Man I didn't even know what the official plural was. Hopefully there are more comments about the article than my choice of spelling, but I guess people will comment on whatever they wish.
Just as a quick note, I would be willing to bet that a majority of people would read the subject of my story, and still assume that 'virii' means 'more than one virus'. Thanks for the link anyways.
I know what you're saying. My favourite part of the entire story is in how important Gollum is to the whole thing. In a sense, he's the ring, he personifies it, the whole way it works, corrupting him, with Sam and Frodo playing the trusting / non-trusting characters. Gollum biting the ring off of frodo's hand, and subsequently burning with it in the crack of doom....I'm excited to see that movie now.
Throne of Blood is the macbeth-based film, right? What play is Ran based on. I'm excited to know as my new lady-friend made me watch dreams, and I dare say I haven't been as spellbound by a film in some time.
I agree with your sentiments on Peter Jackson. I mean, just looking at the guy you can tell that he is taking part in a dream that he must surely have ahad since he first read the books, and I feel that his enthusiasm infuses the films. I've read so many people say that they are so disappointed with the LOTR. In my opinion that means they either: 1)told themselves they weren't going to enjoy the films from the getgo, or 2) don't really love tolkien.
I'm pretty happy with the movies...but it probably would be cool to see what a scorcese, or spielberg, or kurosawa, or kubrick, or attenborough, or even david lean could have done with it. Yes, yes, I know, I lean towards the 'epic' directors, but what can I say...lawrence of arabia is the best movie of all time.
Uhh not sure whether to agree with you or not, but you should go see 'mystic river'. It's a pretty oscar-worthy film (although I'm a LOTR nut too, so I'd probably cheer for that anyways). Sean Penn could easily walk away with best actor, and likewise clint eastwood for best director. Honestly, it's a good movie.
I just finished reading someones comment that they are preparing to be totally disappointed with the return of the king...which says to me that they are telling themselves not to enjoy it for the get-go, or else they aren't really fans of the source material anyways.
Yeh, that's what I was thinking about. I study electrical engineering, and when I'm using a university computer, we get electronic access to PDF's of papers from IEEE Journals. Now, I know that these papers are out there in a paper backup, but I'd be willing to bet that, due to their importance, these papers will still be available on the web in 100 years. It's kind of strange that people think having an URL should be good enough to get a paper for all time, when really, if you know what kind of information you are looking for, you will be able to find it. And, as an added bonus, as the internet gets larger, there's more redundancy etc...
I'm not really worried about the internet causing us to lose culture, in fact, I think it greatly increases the amount of culture that we can check out at our fingertips, without even leaving our office / couch / kitchen table...etc.
First of all, I'm not the cause of the problem (and I'm canadian too, eh), but don't think that it didn't cause a lot of problems for the americans too, as it surely caused more of a problem down south that it did up here. Besides, it's done with, and now the blames been put somewhere...should we find the last person who touched the particular computer that failed and give them a good berating, or what?
Yeh, it was, that's right...but I think the chaotic havoc was caused by the guy with the taste for snacks, and a little bit of corporate espionage. Speaking of it though, what the hell was the file manager they were running anyways?? I remember that it looked kind of neat but seemed really slow and unresponsive (I just know that my dinosaur parks' servers would be running in CLI mode only).
Give it a break will ya...accidents happen. Capitalists stub their toes just as friggin much as socialists do, only when capitalists stub their toes, they blame government for it, and when socialists stub their toes, they blame the lack of government mandates requiring soft fuzzy stripes on the bottom two inches of every wall in the country.
Don't get me wrong, I am definitely much more in favour of less government regulation in all sorts of things, but accidents will still happen, regardless of market forces, and / or lack thereof.
Hmmm...reading this article reminds me of the classic arguments and debates that I manage to have with my friends and my family. Some people believe in a more capitalistic system of resource allotment, in which resources are only controlled by those people who use them, and they put them to the use that they best want, whereas a more communist kind of system has a structure in place to determine where resources are used. The really cool thing about the capitalist kind of system is that it can adapt to a changing resource picture much faster than the communist kind of way. It almost seems as though this article is saying much the same, except linus commands a fluid resource pool, and bill controls a resource pool that is fixed (although it does change according to the corporate goal of the month).
right, this is what I'm talking about, but would this even screw things up if you compiled the entire system for 64bit? I also wonder if the speed gain from upgrading to a 64bit processor won't actually really happen until most codes you want to run fast are written specifically for a 64bit architecture.
I guess I was just wondering how much work it would take to change all the software that I like to use to a 64-bit platform. I do a fair bit of compiling in my day-to-day operation, so I can see how a well written C or fortran code could be compiled for either platform without much hassle, I was just wondering if there were some things that required a bit more finagling to get working...that's all
As a user of open source, I think this shouldn't really be a problem at all, should it? I mean, once gcc can compile 64-bit code, than we should simply be able to recompile all of our current apps for these new processors, shouldn't we? I'd be happy if someone out there could point me out as not being in the know...
Thanks for your follow up comments...I must agree that we were talking semantics more than anything...I think I made my original post in a crummy state of mind, and then felt I had stake in it so kept fighting a pointless battle. I still am not so sure about what freedom means.
I always wonder about it. I have a great respect for the united states of america, and I believe that a nation built on the idea of freedom is itself a good thing for this world. What really bugs me however, is that every time I go to the states I feel like there are more laws governing what I can't do than I have at home (alberta, canada). The drinking age is 21, yet you can vote at 18 and drive a car at 16? Drugs are illegal and from what I've heard, those crimes are harshly punished (although to be fair I've also heard the opposite). The original prohibition, the forthcoming battle against choice on the abortion field to be carried out by a political party that has a large interest in serving a christian population that I am completely willing to let live in their way, but are not willing to let me live in mine, not to mention the dark chapters of america history that include slavery and child labour, not being able to turn right at red lights at some states(that one in particular drives me nuts) etc. etc.
I don't believe these measures were all instituted in the interest of restricting peoples freedoms(well, the slavery thing is a bit more complicated), they are simply a result of a long time spent under the same government producing the same types of laws. Y'know, one person has a disagreement with another person, it gets settled in a court of law, setting a precedent for future cases of a similar type...etc. Seems like a simple way to do it, but it basically amounts to a constant loss of freedom to decide the outcomes of these arguments in small ways, case by case...and considering that any government once sufficiently stable will do this, the only solution, IMO is to wipe the slate clean. That's what america did at one point in time, and it was good. now though, the concept of freedom is nowhere near as clear as it used to be. I don't know where I'm going with this, and please feel free to ignore my rambling (thanks for reading, if you did, however), but there has to be some point at which the government is no longer guarantor of our freedom, and we have to step up. And by 'we' stepping up, I mean getting rid of the government completely, and starting anew. Granted this wouldn't be good for the society under the current government, and once it was done, I believe that a selfsame process will begin anew, slowly building a cage of words in which people live. It's such a shame, since I also believe that all people are inherently good, and given absolute freedom, I believe that people would do things that promote a better living for themselves and those around them, even though the realist in me knows that there are those out there who will hurt others for personal benefit.
Who knows though, maybe I'm just an idealist with a distrust of government, yet realizing that to fight the little battles is useless unless I'm willing to fight the big battle? Maybe I'm more concerned about my freedom from social norms right now, rather than laws, and find self-liberation in that? Is this a good thing? I really don't know. Should I care...well, I try to think about these issues when I can, which is enough for me right now. Rest assured though, when the mass arrest of Linux users start happening, I will proudly fight the freedom battle.
And having those things right in the distribution, easy to install, easy to uninstall is something that makes me appreciate gentoo. I can easily set up my computer in a more-or-less standardized fashion. I also fully understand the implications for the 'freeness' of my distribution, and I suppose if it ever got to the point that I couldn't use my computer the way I want to...well, time to switch distros.
btw. I'm an old redhat user (still using it at school). How's fedora shaping up?
Is compiling with gcc less secure, enough so that you wouldn't want to use it on a server? Or is simply having gcc on the server less secure. That doesn't make much sense to me, as debian package maintainers surely compiles their binaries with gcc...
As for how many people actually use gentoo, I imagine the number would be pretty large. For every gentoo troll on slashdot there's probably a handful of non-'gentoo-trolls' using gentoo to see slashdot. And then if you consider that maybe not every linux user checks slashdot, that number would go up considerably more.
As for myself, I used RedHat for a long time, simply because it was the easiest, and seemed to be working pretty well. When I talked to some friends, they suggested I try debian. I did, and since it took me a week to just get my sound card to work, I wasn't very impressed, considering that it worked on redhat right out of the box. So when I bought my new computer, I tried gentoo out, and realized that the install was way easier, and the whole USE flag paradigm just blows me out of the water, not to mention the fact that I compiled my entire system from scratch to optimize for memory usage so I could run my school-work sims at home without crazy amounts of page-swapping like I had occuring on my redhat box. It works just great, and I don't see the point of going back to a binary distribution ever...(basically, I like the level of control gentoo affords me over my box).
If you say that gentoo is too specialized, thus not many will use it, then what about all the people that want a ready-to-specialize distribution for their own specialized purposes? There are probably quite a few of those people out there.
Thanks for your commentary. Good sentiments all, I am just getting a bit irritated by the freedomites who jump the gun and aren't playing realistic mind-games about this. Yes, it is possible that SCO might win their case in court, so does that mean as soon as that happens I will stop using linux? Most definitely not. Does that mean people will come to my house and accuse me of being a terrorist? Possibly, but if they are doing it to me, than they will have to do it to so many people that it won't be worth any law enforcement force's time.
OSS will continue to exist from now until the end of time (I can't clarify that). It's seen as an effective model of software development, and even if some laws get enacted against it in it's current form, it will mutate into something else...the internet has yet to bear its full fruits on the intellectual horizon of the human race. I just wanted to clarify that when i stated:
... this isn't about war, it's about freedom...and you have to remember that if you exercise your own freedom effectively, war is not necessary.
If you exercise your freedom to resist the oppressor with physical force, the question is, what came first, the freedom as a human being you took to act, or the war that was the act? We are always free...even though society may not always be...
Thanks, I like your comment... As a human being, you have the freedom to fight for what you deem is necessary. If it requires a fight, you are free to fight it, if you think somebody has to grant you a right to fight for your freedom, then you are not free. As an example, as a human being you are free to murder (I think this happens most of the time, nobody is stopping those guys from doing it), and if the cause is worthy (revolution, say) and enough people support you, than you need not worry. But if you upset the balance (murder, etc.), than perhaps some of your co-habitants may be unhappy, and try to punish you for it. It's a little bit of freedom that we give up to live in security.
all I'm trying to say is simply that freedom is not a right granted us by some government or religious institution, it is ours by birth, and we do with it what we please, and occasionally we must exercise this freedom in overthrowing the oppressors...
I totally agree with you about copyrights, and most intellectual property issues seem to be unreal to me. This SCO thing is ridiculous, and since I enjoy using my gentoo box (alot!) I will cheer their fall. But I'd like to know what I should do? I use OSS, I tell people why I like it, I try to clear up my father when he reads the paper something about SCO and linux...etc. Just when it's time to give my life over software, I probably won't...it's just not worth it.
1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: "Monopoly frequently... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals" (Milton Friedman).
2. Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
3.
a. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity.
b. A commodity or service so controlled.
4.
a. Exclusive possession or control: arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth.
b. Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled: showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.
So, looking at point 1, what is the commodity or service? Computers, no it can't be, there are other vendors. Operating Systems, no, there are other operating systems. If the commodity or service is windows itself, than I guess microsoft has a monopoly, in the same way that mcdonalds has a monopoly on big macs, but no on hamburgers. Looking at the second point, well, MS isn't a monopoly, as they have not been given exclusive rights by the government to a given commodity or service. Same with the third point, what kind of exclusive control do they have? Can MS shut my linux boxes or my mac computer off of the internet?
If my definitions are wrong, than please excuse me, but could you give me the proper one?
Does that even mean anything???? I can still buy a mac can't I? Or wait a minute, I can buy standard PC parts, and maybe install freeBSD on it, or maybe Linux... Doesn't the prefix mono- imply 'one'.
You shouldn't trust blindly everything the government says.
Thanks for your insightful comments, I have a couple more. If I was a player, of course I would care. I didn't say in my post that I wouldn't. The parent to my original post made it seem like we, as users, had to rise up and fight the evil of microsoft. I already do this everyday running my linux box at home, and sitting with linux terminals at school. The case of linux becoming terrorism has such a small chance of becoming a reality that I don't even really consider it.
I wage my wars, you wage yours, and as a user, I use my OS of choice whenever possible. If the laws get changed such that linux == terrorism, than continue to fight, I will.
thanks for your comments. I do agree with everything that you say. I was simply annoyed with the parents post about the impending war, that, really, I'm not in much of a position to affect. I use OSS because I believe in the freedom, and will continue to exercise that freedom. In this way I hope I am supporting the choice that I like. When the time comes that someone knocks on my door and accuses me of being a terrorist for using OSS, then I will use my freedom to resist.
your business must not be very large/successful I imagine.. otherwise you'd be thinking war at every turn.
As i stated, software choices in a company I own would not be made based on moral rationalizations, they would be based on fitness of a given product for my usage
We need all these people. If we don't think of it as a war at some level, we'll lose. you know what "lose" means in this context? It means that not only will you not be able to choose what software comes on your computer, you won't be able to choose to *remove* it either. you won't be able to choose the product that "suits your needs". maybe the product that suits your needs is now illegal, or it's license has been crippled because while you were concentrating on your problems and customers, the big guy went straight to congress with a big check.
First of all, and I don't mean to be a total troll(just a partial one), but this is exactly the reason why I wouldn't want to live in the USA, last reported to be the 'land of the free'. People there with money are much free-er than I. Second, disregarding what I said before, I probably would be putting OSS on computers that my business runs to keep me out of such troubles. I have been a very happy OSS user for years, and I probably won't look back, as there's no point in it.
What does "Win" mean? It means that Free software becomes the standard. It means that when you buy software, or download it, you don't have to worry about the license, you can just install it and get to work. It means Microsoft's software loosens it's licensing restrictions so that those of us who depend on it don't have to stay on the upgrade treadmill forever. It means laws like the DMCA and so forth are worded to favor everybody, not just the few who paid for it.
If that's what win means, than I can't say I am not helping the cause. I use it all the time. I report bugs when/if I can, and even help my friends use the same software because I like it. From the first poster I was replying to, his stance seemed to say that we all should become zealots (OSS suicide bombers if you will). I'll not put up with anyone telling anyone what to do.
The poster above is exactly right.. if Free software suffers a blow from this, Microsoft can move in. It's all strategy.. why do managers read "The Art of War"?
All i can say is that I'm sure redhat or suse or novell's management have probably read the same books...As a linux user, why do I have to? And to finalise:
So keep fighting the fight, everybody, so that folks like this guy don't even have to worry about it.
PS: you don't beat tyranny by "excercising freedom".. you have to win your freedom first.
PPS: if you're talking about microsoft they definitely are a monopoly, that was a finding of fact if you recall.
I - Yes, this guy isn't fighting the fight at all, he's _using_ OSS.
II - you exercise your freedom as a human being to fight against tyranny, to get your freedom as a citizen, in the same way that you can exercise your freedom to put up with tyranny, and remain repressed.
III - last I remember, the prefix mono- implies one. For a desktop computer, go buy a mac, or a linux PC, or maybe a BSD one, for a server, maybe a solaris machine might be up your alley. Now how long did it take them to come up with that finding of fact? hmmmm....not so cut and dry now is it?
Slashdot Mirror
Man I didn't even know what the official plural was. Hopefully there are more comments about the article than my choice of spelling, but I guess people will comment on whatever they wish.
Just as a quick note, I would be willing to bet that a majority of people would read the subject of my story, and still assume that 'virii' means 'more than one virus'. Thanks for the link anyways.
Thanks for the suggestions...things are going well with above-mentioned lady friend, so I have someone to watch some cool movies with. ;)
Best of Luck to you
I know what you're saying. My favourite part of the entire story is in how important Gollum is to the whole thing. In a sense, he's the ring, he personifies it, the whole way it works, corrupting him, with Sam and Frodo playing the trusting / non-trusting characters. Gollum biting the ring off of frodo's hand, and subsequently burning with it in the crack of doom....I'm excited to see that movie now.
Throne of Blood is the macbeth-based film, right? What play is Ran based on. I'm excited to know as my new lady-friend made me watch dreams, and I dare say I haven't been as spellbound by a film in some time.
I agree with your sentiments on Peter Jackson. I mean, just looking at the guy you can tell that he is taking part in a dream that he must surely have ahad since he first read the books, and I feel that his enthusiasm infuses the films. I've read so many people say that they are so disappointed with the LOTR. In my opinion that means they either: 1)told themselves they weren't going to enjoy the films from the getgo, or 2) don't really love tolkien.
I'm pretty happy with the movies...but it probably would be cool to see what a scorcese, or spielberg, or kurosawa, or kubrick, or attenborough, or even david lean could have done with it. Yes, yes, I know, I lean towards the 'epic' directors, but what can I say...lawrence of arabia is the best movie of all time.
Uhh not sure whether to agree with you or not, but you should go see 'mystic river'. It's a pretty oscar-worthy film (although I'm a LOTR nut too, so I'd probably cheer for that anyways). Sean Penn could easily walk away with best actor, and likewise clint eastwood for best director. Honestly, it's a good movie.
Hear, hear, hear.
I just finished reading someones comment that they are preparing to be totally disappointed with the return of the king...which says to me that they are telling themselves not to enjoy it for the get-go, or else they aren't really fans of the source material anyways.
Yeh, that's what I was thinking about. I study electrical engineering, and when I'm using a university computer, we get electronic access to PDF's of papers from IEEE Journals. Now, I know that these papers are out there in a paper backup, but I'd be willing to bet that, due to their importance, these papers will still be available on the web in 100 years. It's kind of strange that people think having an URL should be good enough to get a paper for all time, when really, if you know what kind of information you are looking for, you will be able to find it. And, as an added bonus, as the internet gets larger, there's more redundancy etc...
I'm not really worried about the internet causing us to lose culture, in fact, I think it greatly increases the amount of culture that we can check out at our fingertips, without even leaving our office / couch / kitchen table...etc.
First of all, I'm not the cause of the problem (and I'm canadian too, eh), but don't think that it didn't cause a lot of problems for the americans too, as it surely caused more of a problem down south that it did up here. Besides, it's done with, and now the blames been put somewhere...should we find the last person who touched the particular computer that failed and give them a good berating, or what?
So sever all power ties with the US, since the ontarioans never experience accidents, no
Yeh, it was, that's right...but I think the chaotic havoc was caused by the guy with the taste for snacks, and a little bit of corporate espionage. Speaking of it though, what the hell was the file manager they were running anyways?? I remember that it looked kind of neat but seemed really slow and unresponsive (I just know that my dinosaur parks' servers would be running in CLI mode only).
It's a classic case of human error, not computer.
Give it a break will ya...accidents happen. Capitalists stub their toes just as friggin much as socialists do, only when capitalists stub their toes, they blame government for it, and when socialists stub their toes, they blame the lack of government mandates requiring soft fuzzy stripes on the bottom two inches of every wall in the country.
Don't get me wrong, I am definitely much more in favour of less government regulation in all sorts of things, but accidents will still happen, regardless of market forces, and / or lack thereof.
Hmmm...reading this article reminds me of the classic arguments and debates that I manage to have with my friends and my family. Some people believe in a more capitalistic system of resource allotment, in which resources are only controlled by those people who use them, and they put them to the use that they best want, whereas a more communist kind of system has a structure in place to determine where resources are used. The really cool thing about the capitalist kind of system is that it can adapt to a changing resource picture much faster than the communist kind of way. It almost seems as though this article is saying much the same, except linus commands a fluid resource pool, and bill controls a resource pool that is fixed (although it does change according to the corporate goal of the month).
All in all, good article.
right, this is what I'm talking about, but would this even screw things up if you compiled the entire system for 64bit? I also wonder if the speed gain from upgrading to a 64bit processor won't actually really happen until most codes you want to run fast are written specifically for a 64bit architecture.
I guess I was just wondering how much work it would take to change all the software that I like to use to a 64-bit platform. I do a fair bit of compiling in my day-to-day operation, so I can see how a well written C or fortran code could be compiled for either platform without much hassle, I was just wondering if there were some things that required a bit more finagling to get working...that's all
As a user of open source, I think this shouldn't really be a problem at all, should it? I mean, once gcc can compile 64-bit code, than we should simply be able to recompile all of our current apps for these new processors, shouldn't we? I'd be happy if someone out there could point me out as not being in the know...
Thanks for your follow up comments...I must agree that we were talking semantics more than anything...I think I made my original post in a crummy state of mind, and then felt I had stake in it so kept fighting a pointless battle. I still am not so sure about what freedom means.
I always wonder about it. I have a great respect for the united states of america, and I believe that a nation built on the idea of freedom is itself a good thing for this world. What really bugs me however, is that every time I go to the states I feel like there are more laws governing what I can't do than I have at home (alberta, canada). The drinking age is 21, yet you can vote at 18 and drive a car at 16? Drugs are illegal and from what I've heard, those crimes are harshly punished (although to be fair I've also heard the opposite). The original prohibition, the forthcoming battle against choice on the abortion field to be carried out by a political party that has a large interest in serving a christian population that I am completely willing to let live in their way, but are not willing to let me live in mine, not to mention the dark chapters of america history that include slavery and child labour, not being able to turn right at red lights at some states(that one in particular drives me nuts) etc. etc.
I don't believe these measures were all instituted in the interest of restricting peoples freedoms(well, the slavery thing is a bit more complicated), they are simply a result of a long time spent under the same government producing the same types of laws. Y'know, one person has a disagreement with another person, it gets settled in a court of law, setting a precedent for future cases of a similar type...etc. Seems like a simple way to do it, but it basically amounts to a constant loss of freedom to decide the outcomes of these arguments in small ways, case by case...and considering that any government once sufficiently stable will do this, the only solution, IMO is to wipe the slate clean. That's what america did at one point in time, and it was good. now though, the concept of freedom is nowhere near as clear as it used to be. I don't know where I'm going with this, and please feel free to ignore my rambling (thanks for reading, if you did, however), but there has to be some point at which the government is no longer guarantor of our freedom, and we have to step up. And by 'we' stepping up, I mean getting rid of the government completely, and starting anew. Granted this wouldn't be good for the society under the current government, and once it was done, I believe that a selfsame process will begin anew, slowly building a cage of words in which people live. It's such a shame, since I also believe that all people are inherently good, and given absolute freedom, I believe that people would do things that promote a better living for themselves and those around them, even though the realist in me knows that there are those out there who will hurt others for personal benefit.
Who knows though, maybe I'm just an idealist with a distrust of government, yet realizing that to fight the little battles is useless unless I'm willing to fight the big battle? Maybe I'm more concerned about my freedom from social norms right now, rather than laws, and find self-liberation in that? Is this a good thing? I really don't know. Should I care...well, I try to think about these issues when I can, which is enough for me right now. Rest assured though, when the mass arrest of Linux users start happening, I will proudly fight the freedom battle.
Best of luck to you
And having those things right in the distribution, easy to install, easy to uninstall is something that makes me appreciate gentoo. I can easily set up my computer in a more-or-less standardized fashion. I also fully understand the implications for the 'freeness' of my distribution, and I suppose if it ever got to the point that I couldn't use my computer the way I want to...well, time to switch distros.
btw. I'm an old redhat user (still using it at school). How's fedora shaping up?
Is compiling with gcc less secure, enough so that you wouldn't want to use it on a server? Or is simply having gcc on the server less secure. That doesn't make much sense to me, as debian package maintainers surely compiles their binaries with gcc...
As for how many people actually use gentoo, I imagine the number would be pretty large. For every gentoo troll on slashdot there's probably a handful of non-'gentoo-trolls' using gentoo to see slashdot. And then if you consider that maybe not every linux user checks slashdot, that number would go up considerably more.
As for myself, I used RedHat for a long time, simply because it was the easiest, and seemed to be working pretty well. When I talked to some friends, they suggested I try debian. I did, and since it took me a week to just get my sound card to work, I wasn't very impressed, considering that it worked on redhat right out of the box. So when I bought my new computer, I tried gentoo out, and realized that the install was way easier, and the whole USE flag paradigm just blows me out of the water, not to mention the fact that I compiled my entire system from scratch to optimize for memory usage so I could run my school-work sims at home without crazy amounts of page-swapping like I had occuring on my redhat box. It works just great, and I don't see the point of going back to a binary distribution ever...(basically, I like the level of control gentoo affords me over my box).
If you say that gentoo is too specialized, thus not many will use it, then what about all the people that want a ready-to-specialize distribution for their own specialized purposes? There are probably quite a few of those people out there.
Thanks for your commentary. Good sentiments all, I am just getting a bit irritated by the freedomites who jump the gun and aren't playing realistic mind-games about this. Yes, it is possible that SCO might win their case in court, so does that mean as soon as that happens I will stop using linux? Most definitely not. Does that mean people will come to my house and accuse me of being a terrorist? Possibly, but if they are doing it to me, than they will have to do it to so many people that it won't be worth any law enforcement force's time. OSS will continue to exist from now until the end of time (I can't clarify that). It's seen as an effective model of software development, and even if some laws get enacted against it in it's current form, it will mutate into something else...the internet has yet to bear its full fruits on the intellectual horizon of the human race. I just wanted to clarify that when i stated:
If you exercise your freedom to resist the oppressor with physical force, the question is, what came first, the freedom as a human being you took to act, or the war that was the act? We are always free...even though society may not always be...
Thanks, I like your comment... As a human being, you have the freedom to fight for what you deem is necessary. If it requires a fight, you are free to fight it, if you think somebody has to grant you a right to fight for your freedom, then you are not free. As an example, as a human being you are free to murder (I think this happens most of the time, nobody is stopping those guys from doing it), and if the cause is worthy (revolution, say) and enough people support you, than you need not worry. But if you upset the balance (murder, etc.), than perhaps some of your co-habitants may be unhappy, and try to punish you for it. It's a little bit of freedom that we give up to live in security.
all I'm trying to say is simply that freedom is not a right granted us by some government or religious institution, it is ours by birth, and we do with it what we please, and occasionally we must exercise this freedom in overthrowing the oppressors...
I totally agree with you about copyrights, and most intellectual property issues seem to be unreal to me. This SCO thing is ridiculous, and since I enjoy using my gentoo box (alot!) I will cheer their fall. But I'd like to know what I should do? I use OSS, I tell people why I like it, I try to clear up my father when he reads the paper something about SCO and linux...etc. Just when it's time to give my life over software, I probably won't...it's just not worth it.
Looked up on dictionary.com:
monopoly
1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: "Monopoly frequently... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals" (Milton Friedman).
2. Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
3. a. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity. b. A commodity or service so controlled.
4. a. Exclusive possession or control: arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth. b. Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled: showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.
So, looking at point 1, what is the commodity or service? Computers, no it can't be, there are other vendors. Operating Systems, no, there are other operating systems. If the commodity or service is windows itself, than I guess microsoft has a monopoly, in the same way that mcdonalds has a monopoly on big macs, but no on hamburgers. Looking at the second point, well, MS isn't a monopoly, as they have not been given exclusive rights by the government to a given commodity or service. Same with the third point, what kind of exclusive control do they have? Can MS shut my linux boxes or my mac computer off of the internet?
If my definitions are wrong, than please excuse me, but could you give me the proper one?
Does that even mean anything???? I can still buy a mac can't I? Or wait a minute, I can buy standard PC parts, and maybe install freeBSD on it, or maybe Linux... Doesn't the prefix mono- imply 'one'.
You shouldn't trust blindly everything the government says.
Thanks for your insightful comments, I have a couple more. If I was a player, of course I would care. I didn't say in my post that I wouldn't. The parent to my original post made it seem like we, as users, had to rise up and fight the evil of microsoft. I already do this everyday running my linux box at home, and sitting with linux terminals at school. The case of linux becoming terrorism has such a small chance of becoming a reality that I don't even really consider it.
I wage my wars, you wage yours, and as a user, I use my OS of choice whenever possible. If the laws get changed such that linux == terrorism, than continue to fight, I will.
thanks for your comments. I do agree with everything that you say. I was simply annoyed with the parents post about the impending war, that, really, I'm not in much of a position to affect. I use OSS because I believe in the freedom, and will continue to exercise that freedom. In this way I hope I am supporting the choice that I like. When the time comes that someone knocks on my door and accuses me of being a terrorist for using OSS, then I will use my freedom to resist.
Thanks for the comments...now I retort
your business must not be very large/successful I imagine .. otherwise you'd be thinking war at every turn.
As i stated, software choices in a company I own would not be made based on moral rationalizations, they would be based on fitness of a given product for my usage
We need all these people. If we don't think of it as a war at some level, we'll lose. you know what "lose" means in this context? It means that not only will you not be able to choose what software comes on your computer, you won't be able to choose to *remove* it either. you won't be able to choose the product that "suits your needs". maybe the product that suits your needs is now illegal, or it's license has been crippled because while you were concentrating on your problems and customers, the big guy went straight to congress with a big check.
First of all, and I don't mean to be a total troll(just a partial one), but this is exactly the reason why I wouldn't want to live in the USA, last reported to be the 'land of the free'. People there with money are much free-er than I. Second, disregarding what I said before, I probably would be putting OSS on computers that my business runs to keep me out of such troubles. I have been a very happy OSS user for years, and I probably won't look back, as there's no point in it.
What does "Win" mean? It means that Free software becomes the standard. It means that when you buy software, or download it, you don't have to worry about the license, you can just install it and get to work. It means Microsoft's software loosens it's licensing restrictions so that those of us who depend on it don't have to stay on the upgrade treadmill forever. It means laws like the DMCA and so forth are worded to favor everybody, not just the few who paid for it.
If that's what win means, than I can't say I am not helping the cause. I use it all the time. I report bugs when/if I can, and even help my friends use the same software because I like it. From the first poster I was replying to, his stance seemed to say that we all should become zealots (OSS suicide bombers if you will). I'll not put up with anyone telling anyone what to do.
The poster above is exactly right.. if Free software suffers a blow from this, Microsoft can move in. It's all strategy.. why do managers read "The Art of War"?
All i can say is that I'm sure redhat or suse or novell's management have probably read the same books...As a linux user, why do I have to? And to finalise:
So keep fighting the fight, everybody, so that folks like this guy don't even have to worry about it.PS: you don't beat tyranny by "excercising freedom" .. you have to win your freedom first.
PPS: if you're talking about microsoft they definitely are a monopoly, that was a finding of fact if you recall.
I - Yes, this guy isn't fighting the fight at all, he's _using_ OSS.
II - you exercise your freedom as a human being to fight against tyranny, to get your freedom as a citizen, in the same way that you can exercise your freedom to put up with tyranny, and remain repressed.
III - last I remember, the prefix mono- implies one. For a desktop computer, go buy a mac, or a linux PC, or maybe a BSD one, for a server, maybe a solaris machine might be up your alley. Now how long did it take them to come up with that finding of fact? hmmmm....not so cut and dry now is it?