The only reason you are alive is becuase your ancestors were competitive and won.
Can you enlighten me here and explain the relation between competition in nature being a driving force towards evolution and why international competition is not only the best but as you put it probably the only choice? BTW, The only reason we are all here is our ancestors *grouped* and fought together.
I applaud the Chinese for getting a man into space, this is by no means an easy task. But we have to look at priorities. I'd love to live in a world where competition wasn't the driving reason to succeed!
I totally agree. And I must add I am sorry to realize there are so many postings here by people who seem to be happy this will throw the USA back into the "Capitalists vs. Communists" sort of competition again. You are praising history jumping back 50 years. This notion of "competition for the new world" is about 500 years old. Why can't anyone think of anything new?
Actually, what most poeple do not know is the real documents and the ship were removed from the base decades ago and lost. Eventually the plans for the ship's ultramodern flight control system software ended up in the hands of Bill Gates, and in due time became the core of Windows.
Mandate open file formats and protocols, but don't mandate people or agencies MUST use a specific type of software.
The point is not the software "type", but the permissions attached to its distribution.
Any citizen has the right to ask his government what type of information it has about him/her, and how this information is kept and used. Unless such information qualifies as a "national security issue", the government has the obligation of answering to its citizens. Keep in mind no government OWNS the information it has, it only keeps it for the welfare of society.
By making use of open source, the government can answer to its citizens by just exposing the code they are using. But when proprietary software is used, they are bound by the restrictions of its EULA and cannot tell their citizens how the information they have about them is used, because they don't know it themselves, and even if they did, they would not be able to share it.
So the whole point of using open source is: THIS IS THE ONLY WAY ANY GOVERNMENT CAN PROVIDE ITS CITIZENS THE RIGHT OF KNOWING HOW THE INFORMATION SUCH GOVERNMENT HAS ABOUT THEM IS KEPT AND USED. Everything else is secondary, not meaningless of course, but secondary. It is not about the economy, it is not about promoting open source software itself, it is not about "Best Tools", it is not about Microsoft being evil. There is an issue that happens to be relevant for this particular reality and open source deals with it nicely, in a way proprietary software just can't. The Brazilian government is not putting up unfair competiton rules on its own market, it is not ruling how people or corporations do business among themselves, it is just defining a rule that is essential to its own constitution as a sovereign state: if you want to sell software to ME, do it in a way I can tell my citizens how I keep and use the information I have about them by letting me show them the code I use to process this information.
If this government-granted right is hurting the society, the society should reconsider the principles behind the copyright.
Neither copyright is hurting the society nor it has anything to do with what is being discussed here, because the government is not adopting "uncopyrighted" software, but open source software, which happens to be copyrighted, under the GLP, or the Apache License, or any other license.
I find it insane that the Brazilian government first grants each author with strong rights for the software they write and then they say that sorry, we can't use such software because you use the rights we have given you.
Yeah, that would be insane. Fortunately the Brazilian government is not doing that. The government grants the right, and if you use it to make your software open source, it will use it.
Making open source mandatory is pointless.
No it is not. Because the Brazilian government is not doing it to promote open source, but because using open source is the only reasonalbe for a government interested in keeping its sovereign state. See
In order to see a complete discussion about why it is reasonable to make open source software mandatory for goverment agencies.
Maybe from the "open" point of view, any mandate should be abolished, but what is under discussion here is something different. A government holds information about its citizens meaning their welfare and that of society as a whole, but the government does not possess this information in the way a company possess the info into its DBs, therefore it must be ready at all times to explain to its citizens what information it keeps about them, why it keeps it and how such information is processed and used.
Of course it is impossible to answer them if the government itself does not know this, as it is the case when proprietary software is used. By promoting the public use of open source software, the government can promptly tell its citizens anything they want to know by just offering the code to analisys.
Another point to be considered is national sovereign. This can only be achieved if the goverment does not rely on corporate or foreign services in order to self-manage. Again, by making use of proprietary software any government eventually sacrifices one of its most important foundations.
A third good reason to promote open source is economic. A government that makes use of open source can promote its own growth by hiring national work when it has to (and BTW we do have A LOT of people dealing with open source here. Not as much as I would like yet, but yes, I am sure we would be able to handle things on our own when it comes down to maintanance and specific customizations and extensions. There is a Linux Kernel version currently being maintained by a brazilian, actually).
So, of course the discussion of how to promote open source and how not to is highly relevant, but here we are talking about different things. A government does not adopt the use of open source to promote it, but because it is the most reasonable thing to do. It does not promote unfair competion or special market protection of any sort, it just states that any company interested in doing business with it has to follow specific rules. Any government does this one way or another.
BTW, if anyone feels like replying to this message in order to correct my english just like a jerk did the other day, please don't. English is my second language and of course I do not speak it as a native would, but it is not my fault the discussions at/. are only kept in english. I will answer to private messages sent in either english, portuguese, spanish or chinese though.
Re:Looking for proof.
on
Halloween VII
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Try
http://opensource.org/halloween/halloween3.php specially the part that reads
"Microsoft HQ conceded that much [authorship of the document] to Wired, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times three days ago".
Lost somewhere in the middle.
Re:Why negative attacks don't work for MSoft
on
Halloween VII
·
· Score: 1
Well, IMHO such "negative attacks" are justified whenever they address policies instead of products. I think it is relevant to expose tatics like FUD and "de-standartizing". Microsoft only seems to join standart comitees in order to learn how to make uncompatible extensions. This is not "cutting down" the product as much as discussing the ethics - or its absence - behind the Microsoft way.
There's really no proof that the first set of Halloween Documents [opensource.org] were truely an internal MS document either.
The fact that Microsoft acknowledged them as an "internal memo with comments added" counts for nothing?
Re:Is this some sort of a MS tradition?
on
Halloween VII
·
· Score: 1
Has there really been 7 of these things already?
Three, actually. The second came out just after the first, and I think its release was motivated by the previous. All the others but the last are linked to the repercutions of the first two.
There has indeed been some discussion around the authenticity of these documents, as some propose their release was part of Microsofts plan to prove they are not a monopoly after all. Even so, I think they backfired a lot more han expected.
Wouldn't help you much, since in Brazil we speak Portuguese, not Spanish. They're similar, but hardly the same language.
But studying a little english would serve you well. Next time, try writing "(...) provide people that are most probably too stupid and ignorant with computers (...)", instead of "(...) provide people with computers that are most probably too stupid and ignorant (...)". This way it will be easier to understand that you are calling the people stupid and ignorant, not the computers.
Or maybe you're just saying something with a deeper meaning which I just cannot grasp, once reading the whole sentence one gets the clear impression you're saying the computers will use the people, not the other way around.
You see, one cannot be blamed for ignorance if he doesn't get a chance to study. Stupidity, on the other hand, has nothing to do with being poor. You can find stupid people among those born in rich countries, acessing the internet and even writing comments at slashdot. They're the ones who got a chance to study but became ignorants out of their own free will.
And do forgive any mistakes in my writing, as I'm not a native speaker of english. Maybe with some practice I can achieve your level of poetic expression.
Slashdot Mirror
The only reason you are alive is becuase your ancestors were competitive and won.
Can you enlighten me here and explain the relation between competition in nature being a driving force towards evolution and why international competition is not only the best but as you put it probably the only choice?
BTW, The only reason we are all here is our ancestors *grouped* and fought together.
I applaud the Chinese for getting a man into space, this is by no means an easy task. But we have to look at priorities. I'd love to live in a world where competition wasn't the driving reason to succeed!
I totally agree. And I must add I am sorry to realize there are so many postings here by people who seem to be happy this will throw the USA back into the "Capitalists vs. Communists" sort of competition again. You are praising history jumping back 50 years.
This notion of "competition for the new world" is about 500 years old. Why can't anyone think of anything new?
Actually, what most poeple do not know is the real documents and the ship were removed from the base decades ago and lost. Eventually the plans for the ship's ultramodern flight control system software ended up in the hands of Bill Gates, and in due time became the core of Windows.
Which explains why the damn thing keeps crashing.
Mandate open file formats and protocols, but don't mandate people or agencies MUST use a specific type of software.
The point is not the software "type", but the permissions attached to its distribution.
Any citizen has the right to ask his government what type of information it has about him/her, and how this information is kept and used. Unless such information qualifies as a "national security issue", the government has the obligation of answering to its citizens. Keep in mind no government OWNS the information it has, it only keeps it for the welfare of society.
By making use of open source, the government can answer to its citizens by just exposing the code they are using. But when proprietary software is used, they are bound by the restrictions of its EULA and cannot tell their citizens how the information they have about them is used, because they don't know it themselves, and even if they did, they would not be able to share it.
So the whole point of using open source is: THIS IS THE ONLY WAY ANY GOVERNMENT CAN PROVIDE ITS CITIZENS THE RIGHT OF KNOWING HOW THE INFORMATION SUCH GOVERNMENT HAS ABOUT THEM IS KEPT AND USED. Everything else is secondary, not meaningless of course, but secondary. It is not about the economy, it is not about promoting open source software itself, it is not about "Best Tools", it is not about Microsoft being evil. There is an issue that happens to be relevant for this particular reality and open source deals with it nicely, in a way proprietary software just can't. The Brazilian government is not putting up unfair competiton rules on its own market, it is not ruling how people or corporations do business among themselves, it is just defining a rule that is essential to its own constitution as a sovereign state: if you want to sell software to ME, do it in a way I can tell my citizens how I keep and use the information I have about them by letting me show them the code I use to process this information.
If this government-granted right is hurting the society, the society should reconsider the principles behind the copyright.
Neither copyright is hurting the society nor it has anything to do with what is being discussed here, because the government is not adopting "uncopyrighted" software, but open source software, which happens to be copyrighted, under the GLP, or the Apache License, or any other license.
I find it insane that the Brazilian government first grants each author with strong rights for the software they write and then they say that sorry, we can't use such software because you use the rights we have given you.
Yeah, that would be insane. Fortunately the Brazilian government is not doing that. The government grants the right, and if you use it to make your software open source, it will use it.
Making open source mandatory is pointless.
No it is not. Because the Brazilian government is not doing it to promote open source, but because using open source is the only reasonalbe for a government interested in keeping its sovereign state. See
http://www.opensource.org/docs/peru_and_ms.php
Beg to disagree. Please, refer to
http://www.opensource.org/docs/peru_and_ms.php
In order to see a complete discussion about why it is reasonable to make open source software mandatory for goverment agencies.
Maybe from the "open" point of view, any mandate should be abolished, but what is under discussion here is something different. A government holds information about its citizens meaning their welfare and that of society as a whole, but the government does not possess this information in the way a company possess the info into its DBs, therefore it must be ready at all times to explain to its citizens what information it keeps about them, why it keeps it and how such information is processed and used.
Of course it is impossible to answer them if the government itself does not know this, as it is the case when proprietary software is used. By promoting the public use of open source software, the government can promptly tell its citizens anything they want to know by just offering the code to analisys.
Another point to be considered is national sovereign. This can only be achieved if the goverment does not rely on corporate or foreign services in order to self-manage. Again, by making use of proprietary software any government eventually sacrifices one of its most important foundations.
A third good reason to promote open source is economic. A government that makes use of open source can promote its own growth by hiring national work when it has to (and BTW we do have A LOT of people dealing with open source here. Not as much as I would like yet, but yes, I am sure we would be able to handle things on our own when it comes down to maintanance and specific customizations and extensions. There is a Linux Kernel version currently being maintained by a brazilian, actually).
So, of course the discussion of how to promote open source and how not to is highly relevant, but here we are talking about different things. A government does not adopt the use of open source to promote it, but because it is the most reasonable thing to do. It does not promote unfair competion or special market protection of any sort, it just states that any company interested in doing business with it has to follow specific rules. Any government does this one way or another.
BTW, if anyone feels like replying to this message in order to correct my english just like a jerk did the other day, please don't. English is my second language and of course I do not speak it as a native would, but it is not my fault the discussions at /. are only kept in english. I will answer to private messages sent in either english, portuguese, spanish or chinese though.
Try
http://opensource.org/halloween/halloween3.php
specially the part that reads
"Microsoft HQ conceded that much [authorship of the document] to Wired, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times three days ago".
Lost somewhere in the middle.
Well, IMHO such "negative attacks" are justified whenever they address policies instead of products. I think it is relevant to expose tatics like FUD and "de-standartizing". Microsoft only seems to join standart comitees in order to learn how to make uncompatible extensions. This is not "cutting down" the product as much as discussing the ethics - or its absence - behind the Microsoft way.
There's really no proof that the first set of Halloween Documents [opensource.org] were truely an internal MS document either.
The fact that Microsoft acknowledged them as an "internal memo with comments added" counts for nothing?
Has there really been 7 of these things already?
Three, actually. The second came out just after the first, and I think its release was motivated by the previous. All the others but the last are linked to the repercutions of the first two.
There has indeed been some discussion around the authenticity of these documents, as some propose their release was part of Microsofts plan to prove they are not a monopoly after all. Even so, I think they backfired a lot more han expected.
Wouldn't help you much, since in Brazil we speak Portuguese, not Spanish. They're similar, but hardly the same language. But studying a little english would serve you well. Next time, try writing "(...) provide people that are most probably too stupid and ignorant with computers (...)", instead of "(...) provide people with computers that are most probably too stupid and ignorant (...)". This way it will be easier to understand that you are calling the people stupid and ignorant, not the computers. Or maybe you're just saying something with a deeper meaning which I just cannot grasp, once reading the whole sentence one gets the clear impression you're saying the computers will use the people, not the other way around. You see, one cannot be blamed for ignorance if he doesn't get a chance to study. Stupidity, on the other hand, has nothing to do with being poor. You can find stupid people among those born in rich countries, acessing the internet and even writing comments at slashdot. They're the ones who got a chance to study but became ignorants out of their own free will. And do forgive any mistakes in my writing, as I'm not a native speaker of english. Maybe with some practice I can achieve your level of poetic expression.