"So in half the time Linus and co have produced a full OS"
You really should learn some history before you open your mouth. Linux is a kernal not a full OS. Linux is very nice, but would be pretty useless without X, or the GNU tool set which include all the C libraries. Linux without GNU would be unusable.
The HURD kernal is about 10 years old. It is usable but not prime time yet. I think that this is a pity because it would be good to have it out in the world. I think that Linus comment that HURD has forgotten that they need to produce something is perhaps moot. Having said that GNU has always produced high quality tools, and has always had a cautious release policy. A full release emacs for instance is always very stable having been extensively beta tested before hand. Compare this with the early versions of linux, or even some of the development versions nowadays...
I don't know which is better:- the release early and unstable, or release late and solid, both have their advantages. Either way I look forward to HURD, so we can complete the full OS that "Stallman and his crazy comrades" have already provided me with.
"This would seem to contradict Mr. Dr. Dobb's 'eggspert' on the Linux kernel."
Not really. Its just a matter of degree. When the linux kernal first came out it was very monolithic. As the quote above says "it became clear very quickly". In other words not from the beginning.
Linux modules are an attempt at encapsulation. HURD's microkernal is even more of a step in that direction.
Its like asking is Java type safe? Well yes. Compared to C it is. But compared to other languages no it is not.
Personally I look forward to the day when HURD is ready for the end user. Linux is very good, but ultimately I am not a kernal hacker. I feel no real attachment to it. If HURD can advance the state of the OS on my machine all power to it.
"I would rather have my tax money in my pocket to do with what I will than to "invest" in the crippled social security system."
The problem is that having your tax money in your
pocket does not necessarily make any difference if someone else controls the production of the consumables that you want to buy with them.
As you yourself say libertarianism just amounts of giving carte blanche to the large multinationals. This is pretty much where all of the power is anyway, so perhaps it will not make that much difference.
Liberty is a risk, and it is one worth making, but I can not see that Harry Browne's type of libertarianism gets anyway towards liberty. From my perspective (I am a UK citizen) the uprise of libertarianism as espoused by Thatcher has made life less free for the majority of the population.
Phil
ps why incidentally is this post marked with an US flag? Surely discussion about the power of multinationals, and how this relates to role of the nation state, by definition involves issues much wider than the US?
"In a Libertarian state, there is no government coercion for the politicians to sell, and big business will have to make a living through honest work, like everybody else."
Big business gains some of its powers through lobbying of course, but this is only because government is there. But of course they have plenty of other ways of doing so. For instance the recent protests in the UK were partly managed by the oil companies (who want prices to go up, but taxes to go down, so that they can make increased profits).
People also have the idea that violence always involves guns, but of course this is not the case. Economic power is just as important as military power, and indeed historically the two go pretty much hand in hand (the British Empire was built on the back of both, as was Rome, and as indeed is the US now).
Libertarianism does not address the key issues namely that power is held in the hands of few in our society, and not the many. Removing government just places all hands into the power of the large corporations. Government might not do much, and most of the power is already in the hands of the corporations, but at least it is something and we at least can vote for, or against it. Removing government would be a retrograd step. If you want to know what this looks like, I would suggest you study the history of the UK in the early 1800's. The industrial revolution involved subjegation, death, and the destruction of communities both in the UK and abroad. I do not want to see this repeated.
Libertarianism reduces to letting big buisness control your lives, as opposed to the government control that you seem to fear.
For all of its problems government at least has an apperance of democratic regulation associated with it, whilst business has none.
It seems nieve to me. Changing the form of the dictatorship does not really change anything meaningful.
Phil
The problem is that too many people who vote use it as an excuse to not do anything else. If a life times supply of democracy really is 12 crosses then it means nothing. Voting should be part of our democratic involvement and not all of it.
Of course if you can not be bothered to vote then I can understand this. Voting is probably the least important way of expressing yourself politically. But it does not take long to do, does not cost anything, so why not....
"Merely because Mr./Dr./Prof. Stallman and others feel that they can devote their time to developing free software doesn't mean that all should be forced to."
I don't think that RMS is actually saying that you should be forced to do so. He says specifically in the piece that "its a matter of conscience" and then says that his conscience does not allow him to do so. He suggests that the other chap does the same. Perfectly reasonable given that RMS was actually asked his opinion.
What is being said here is nothing new really. RMS has said before that he would rather use worse, or no software than non-free software. You can interpret this as extreme or as consistant. Or you can as I do, and interpret it as both extreme and consistant. But I do not use "extreme" as a term of damnation, as I know that the what is considered extreme depends largely on where people choose to site the middle!
"In the 1700's and 1800's, racist scientists tried to prove that since the different human races had different body and skull shapes then the caucasian races were 'more developed' and 'more highly evolved'. "
There is a long history of this I think. My favorite example I think has to be Francis Galtons pioneering working into the link between intelligence and shape of the buttocks. Galton, you will be interested to know, had extremely intelligent buttocks. I think he also one of the first to work on fingerprints. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
When you get right down to it though, people have never really need science to support racism. Its just such a handy way to enforce the divide and conquer tactic, that its hard to ignore.
I didn't know the about the example of the native american tribes, although its an interesting case.
Ultimately though we all share a common ancestor with any human remains that are found, so I'm not quite sure that I understand the position. Still given the general treatment that the Native Americans recieved (along with many other indigineous populations!) I can see a case for erring on the side of caution...
One of the interesting things about this is the examples that have been picked. There have been many times in the past where fraudulent science has been used to justify a particular ideology. Examples would include most of the eugenics movement for instance (which in turn gave birth to my own field, which is genetics!).
I think more interesting though are the examples of where science is manipulated in a more subtle way. Namely by emphasis of funding. A good example would be the maniuplation of entomology by the large agrochemical companies. By extreme selectivity of funding, science can be used to prove anything. I think that within my own field, the large scale commercial pressures are pushing things in the same way.
Slashdot Mirror
You really should learn some history before you open your mouth. Linux is a kernal not a full OS. Linux is very nice, but would be pretty useless without X, or the GNU tool set which include all the C libraries. Linux without GNU would be unusable.
The HURD kernal is about 10 years old. It is usable but not prime time yet. I think that this is a pity because it would be good to have it out in the world. I think that Linus comment that HURD has forgotten that they need to produce something is perhaps moot. Having said that GNU has always produced high quality tools, and has always had a cautious release policy. A full release emacs for instance is always very stable having been extensively beta tested before hand. Compare this with the early versions of linux, or even some of the development versions nowadays...
I don't know which is better:- the release early and unstable, or release late and solid, both have their advantages. Either way I look forward to HURD, so we can complete the full OS that "Stallman and his crazy comrades" have already provided me with.
Phil
Not really. Its just a matter of degree. When the linux kernal first came out it was very monolithic. As the quote above says "it became clear very quickly". In other words not from the beginning.
Linux modules are an attempt at encapsulation. HURD's microkernal is even more of a step in that direction.
Its like asking is Java type safe? Well yes. Compared to C it is. But compared to other languages no it is not.
Personally I look forward to the day when HURD is ready for the end user. Linux is very good, but ultimately I am not a kernal hacker. I feel no real attachment to it. If HURD can advance the state of the OS on my machine all power to it.
Phil
The problem is that having your tax money in your pocket does not necessarily make any difference if someone else controls the production of the consumables that you want to buy with them.
As you yourself say libertarianism just amounts of giving carte blanche to the large multinationals. This is pretty much where all of the power is anyway, so perhaps it will not make that much difference.
Liberty is a risk, and it is one worth making, but I can not see that Harry Browne's type of libertarianism gets anyway towards liberty. From my perspective (I am a UK citizen) the uprise of libertarianism as espoused by Thatcher has made life less free for the majority of the population.
Phil
ps why incidentally is this post marked with an US flag? Surely discussion about the power of multinationals, and how this relates to role of the nation state, by definition involves issues much wider than the US?
"In a Libertarian state, there is no government coercion for the politicians to sell, and big business will have to make a living through honest work, like everybody else."
Big business gains some of its powers through lobbying of course, but this is only because government is there. But of course they have plenty of other ways of doing so. For instance the recent protests in the UK were partly managed by the oil companies (who want prices to go up, but taxes to go down, so that they can make increased profits).
People also have the idea that violence always involves guns, but of course this is not the case. Economic power is just as important as military power, and indeed historically the two go pretty much hand in hand (the British Empire was built on the back of both, as was Rome, and as indeed is the US now).
Libertarianism does not address the key issues namely that power is held in the hands of few in our society, and not the many. Removing government just places all hands into the power of the large corporations. Government might not do much, and most of the power is already in the hands of the corporations, but at least it is something and we at least can vote for, or against it. Removing government would be a retrograd step. If you want to know what this looks like, I would suggest you study the history of the UK in the early 1800's. The industrial revolution involved subjegation, death, and the destruction of communities both in the UK and abroad. I do not want to see this repeated.
Libertarianism reduces to letting big buisness control your lives, as opposed to the government control that you seem to fear. For all of its problems government at least has an apperance of democratic regulation associated with it, whilst business has none. It seems nieve to me. Changing the form of the dictatorship does not really change anything meaningful. Phil
The problem is that too many people who vote use it as an excuse to not do anything else. If a life times supply of democracy really is 12 crosses then it means nothing. Voting should be part of our democratic involvement and not all of it. Of course if you can not be bothered to vote then I can understand this. Voting is probably the least important way of expressing yourself politically. But it does not take long to do, does not cost anything, so why not....
"Merely because Mr./Dr./Prof. Stallman and others feel that they can devote their time to developing free software doesn't mean that all should be forced to."
I don't think that RMS is actually saying that you should be forced to do so. He says specifically in the piece that "its a matter of conscience" and then says that his conscience does not allow him to do so. He suggests that the other chap does the same. Perfectly reasonable given that RMS was actually asked his opinion.
What is being said here is nothing new really. RMS has said before that he would rather use worse, or no software than non-free software. You can interpret this as extreme or as consistant. Or you can as I do, and interpret it as both extreme and consistant. But I do not use "extreme" as a term of damnation, as I know that the what is considered extreme depends largely on where people choose to site the middle!
Phil
There is a long history of this I think. My favorite example I think has to be Francis Galtons pioneering working into the link between intelligence and shape of the buttocks. Galton, you will be interested to know, had extremely intelligent buttocks. I think he also one of the first to work on fingerprints. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
When you get right down to it though, people have never really need science to support racism. Its just such a handy way to enforce the divide and conquer tactic, that its hard to ignore. I didn't know the about the example of the native american tribes, although its an interesting case. Ultimately though we all share a common ancestor with any human remains that are found, so I'm not quite sure that I understand the position. Still given the general treatment that the Native Americans recieved (along with many other indigineous populations!) I can see a case for erring on the side of caution...
Phil
I think more interesting though are the examples of where science is manipulated in a more subtle way. Namely by emphasis of funding. A good example would be the maniuplation of entomology by the large agrochemical companies. By extreme selectivity of funding, science can be used to prove anything. I think that within my own field, the large scale commercial pressures are pushing things in the same way.
Phil