Yeah... And there's that very friendly guy on Afeganisthan who the Bush (the 1st one) or Reagan administration were very close and supportive... What's the name? Osama Bin Laden. Came on, if you goin' to compare Chavez support to North Korean to every monstrous guy or government out there that the USA supported, you will end with a very bad record to the USA. And you may remember that China is a very important business partner and allie to the US. It's like "nevermind they don't have the so called 'social rights' and 'freedom' if they can buy my products"... Get real, man...
Oh, yeah.. you can always count on the unbiased view of Washington Post... If you read the upper level threads you will find some real facts to this "news"...
Hmmm... Ok. But, at the end of the interview RMS says that open standards (not to confuse with open source) are just an end-user issue and that if he (the end-user)really needs something to be standard then the same end-user can modify the product as he sees fit. You see, free software that doesn't follow standards can give you a lock-in degree even higher than some proprietary software. Can you move your database from MySQL to PostgreSQL more easilly than from MS SQL Server to Oracle? RMS says that the end-user can modify the software so it conforms to some standard, but the average joe and even the average software house usually don't have the knowledge to do that. Ok, you can hire someone to the task (if you have the money), but a fork on a project to satisfy only one user means that the same user will have to mantain the fork as long as the software exists, checking and hacking new versions of the project that came from the main (cvs) tree. So, it's really ok when RMS says that Free Software don't need to follow open standards?
It seems to me that you are on serious lack of geographic knowledge, or you cannot read properly, 'cause the very link on your post says that an African country have the highest HIV infection rate (Brazil is on South America, btw). The text doesn't even mentions Brazil.
Besides, the Brazilian's government program against AIDS was appointed as an example for other countries by the United Nations (I don't have the links here, but you can find it for yourself if you do a simple search about it).
As for the brazilian code, you should know better... that's all...
"Sergio Amadeu, himself, have posted a short note about Microsoft's move. It's in portuguese, of course, but here is the translation into english:
'In special response to national and international enquiries from the press, that have been supportive with the brazilian government in this unprecedented moment in which the president of an important public institution in this country suffers personally the action of those interested in keeping an hegemonic model, I come forward, after listening to my lawyers and federal solicitors, to say that the judicial provocation imposed against me is, by its own, so unusual and improper that it does not deserve any answer.
In the other hand, I'd like to register that the purchase of software that preserves the values of openness and freedom is, for the brazilian government, a subject unavoidably connected to the democratic principle. And for it have been a long and painful path to reach our current democratic developmental stage in this country, we will not walk out our fight.
If democracy is a value full of ideology, it will never be an insignificant value. If democracy is a dream, it's the one dream this country will never wake up from.
Tosatti - the 2.4 kernel maintainer - left Conectiva months ago (he's working on embededd Linux at Cyclades now) and early this week the company released a note "refocusing" it's business model to cover other distros (they will provide "solutions", no matter what the distro you use).
I guess they aren't profiting enough to survive only on the distro...
Slashdot Mirror
And it's ok if just some of the money goes to China? How much is the "ethical tax"?
It seems that the current MS Mantra is: 'Adopt and Adapt' or vice versa . . . :)
About the "x-wing" with an extra wing, I guess they are a "*-wing" model... ;-)
Yeah... And there's that very friendly guy on Afeganisthan who the Bush (the 1st one) or Reagan administration were very close and supportive... What's the name? Osama Bin Laden. Came on, if you goin' to compare Chavez support to North Korean to every monstrous guy or government out there that the USA supported, you will end with a very bad record to the USA. And you may remember that China is a very important business partner and allie to the US. It's like "nevermind they don't have the so called 'social rights' and 'freedom' if they can buy my products"... Get real, man...
Oh, yeah.. you can always count on the unbiased view of Washington Post... If you read the upper level threads you will find some real facts to this "news"...
Hmmm... Ok. But, at the end of the interview RMS says that open standards (not to confuse with open source) are just an end-user issue and that if he (the end-user)really needs something to be standard then the same end-user can modify the product as he sees fit.
You see, free software that doesn't follow standards can give you a lock-in degree even higher than some proprietary software. Can you move your database from MySQL to PostgreSQL more easilly than from MS SQL Server to Oracle?
RMS says that the end-user can modify the software so it conforms to some standard, but the average joe and even the average software house usually don't have the knowledge to do that. Ok, you can hire someone to the task (if you have the money), but a fork on a project to satisfy only one user means that the same user will have to mantain the fork as long as the software exists, checking and hacking new versions of the project that came from the main (cvs) tree.
So, it's really ok when RMS says that Free Software don't need to follow open standards?
It seems to me that you are on serious lack of geographic knowledge, or you cannot read properly, 'cause the very link on your post says that an African country have the highest HIV infection rate (Brazil is on South America, btw). The text doesn't even mentions Brazil.
Besides, the Brazilian's government program against AIDS was appointed as an example for other countries by the United Nations (I don't have the links here, but you can find it for yourself if you do a simple search about it).
As for the brazilian code, you should know better... that's all...
"Sergio Amadeu, himself, have posted a short note about Microsoft's move. It's in portuguese, of course, but here is the translation into english:
'In special response to national and international enquiries from the press, that have been supportive with the brazilian government in this unprecedented moment in which the president of an important public institution in this country suffers personally the action of those interested in keeping an hegemonic model, I come forward, after listening to my lawyers and federal solicitors, to say that the judicial provocation imposed against me is, by its own, so unusual and improper that it does not deserve any answer.
In the other hand, I'd like to register that the purchase of software that preserves the values of openness and freedom is, for the brazilian government, a subject unavoidably connected to the democratic principle. And for it have been a long and painful path to reach our current democratic developmental stage in this country, we will not walk out our fight.
If democracy is a value full of ideology, it will never be an insignificant value. If democracy is a dream, it's the one dream this country will never wake up from.
The future is free.
Thanks you all for the support. '
Tosatti - the 2.4 kernel maintainer - left Conectiva months ago (he's working on embededd Linux at Cyclades now) and early this week the company released a note "refocusing" it's business model to cover other distros (they will provide "solutions", no matter what the distro you use).
I guess they aren't profiting enough to survive only on the distro...
Brazilian legislation forbids one giving things for free to the government... 8-)