In contrary to frequent misconceptions, materials technology does not follow Moore's law - heat and stress resistance DO NOT double every 18 months!
Agreed that materials science does not follow Moore's "Law". That doesn't negate the very real value behind research which leads toward reusable terrestrial to space and controlled landing vehicles.
Your argument boils down to: traditional rocketry is more efficient in energy expended / per kilo launched than our current crop of reusable vehicles, so we shouldn't bother with researching new means for easily entering and exiting space beyond our current needs of launching individuals and satellite. Which is undoubtedly true, but very shortsighted. Reusable vehicles offer certain advantages, with costs in terms of energy expended to orbit that may be greater than traditional rocketry, but advantages that rocketry also lacks. This costs money in both development and use per launch - it's an overhead cost.
The Shuttle, and newer nextgen technologies, offer new features such as controlled decent and landing. This is a real value which previous systems lacked! If NASA and Congress want to set that as a critical design goal in the hopes of creating a new generation space fleet, then I'm all for it. JMO. But please, spend the necessary money to do it right!
I think you're mixing todays engineering realities with tomorrows design goals. The two don't necessarily meet. The question to answer is, is the research toward a totally reusable system, one which leads to aerospace to space and back systems, worth pursuing? Is it worth the money?
That's a question for Congress and us constituents to answer, not the engineers.
Wings are useless during launch and in space, they just add to weight penalty.
Winged vehicles are unstable during re-entry and need a complex and error-prone automatic flight control system.
Wings are less fault tolerant and more vulnerable to damage.
The worst idea is however to put a winged vehicle on top of a rocket!
I'm not going to disagree with your points against winged shuttles, only that you misunderstand the design goals of the shuttle, and why they were valid goals.
The Shuttle, and any next generation craft, is an attempt at creating not just a reusable vehicle, but also one which offers control at landing at a specific place; in this case a runway. Unlike a reentry capsule, which decends to some semi-random location by parachute, the Shuttle can glide toward a specific spot and land. This is a definite step up from previous capsuls in terms of technology and space readiness. And NASA wanted to do even better with their nextgen shuttle, the X-33 design goals were 'single stage to orbit', and would have allowed for a launch and land system without the costly solid fuel rockets. Also a reasonable design goal. Too bad the materials science for the hydrogen tanks isn't quite ready yet, nor are funds available to continue R&D.
NASA is failing because of two primary problems:
a) They lack funding from Congress, and as such are unable to both meet their launch goals and provide the necessary R&D for nextgen launch vehicles.
b) They have foolishly cut safety funding in order to meet those same launch goals, as demanded by Congress. They should have either said straight - we can't meet your goals with the funding alloted, or dumped the Shuttle program and moved to traditional rockets (as you stated in your previous post).
But to say that their R&D toward an orbital space plane was misplaced goes against the very grain of space exploration. At some point we're going to need vehicles that can operate in both space and the atmosphere. NASA obviously committed themselves toward the goal of creating such ships. Space will go nowhere if we only launch rockets into LEO and land in capsules by parachute. You can argue that our materials technology isn't ready yet for the challenges creating real land to space ships, but you can't argue that such a technology is the end goal for any space faring society.
This is JMO, coming from someone who isn't either an aerospace engineer or involved with NASA - and as such has simply a semi-informed opinion to offer.
When you evaluate an OS like Linux you're not concerned with what it may do tomorrow.
I'm a bit surprised at comments like this from someone who claims any sort of experience with large scale system administration.
The surprise is all yours by taking that sentence out of its original context. In the previous post I was responding to the assertion that IT management doesn't take into consideration potential advancements in the future development of Open Source software when considering deployments today. And they shouldn't, for the same reason they shouldn't consider future vaporware claims by proprietary vendors as reason to stall or kill deployment of needed functionality today.
If Linux or UNIX with Java does what you need today, why would you wait two release iterations and possibly several years for.NET to do what you need tomorrow? The reverse is also true: if Windows and.NET does what you need today within your budget, why wait some number of release iterations for an Open Source solution to possibly do what you need tomorrow? The issue is functionality for dollars, and how much money that functionality will save the organization in overhead costs elsewhere. Proprietary vs, Open Source arguments are really a side issue about how much more the organization can save in deployment and long term management costs (which on their own can be a make/break issue depending on how much money said functionality may save). That was my point.
Open Source is beating Windows in the space where it competes for same functionality at cheaper deployment and lifetime management costs. That is, lower capitalization costs on initial deployment, plus the added benefit of lower management costs across the lifetime of the deployment.
For example: there's no doubt that even commercial RISC UNIX is better secured and cheaper to manage in large deployments than Windows, just as there's no doubt that the original MacOS was cheaper to manage in small departmental deployments than Windows and the PC - yet Windows and the PC won out because of the lower capitalization costs associated with setup, plus the network effects that resulted as deployments increased across the macro economy. So, the higher management costs over the lifetime of Windows and the PC were trumped by the far cheaper initial capitalization costs associated with setting up an infrastructure from scratch; most of these actually evolved at the departmental level and weren't planned as such.
Open Source offers an even cheaper initial deployment, plus if you're big enough to hire competent staff and deploy in large numbers, it offers even cheaper management costs than Windows. This is a double win. But without the cheaper up front costs, Open Source would lose to Windows, or any other proprietary solution. It wouldn't 'get throught the back door', so to speak. This is JMO.
The rest of your post I largely agree with. I'm certainly not going to debate the value of the UNIX security model or its scalability compared to Windows, though I'm sure both of us could find examples of better secured (and now dead) OS's from the distant past which would trump 'NIX.
Hate to say it, but it's the GPL which will enable Linux to gain in marketshare beyond what BSD has.
The BSD License allows companies to take the work of the BSD developers, make changes, and not share those changes back with the original developers.
Hey qpt,
gotta say I disagree here. Factually, of course you're right on. But the conclusion, that the licensing differences between GPL and BSD amount to the reason why Linux has taken off commercially while *BSD hasn't, I think that's in error. I do agree that there's a slight selection pressure in support of GPL'd code, simply because it tends to favor the creation of more GPL'd code, but wouldn't be enough to accound for the vast commercial success of Linux.
Think about it. How many companies out there have chosen, or even been forced, to release GPL code simply because of the featureset Linux supports that they couldn't get in *BSD? I can't really think of any, beyond Trolltech - and they did so for marketting reasons only. You don't see this in the embedded market, because in the embedded space companies use Linux as a platform with which to develop their proprietary apps. Same on the server side. Would these businesses see any licensing advantage with BSD over Linux? No. And that's why the GPL is neither an impediment, nor an advantage, compared with BSD licensing for most commercial developnent houses.
Linux is winning because of network reasons. The AT&T lawsuit had a lot to do with stiffling the adoption of BSD back in the early - mid nineties, and we're seeing the result today. Combine that with more varied hardware support among embedded platforms that matter (and I mean ARM, MIPS, and PPC), compared with BSD and you see what I mean. OK, so NetBSD supports every weird old hardware plaform around. You want to run on an old MicroVAX or Sun 3, go with NetBSD. You want to run on a modern embedded ARM, go with Linux. That's why Linux is winning commercially.
Not that BSD is bad or doesn't deserve consideration. I run it and like it. But I also understand why it might not be considered for the next TiVO - at least not just yet, when Linux would be easier and cheaper to deploy,
They still don' t get it. Even though the article is moderately positive, any article about Linux that starts with "the Jury is in" was written by someone who does not fully understand the dynamics of Open Source. How can "the jury" be "in" on an environment that changes so rapidly as Linux does? How can you say for certain where Linux has a role and where it doesn't? A move in the right direction, but the hacks still need some educating.....
This coming from someone who's been using Linux on the desktop since 1994, and traditional NIX before that point. But you really miss the point. These guys are evaluating Linux for very large deployments; 1000 - 10000 hosts per organization. I'm sorry, but 'the dynamics of open source', while perfectly valid from a developer's standpoint, is completely irrelevant to these IT guys. And rightly so.
Look: Suppose you manage an infrastructure of 1000 hosts scattered across a WAN separated by several regional warehouses and a corporate epicenter. I've actually worked (in a previous job) in a situation like this, though I was by no means the CIO. When you evaluate an OS like Linux you're not concerned with what it may do tomorrow. You're concerned with what it can do today and with what deploying that solution costs under Linux compared with any other alternative. Period. You have a list of services you must provide to the organization and a budget of recurring and fixed upfront costs to provide those services. IT is a cost center for a reason - we don't generate revenue in most organizations, we're here to reduce overhead costs across the organization, and justify our existence only in our ability to reduce organizational overhead at least an order of magnitude more than we charge.
From this perspective, these guys are completely right. They're asking "what do I get today?", "How much will it cost across the life of the platform?", and "How does this compare with any other competitive solution?".
Now, I'm of the opinion that Linux is a great value in large corporate deployments. I don't think we'll see home adoption of Linux for many years to come, but I do think we'll see large scale adoption of Linux on the corporate desktop. The reason I think this is because Linux gets progressively cheaper the larger your deployment. The more hosts the fewer admins compared with Windows. The security headaches are easier with Linux because the security model was thought through years ago and still works. Also, the per seat licensing costs will always beat any commercial OS. Linux wins, but only if you have an infrastructure capable of supporting the OS, and then only if you're large enough to leverage these skills into a significant cost savings. Otherwise, if you're a small department or a home user you might as well run Windows. Or buy a Mac - my preferred solution.:)
SMP support should be OK for handling the AIs in an FPS, but for a simulation game like Sim City it would be fantastic. Don't know how Sim City is written, but if it's already multithreaded it should scale already. And a game like that should be multithreaded given how many discrete (and sometimes asynchronous) events happen across the simulation. Also, it should benefit greatly from the move to 64 bit both in the greater VM address space and the increased number of threads/processes one can thus spawn. I'm definitely looking forward to the move to cheap 64 bit SMP for this alone.:) --M
Let's be clear on the difference between perfect pitch and good relative pitch. With perfect pitch, a singer (or musician) expects A to always start at 440Hz, any deviation will be noticed and annoy the musician. He or she will unlikely be able to work unless all instruments are tuned correctly against a 440Hz A. With good relative pitch, a musician will automatically accept whatever is assigned to A (be it 450Hz or what have you) and then convert up the scale. A very good one will be able to do this both in key and across a chromatic scale in half tones (the notes outside a key). The important point here is that it doesn't take perfect pitch to properly bend notes out of key. And a good musician with relative pitch will work just fine if all instruments are tuned perfectly, whereas most with perfect pitch will go absolutely nuts unless all the instruments are tuned properly.
None of this has anything to do with hardware autoscaling pitch to key for bad pop singers. I'd would love to see how that equipment would mangle Ella's voice, which just goes to show you how this kind of equipment would limit a *real* singer in her artistry. Hell, those who actually care about quality sound and acoustics aren't going to stadiums to hear their music anyway. Instead they attend local venues and carefully designed concert halls to see real people perform up close and personal. The day I see this crap used at the BSO is the day I give up on live performances in disgust. Ain't gonna happen. Also won't happen at Club Passim or The Middle East (just local Cambridge dives). You want good music? See a local band perform right in front of you. And buy their locally produced CD to help support the musicians directly and screw the RIAA out of a few bucks (enough of that soapbox - we've heard it a million times on/.).
Battlezone was originally an arcade game by Atari. Like many Atari games of that era it used vector graphics and not a bit mapped display. There were many Battlezone clones for various 8-bit computers (such as the Apple II, Atari 400/800, and later the C-64). Given that it was originally released as a standup arcade unit, I don't think it applies to the personal computer gaming market (though this is a minor nit pick and certainly Battlezone was an amazing game that sucked far too many of my quarters in when I was a kid). As I pointed out in a previous post Deathmaze 5000 predated Battlezone by a short time, and was released for the TRS-80. so it was both 3D and ran on a personal computer beforehand. Battlezone looked bunches more cool at the time, though. --M
Tim Mann puts out a TRS-80 emulator for X that compiles easily on x86 Linux and which runs these Trash 80 binary image files. Included in the list is Deathmaze 5000, Labyrinth, and Asylum. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any screenshots for comparison with yours. I'm seem to remember that Deathmaze first came out in 1979, and then the other two games came out in the years thereafter. I think Deathmaze actually does predate 3D Monster Maze, but only by a couple years. Excellent screenshot, BTW. Thanks! --M
The first 3D game I ever played was Deathmaze 5000
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· Score: 3, Informative
Deathmaze 5000 by Med Systems Software, which ran on the original TRS-80 with stunning 128x48 black and white graphics. It was a maze game with overlapping corridors and horrible traps to kill you with. Most fun for a pre-teen/teen. They also put out a game called Asylum which ran on the TRS-80 and other 8-bit computers of that era. Pretty amazing that even back in 1980 or so people were pushing hardware in the attempt to display realistic 3D graphics. I absolutely loved these games. And if we're going to talk about 8-bit Trash 80 games, one can't forget Big Five Software - the originator of popular arcade clones written in hand assembly for the TRS-80. These guys were my heros as a kid. No, really! --M
[...] most organizations are tied down to the massive installed base of Windows applications. In larger corporations, the numbers of internal/vertical applications can even rival the number of employees. The OS is nearly meaningless compared to the importance of these apps to a business.
This is absolutely true. Once the cost of the migration exceeds the recurring yearly gain over a five year time horizon or so (doesn't matter why; could be porting apps, hardware transition, licensing) then you've got a no-go situation. Wine might be a partial solution to that specific problem, but each app would have to be rigorously tested in house and certified with management as to functionality. That testing would certainly cost and should be factored into the migration costs.
I'm not sure a large organization with many prior internally written and platform specific apps would save significant money from a transition to Linux. It's catch as catch can. Per desktop, Linux is certainly cheaper to manage in large deployments than Windows. It gets significantly cheaper the larger one scales up. But if your apps don't run and the workforce can't work, you've lost the whole point behind a deployment. So, I would certainly agree and wouldn't recommend Linux in that situation; especially if the organization in question wasn't interested in a potential wine solution to running their apps.
Why does it have to be installed in large scale environnments for productivity gains? The article states that the training required is the same. If that is the case then it should be good for any size business???
Training is only part of the cost structure for any IT deployment. The cost savings of desktop Linux are due primarily to it's UNIX heritage: its security model, centralized authentication, network filesystems (both NFS and AFS), and it's inherent ability to scale from thin client to full workstation without any back-end changes to user accounts. This is all traditional 'NIX stuff going back to late '80s early '90s Workstation fare.
Why this matters is that an organization doesn't see significant cost savings along these lines until they hit a threshold deployment size, nor are the savings linear from the bottom up. Ten Linux ('NIX) workstations don't save the same percent of money in an IT budget as do one hundred. One Hundred saves less as a percentage as one thousand. I don't have numbers, but I've seen the savings first hand - the bigger your deployment gets the greater your savings due to reduced overhead (IT staff) costs.
This is why I don't think we'll see Linux take off as a desktop platform for most small businesses, but we will see it deployed throughout government and large industry players. It will likely move from foreign markets to the US as well, simply because third world industry is under heaver cost constraints compared to the US. But like all network effects, as industry uses it abroad, US players will have to follow in order to maintain some level of compatibility' most likely we'll see US players install OpenOffice and then it will mushroom from there.
I didn't even vote for Gore. But facts are facts and this ridiculous meme keeps getting posted over and over again. Gore did not lie, or fib, or say anything inappropriate in this instance. Deal. --M
Whatever you may think of Al Gore and his policies, the fact is that core Internet developers recognize Gore's contribution to the Internet as a policy-maker in both Congress and the Senate as funding source. Really, this Republican talking point ought to die on the vine for the vindictive misrepresentation and lie that it is.
Here's what Vint Cerf had to say on the matter as forwarded by Declan McCullaugh.
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 17:43:58 -0400
From: vinton g. cerf (vcerf@MCI.NET) To: Declan McCullaugh (declan@well.com), farber@cis.upenn.edu Cc: rkahn@cnri.reston.va.us Subject: Al Gore and the Internet
Dave and Declan,
I am taking the liberty of sending to you both a brief summary of Al Gore's Internet involvement, prepared by Bob Kahn and me. As you know, there have been a seemingly unending series of jokes chiding the vice president for his assertion that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet."
Bob and I believe that the vice president deserves significant credit for his early recognition of the importance of what has become the Internet.
I thought you might find this short summary of sufficient interest to share it with Politech and the IP lists, respectively.
===================
Al Gore and the Internet
By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development.
No one person or even small group of persons exclusively 'invented' the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.
Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: 'During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet.' We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he 'invented' the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective.
As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.
As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an ?Interagency Network.? Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George Bush?s administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communica
can transmit data by hand at ~10 baud (yes, faster than some early modems! 13wpm = ~10 baud)
As an aside, the very first teletype I used ran at 110 baud; the thing printed to old thermal paper and was connectecd to a PDP-11/34. Heh, those were the days. OK, so I'm poking through old threads and noticed this; thought it was cool and wanted to coment. Take care, Caleb. --M
Wouldn't a legal ruling along these lines make all commerical site licenses invalid as well? Can they really be arguing that the owner of a copyrighted work doesn't have the right to contractually license duplication rights to others? Wow, that's just plain nutty. --M
Post that bad boy as often as it takes. What SCO is doing almost certainly breaks several securities laws and the officers deserve the full weight of criminal punishment coming their way. IMO, keep it up and thanks. --M
Here is what I mean by tolerance and cutting, at least for the FS & OSS movement. In the commercial sector, more aggressive content-charging of networks that traffic FS/OSS software; selective sponsoring of FS/OSS software; black-listing of FS/OSS developers. Then at the govermental level, blocking of non DMCA-abiding software; taxation of non-tangible entities (software); prohibiting GPL licensing of software developed in the academaic sector...
Does any of those sound un-democratic? I don't thinks so.
OK, now I have some specifics to respond to. You suggest network owners should charge either the sender or recipient based on the content (OSS) and not the number of bytes transferred. I don't think that would be possible with IP. Selective sponsoring of OSS is already done - you don't think IBM bothers to fund sourceforge, do you? They have selectively chosen not to fund a project which does them no good. Black-listing OSS developers requires implementing an ideological/political means test by employers, which I think would be illegal. Employment can not be conditional on political agreement in this country (not that it doesn't happen anyway), so formally I think this suggestion is out. Finally, you suggest implementing a requirement that all distributed software be encrypted per DMCA copy controls (even when said software is freely offered to be copied), taxation of software (there's one I bet Bush won't sign), and limiting how academic developers may license their intellectual property.
Most of your suggestions are already either illegal or unworkable. The policy suggestions for new regulations and taxes are possible - but unlikely. The most workable suggestion you offer is to demand that software developed under government grant be released under a license different from the GPL. The most likely outcome under this scenario would be release to the public domain, which would essentially be another OSS style of release.
And yes, I find your suggestions mostly repugnant and un-democratic; especially black-listing by political means testing. Frankly, disgusting. JMO.
Tell me. If I get taxed in order to support everybody's education (including mine) how am I gonna enjoy quality private education?
Wish I had decided to include this in my previous reply, but it didn't have direct bearing on the issue of free software as an expression of "communism". I have to make this quick as I'm heading out to meet a friend.
Regarding public education, you seem to imply that the only way you can "enjoy" private education is by denying everyone else a public education. But I'll be charitable and assume you mean that if one purchases a private education, why must one also pay taxes for everyone else's public education?
Because it benefits the society as a whole, and in so doing it benefits you as well. If you're an employer you need an educated workforce. If you're a member of society you want educated peers. Widespread hunger and desperation from an unemployable citizenry leads to rampant crime and dissolution of the fabric of society. The society you seem to desire would tear apart the basic compact between citizen and government, leading to total anarchy and violent chaos. Frankly, this is not the kind of society I choose. Further, I don't think voters would choose this kind of society, so to implement you'll need some mechanism to enact the policy outside of our democratic framework. JMO. Now, it's coffee time!
No. I suggest to those not agreeing with 'good will' not to tolerate 'do-gooders' to as much extent as our legal framework permits.
How? What specifically do you suggest be done to limit or prevent those who would give their work away by free choice? If it's communism, something should be done - right?
That's the policy. You don't like them? you cut them because they will need support from outsiders at some point and some level of expected tolerance. That tolerance will not be there when they need it.
Again, I have no idea what this means because it's so vague.
Realize that I'm taking your assertions to extremes in order to point out the potential pitfalls of what you seem to suggest is the appropriate outcome to a communist threat. Not that I really know because I have no idea what "you cut them because [...]" means in any physical or policy sense.
You maligned free software as socialist and communist, and seem to believe that it should be attacked at the policy level. I argue that to do so undermines basic rights across the board for all citizens. It is anti-democratic and in opposition to the the basic tenets of our national (American) foundation. Free software is about expressing freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of commerce - these are fundamental rights of our republic as expressed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. You can't restrict the creation of free software without undermining our fundamental liberties. JMO.
First of all, I want to commend you on a really insightful and interesting post. Thanks for the read.
RE: anti-capitalism and Linux. I don't think you can say that the philosophy which drives linux development, or it's use, bears any relationship to political anti-capitalism. That is, I don't think you could reasonably argue that Linus codes the kernel out of anti-capitalist political aspirations (though you might be able to make this argument about rms). As you rightly point out though, the anti-capitalist effect of free software distribution is not the promotion of "communism" or "socialism" as an ideological political force across society. It's very limited to the software market, and it's limited to this market primarily because cheap internet communication and code distribution is the underlying infrastructure of communal free software development.
Ironically, it's commercial hardware vendors who are using Linux to better position their products line against competitors. This is a totally non-intuitive and unexpected outcome, assuming an anti-capitalist outcome from the distribution of Linux. That is, vendors like IBM, HP, Dell, et all, using certain capabilities of Linux to unify their product line across CPU architectures and vendors turns out to be a tremendous communal benefit to all the players in the market, even though this kind of community agreement and exchange could never have happened before. Witness the UNIX wars of yesteryear for the previous failure at this attempt. It's as if a kind of tit-for-tat game theory, practiced among all the market players, previously prevented this level of cooperation in the market. So a new force, out of the control of any one business, had to rise up on it's own and take the market by force (this being Linux).
One could say then that out of an anti-capitalist "spirit" in development one sees a common market form where Linux becomes a unifying force of common intellectual infrastructure, rather than just wholesale market destruction. Interesting outcome, no?
They're all "Free Software" licenses, as is the APSL. Like the parent poster pointed out rms is complaining because Apple chooses not to release all of their code to MacOS X instead of those parts they consider commodity (and community) source. rms can complain all he wants, it's Apple's code to do with as they wish. If rms really has his knickers up in a knot he might consider better funding GNUStep instead of bitching at Apple. JMO. --M
No, you did not answer my question. I asked you to provide a simple policy which both restricts the rights of individuals to give away that which they create while also keeping the sanctity of our basic constitutional rights and freedoms intact. I asked that because I don't believe it's possible to create such a policy. Instead you wrote a bunch of gobbledygook in reply (no surprise). Lets take two of your assertions:
I believe that people who spend their wealth under a 'good will' fashion, would like to force anybody to do so if they get the chance.
So, anyone who gives something away - be they church going members of society out to help the poor, teachers donating time to teach poor children how to read, non-religious individuals serving hot soup to the homeless, or even free software coders giving away their own work, they're real intent is to force you to do the same. Therefore, they should have their basic rights in a free society restricted preemptively before you might lose yours. Do I understand this? Next assertion:
When I see it like that, I believe that do-gooders have all the potential to eliminate private business and force my quality of life to degrade at what the public sector offers. Had we let all such do-gooders to become politicians, and now we would have communism.
So, because "do-gooders" have the "potential" to eliminate private business as a whole, across the entire macro economy, (*cough* bullshit *cough* to coin a phrase some AC used previously, oh yeah - YOU), and this might 'degrade the quality of your life', the only responsible choice is to restrict everyone else's basic freedoms of association, freedoms of speech, and freedoms of commerce under the guise of "anti-communism". Do I understand this properly?
At what point does the authoritarianism of Soviet and Chinese Communism equal the authoritarianism of the Fascist (and note that I use the term "Fascist" in its literal meaning) society you propose?
This is how communism evolves. You have the concept and then you enforce it in the first chance you get. Give govermental power to those guys who support the poor, and then we see if they will try to apply communism. View it like that. And don't assume that RMS & Co are any sort of philanthropists. They are trying to make a living out of punters like you.
What a crock. Communism "evolves" through freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of commerce? Take a "concept" and then "enforce" it? How? RMS et all picking up arms and forcing free software upon us all at the point of a barrel? Are you kidding me? You're spewing bullshit and don't even take the trouble to form a coherent argument linking point A to B to C in a chain. It's net.kook ramblings rather than any kind of meaningful exchange.
Here, instead I'll ask you: What policy change would you enact to stop this dangerous spread of free software "communism", while at the same time maintaining our basic constitutional rights and freedoms? Just how do you call society "free" if individuals are prevented from giving away (or selling, both are commerce) that which they create?
When a congregation collectively works together to feed the poor by cooking and delivering large amounts of free food, is that communism too? The restaurant owner next door might lose some business. How about when the congregation runs a car wash to collect money toward housing renovations for the poor? Is that communism? The car wash owner down the street might think so. Is it communism when individuals donate a few bucks after Sunday service? Isn't that -- by your line of logic -- communism too?
It's not though. Communism is -- by definition -- ideology enforced by governmental institution and bears no relationship to individuals, acting on principals of free association, freedom of speech, and freedom of commerce (in this case the freedom to donate one's time and effort) toward a collective goal. You're simply red baiting free software authors for committing acts of FREEDOM in a free society. It is my right to donate money to church, the ACLU, EFF, or - *gasp* - even the FSF. Just as it's my right to donate code under whatever license I might choose. A very different proposition from the government forcing me to give my code away under communism, or for that matter, a government which prevents me from giving my code away. In both cases, we're talking about government restricting individual freedom and rights to enforce a certain ideology.
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In contrary to frequent misconceptions, materials technology does not follow Moore's law - heat and stress resistance DO NOT double every 18 months!
Agreed that materials science does not follow Moore's "Law". That doesn't negate the very real value behind research which leads toward reusable terrestrial to space and controlled landing vehicles.
Your argument boils down to: traditional rocketry is more efficient in energy expended / per kilo launched than our current crop of reusable vehicles, so we shouldn't bother with researching new means for easily entering and exiting space beyond our current needs of launching individuals and satellite. Which is undoubtedly true, but very shortsighted. Reusable vehicles offer certain advantages, with costs in terms of energy expended to orbit that may be greater than traditional rocketry, but advantages that rocketry also lacks. This costs money in both development and use per launch - it's an overhead cost.
The Shuttle, and newer nextgen technologies, offer new features such as controlled decent and landing. This is a real value which previous systems lacked! If NASA and Congress want to set that as a critical design goal in the hopes of creating a new generation space fleet, then I'm all for it. JMO. But please, spend the necessary money to do it right!
I think you're mixing todays engineering realities with tomorrows design goals. The two don't necessarily meet. The question to answer is, is the research toward a totally reusable system, one which leads to aerospace to space and back systems, worth pursuing? Is it worth the money?
That's a question for Congress and us constituents to answer, not the engineers.
JMO,
Maynard
The Shuttle, and any next generation craft, is an attempt at creating not just a reusable vehicle, but also one which offers control at landing at a specific place; in this case a runway. Unlike a reentry capsule, which decends to some semi-random location by parachute, the Shuttle can glide toward a specific spot and land. This is a definite step up from previous capsuls in terms of technology and space readiness. And NASA wanted to do even better with their nextgen shuttle, the X-33 design goals were 'single stage to orbit', and would have allowed for a launch and land system without the costly solid fuel rockets. Also a reasonable design goal. Too bad the materials science for the hydrogen tanks isn't quite ready yet, nor are funds available to continue R&D.
NASA is failing because of two primary problems:
a) They lack funding from Congress, and as such are unable to both meet their launch goals and provide the necessary R&D for nextgen launch vehicles.
b) They have foolishly cut safety funding in order to meet those same launch goals, as demanded by Congress. They should have either said straight - we can't meet your goals with the funding alloted, or dumped the Shuttle program and moved to traditional rockets (as you stated in your previous post).
But to say that their R&D toward an orbital space plane was misplaced goes against the very grain of space exploration. At some point we're going to need vehicles that can operate in both space and the atmosphere. NASA obviously committed themselves toward the goal of creating such ships. Space will go nowhere if we only launch rockets into LEO and land in capsules by parachute. You can argue that our materials technology isn't ready yet for the challenges creating real land to space ships, but you can't argue that such a technology is the end goal for any space faring society.
This is JMO, coming from someone who isn't either an aerospace engineer or involved with NASA - and as such has simply a semi-informed opinion to offer.
Best,
Maynard
If Linux or UNIX with Java does what you need today, why would you wait two release iterations and possibly several years for
Open Source is beating Windows in the space where it competes for same functionality at cheaper deployment and lifetime management costs. That is, lower capitalization costs on initial deployment, plus the added benefit of lower management costs across the lifetime of the deployment.
For example: there's no doubt that even commercial RISC UNIX is better secured and cheaper to manage in large deployments than Windows, just as there's no doubt that the original MacOS was cheaper to manage in small departmental deployments than Windows and the PC - yet Windows and the PC won out because of the lower capitalization costs associated with setup, plus the network effects that resulted as deployments increased across the macro economy. So, the higher management costs over the lifetime of Windows and the PC were trumped by the far cheaper initial capitalization costs associated with setting up an infrastructure from scratch; most of these actually evolved at the departmental level and weren't planned as such.
Open Source offers an even cheaper initial deployment, plus if you're big enough to hire competent staff and deploy in large numbers, it offers even cheaper management costs than Windows. This is a double win. But without the cheaper up front costs, Open Source would lose to Windows, or any other proprietary solution. It wouldn't 'get throught the back door', so to speak. This is JMO.
The rest of your post I largely agree with. I'm certainly not going to debate the value of the UNIX security model or its scalability compared to Windows, though I'm sure both of us could find examples of better secured (and now dead) OS's from the distant past which would trump 'NIX.
Cheers,
Maynard
gotta say I disagree here. Factually, of course you're right on. But the conclusion, that the licensing differences between GPL and BSD amount to the reason why Linux has taken off commercially while *BSD hasn't, I think that's in error. I do agree that there's a slight selection pressure in support of GPL'd code, simply because it tends to favor the creation of more GPL'd code, but wouldn't be enough to accound for the vast commercial success of Linux.
Think about it. How many companies out there have chosen, or even been forced, to release GPL code simply because of the featureset Linux supports that they couldn't get in *BSD? I can't really think of any, beyond Trolltech - and they did so for marketting reasons only. You don't see this in the embedded market, because in the embedded space companies use Linux as a platform with which to develop their proprietary apps. Same on the server side. Would these businesses see any licensing advantage with BSD over Linux? No. And that's why the GPL is neither an impediment, nor an advantage, compared with BSD licensing for most commercial developnent houses.
Linux is winning because of network reasons. The AT&T lawsuit had a lot to do with stiffling the adoption of BSD back in the early - mid nineties, and we're seeing the result today. Combine that with more varied hardware support among embedded platforms that matter (and I mean ARM, MIPS, and PPC), compared with BSD and you see what I mean. OK, so NetBSD supports every weird old hardware plaform around. You want to run on an old MicroVAX or Sun 3, go with NetBSD. You want to run on a modern embedded ARM, go with Linux. That's why Linux is winning commercially.
Not that BSD is bad or doesn't deserve consideration. I run it and like it. But I also understand why it might not be considered for the next TiVO - at least not just yet, when Linux would be easier and cheaper to deploy,
Cheers,
--Maynard
Look: Suppose you manage an infrastructure of 1000 hosts scattered across a WAN separated by several regional warehouses and a corporate epicenter. I've actually worked (in a previous job) in a situation like this, though I was by no means the CIO. When you evaluate an OS like Linux you're not concerned with what it may do tomorrow. You're concerned with what it can do today and with what deploying that solution costs under Linux compared with any other alternative. Period. You have a list of services you must provide to the organization and a budget of recurring and fixed upfront costs to provide those services. IT is a cost center for a reason - we don't generate revenue in most organizations, we're here to reduce overhead costs across the organization, and justify our existence only in our ability to reduce organizational overhead at least an order of magnitude more than we charge.
From this perspective, these guys are completely right. They're asking "what do I get today?", "How much will it cost across the life of the platform?", and "How does this compare with any other competitive solution?".
Now, I'm of the opinion that Linux is a great value in large corporate deployments. I don't think we'll see home adoption of Linux for many years to come, but I do think we'll see large scale adoption of Linux on the corporate desktop. The reason I think this is because Linux gets progressively cheaper the larger your deployment. The more hosts the fewer admins compared with Windows. The security headaches are easier with Linux because the security model was thought through years ago and still works. Also, the per seat licensing costs will always beat any commercial OS. Linux wins, but only if you have an infrastructure capable of supporting the OS, and then only if you're large enough to leverage these skills into a significant cost savings. Otherwise, if you're a small department or a home user you might as well run Windows. Or buy a Mac - my preferred solution.
Cheers,
--Maynard
SMP support should be OK for handling the AIs in an FPS, but for a simulation game like Sim City it would be fantastic. Don't know how Sim City is written, but if it's already multithreaded it should scale already. And a game like that should be multithreaded given how many discrete (and sometimes asynchronous) events happen across the simulation. Also, it should benefit greatly from the move to 64 bit both in the greater VM address space and the increased number of threads/processes one can thus spawn. I'm definitely looking forward to the move to cheap 64 bit SMP for this alone. :) --M
Let's be clear on the difference between perfect pitch and good relative pitch. With perfect pitch, a singer (or musician) expects A to always start at 440Hz, any deviation will be noticed and annoy the musician. He or she will unlikely be able to work unless all instruments are tuned correctly against a 440Hz A. With good relative pitch, a musician will automatically accept whatever is assigned to A (be it 450Hz or what have you) and then convert up the scale. A very good one will be able to do this both in key and across a chromatic scale in half tones (the notes outside a key). The important point here is that it doesn't take perfect pitch to properly bend notes out of key. And a good musician with relative pitch will work just fine if all instruments are tuned perfectly, whereas most with perfect pitch will go absolutely nuts unless all the instruments are tuned properly.
/.).
None of this has anything to do with hardware autoscaling pitch to key for bad pop singers. I'd would love to see how that equipment would mangle Ella's voice, which just goes to show you how this kind of equipment would limit a *real* singer in her artistry. Hell, those who actually care about quality sound and acoustics aren't going to stadiums to hear their music anyway. Instead they attend local venues and carefully designed concert halls to see real people perform up close and personal. The day I see this crap used at the BSO is the day I give up on live performances in disgust. Ain't gonna happen. Also won't happen at Club Passim or The Middle East (just local Cambridge dives). You want good music? See a local band perform right in front of you. And buy their locally produced CD to help support the musicians directly and screw the RIAA out of a few bucks (enough of that soapbox - we've heard it a million times on
Cheers,
Maynard
Battlezone was originally an arcade game by Atari. Like many Atari games of that era it used vector graphics and not a bit mapped display. There were many Battlezone clones for various 8-bit computers (such as the Apple II, Atari 400/800, and later the C-64). Given that it was originally released as a standup arcade unit, I don't think it applies to the personal computer gaming market (though this is a minor nit pick and certainly Battlezone was an amazing game that sucked far too many of my quarters in when I was a kid). As I pointed out in a previous post Deathmaze 5000 predated Battlezone by a short time, and was released for the TRS-80. so it was both 3D and ran on a personal computer beforehand. Battlezone looked bunches more cool at the time, though. --M
Tim Mann puts out a TRS-80 emulator for X that compiles easily on x86 Linux and which runs these Trash 80 binary image files. Included in the list is Deathmaze 5000, Labyrinth, and Asylum. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any screenshots for comparison with yours. I'm seem to remember that Deathmaze first came out in 1979, and then the other two games came out in the years thereafter. I think Deathmaze actually does predate 3D Monster Maze, but only by a couple years. Excellent screenshot, BTW. Thanks! --M
Deathmaze 5000 by Med Systems Software, which ran on the original TRS-80 with stunning 128x48 black and white graphics. It was a maze game with overlapping corridors and horrible traps to kill you with. Most fun for a pre-teen/teen. They also put out a game called Asylum which ran on the TRS-80 and other 8-bit computers of that era. Pretty amazing that even back in 1980 or so people were pushing hardware in the attempt to display realistic 3D graphics. I absolutely loved these games. And if we're going to talk about 8-bit Trash 80 games, one can't forget Big Five Software - the originator of popular arcade clones written in hand assembly for the TRS-80. These guys were my heros as a kid. No, really! --M
[...] most organizations are tied down to the massive installed base of Windows applications. In larger corporations, the numbers of internal/vertical applications can even rival the number of employees. The OS is nearly meaningless compared to the importance of these apps to a business.
This is absolutely true. Once the cost of the migration exceeds the recurring yearly gain over a five year time horizon or so (doesn't matter why; could be porting apps, hardware transition, licensing) then you've got a no-go situation. Wine might be a partial solution to that specific problem, but each app would have to be rigorously tested in house and certified with management as to functionality. That testing would certainly cost and should be factored into the migration costs.
I'm not sure a large organization with many prior internally written and platform specific apps would save significant money from a transition to Linux. It's catch as catch can. Per desktop, Linux is certainly cheaper to manage in large deployments than Windows. It gets significantly cheaper the larger one scales up. But if your apps don't run and the workforce can't work, you've lost the whole point behind a deployment. So, I would certainly agree and wouldn't recommend Linux in that situation; especially if the organization in question wasn't interested in a potential wine solution to running their apps.
Now, back to the yardwork,
Cheers,
--Maynard
Why does it have to be installed in large scale environnments for productivity gains? The article states that the training required is the same. If that is the case then it should be good for any size business???
Training is only part of the cost structure for any IT deployment. The cost savings of desktop Linux are due primarily to it's UNIX heritage: its security model, centralized authentication, network filesystems (both NFS and AFS), and it's inherent ability to scale from thin client to full workstation without any back-end changes to user accounts. This is all traditional 'NIX stuff going back to late '80s early '90s Workstation fare.
Why this matters is that an organization doesn't see significant cost savings along these lines until they hit a threshold deployment size, nor are the savings linear from the bottom up. Ten Linux ('NIX) workstations don't save the same percent of money in an IT budget as do one hundred. One Hundred saves less as a percentage as one thousand. I don't have numbers, but I've seen the savings first hand - the bigger your deployment gets the greater your savings due to reduced overhead (IT staff) costs.
This is why I don't think we'll see Linux take off as a desktop platform for most small businesses, but we will see it deployed throughout government and large industry players. It will likely move from foreign markets to the US as well, simply because third world industry is under heaver cost constraints compared to the US. But like all network effects, as industry uses it abroad, US players will have to follow in order to maintain some level of compatibility' most likely we'll see US players install OpenOffice and then it will mushroom from there.
JMO.
Cheers,
--Maynard
I didn't even vote for Gore. But facts are facts and this ridiculous meme keeps getting posted over and over again. Gore did not lie, or fib, or say anything inappropriate in this instance. Deal. --M
Here's what Vint Cerf had to say on the matter as forwarded by Declan McCullaugh.
can transmit data by hand at ~10 baud (yes, faster than some early modems! 13wpm = ~10 baud)
As an aside, the very first teletype I used ran at 110 baud; the thing printed to old thermal paper and was connectecd to a PDP-11/34. Heh, those were the days. OK, so I'm poking through old threads and noticed this; thought it was cool and wanted to coment. Take care, Caleb. --M
Wouldn't a legal ruling along these lines make all commerical site licenses invalid as well? Can they really be arguing that the owner of a copyrighted work doesn't have the right to contractually license duplication rights to others? Wow, that's just plain nutty. --M
Post that bad boy as often as it takes. What SCO is doing almost certainly breaks several securities laws and the officers deserve the full weight of criminal punishment coming their way. IMO, keep it up and thanks. --M
Here is what I mean by tolerance and cutting, at least for the FS & OSS movement. In the commercial sector, more aggressive content-charging of networks that traffic FS/OSS software; selective sponsoring of FS/OSS software; black-listing of FS/OSS developers. Then at the govermental level, blocking of non DMCA-abiding software; taxation of non-tangible entities (software); prohibiting GPL licensing of software developed in the academaic sector...
Does any of those sound un-democratic? I don't thinks so.
OK, now I have some specifics to respond to. You suggest network owners should charge either the sender or recipient based on the content (OSS) and not the number of bytes transferred. I don't think that would be possible with IP. Selective sponsoring of OSS is already done - you don't think IBM bothers to fund sourceforge, do you? They have selectively chosen not to fund a project which does them no good. Black-listing OSS developers requires implementing an ideological/political means test by employers, which I think would be illegal. Employment can not be conditional on political agreement in this country (not that it doesn't happen anyway), so formally I think this suggestion is out. Finally, you suggest implementing a requirement that all distributed software be encrypted per DMCA copy controls (even when said software is freely offered to be copied), taxation of software (there's one I bet Bush won't sign), and limiting how academic developers may license their intellectual property.
Most of your suggestions are already either illegal or unworkable. The policy suggestions for new regulations and taxes are possible - but unlikely. The most workable suggestion you offer is to demand that software developed under government grant be released under a license different from the GPL. The most likely outcome under this scenario would be release to the public domain, which would essentially be another OSS style of release.
And yes, I find your suggestions mostly repugnant and un-democratic; especially black-listing by political means testing. Frankly, disgusting. JMO.
--Maynard
Tell me. If I get taxed in order to support everybody's education (including mine) how am I gonna enjoy quality private education?
Wish I had decided to include this in my previous reply, but it didn't have direct bearing on the issue of free software as an expression of "communism". I have to make this quick as I'm heading out to meet a friend.
Regarding public education, you seem to imply that the only way you can "enjoy" private education is by denying everyone else a public education. But I'll be charitable and assume you mean that if one purchases a private education, why must one also pay taxes for everyone else's public education?
Because it benefits the society as a whole, and in so doing it benefits you as well. If you're an employer you need an educated workforce. If you're a member of society you want educated peers. Widespread hunger and desperation from an unemployable citizenry leads to rampant crime and dissolution of the fabric of society. The society you seem to desire would tear apart the basic compact between citizen and government, leading to total anarchy and violent chaos. Frankly, this is not the kind of society I choose. Further, I don't think voters would choose this kind of society, so to implement you'll need some mechanism to enact the policy outside of our democratic framework. JMO. Now, it's coffee time!
--Maynard
No. I suggest to those not agreeing with 'good will' not to tolerate 'do-gooders' to as much extent as our legal framework permits.
How? What specifically do you suggest be done to limit or prevent those who would give their work away by free choice? If it's communism, something should be done - right?
That's the policy. You don't like them? you cut them because they will need support from outsiders at some point and some level of expected tolerance. That tolerance will not be there when they need it.
Again, I have no idea what this means because it's so vague.
Realize that I'm taking your assertions to extremes in order to point out the potential pitfalls of what you seem to suggest is the appropriate outcome to a communist threat. Not that I really know because I have no idea what "you cut them because [...]" means in any physical or policy sense.
You maligned free software as socialist and communist, and seem to believe that it should be attacked at the policy level. I argue that to do so undermines basic rights across the board for all citizens. It is anti-democratic and in opposition to the the basic tenets of our national (American) foundation. Free software is about expressing freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of commerce - these are fundamental rights of our republic as expressed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. You can't restrict the creation of free software without undermining our fundamental liberties. JMO.
--Maynard
First of all, I want to commend you on a really insightful and interesting post. Thanks for the read.
RE: anti-capitalism and Linux. I don't think you can say that the philosophy which drives linux development, or it's use, bears any relationship to political anti-capitalism. That is, I don't think you could reasonably argue that Linus codes the kernel out of anti-capitalist political aspirations (though you might be able to make this argument about rms). As you rightly point out though, the anti-capitalist effect of free software distribution is not the promotion of "communism" or "socialism" as an ideological political force across society. It's very limited to the software market, and it's limited to this market primarily because cheap internet communication and code distribution is the underlying infrastructure of communal free software development.
Ironically, it's commercial hardware vendors who are using Linux to better position their products line against competitors. This is a totally non-intuitive and unexpected outcome, assuming an anti-capitalist outcome from the distribution of Linux. That is, vendors like IBM, HP, Dell, et all, using certain capabilities of Linux to unify their product line across CPU architectures and vendors turns out to be a tremendous communal benefit to all the players in the market, even though this kind of community agreement and exchange could never have happened before. Witness the UNIX wars of yesteryear for the previous failure at this attempt. It's as if a kind of tit-for-tat game theory, practiced among all the market players, previously prevented this level of cooperation in the market. So a new force, out of the control of any one business, had to rise up on it's own and take the market by force (this being Linux).
One could say then that out of an anti-capitalist "spirit" in development one sees a common market form where Linux becomes a unifying force of common intellectual infrastructure, rather than just wholesale market destruction. Interesting outcome, no?
Cheers,
--Maynard
They're all "Free Software" licenses, as is the APSL. Like the parent poster pointed out rms is complaining because Apple chooses not to release all of their code to MacOS X instead of those parts they consider commodity (and community) source. rms can complain all he wants, it's Apple's code to do with as they wish. If rms really has his knickers up in a knot he might consider better funding GNUStep instead of bitching at Apple. JMO. --M
No, you did not answer my question. I asked you to provide a simple policy which both restricts the rights of individuals to give away that which they create while also keeping the sanctity of our basic constitutional rights and freedoms intact. I asked that because I don't believe it's possible to create such a policy. Instead you wrote a bunch of gobbledygook in reply (no surprise). Lets take two of your assertions:
I believe that people who spend their wealth under a 'good will' fashion, would like to force anybody to do so if they get the chance.
So, anyone who gives something away - be they church going members of society out to help the poor, teachers donating time to teach poor children how to read, non-religious individuals serving hot soup to the homeless, or even free software coders giving away their own work, they're real intent is to force you to do the same. Therefore, they should have their basic rights in a free society restricted preemptively before you might lose yours. Do I understand this? Next assertion:
When I see it like that, I believe that do-gooders have all the potential to eliminate private business and force my quality of life to degrade at what the public sector offers. Had we let all such do-gooders to become politicians, and now we would have communism.
So, because "do-gooders" have the "potential" to eliminate private business as a whole, across the entire macro economy, (*cough* bullshit *cough* to coin a phrase some AC used previously, oh yeah - YOU), and this might 'degrade the quality of your life', the only responsible choice is to restrict everyone else's basic freedoms of association, freedoms of speech, and freedoms of commerce under the guise of "anti-communism". Do I understand this properly?
At what point does the authoritarianism of Soviet and Chinese Communism equal the authoritarianism of the Fascist (and note that I use the term "Fascist" in its literal meaning) society you propose?
--Maynard
This is how communism evolves. You have the concept and then you enforce it in the first chance you get. Give govermental power to those guys who support the poor, and then we see if they will try to apply communism. View it like that. And don't assume that RMS & Co are any sort of philanthropists. They are trying to make a living out of punters like you.
What a crock. Communism "evolves" through freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of commerce? Take a "concept" and then "enforce" it? How? RMS et all picking up arms and forcing free software upon us all at the point of a barrel? Are you kidding me? You're spewing bullshit and don't even take the trouble to form a coherent argument linking point A to B to C in a chain. It's net.kook ramblings rather than any kind of meaningful exchange.
Here, instead I'll ask you: What policy change would you enact to stop this dangerous spread of free software "communism", while at the same time maintaining our basic constitutional rights and freedoms? Just how do you call society "free" if individuals are prevented from giving away (or selling, both are commerce) that which they create?
Somehow I doubt I'll receive a rational answer.
--Maynard
Hey buddy,
When a congregation collectively works together to feed the poor by cooking and delivering large amounts of free food, is that communism too? The restaurant owner next door might lose some business. How about when the congregation runs a car wash to collect money toward housing renovations for the poor? Is that communism? The car wash owner down the street might think so. Is it communism when individuals donate a few bucks after Sunday service? Isn't that -- by your line of logic -- communism too?
It's not though. Communism is -- by definition -- ideology enforced by governmental institution and bears no relationship to individuals, acting on principals of free association, freedom of speech, and freedom of commerce (in this case the freedom to donate one's time and effort) toward a collective goal. You're simply red baiting free software authors for committing acts of FREEDOM in a free society. It is my right to donate money to church, the ACLU, EFF, or - *gasp* - even the FSF. Just as it's my right to donate code under whatever license I might choose. A very different proposition from the government forcing me to give my code away under communism, or for that matter, a government which prevents me from giving my code away. In both cases, we're talking about government restricting individual freedom and rights to enforce a certain ideology.
Communism my ass.
--Maynard