Microsoft's MSN protocol is not in the public domain and is considered Microsoft's IP. The only way you make an MSN client is to either reverse engineer the protocol or pay for a license and sign an NDA from Microsoft. Either way, when you do this, the protocol is still Microsoft's, and if they decide to change it, they have every right to do that on their own with nobody's permission.
The "right" to make changes to a closed protocol isn't analogous to licensing third parties to use what is essentially a public network.
It's like saying that only one HTTP client is "licensed" to connect to your company's HTTP servers and all the others are illicit. You could claim such a thing, of course, but it doesn't give you a remedy against people who connect using one of these "illicit" clients.
Further, the protocol may "belong" to Microsoft, in some abstract sense, but it's not "intellectual property." It's not a "work" -- an independent implementation whould not violate any copyright -- and IIRC it is not patented.
It has always perplexed me how software came to fall under the protection of copyright. It starts with the idea that software is "expression" (not "invention") and should be protected as such.
I mean, I can understand why companies would want such a thing: if software were protected by patent only -- and, provided software patents weren't granted so irresponsibly (i.e. a patent souldn't cover abstract or nonnovel concepts, mathematical formula, etc. but only actual, specific implementations of novel concepts) -- well,
the source code for all software would be available for public scrutiny, and
the right to restrict the use of your software would be limited, and would expire after 20-some years, rather than exist in perpetuity.
So, I can understand why it's a "better deal" for software companies that code falls under the rules of copyright rather than those of patents. Still, software has much more in common with patentable inventions than it has with, I don't know, Hamlet or Starry Night or Finnegans Wake.
Yes, sometimes some code is exclusively the expression of an idea--Hello World examples in text books, for instance, Touretzky's DeCSS Gallery, etc. And, yes, I buy the concept that software is to varying extents both functional and expressive. Most of the time, however, software is no different than a recipe. Recipes are also dual use -- arguably more expressive than code is functional -- but a recipe still doesn't necessarily get the protection of copyright law.
Copyright, after all, was devised to encourage the spread of intangible ideas, art, research, press. Patents, likewise, were devised to encourage invention, technology, science.
Now, I admit, I'm a socialist bastard and I reject property outright. But it seems to me, even on "social democratic" grounds, that software copyrights are contrary to the intent of copyright and that software ought to be protected, if at all, under a different system of law.
I know Slashdot hates software patents, but, in all honesty, software patents are a deal more sane than software copyright, if software went through the same scrutiny as other inventions. Patents are limited in both time and scope. Patents apply to specific implementations, only. Patents are "public domain" (i.e. on the public record for the benefit fo the public). Patent rights don't prevent tinkering and they don't prevent people from dreaming up new ideas based on what they've seen.
If software were protected by a sane system of patents, I very much doubt the GPL would have come to pass at all because most of the things it seeks to protect would be the case for all software.
Of course, when we speak of "protection" we're talking about two different things: the right to control one's creation and the right to create it in the first place. Slashdot likes "software is expression" because it protects the latter, but, I think we're ultimately shooting ourselves in the foot due to the overzealousness of protections for the former. Protecting the right to reverse engineer, tinker, experiment, and so on, needn't come at the burden of unreasonable rights of control.
The rights that the parent poster is talking about are what are called the "moral rights" of the author. Unlike copyright, they are nontransferrable and last in perpetuity. Many countries have strong laws protecting the moral rights of the author (France, I believe) while others have fairly lax laws (the US, for instance, and Canada).
Moral rights are often associated with (and in some cases protected by) copyright law, but in truth they are a concept orthogonal to copyright.
Moral rights are rights that an author has in relation to his or her work regardless of who owns the work. Moral rights do not protect "intellectual property" -- as such -- rather, they protect the reputation and vision of the author of a work. While an author may transfer his copyright (for instance, voluntarily, or in the course of his employment), he may not transfer his moral rights.
In North America, this usually means authors enjoy the right of attribution, where, in some jurisdictions, the author has the right to have her name associated with her work, or decline to have her name so associated.
In other systems of law, an author's moral rights go on to include rights regarding revisions/distortions of the author's work (right of integrity), the right to prevent one's name from being associated with works one did not create, and the right of an author to purchase all existing copies of her work and to prevent further sale (should she change her mind about what she's written, painted, etc.)
While a work in the public domain is not subject to copyright, it may very well be subject to various moral rights, depending on where you live.
You really can't tar them all with the same brush.
Sure, you can. Every corporation on Earth is a means to the same end: profits for the capital owners. It's a pretty straightforward, quantifiable objective. The side effects of those objects in a market economy are various, but well understood.
Sure, corporations have probably contributed some benefit to the social good... but as their existence in the production of "social good" isn't required (there are numerous examples of humanity getting on -- with "progress" and all -- without them), the overall effect has been an increasingly unnecessary amount of human suffering.
The "best" corporation, by definition, is the most greedy and ruthless. We're lucky that corporations exist that don't cause any significant human suffering. But those corporations exist in spite of themselves--the impact of the capitalist enterprise, the market system, and, really, our system of governance, encourages behaviour that most people would consider abhorrent, yet many condone as "just the facts of business."
It's not as if there aren't alternatives: co-operative and participatory economies do exist... most earnest economists would no longer deny that functional economies based on equity, diversity, self-management, and labour efficiency are possible.
The rules of the system are contrived--the idea that we as a race require cutthroat competition over concerted co-operation is, well, cynical, yes, but more importantly unfounded.
So, what you call "anti-corporate sludge" isn't about painting corporations as if they were people (who have myriad motivations and reasons for being). It's about recognition of the fact that the conditions that not only created but are also sustained by corporations are unnecessary and harmful to the well-being of both individuals and society.
However, the FSF is saying that "RedHat Linux" is a GNU/Linux distribution, not merely a Linux one.
What RedHat formally calls its product is not the same thing as what it (or we) might call the class of products to which RedHat's distinctive version belongs.
Coca-Cola Classic : cola:: RedHat Linux : GNU/Linux.
That's right! The FSF is not asking you to call Linux anything other than "Linux."
The FSF is, on the other hand, asking you to call distributions of the GNU operating system, which use the Linux kernel, "GNU/Linux."
If you are skeptical about the contribution of the FSF, why not try an exercise? Install a "Linux" distribution. Afterward, remove every piece of software that was written by the GNU Project. What happens?
I think the real offence is the "someone" mischaracterizing the actions of a real-life butcher and tyrant. The author's comments surrounding Pinochet were fully ignorant.
I'm sure this has crossed more than few minds: doesn't this "VeriChip" remind you of the IDChip hoax?
Mind you, the nonexistant IDChip was billed as an instrument of convenient, universal commerce--not a tracking device for patient data and missing children... still, it conjures a lot of the same imagery.
It's attitudes like this that convince me daily that we need a stronger labour movement in technical industries.
I am continually amazed at the attitudes out of people here at Slashdot. On the one hand, we've got all this fire and fury for free software -- a concept which seeks to dissolve the idea of intellectual property, for reasons which apply to all property -- yet we have, on the other, people who seem set that it's OK to sell yourself to your boss, for 8 hours or 10 hours or whatever... and that during that time, only he -- and his privileged managers -- have a right to tell you what to do while you're at work.
I'm not saying we've got a "right to surf the Internet at work." That's trivial. Still, I'm shocked by the prevailent argument that we don't have a right to complain, or to have a democratic say in the policies that govern us at work.
It's insane. I would've figured there'd be more self-respect out of this bunch...
No, what they are saying is that they paid for the development of IE and don't want to be forced to give away their intellectual property. They don't want there to be a Linux version because the availability of IE in Windows gives them a market advantage over Linux. Say what you want about IE, but there are many sites, including e-commerce, that don't work correctly under other browsers. I don't care why. It's simply true. I run Opera and have to switch to IE occasionally for that reason. My friends who run Mozilla and Netscape report the same thing.
You need to look past your "open source rulez!" tattoo and think like a business person. Microsoft does not want to invest man-years in a wildly popular software product and then give the source away. That's not surprising, hard to understand, or indicative that they feel technologically inferior to the herd of cats that is the open source movement.
But, really, we shouldn't be looking at this situation like "business people." Microsoft has been found guilty of a crime. If I am found guilty of a crime, I don't get very much leeway to protest that the Court's punishment is unfair (setting aside any potential rants about the flaws of such a system of Courts).
I mean, if I speed, I get a ticket... if the Crown Attorney tries to jail me for life, well, I can protest. The Court will (hopefully) note the absurdity of the punishment and fine me, instead. However, in this case, the loss of a monopolist's property (intellectual or not) is quite apropos. Of course it undermines Microsoft's business interest: it's supposed to do just that.
It is not in the public interest to have Microsoft around... We're stuck with them, for the time being, but that's not to say we have to make it easy for them. No, it should be brutally hard.
"Anarcho-capitalism" is nonsensical. I've found that most people who find themselves drawn to that idea are thinking of a "libertarian free market" -- as opposed to, say, the strictly controlled "state communist" system where production/consumption is centrally planned -- but not exactly "capitalism."
A truly capitalist system requires a concept, for instance, of "private property" and wage labour. A system which permits either eventually leads to inegalitarian and often brutal conditions. "Free markets" based around such a system quickly deteriorate. And in any event, anarchism rejects both of these heirarchies, explicitly.
While anarchists are wont to disagree on much, there are the fundamentals... "people ought to control their labour," is one. This rules out capitalism on its face, because owners and managers necessarily control labour in a capitalist system. (I can't tell you how many times I've seen Slashdotters complain about management--yet very rarely do we have someone who'll stand up to say: "You know, management is really unnecessary. We can get these software projects done, without them, and with a greater sense of accomplishment and pride in our work.")
(As an aside--this,m maybe tragically, was the point dear ol' Adam Smith was attempting to drill into our heads way back when he wrote The Wealth of Nations. Despite what's normally touted about his work, what Smith said was largely anti-capitalist.)
In the end, anarchism comes down to a critique of power structures. It's the idea that people and institutions with power must always justify their use of it. If the use of power is unjustified -- if we could do as well, or better, without it... well, that power needs to be dismantled. It's democracy taken through to its logical end.
English language (and all applications thereof) used without permission from its inventors, writers or copywriters. No rights reserved. All parts of this book may be reproduced and transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, especially including photocopying if it is done at the expense of some unsuspecting corporation. Other recommended methods include casting readings over pirate radio, reprinting tracts in unwary newspapers, and just signing your own name to this and publishing it as your own work. Any claim relating to copyright infringement, advocation of illegal activities, defamation of character, incitement to riot, treason, etc. should be addressed directly to your Congressperson as a military rather than civil issue.
Did I mention that many of might want to pick up a copy of Days of Love, Nights of War? It's spectacular in ways I can't express:)
In the end you've got proprietary hardware that is, lets face it, underpowered...
You keep saying this, but, it doesn't make any sense. What, exactly, is so proprietary about Apple hardware?
As far as I understand it, they make a custom motherboard. That's about it. All the components that attach thereto are pretty "standard." Video card? AGP. Expansion cards? PCI. Memory? Standard SDRAM DIMMs. Storage? ATA. They've got USB, Firewire, Ethernet.
A PowerMac is about as standard as any PC; built custom or manufactured by Dell.
Unless you're using some phantom components that are universally standard in every circumstance, I don't see how your custom built PCs are any more "standard."
Macs ship with a proprietary OS, just as PCs are often shipped with one. That's about the extent of it.
"...as my warez kiddie neighbor's son found out last week, they are capping uploads to 10MB/day and downloads to 150MB/day. After that point, their filters drop about 25% of your packets and the connection is pretty
much useless until midnight."
The implication that someone who downloads more than 150MB of data in a day is of course linked to some form of mischief is both ludicrous and wrongheaded. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to use more than 150MB of downstream data transfer per day.
There are days where I may do a complete network install of an operating system by FTP... everything from system sources to X11 and perhaps 350 software packages... I could easily hit a few gigabytes in a day... and none of it on any "warez kiddie" (read: illegitimate) purpose.
I don't mean to offend, but, it sounds like the service you need (basically "fast web browsing") is one-way satellite service.
A broadband service that caps data transfer such as you describe is a rip off.
This is an issue where private monopolies aren't really listening to "demand." Yes, a large number of people simply want "fast web browsing," but for the most part, any broadband service will provide that... however, there is a large segment of the computing population who'd like to be able to do more than just that.
It baffles me as to why these companies do everything in their power to curtail this sort of thing. Surely they must realize that if these people could afford "business-class" service and the QOS guarantees that provides, they would have contracted for the service already. So there's certainly no economic motivation--at least, not one that has any meaningful chance of playing out.
(Well, acutally, the above assumes that we're talking about companies who are in the business of providing data services. However, we're increasingly seeing Internet providers that are becoming dominated by media production companies. Time Warner is the perfect example. I've written about this before on Slashdot, and, it seems that large media companies are tailoring commercially available residential internet services to curtail not only alternative media voice, but, of course protect their all-important "intellectual property." Thus, we've got Internet services that behave more and more like television. Custom--and restrictive--browsers, proxies, network filters, asynchronous transfer rates ludicrously biased in favour of downstream (consumptive) usage over upstream (productive) usage... the list goes on. It seems a little insidious, but, the more you look at it... you start to see that from the perspective of a media company, not an ISP, the sorts of business practices being pursued by some broadband providers make more sense.)
Different software developers have different goals as members of the FS/OSS community. (Of course, they have different goals in other contexts, also.) This means that to expect everyone to do things for the same reason is to be disappointed. Some are, indeed, out to destroy capitalism. Others are trying to grow a consulting business (the essence of capitalism). Others are after fame. Others are doing term projects. Others... well, I don't know all of the reasons. I don't even remember all of the ones that I've encountered.
Oh, absolutely. I'm not suggesting that the free software "movement" (if not a community) poses a fully organized and coherent resistance to capitalism (or, even, that it presents us with a unified ideology at all).
However, I do believe that the free software phenominon evidences both anarchic and left libertarian trends, overall and in general. The fact that it is more likely such trends are spontaneous than they are an issue of "conscious dogma" is particularly compelling, at least, for me.
To assert that FS/OSS programmers are doing something for some particular reason is to guarantee that is both wrong and right. Some of them are doing it for that reason. (And I say this without even knowing what reason you are proposing. [OK, so it's a bit of an exaggeration.])
I'm not asserting that there's a unified ideological reason behind free software as a phenominon (while there are a certain set of ground rules on which most participants would agree, even the most outspoken proponents of FS/OSS tend to disagree on some of the fundamentals)... merely that it serves as an example of how work in our society could be better organized. Organized, that is to say, in ways that fulfill our humanity, rather than simply driving our capacity to act as living machines.
Free software, from my perspective, is not in competition with "capitalism," or capitalist software firms, at least in the usual sense.
"Open source software"* may represent a dubious "guerrilla capitalist" venture, but, free software is markedly unmotivated by the lure of "making money."
Free software, therefore, articulates a particularly salient social point because it shows plainly how capitalism can be made irrelevant. It demonstrates that work itself can be reclaimed as "a labour of love" -- indistinguishable from play -- done for the sake of it, done because the doing made it important.
Free software is particularly convincing in this respect, at least as far as debunking its detractors goes, in that it shows how work as play can achieve socially relevant goals (such as producing useful, quality software) without the need for a "profit motivation," a fallacious work ethic, or a heirarchical power structure (i.e. what constitutes the standard corporate business).
It shows that decentralized, nonheirarchical organizational methods can produce things that are worthwhile.
It shows that people, ultimately, don't have to be alienated from what they love to do.
Admirers and apologetics for the capitalist software industry thoroughly miss the point. It's not about making oodles of cash. Bill Gates is debased so vociferously, I find, because he's the antithesis of "work as play." The competition between "free software" and the property based software industry is, if anything, a nearly spiritual matter (said in the hopes that the term "spiritual" hasn't lost all meaning-- devoured by profit-blind cynicism).
The free software ethic can and should be extrapolated into other industries, and, fundamentally, into the way we live our lives. Free software is an example of how technology can be used to make our lives better by revolutionizing how it is we work, why it is we work, and how we organize and govern ourselves, generally. (It's not so much the technology that the software itself makes possible that's important here, but, the technology that makes free software, itself, possible, if you catch me).
Free software teaches us that voluntary, libertarian, noncoercive, nonheirarchical -- yes, socialistic (in that it rejects "private property," as such), but most importantly, anarchic -- methods of organization, production, and distribution are not only viable but both socially and psychologically preferrable.
It's strange to see that, despite all of the anti-corporate sentiment present in the free software community, few are willing to reconize the anarchic, libertarian nature of the community itself.
bacchusrx.
* viz., a software development apparatus whereby large, established companies (or small, upstart ones) believe they can entice users to do their jobs for them (read: fixing bugs, coding new features), for free, while concurrently appearing committed to "fairness" and "freedom" in opposition to their more leviathan counterpart, Microsoft (particularly as exemplified by Sun, IBM and Apple)
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's MSN protocol is not in the public domain and is considered Microsoft's IP. The only way you make an MSN client is to either reverse engineer the protocol or pay for a license and sign an NDA from Microsoft. Either way, when you do this, the protocol is still Microsoft's, and if they decide to change it, they have every right to do that on their own with nobody's permission.
The "right" to make changes to a closed protocol isn't analogous to licensing third parties to use what is essentially a public network.
It's like saying that only one HTTP client is "licensed" to connect to your company's HTTP servers and all the others are illicit. You could claim such a thing, of course, but it doesn't give you a remedy against people who connect using one of these "illicit" clients.
Further, the protocol may "belong" to Microsoft, in some abstract sense, but it's not "intellectual property." It's not a "work" -- an independent implementation whould not violate any copyright -- and IIRC it is not patented.
bacchusrx.
The original SCO still exists.
bacchusrx.
It has always perplexed me how software came to fall under the protection of copyright. It starts with the idea that software is "expression" (not "invention") and should be protected as such.
I mean, I can understand why companies would want such a thing: if software were protected by patent only -- and, provided software patents weren't granted so irresponsibly (i.e. a patent souldn't cover abstract or nonnovel concepts, mathematical formula, etc. but only actual, specific implementations of novel concepts) -- well,
So, I can understand why it's a "better deal" for software companies that code falls under the rules of copyright rather than those of patents. Still, software has much more in common with patentable inventions than it has with, I don't know, Hamlet or Starry Night or Finnegans Wake.
Yes, sometimes some code is exclusively the expression of an idea--Hello World examples in text books, for instance, Touretzky's DeCSS Gallery, etc. And, yes, I buy the concept that software is to varying extents both functional and expressive. Most of the time, however, software is no different than a recipe. Recipes are also dual use -- arguably more expressive than code is functional -- but a recipe still doesn't necessarily get the protection of copyright law.
Copyright, after all, was devised to encourage the spread of intangible ideas, art, research, press. Patents, likewise, were devised to encourage invention, technology, science.
Now, I admit, I'm a socialist bastard and I reject property outright. But it seems to me, even on "social democratic" grounds, that software copyrights are contrary to the intent of copyright and that software ought to be protected, if at all, under a different system of law.
I know Slashdot hates software patents, but, in all honesty, software patents are a deal more sane than software copyright, if software went through the same scrutiny as other inventions. Patents are limited in both time and scope. Patents apply to specific implementations, only. Patents are "public domain" (i.e. on the public record for the benefit fo the public). Patent rights don't prevent tinkering and they don't prevent people from dreaming up new ideas based on what they've seen.
If software were protected by a sane system of patents, I very much doubt the GPL would have come to pass at all because most of the things it seeks to protect would be the case for all software.
Of course, when we speak of "protection" we're talking about two different things: the right to control one's creation and the right to create it in the first place. Slashdot likes "software is expression" because it protects the latter, but, I think we're ultimately shooting ourselves in the foot due to the overzealousness of protections for the former. Protecting the right to reverse engineer, tinker, experiment, and so on, needn't come at the burden of unreasonable rights of control.
bacchusrx.
No, you're mistaken.
The rights that the parent poster is talking about are what are called the "moral rights" of the author. Unlike copyright, they are nontransferrable and last in perpetuity. Many countries have strong laws protecting the moral rights of the author (France, I believe) while others have fairly lax laws (the US, for instance, and Canada).
Moral rights are often associated with (and in some cases protected by) copyright law, but in truth they are a concept orthogonal to copyright.
Moral rights are rights that an author has in relation to his or her work regardless of who owns the work. Moral rights do not protect "intellectual property" -- as such -- rather, they protect the reputation and vision of the author of a work. While an author may transfer his copyright (for instance, voluntarily, or in the course of his employment), he may not transfer his moral rights.
In North America, this usually means authors enjoy the right of attribution, where, in some jurisdictions, the author has the right to have her name associated with her work, or decline to have her name so associated.
In other systems of law, an author's moral rights go on to include rights regarding revisions/distortions of the author's work (right of integrity), the right to prevent one's name from being associated with works one did not create, and the right of an author to purchase all existing copies of her work and to prevent further sale (should she change her mind about what she's written, painted, etc.)
While a work in the public domain is not subject to copyright, it may very well be subject to various moral rights, depending on where you live.
If you want to know more, there's always Google.
bacchusrx.
America is where a person on the streets can go from rags to riches with hard work.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
bacchusrx.
You really can't tar them all with the same brush.
Sure, you can. Every corporation on Earth is a means to the same end: profits for the capital owners. It's a pretty straightforward, quantifiable objective. The side effects of those objects in a market economy are various, but well understood.
Sure, corporations have probably contributed some benefit to the social good... but as their existence in the production of "social good" isn't required (there are numerous examples of humanity getting on -- with "progress" and all -- without them), the overall effect has been an increasingly unnecessary amount of human suffering.
The "best" corporation, by definition, is the most greedy and ruthless. We're lucky that corporations exist that don't cause any significant human suffering. But those corporations exist in spite of themselves--the impact of the capitalist enterprise, the market system, and, really, our system of governance, encourages behaviour that most people would consider abhorrent, yet many condone as "just the facts of business."
It's not as if there aren't alternatives: co-operative and participatory economies do exist... most earnest economists would no longer deny that functional economies based on equity, diversity, self-management, and labour efficiency are possible.
The rules of the system are contrived--the idea that we as a race require cutthroat competition over concerted co-operation is, well, cynical, yes, but more importantly unfounded.
So, what you call "anti-corporate sludge" isn't about painting corporations as if they were people (who have myriad motivations and reasons for being). It's about recognition of the fact that the conditions that not only created but are also sustained by corporations are unnecessary and harmful to the well-being of both individuals and society.
bacchusrx.
...scary-looking skin/theme mod for OSX...
This page has a nice selection of themes for Mac OS X. The Rhapsodized and QNX themes are the best of them, IMHO.
bacchusrx.
Yes! There, they've got this snow called "rain." I remain speechless.
;)
bacchusrx.
soviet canuckistani.
LOL -- exactly. I know regular expressions in Perl, but, at least I admit I'm a cheap drunk ;)
;)
$0.25 a beer? Fill 'er up, amigos. We're riding high and it's time to shoot the moon
bacchusrx.
A corporation is a group of people that do have individual rights. They can choose to exercise those rights as a group.
That's not entirely true. A corporation is, under law, a "natural person" that has rights distinct from those of the persons who comprise it.
Nothing in law requires that a corporation exist in order for groups of individuals to "exercise their rights together."
bacchusrx.
Would you like a trashcan that moves things to yet another trashcan when you empty it?
;)
Well, that is--more or less--the way that actual trashcans operate
bacchusrx.
Sure, I agree.
:: RedHat Linux : GNU/Linux.
However, the FSF is saying that "RedHat Linux" is a GNU/Linux distribution, not merely a Linux one.
What RedHat formally calls its product is not the same thing as what it (or we) might call the class of products to which RedHat's distinctive version belongs.
Coca-Cola Classic : cola
bacchusrx.
That's right! The FSF is not asking you to call Linux anything other than "Linux."
The FSF is, on the other hand, asking you to call distributions of the GNU operating system, which use the Linux kernel, "GNU/Linux."
If you are skeptical about the contribution of the FSF, why not try an exercise? Install a "Linux" distribution. Afterward, remove every piece of software that was written by the GNU Project. What happens?
bacchusrx.
I think the real offence is the "someone" mischaracterizing the actions of a real-life butcher and tyrant. The author's comments surrounding Pinochet were fully ignorant.
BRx.
What is this? Apocalypse hour on Slashdot? First the story on the implantable microchips, now clones...
BRx.
I'm sure this has crossed more than few minds: doesn't this "VeriChip" remind you of the IDChip hoax?
Mind you, the nonexistant IDChip was billed as an instrument of convenient, universal commerce--not a tracking device for patient data and missing children... still, it conjures a lot of the same imagery.
BRx.
It's attitudes like this that convince me daily that we need a stronger labour movement in technical industries.
I am continually amazed at the attitudes out of people here at Slashdot. On the one hand, we've got all this fire and fury for free software -- a concept which seeks to dissolve the idea of intellectual property, for reasons which apply to all property -- yet we have, on the other, people who seem set that it's OK to sell yourself to your boss, for 8 hours or 10 hours or whatever... and that during that time, only he -- and his privileged managers -- have a right to tell you what to do while you're at work.
I'm not saying we've got a "right to surf the Internet at work." That's trivial. Still, I'm shocked by the prevailent argument that we don't have a right to complain, or to have a democratic say in the policies that govern us at work.
It's insane. I would've figured there'd be more self-respect out of this bunch...
BRx.
No, what they are saying is that they paid for the development of IE and don't want to be forced to give away their intellectual property. They don't want there to be a Linux version because the availability of IE in Windows gives them a market advantage over Linux. Say what you want about IE, but there are many sites, including e-commerce, that don't work correctly under other browsers. I don't care why. It's simply true. I run Opera and have to switch to IE occasionally for that reason. My friends who run Mozilla and Netscape report the same thing.
You need to look past your "open source rulez!" tattoo and think like a business person. Microsoft does not want to invest man-years in a wildly popular software product and then give the source away. That's not surprising, hard to understand, or indicative that they feel technologically inferior to the herd of cats that is the open source movement.
But, really, we shouldn't be looking at this situation like "business people." Microsoft has been found guilty of a crime. If I am found guilty of a crime, I don't get very much leeway to protest that the Court's punishment is unfair (setting aside any potential rants about the flaws of such a system of Courts).
I mean, if I speed, I get a ticket... if the Crown Attorney tries to jail me for life, well, I can protest. The Court will (hopefully) note the absurdity of the punishment and fine me, instead. However, in this case, the loss of a monopolist's property (intellectual or not) is quite apropos. Of course it undermines Microsoft's business interest: it's supposed to do just that.
It is not in the public interest to have Microsoft around... We're stuck with them, for the time being, but that's not to say we have to make it easy for them. No, it should be brutally hard.
BRx.
A truly capitalist system requires a concept, for instance, of "private property" and wage labour. A system which permits either eventually leads to inegalitarian and often brutal conditions. "Free markets" based around such a system quickly deteriorate. And in any event, anarchism rejects both of these heirarchies, explicitly.
While anarchists are wont to disagree on much, there are the fundamentals... "people ought to control their labour," is one. This rules out capitalism on its face, because owners and managers necessarily control labour in a capitalist system. (I can't tell you how many times I've seen Slashdotters complain about management--yet very rarely do we have someone who'll stand up to say: "You know, management is really unnecessary. We can get these software projects done, without them, and with a greater sense of accomplishment and pride in our work.")
(As an aside--this,m maybe tragically, was the point dear ol' Adam Smith was attempting to drill into our heads way back when he wrote The Wealth of Nations. Despite what's normally touted about his work, what Smith said was largely anti-capitalist.)
In the end, anarchism comes down to a critique of power structures. It's the idea that people and institutions with power must always justify their use of it. If the use of power is unjustified -- if we could do as well, or better, without it... well, that power needs to be dismantled. It's democracy taken through to its logical end.
bacchusrx.
Oh for chrissakes. I knew I should have hit "preview."
;)
In any case, many of you might want to check out Days of War, Nights of Love . *sigh*
bacchusrx
Did I mention that many of might want to pick up a copy of Days of Love, Nights of War? It's spectacular in ways I can't express
bacchusrx.
In the end you've got proprietary hardware that is, lets face it, underpowered...
You keep saying this, but, it doesn't make any sense. What, exactly, is so proprietary about Apple hardware?
As far as I understand it, they make a custom motherboard. That's about it. All the components that attach thereto are pretty "standard." Video card? AGP. Expansion cards? PCI. Memory? Standard SDRAM DIMMs. Storage? ATA. They've got USB, Firewire, Ethernet.
A PowerMac is about as standard as any PC; built custom or manufactured by Dell.
Unless you're using some phantom components that are universally standard in every circumstance, I don't see how your custom built PCs are any more "standard."
Macs ship with a proprietary OS, just as PCs are often shipped with one. That's about the extent of it.
bacchusrx.
"...as my warez kiddie neighbor's son found out last week, they are capping uploads to 10MB/day and downloads to 150MB/day. After that point, their filters drop about 25% of your packets and the connection is pretty
much useless until midnight."
The implication that someone who downloads more than 150MB of data in a day is of course linked to some form of mischief is both ludicrous and wrongheaded. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to use more than 150MB of downstream data transfer per day.
There are days where I may do a complete network install of an operating system by FTP... everything from system sources to X11 and perhaps 350 software packages... I could easily hit a few gigabytes in a day... and none of it on any "warez kiddie" (read: illegitimate) purpose.
I don't mean to offend, but, it sounds like the service you need (basically "fast web browsing") is one-way satellite service.
A broadband service that caps data transfer such as you describe is a rip off.
This is an issue where private monopolies aren't really listening to "demand." Yes, a large number of people simply want "fast web browsing," but for the most part, any broadband service will provide that... however, there is a large segment of the computing population who'd like to be able to do more than just that.
It baffles me as to why these companies do everything in their power to curtail this sort of thing. Surely they must realize that if these people could afford "business-class" service and the QOS guarantees that provides, they would have contracted for the service already. So there's certainly no economic motivation--at least, not one that has any meaningful chance of playing out.
(Well, acutally, the above assumes that we're talking about companies who are in the business of providing data services. However, we're increasingly seeing Internet providers that are becoming dominated by media production companies. Time Warner is the perfect example. I've written about this before on Slashdot, and, it seems that large media companies are tailoring commercially available residential internet services to curtail not only alternative media voice, but, of course protect their all-important "intellectual property." Thus, we've got Internet services that behave more and more like television. Custom--and restrictive--browsers, proxies, network filters, asynchronous transfer rates ludicrously biased in favour of downstream (consumptive) usage over upstream (productive) usage... the list goes on. It seems a little insidious, but, the more you look at it... you start to see that from the perspective of a media company, not an ISP, the sorts of business practices being pursued by some broadband providers make more sense.)
bacchusrx.
Different software developers have different goals as members of the FS/OSS community. (Of course, they have different goals in other contexts, also.) This means that to expect everyone to do things for the same reason is to be disappointed. Some are, indeed, out to destroy capitalism. Others are trying to grow a consulting business (the essence of capitalism). Others are after fame. Others are doing term projects. Others... well, I don't know all of the reasons. I don't even remember all of the ones that I've encountered.
Oh, absolutely. I'm not suggesting that the free software "movement" (if not a community) poses a fully organized and coherent resistance to capitalism (or, even, that it presents us with a unified ideology at all).
However, I do believe that the free software phenominon evidences both anarchic and left libertarian trends, overall and in general. The fact that it is more likely such trends are spontaneous than they are an issue of "conscious dogma" is particularly compelling, at least, for me.
To assert that FS/OSS programmers are doing something for some particular reason is to guarantee that is both wrong and right. Some of them are doing it for that reason. (And I say this without even knowing what reason you are proposing. [OK, so it's a bit of an exaggeration.])
I'm not asserting that there's a unified ideological reason behind free software as a phenominon (while there are a certain set of ground rules on which most participants would agree, even the most outspoken proponents of FS/OSS tend to disagree on some of the fundamentals)... merely that it serves as an example of how work in our society could be better organized. Organized, that is to say, in ways that fulfill our humanity, rather than simply driving our capacity to act as living machines.
bacchusrx.
Excellent point!
Free software, from my perspective, is not in competition with "capitalism," or capitalist software firms, at least in the usual sense.
"Open source software"* may represent a dubious "guerrilla capitalist" venture, but, free software is markedly unmotivated by the lure of "making money."
Free software, therefore, articulates a particularly salient social point because it shows plainly how capitalism can be made irrelevant. It demonstrates that work itself can be reclaimed as "a labour of love" -- indistinguishable from play -- done for the sake of it, done because the doing made it important.
Free software is particularly convincing in this respect, at least as far as debunking its detractors goes, in that it shows how work as play can achieve socially relevant goals (such as producing useful, quality software) without the need for a "profit motivation," a fallacious work ethic, or a heirarchical power structure (i.e. what constitutes the standard corporate business).
It shows that decentralized, nonheirarchical organizational methods can produce things that are worthwhile.
It shows that people, ultimately, don't have to be alienated from what they love to do.
Admirers and apologetics for the capitalist software industry thoroughly miss the point. It's not about making oodles of cash. Bill Gates is debased so vociferously, I find, because he's the antithesis of "work as play." The competition between "free software" and the property based software industry is, if anything, a nearly spiritual matter (said in the hopes that the term "spiritual" hasn't lost all meaning-- devoured by profit-blind cynicism).
The free software ethic can and should be extrapolated into other industries, and, fundamentally, into the way we live our lives. Free software is an example of how technology can be used to make our lives better by revolutionizing how it is we work, why it is we work, and how we organize and govern ourselves, generally. (It's not so much the technology that the software itself makes possible that's important here, but, the technology that makes free software, itself, possible, if you catch me).
Free software teaches us that voluntary, libertarian, noncoercive, nonheirarchical -- yes, socialistic (in that it rejects "private property," as such), but most importantly, anarchic -- methods of organization, production, and distribution are not only viable but both socially and psychologically preferrable.
It's strange to see that, despite all of the anti-corporate sentiment present in the free software community, few are willing to reconize the anarchic, libertarian nature of the community itself.
bacchusrx.
* viz., a software development apparatus whereby large, established companies (or small, upstart ones) believe they can entice users to do their jobs for them (read: fixing bugs, coding new features), for free, while concurrently appearing committed to "fairness" and "freedom" in opposition to their more leviathan counterpart, Microsoft (particularly as exemplified by Sun, IBM and Apple)