Eh? What? I know a lot of people who work really damn hard, and are incredibly productive, who still are damn broke.
The idea that poor people are unproductive is ridiculous. We work hard for what little we have, which is something that can't be said for the stars of "Rich Girls." Even Bill Gates was born with a three million dollar trust fund silver spoon in his mouth and two high powered lawyers as parents.
The fact is that the "unproductive majority" could very well, as past experiments have shown, run the world ourselves. Whereas the "productive minority" don't even know how to change their alternator on their car without us.
Here's how I understand this project: UserLinux is not meant to build a whole new user-friendly distribution.
The purpose, it seems to me, is to apply the distributed, free development model of Linux to services. To prodive a large community of low-to-zero cost consultants who can answer questions, provide fixes, and write documentation.
The target, I'm assuming, is that grey area between home kernel hackers and enterprise-size corporate entities.
It's for the groups who can neither hack things themselves, nor pay large amounts of money to purchase a contract and site licenses.
An example would be, say, a non-profit organization that would like to use Linux, but does not have any programmers on board, and has a very tight budget. They need support if they're going to use Linux, and this is one way they can get that support on a budget, while still possibly contributing back into the Linux community (either financially or with bug reports, etc).
This is my reading of the paper. I may be wrong, but if I am right in my interpretation, I think that this is a brilliant idea.
Ummm. His software is free. As in libre. And gratis.
He can get all the grants he wants, he's not requiring anybody to give him anything. If people want to throw money at him for the last 25 years of work that he's done, I'm not gonna complain.
It's not like the guy's wearing prada shoes and dining out at 5 star restaurants every night.
Direct democracy isn't that simple (and I don't think there would be anywhere near a majority who would deport all muslims, anyways).
In order for direct democracy to work, it requires other things, ie, decentralization, autonomy, federalism, the ability for anybody to propose, etc.
It has to work on a very small scale (neighborhood or town), and then get networked together via a federation or a (duh) network in order to scale outward.
Anybody who think DD would be just a matter of internet polls is hopelessly deluded.
Are you kidding? Poor communities are some of the most heavily advertised communities out there.
We're a target market, because society gives us such low self-esteem that they know we're good targets.
Yeah, my community might be able to pool together $10,000. For one billboard. But there's 6 of them that I can see from the rooftop of my building (and it's not a very tall building).
Hey dumbass, you think the top brass at MS is sitting around a table thinking that ONE solution will fix their problem? Of course not.
Hey dumbass, you think the top brass at Microsoft are sitting around a table, thinking? They don't get paid to think. They get paid to write memos.
Why are they so big? Two words: Inertia, and cunning. Business decisions are what got them where they are, not adequate development strategies. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in this mess.
The virus bounty is one possible solution, and while they don't expect it to fix everything, they know it will put fear into some malicious virus writers out there.
Right, like five years in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison isn't a deterrence.
Virus writers, like most criminals, don't care. And especially when it comes to really fucking smart criminals, they really don't care.
Honestly, for somebody who's in it for the notoriety, a bounty on your head is a prize to claim, not a reason to throw in your gloves and join middle management.
They are also doing other things, such as providing free update services, as well as others such as Software Update Services, which can really streamline the update process if it is installed correctly.
The fact is, free software is calling MS out as punk-ass chumps at every available opportunity. And MS doesn't have enough moxie to sit back and fix the damn mistakes in their architecture and design, because they'd rather throw money at the problem. Just like spoiled rich kids who pay somebody to beat up the tough motherfucker who they just pissed off.
It is things such as this that will either make or break the company, and I personally feel it will only make MS and their products stronger in the long run.
Today's empire, tomorrow's ashes.
SCO used to be a big kid on the block, didn't it? Now they're out robbing people just to get by.
I can't believe that nobody has mentioned the upcoming protests against the FTAA in Miami. There's tons of websites regarding the upcoming mobilization. I got these links off of FTAA Resistance:
Stop FTAA.org - a great resource for information on the FTAA and how to organize against it. this page is slightyly outdated, but they are working to update it.
FNB NO FTAA - this is the 'official' organizing site for the anti-FTAA Food Not Bombs. FNB chapters from all over the U.S. will come together to do what they do best... defy authority through tasty (and free) vegan food. Add your chapter's support or see what is needed on the wish list. (www.autonomen.net/fnbnoftaa)
FTAA Medical - although not the official site, this is still a great resource for the incredible team of street medics that will be gracing us with their presence during the FTAA Ministerial in Miami. (www.artlessentropy.org/ftaa)
Free Carnival Area of the Americas On October 1, 2003, a volunteer-run artist workshop opened in Lake Worth, Florida, to make large puppets, stilts, bicycles, banners, drums, props, costumes and to practice radical cheerleading and participatory theater.(http://www.mediamouse.org/fcaa/ )
Latin American Solidarity Network [clic aqui por version espanol]
I hope that anybody who has any kind of problem with the way these "free" trade treaties are being put forth, I would recommend you get your butt to Miami on November 20th.
I mean, hell, if anything, you'll be in south Florida in November. What else better do you have to do?
Let's call them, fax them, email them, etc, and demand that they call off their lawsuit immediately. If anything, let's demand that they tell us the exact line numbers and the exact kernel version where we can find the disputed code. Tell them you're Emiliano Zapata, a Linux developer from Mexico City if you need to.
This is always a good beginning tactic for pressuring corporations that behave badly. It's perfectly legal, and totally within our rights to lobby corporations just as much as they lobby the government.
I work for less than a living wage, and now they expect me to pay a month's salary for my right to use something that was collectively developed by tens of thousands?
That's ridiculous. Even, in the worst case scenario, whereby they gain control of Linux, crack down on it's development, destroy it's leaders (and convert them to Christianity), people still won't abide by this. We'll pirate it, we'll continue to develop it however we'd like, and our best and brightest will move over to GNU/Herd or FreeBSD.
But let's not let it get to that point. The EFF isn't enough, we can't, as a community, sit back and allow the lawyers to fight it out in a lopsided court system.
We have to realize that what's going on here is nothing new, it's just new to us. Just like what's happening with MP3's and the RIAA, this is manifest destiny extended to the digital world.
The purpose is, as always, to get us to pay for things we used to get for free.
Land used to be free and farmed communally. Music used to be something that was shared by all. Software used to be something that was developed for the common good.
The Linux community is not so different from the Landless Peasants Movement (MST) of Brazil after all.
I'll dig up the source if you'd like, but you're actually wrong about civilian casualties.
Percentage-wise, civilians were much safer during the Civil War, World War I, and other late-1800's, early 1900's wars, than they were in WWII, Vietnam, Gulf War, or Gulf War II.
Specifically targetting civilian and civilian infrastructure (water treatment, electricity, roads, hospitals) became a tactic of modern warfare once air superiority became a bigger deciding factor than the strength of your combat troops.
War, as it is practiced today, is actually incredibly dangerous for civilians. One of the reasons the Afghani civilian casualty count was so low (while still being way too high for the Pentagon to maintain moral superiority to Al Quieda) was because Afghanistan has few urban centers. People are very spread out, and the country, overall, is pretty sparesely populated.
Also keep in mind that it took an independent researcher to do a civilian casualty count, because the only organization capable of doing it (the US Military) refused to.
Errm.. First of all, anarchism is far from a simplistic ideology. It encompasses a critique and proposal that spans everything from economy to education to ecology and politics, culture and communication, to language and art and beyond.
There's a reason why the Anarchist FAQ is over 1000 pages long. And that just covers the history of class struggle anarchism, it doesn't even touch on the fairly recent ecological and technological strains of anarchism.
And I don't bash the Objectivists because they have an ideology, I bash their ideology because it's, to put it simply, absolutely insane.
Well, there's two points I want to make about this rant of his:
1. No open source project is ever truly dead. I don't think I have to explain why this is, but this is one of the best parts of free software.
2. The author of the project is completely justified in feeling bitter that he's having a hard time putting food on the table. However, this is not (and he does point this out) totally the fault of open source. Honestly, in today's post-dot-com market, do you ever think he could have gotten anywhere had he built this project from the ground up as a proprietary system? All by himself? With a few employees, maybe?
No, something's wrong here, and it ain't Linux. (Randroids beware, vicious attacks on the market coming...)
The fact of the matter is that the market is a horrible, horrible place for brilliantly useful ideas to thrive if they aren't (tadaaaaa!) marketable... If they can't turn enough of a profit to not only feed you, your employees, your landlord (if you're brick and mortar), and your shareholders, then it's not gonna play.
COUNTER-ATTACK: No, this does not mean that I feel that State direction would be a better means of producing things. The market may suck, but the government gives new meaning to the term 'fucked up piece of shit.'
We're gonna have to figure things out quick, because situations like this are going to become more and more prevalant. The first part of figuring things out is admitting that the dot-con boom helped out open source tremendously. First off, a lot of excess money floatin' around means it's easy to grab a bit of the overflow. Second, ridiculously high paying jobs that are easy to come by means that we can easily work on open source projects on the side. And third, due to the omnipresence of incredibly stupid middle managers who don't know the difference between TCSH, BASH, AND M*A*S*H, means we can work on this stuff while on the company clock, and nobody's the wiser.
But that sweet deal is gone, boys and girls, and it's probably never coming back. Because open source is invincible (meaning it can't be killed, not that it can't be hurt) means that it survived the fallout a lot better that many proprietary systems. But that doesn't mean it's gonna become a whole lot harder to develop.
However, the catch-22 is that, as the economy gets shittier, the more people need cheap software.
So how do give the people (and ourselves) what they want, while at the same time, having enough money to eat and pay rent? (*)
I never said I had the answers, though. But it'll be interesting to see what comes out of it all.
* NOTE: Money to eat and pay rent does not imply that _any_ of us deserve to eat at five star restaurants and live in $1800/mo studio apartments. Let's get off our high horses. We lucked out for a few years in the 90's, but it's ridiculous to assume that we could be a part of that club for very long. And it doesn't really matter, anywhere with cheap rent and good burritos is gonna be infinitely more interesting than any yuppie enclave where the street musicians have been put in jail and everybody goes to sleep at 9:00pm.
THE DUMBEST CRIMINAL ON THE PLANET - Kindly Contributor in Philippines GETS $3 from a Lad
You know, as much as this might get a chuckle out of just about anyone (hell, myself included), I have to say this:
The last thing I would ever do is turn somebody in to the FSCKING GHANA POLICE!
Hell, email scams piss me off just as much as anybody, but that's a fate that I wouldn't wish on just about anyone (except for maybe the Ghana police themselves).
Paying fair U.S. wages, while complying with U.S. regulations to protect the workers and the environment, costs money. So a company can gain a competitive edge by hiring workers in foreign countries where salaries are lower and where such rules do not exist. If some smoke-belching plant across a border can pay people $10/day and work them for 12 hour shifts, then the company using that workforce can realize lower operating costs and, hence, higher profits.
So, why, exactly, are the foriegn workers listed as "Winners?"
Sounds like they're getting fucked over pretty hard as well.
Slashdot Mirror
4) Delete.
Government planning is just plain socialism and is really bad...
Unless it results in something really fsck'ing cool.
mod -1 flamebait
The unproductive majority
Eh? What? I know a lot of people who work really damn hard, and are incredibly productive, who still are damn broke.
The idea that poor people are unproductive is ridiculous. We work hard for what little we have, which is something that can't be said for the stars of "Rich Girls." Even Bill Gates was born with a three million dollar trust fund silver spoon in his mouth and two high powered lawyers as parents.
The fact is that the "unproductive majority" could very well, as past experiments have shown, run the world ourselves. Whereas the "productive minority" don't even know how to change their alternator on their car without us.
Dude, it's a joke. Laugh.
5) Reciting the text of the GPL backwards will cause the appearance of the Anti-Christ and will initiate the apocalypse.
Y'know, that's not wholly untrue. I did that a few years back, when everybody thought Gore had won.
Here's how I understand this project: UserLinux is not meant to build a whole new user-friendly distribution.
The purpose, it seems to me, is to apply the distributed, free development model of Linux to services. To prodive a large community of low-to-zero cost consultants who can answer questions, provide fixes, and write documentation.
The target, I'm assuming, is that grey area between home kernel hackers and enterprise-size corporate entities.
It's for the groups who can neither hack things themselves, nor pay large amounts of money to purchase a contract and site licenses.
An example would be, say, a non-profit organization that would like to use Linux, but does not have any programmers on board, and has a very tight budget. They need support if they're going to use Linux, and this is one way they can get that support on a budget, while still possibly contributing back into the Linux community (either financially or with bug reports, etc).
This is my reading of the paper. I may be wrong, but if I am right in my interpretation, I think that this is a brilliant idea.
College for kids, or space ghost desk.
Grandpa's surgery, or space ghost desk.
Down payment for house, or space ghost desk.
Travel the world for two years, or space ghost desk.
This is tough.
Ummm. His software is free. As in libre. And gratis.
He can get all the grants he wants, he's not requiring anybody to give him anything. If people want to throw money at him for the last 25 years of work that he's done, I'm not gonna complain.
It's not like the guy's wearing prada shoes and dining out at 5 star restaurants every night.
Direct democracy isn't that simple (and I don't think there would be anywhere near a majority who would deport all muslims, anyways).
In order for direct democracy to work, it requires other things, ie, decentralization, autonomy, federalism, the ability for anybody to propose, etc.
It has to work on a very small scale (neighborhood or town), and then get networked together via a federation or a (duh) network in order to scale outward.
Anybody who think DD would be just a matter of internet polls is hopelessly deluded.
Ummm. Whites are a minority when you take the population of the whole world.
It's not like the machines would just pick the Finnish as their subjects.
(Cause if they did, I'd be like "Run, Linus, Run!")
Are you kidding? Poor communities are some of the most heavily advertised communities out there.
We're a target market, because society gives us such low self-esteem that they know we're good targets.
Yeah, my community might be able to pool together $10,000. For one billboard. But there's 6 of them that I can see from the rooftop of my building (and it's not a very tall building).
[commence shit-talking]
Hey dumbass, you think the top brass at MS is sitting around a table thinking that ONE solution will fix their problem? Of course not.
Hey dumbass, you think the top brass at Microsoft are sitting around a table, thinking? They don't get paid to think. They get paid to write memos.
Why are they so big? Two words: Inertia, and cunning. Business decisions are what got them where they are, not adequate development strategies. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in this mess.
The virus bounty is one possible solution, and while they don't expect it to fix everything, they know it will put fear into some malicious virus writers out there.
Right, like five years in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison isn't a deterrence.
Virus writers, like most criminals, don't care. And especially when it comes to really fucking smart criminals, they really don't care.
Honestly, for somebody who's in it for the notoriety, a bounty on your head is a prize to claim, not a reason to throw in your gloves and join middle management.
They are also doing other things, such as providing free update services, as well as others such as Software Update Services, which can really streamline the update process if it is installed correctly.
The fact is, free software is calling MS out as punk-ass chumps at every available opportunity. And MS doesn't have enough moxie to sit back and fix the damn mistakes in their architecture and design, because they'd rather throw money at the problem. Just like spoiled rich kids who pay somebody to beat up the tough motherfucker who they just pissed off.
It is things such as this that will either make or break the company, and I personally feel it will only make MS and their products stronger in the long run.
Today's empire, tomorrow's ashes.
SCO used to be a big kid on the block, didn't it? Now they're out robbing people just to get by.
So poor people are the only ones who can't complain about ads in their neighborhood?
A piece of property with a billboard on it in Chicago costs tens of thousands of dollars. I can't afford that, neither can anybody in my neighborhood.
How else do we deal with our polluted visual environment?
Why is there such a racial leaning in Zion? No reason given.
What do you mean by this? In what way was there racial leaning in Zion?
I can't believe that nobody has mentioned the upcoming protests against the FTAA in Miami. There's tons of websites regarding the upcoming mobilization. I got these links off of FTAA Resistance:
Stop FTAA.org - a great resource for information on the FTAA and how to organize against it. this page is slightyly outdated, but they are working to update it.
FNB NO FTAA - this is the 'official' organizing site for the anti-FTAA Food Not Bombs. FNB chapters from all over the U.S. will come together to do what they do best... defy authority through tasty (and free) vegan food. Add your chapter's support or see what is needed on the wish list. (www.autonomen.net/fnbnoftaa)
FTAA Medical - although not the official site, this is still a great resource for the incredible team of street medics that will be gracing us with their presence during the FTAA Ministerial in Miami. (www.artlessentropy.org/ftaa)
Free Carnival Area of the Americas On October 1, 2003, a volunteer-run artist workshop opened in Lake Worth, Florida, to make large puppets, stilts, bicycles, banners, drums, props, costumes and to practice radical cheerleading and participatory theater.(http://www.mediamouse.org/fcaa/ )
Latin American Solidarity Network [clic aqui por version espanol]
Mexico Solidarity Network (http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/)
People's Consultation on the FTAA (http://www.peoplesconsultation.org/)
Infoshop - your family resource for all things anarchist (www.infoshop.org)
Indymedia - a great source for real news. find your local outlet. (www.indymedia.org)
Enough Is Enough! - (http://www.ftaa-soa.net.ms)
Colombia Mobilization - (http://www.ColombiaMobilization.org)
I hope that anybody who has any kind of problem with the way these "free" trade treaties are being put forth, I would recommend you get your butt to Miami on November 20th.
I mean, hell, if anything, you'll be in south Florida in November. What else better do you have to do?
Maybe I'm a sucker for humanity, but I believe most people don't shoplift because they think it is wrong
Actually, most people who don't shoplift do so because they don't *need* to.
The myth about shoplifting is that it's perpetrated by 14-year old middle class kids who want to have a thrill.
Anyone who's worked as a checker for a grocery store in a poor community will tell you that the biggest shoplifters are elderly women.
Adbusters has a new article about Leo Strauss, one of the intellectual fathers of neo-conservativism.
If you want to understand the neocons, you have to understand Strauss and his opponents (such as the mentioned Hannah Arendt).
I should have put this in the first one, but just FYI, here's a link to SCO's contact information:
http://www.sco.com/company/feedback/index.html
Let's call them, fax them, email them, etc, and demand that they call off their lawsuit immediately. If anything, let's demand that they tell us the exact line numbers and the exact kernel version where we can find the disputed code. Tell them you're Emiliano Zapata, a Linux developer from Mexico City if you need to.
This is always a good beginning tactic for pressuring corporations that behave badly. It's perfectly legal, and totally within our rights to lobby corporations just as much as they lobby the government.
Dominion
Let me pull that money right out of my ass...
I work for less than a living wage, and now they expect me to pay a month's salary for my right to use something that was collectively developed by tens of thousands?
That's ridiculous. Even, in the worst case scenario, whereby they gain control of Linux, crack down on it's development, destroy it's leaders (and convert them to Christianity), people still won't abide by this. We'll pirate it, we'll continue to develop it however we'd like, and our best and brightest will move over to GNU/Herd or FreeBSD.
But let's not let it get to that point. The EFF isn't enough, we can't, as a community, sit back and allow the lawyers to fight it out in a lopsided court system.
We have to realize that what's going on here is nothing new, it's just new to us. Just like what's happening with MP3's and the RIAA, this is manifest destiny extended to the digital world.
The purpose is, as always, to get us to pay for things we used to get for free.
Land used to be free and farmed communally. Music used to be something that was shared by all. Software used to be something that was developed for the common good.
The Linux community is not so different from the Landless Peasants Movement (MST) of Brazil after all.
Dominion
Anarchism FAQ
As somebody who has never played Quake (stopped playing FPS after around Doom 1), let me be the one to say that y'all are making no sense whatsoever.
Which is interesting to me, because now I have an idea of what the rest of the site seems like to a non-geek.
(Really, it ain't pretty)
Circuit
I'll dig up the source if you'd like, but you're actually wrong about civilian casualties.
Percentage-wise, civilians were much safer during the Civil War, World War I, and other late-1800's, early 1900's wars, than they were in WWII, Vietnam, Gulf War, or Gulf War II.
Specifically targetting civilian and civilian infrastructure (water treatment, electricity, roads, hospitals) became a tactic of modern warfare once air superiority became a bigger deciding factor than the strength of your combat troops.
War, as it is practiced today, is actually incredibly dangerous for civilians. One of the reasons the Afghani civilian casualty count was so low (while still being way too high for the Pentagon to maintain moral superiority to Al Quieda) was because Afghanistan has few urban centers. People are very spread out, and the country, overall, is pretty sparesely populated.
Also keep in mind that it took an independent researcher to do a civilian casualty count, because the only organization capable of doing it (the US Military) refused to.
Dominion
Errm.. First of all, anarchism is far from a simplistic ideology. It encompasses a critique and proposal that spans everything from economy to education to ecology and politics, culture and communication, to language and art and beyond.
There's a reason why the Anarchist FAQ is over 1000 pages long. And that just covers the history of class struggle anarchism, it doesn't even touch on the fairly recent ecological and technological strains of anarchism.
And I don't bash the Objectivists because they have an ideology, I bash their ideology because it's, to put it simply, absolutely insane.
Dominion
Well, there's two points I want to make about this rant of his:
1. No open source project is ever truly dead. I don't think I have to explain why this is, but this is one of the best parts of free software.
2. The author of the project is completely justified in feeling bitter that he's having a hard time putting food on the table. However, this is not (and he does point this out) totally the fault of open source. Honestly, in today's post-dot-com market, do you ever think he could have gotten anywhere had he built this project from the ground up as a proprietary system? All by himself? With a few employees, maybe?
No, something's wrong here, and it ain't Linux. (Randroids beware, vicious attacks on the market coming...)
The fact of the matter is that the market is a horrible, horrible place for brilliantly useful ideas to thrive if they aren't (tadaaaaa!) marketable... If they can't turn enough of a profit to not only feed you, your employees, your landlord (if you're brick and mortar), and your shareholders, then it's not gonna play.
COUNTER-ATTACK: No, this does not mean that I feel that State direction would be a better means of producing things. The market may suck, but the government gives new meaning to the term 'fucked up piece of shit.'
We're gonna have to figure things out quick, because situations like this are going to become more and more prevalant. The first part of figuring things out is admitting that the dot-con boom helped out open source tremendously. First off, a lot of excess money floatin' around means it's easy to grab a bit of the overflow. Second, ridiculously high paying jobs that are easy to come by means that we can easily work on open source projects on the side. And third, due to the omnipresence of incredibly stupid middle managers who don't know the difference between TCSH, BASH, AND M*A*S*H, means we can work on this stuff while on the company clock, and nobody's the wiser.
But that sweet deal is gone, boys and girls, and it's probably never coming back. Because open source is invincible (meaning it can't be killed, not that it can't be hurt) means that it survived the fallout a lot better that many proprietary systems. But that doesn't mean it's gonna become a whole lot harder to develop.
However, the catch-22 is that, as the economy gets shittier, the more people need cheap software.
So how do give the people (and ourselves) what they want, while at the same time, having enough money to eat and pay rent? (*)
I never said I had the answers, though. But it'll be interesting to see what comes out of it all.
Dominion
Anarchist FAQ
* NOTE: Money to eat and pay rent does not imply that _any_ of us deserve to eat at five star restaurants and live in $1800/mo studio apartments. Let's get off our high horses. We lucked out for a few years in the 90's, but it's ridiculous to assume that we could be a part of that club for very long. And it doesn't really matter, anywhere with cheap rent and good burritos is gonna be infinitely more interesting than any yuppie enclave where the street musicians have been put in jail and everybody goes to sleep at 9:00pm.
THE DUMBEST CRIMINAL ON THE PLANET - Kindly Contributor in Philippines GETS $3 from a Lad
You know, as much as this might get a chuckle out of just about anyone (hell, myself included), I have to say this:
The last thing I would ever do is turn somebody in to the FSCKING GHANA POLICE!
Hell, email scams piss me off just as much as anybody, but that's a fate that I wouldn't wish on just about anyone (except for maybe the Ghana police themselves).
Dominion
Paying fair U.S. wages, while complying with U.S. regulations to protect the workers and the environment, costs money. So a company can gain a competitive edge by hiring workers in foreign countries where salaries are lower and where such rules do not exist. If some smoke-belching plant across a border can pay people $10/day and work them for 12 hour shifts, then the company using that workforce can realize lower operating costs and, hence, higher profits.
So, why, exactly, are the foriegn workers listed as "Winners?"
Sounds like they're getting fucked over pretty hard as well.
Dominion