I am absolutely knocked out by the apparent response to this, especially considering the disclaimer underneath the link suggesting that those who are extra-sensitive to criticism of free software ideologies might do well to avoid reading the article.
This man presents his opinion and states repeatedly that it is his opinion and is based on his detailed definitions of terms such as "ethics" and "morals", and even within those definitions it can't be denied that he certainly says some controversial things. Can it be denied, however, that he doesn't also say some particularly true things?
His reference to a holier than thou attitude by well-spaced supporters of free software is quite effectively demonstrated by some of the criticisms contained within many/. comments.:)
It's apparent that many of the ideals behind open source are stopping short of penetrating its advocates' day to day reasoning, causing them to dismiss (or indeed hurl large bags of shit at) anything with which they disagree rather than extracting anything which when isolated or taken in context is useful/true and making use of it.
I'm sure that many of you would agree with his suggestions to Microsoft and its employees, wouldn't you?
I must say I was completely disheartened when I and many other Australians sent articles and links to slashdot well before the initial bill was passed in the hope that it could encourage people from around the world to convey their disgust to the Australian Parliament, only to find that nothing (absolutely nothing) was mentioned on Slashdot until _after_ the bill was passed, making the entire thing totally pointless.
The only reason the bill passed was because most of the politicians voting for it thought that it would do nothing more than a very effective job of halting the flow of porn to unsupervised Australian children. Why they're unsupervised is perhaps more troubling...
Nobody in the international community did anything at all until after the bill was passed, and the problem with that is that such things won't be reviewed without cause. That is, _after_ any ISP with fewer than 10000 users gets dragged underwater by the weight of higher bandwidth costs, required proxying and filtering, and customer dissatisfaction.
Australia has grasped the cause of the internet. It has one of the highest usage rates per capita in the world, and living in Sydney I can tell you there's rarely a commercial on television that doesn't inclue a URL or email address, and alot of those sites are maintained by smaller ISPs or developed by small-time web design companies. This bill will not just restrict our freedom, it will take away our jobs and our passion for the industry, and I can't help but think that a few thousand emails from slashdot readers could've given these idiot politicians a vague idea that it wasn't just what they assumed were providers of pornographic content (but were merely concerned Australians) that saw this as a bad thing.
Slashdot Mirror
I am absolutely knocked out by the apparent response to this, especially considering the disclaimer underneath the link suggesting that those who are extra-sensitive to criticism of free software ideologies might do well to avoid reading the article.
/. comments. :)
This man presents his opinion and states repeatedly that it is his opinion and is based on his detailed definitions of terms such as "ethics" and "morals", and even within those definitions it can't be denied that he certainly says some controversial things. Can it be denied, however, that he doesn't also say some particularly true things?
His reference to a holier than thou attitude by well-spaced supporters of free software is quite effectively demonstrated by some of the criticisms contained within many
It's apparent that many of the ideals behind open source are stopping short of penetrating its advocates' day to day reasoning, causing them to dismiss (or indeed hurl large bags of shit at) anything with which they disagree rather than extracting anything which when isolated or taken in context is useful/true and making use of it.
I'm sure that many of you would agree with his suggestions to Microsoft and its employees, wouldn't you?
I must say I was completely disheartened when I and many other Australians sent articles and links to slashdot well before the initial bill was passed in the hope that it could encourage people from around the world to convey their disgust to the Australian Parliament, only to find that nothing (absolutely nothing) was mentioned on Slashdot until _after_ the bill was passed, making the entire thing totally pointless.
The only reason the bill passed was because most of the politicians voting for it thought that it would do nothing more than a very effective job of halting the flow of porn to unsupervised Australian children. Why they're unsupervised is perhaps more troubling...
Nobody in the international community did anything at all until after the bill was passed, and the problem with that is that such things won't be reviewed without cause. That is, _after_ any ISP with fewer than 10000 users gets dragged underwater by the weight of higher bandwidth costs, required proxying and filtering, and customer dissatisfaction.
Australia has grasped the cause of the internet. It has one of the highest usage rates per capita in the world, and living in Sydney I can tell you there's rarely a commercial on television that doesn't inclue a URL or email address, and alot of those sites are maintained by smaller ISPs or developed by small-time web design companies. This bill will not just restrict our freedom, it will take away our jobs and our passion for the industry, and I can't help but think that a few thousand emails from slashdot readers could've given these idiot politicians a vague idea that it wasn't just what they assumed were providers of pornographic content (but were merely concerned Australians) that saw this as a bad thing.