with if you have problems so you must rely on the company to provide you with fixes. This may or may not matter (some orgs will be in the same boat with open source bec
And that doesn't necessarily preclude a successful lawsuit, should the government choose to persue it. If a root exploit were discovered and widely used, and it affected government servers, and Microsoft chose not to do anything about it, I suspect they would be sued and the US would win.
You have got to be kidding me. DoD servers and other government servers crash and are exploited all the time because of bugs in software, and I have yet to see a single lawsuit against the makers of said software. This is not limited to Microsoft, BTW, but they were involved in some very high profile cases (like when the White House mail server crashed).
But not for the duration of the service contract or, again, there would be repercussions. While this is part of the way Microsoft controls the market, it is also a guarantee of service. If the OSS developer drops the project, there is no guarantee that anyone will pick it back up. It may be likely, but that's not good enough for many officials. Without something in writing, there's no real security in your purchase/training.
First off, you seem to be claiming that a service contract with Microsoft is magically different than one with RedHat. If there are repercussions with one, why not another? Secondly, if companies go out of business, their legal liabilities are wildly different. Thirdly, every software company in the world has loopholes in their service contracts. Finally, if it were really true that companies could successfully sue when they get screwed in their service agreements, why is it that it never happens? I mean companies get screwed all the time. Listen to the people who have actual experience dealing with companies with whom their companies had the service contracts you seem to think are so iron-clad and learn something about the real world.
"Restrictive" is a relative term. That's why I say, make all Open Source apps double-license - one Open Source license of choice, the other - binary only regular EULA with all its conditions. Let users choose which one they want. They will not call this software "restrictive", "cancerous" or any other names anymore.
To users of BSD Licenses, the GPL is Restrictive. I recognized it immediately from the many "Which is more free? GPL or BSD?" flamewars I have witnessed. The GPL is mentioned further on.
Emacs is restrictive too. :P
I think that it seems a little weird that the US military is on the one hand acting very anti opensouce, while on the other- it is actively funding its development.
Well, the DARPA thing was more an anti free speech thing, and anti-canadian. But then again, Canada is a haven for pot-smoking communist al-qaeda agents! ;) (Well, to be fair, there were several terrorists caught trying to cross the Canadian border to execute attacks timed for New Year's Day 2000...)
The most anti Open Source thing they have done recently is accepting Microsoft's new licensing terms after finding out they had been charged far more than ordinary businesses would be charged for the same Microsoft Software. They accepted Microsoft's song and dance about giving them a discount, whereas the Germans were smart enough to say "forget you, man!"
I for one would support legislation that requires all government entities to use ONLY open source software. It is unconscionable that they are wasting taxpayer dollars on crappy software to which they do not even possess the source code. How do they know there are no trojans and backdoors in that software that could be revealed to our enemies?
Thats working for no-mind idiots :)
Well, we *are* talking about the US government, here....
I can see it now... "hi. yes, I'd like the source code for those precision guided bombs thanks. oh, but I understand a programmer used a GPL numeric class in the code. So that makes the entire codebase GPL, which if you read the licence...... post it on sourceforge will do fine thanks."
But they only have to provide the source to people to whom they distribute the binaries. Hmm.. I wonder if dropping the bombs on people would constitute distribution... ;)
You mean you haven't been? Come play with us....
Are you suggesting we slashdot this TV show?
Imagine a beowulf clus---=SLAP!=