No, I think he's someone who understands all too well what this sort of revolution is about.
Its not about liberation, freedom, or giving a damn about anyone else. Its about power. They want it. They want to run the world. They recognize that they cannot do so without the approval of a large number of people. They then parrot lines and stories and arguments that make said people think the cadre is fighting for them. And then, with the blood, sweat, tears and lives of those very same people, the cadre "betrays" them (the cadre always intended to, so there's no real betrayal), milks them, bleeds them dry.
Orwell's pigs pleading to the rest of the farm about how much they are sacrificing for the freedom of all farm animals.
No, this guy isn't kidding: he understands all too well. He just didn't keep the secret, secret.
He may mean warm bodies now, but whether they're warm or cold is irrelevant once his type have seized power.
step 1: define the following words(or at least know what parts of a sentence they go in):
multinational, social awareness, activism, greed, power, oppression, oligarchy, indigenous, alienated, dictatorship, elite, culture, people, sit-in, social order, social welfare, social , corporatism, diversity, censorship, rally, third world, progressive, society, demonstration, people, sexist, human rights, destruction, proletariat, regime, patriarchy, environmentalism, gender, control, aristocrat, resist, protest, fascist, democracy, stratification, poverty, privilege,...
step 1b: use these words in everyday conversation, i.e.:
andrew: hi, betty, how are you?
betty: your sexist patriarchal gender oppression will be smashed by the progressive social awareness of the people resisting the privileged power elite!
step 2: read (or at least pose with book in public) one or more of the following authors:
Karl Marx, Howard Zinn, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Abbie Hoffman, Freidrich Engels, Mario Savio, Bob Avakian, V.I. Lenin, Mao Zedong, Noam Chomsky (good source for more big, intelligent sounding words. stump your friends!)
step 3: know the following organizations, and whether they are good or bad
IMF, greenpeace, IWW, WTO, US government, Earth First!, NOW, World Bank, Monsanto, Shell Oil Corporation, Free Speech Movement, Food not Bombs, Monsanto, Amnesty International, Monsanto.
step 4: attend rally, sit-in, protest, demonstration of your choice in one or more of the following causes: environmentalism, workers' rights, women's rights, animal rights, human rights, welfare rights, anti-WTO, anti-IMF, anti-bad group (see step 3).
congratulations! You are now a fully tuned in social activist, hip to what's going on! The fascist oppressors can't pull the wool over your eyes!
What about phone service or electric? "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason" would be a problem in that case because you have no real alternative provider. You paid your bills on time, was always polite on the phone, turned off the lights when you left the room, but the phone and electric companies shut you off because you were a pinko, commie linux user.
Well, the problem with "basic necessities" like water, electric, gas, etc. is that they are regulated industries, and as such usually a local provider has a gov't.-mandated monopoly over a given region. In this case, you're absolutely right: its not fair for companies to refuse service, because by law, there are no alternatives. By law, these companies are required to provide service if so requested (and even during certain times of year, such as winter up here in the northeast, regardless of customer payment status).
But even in regard to such basic necessities as power, water, heat, etc., in a free market, companies have the right to refuse service. And in a free market, there's nothing to stop a competitor from offering the service or from the customer from supplying his own. People out in the Mojave Desert have no phone access, no power lines, no water lines; they provide their own.
People are entitled to things like power, heat, water, food only insofar as they are entitled to either provide themselves with it or enter into voluntary agreements with others to have it provided to them. People are NOT entitled to these services simply by virtue of being a human alive in the 21st century.
I won't pay taxes (at least I don't want to). I'd certainly pony up the cash for a bank and/or data paradise. Its certainly a haven for an oppressed individual like myself.
If you like taxes so much, you pay 'em. Me and the rest of the people who like choosing what we buy will go somewhere else. Everyone's happy. So why do you care?
B ------ "I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buying?" --James Brown
"A common carrier can't refuse or terminate service at will. They can't terminate you because you have controversial views or are a pain in the ass to deal with." I understand this is true in the legal sense, i.e. there are laws which forbid discrimination of this sort. But if your arguing in the moral sense, the "it just isn't right" sense, my answer is "well, why not?" Ignoring the various laws on the books about this for a second and arguing in the strictly moral sense (i.e., what is proper and improper), an ISP has the right to refuse and/or terminate service to any user it wants. And this is for precisely the same reason you may see disclaimers in restaurants that say "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone". When its your property (routers, servers, boxes, etc) and your service (net connection) that you are allowing people to use, and you collect $$$ in return, you are engaged in an agreement with the user. And if the user intentionally or inadvertently brings harm to you, your property or your service, you have the right to bring a stop to it. This happens all the time in the real world: restaurants refuse service, advertisers pull spots from a controversial TV show, Wal-mart pulls music from its shelves it finds offensive. If a user brings disrepute or downright damage in the form of DoS attacks, the ISP has every right to terminate service. Now, if such termination is unwarranted in some form of contract specified and agreed to by ISP and user, THEN you've got a case. But otherwise, its simply a matter of protecting one's own name, reputation and/or quality of service. B "how dare you call them dogs? they're 'siberian american huskies'." -- Mark Adkins
I hope I needn't remind optimistic slashdotters that earth's atmosphere is overwhemingly comprised of nitrogen. Then of course, there are atmospheric pressure issues...I don't know about making Mars breathable with this machine, but its certainly a step in the right direction and has some useful applications (most notably for fueling those old solid- and liquid-rocket boosters).
Re:cutting the wheat from the chaff..
on
At The Crossroads
·
· Score: 1
Well, it seems to make sense. If government can influence business, isn't it only fair that business can influence government? I mean, government can inhibit, prohibit or outright destroy businesses. Shouldn't they at least be afforded the mechanism to defend themselves?
They don't even get a guarantee that their lobbying dollars will pay off. Their "in the pocket" senator could vote the other way on that crucial issue. Seems to me the only ones who make out good on the deals are the representatives.
B Kanamori's definition of infinity: "you don't go there."
The one thing about this essay that torqued me down was Katz's claim that "liberty is threatened now by big corporate interests". Forgive me for being a randroid, but there's a huge difference between a corporation desperately trying to get you to give them money and a government that puts a gun to your face and demands it. The notion that corporations infringe upon or threaten liberty is a shocking instance of newspeak that should be dissected and exposed for what it is: a sneaky attempt to switch one word for another (we randroids call this one "concept-stealing").
In any case, I submitted a proposal to H2k for a presentation addressing the very questions Katz raises in this article. If anyone's interested in my slightly unqualified opinion on this, and you'll be in the NYC area July 14-16, consider stopping by. And while you're at it, urge Emmanuel and everyone else to put me in the program.
So if I understand this correctly: if I come up with an idea for a new type of steel which will revolutionize the railroad industry, and I keep it all to my greedy self, I am harming the "global public good"? If I have the cure for AIDS locked up in my head and I don't share it, I am stealing something that belongs to "the people"?
The scarcity argument doesn't work, because ideas ARE scarce. Someone has to come up with them. If all we did was sit around and reap the benefits of an idea's tangible repercussions, well, we wouldn't reap dog crap because no one would've had any new ideas to begin with.
The key in determining what thought is free and what is protected depends on the type of idea. If I come up with a catchy slogan, I can't claim copyright on the individual words, but I CAN (legally and morally) claim copyright on that particular arrangement of words. Yet I cannot claim copyright on the idea conveyed. For instance, I could come up with a slogan for buying beef jerky and stake a claim on it, but I cannot claim copyright on the notion of buying beef jerky.
There is a point to this; here it comes.
Products that are primarily intellectual (software is often cited as such) are subject to the same moral rules in regards to property as any other product of the human mind. I can't claim property on the right to smelt steel; however, I can claim as property a particular METHOD of smelting steel (the Bessemer Process, for example).
Likewise with software. I can't claim copyright on what a piece of software DOES, but on how it is implemented. I can't own an object-oriented language; I can, however, own a compiler.
Free stuff is only free so long as it does not infringe on the individual rights of others; just because its publicly available doesn't mean you're not necessarily improperly expropriating the blood, sweat and tears of someone else.
bry m. "its always in the last place you look." "well duh. you'd be pretty stupid to keep looking after you've found it."
Someone else here said it best: Unjustified alarmist words.
Notice how everyone's got an angle on how the world's going to hell? And somehow it all relates back to corporations. Hm. That's a shocking coincidence.
Of course, you wouldn't see these sorts of problems if corporations weren't so tied up in governments. But do people talk about separating the two? No, they talk about restricting corporations, beating them, bashing them to a bloody pulp, because (see above), they're the cause of every human problem, from the ozone layer to the necessity of viagra. (Don't laugh, I once read an article by a maoist who said that sexual frustration are caused by the "alienation" of capitalism.)
Again, another shocking coincidence. Why, it lends me to believe there's some sinister work afoot.
Governments build up monopolies they like, and smash down monopolies they dislike. They provide incentives to join markets and disincentives. Despite the amazing market power some companies wield, it is insignificant next to the power of big brother. Yet companies, the willing and unwilling pawns of the government master, are the ones who get the beat. Why?
The difference between a government and a corporation is that a corporation can offer you a choice, a government can force it upon you. Companies have advertising; governments have guns.
Honestly, which is the more dangerous weapon?
bry m. "I'm not anti-government, government's anti-me" -- Mike Muir
Taxation can be extorsion (and with our governement it often is) but we DO need it, otherwise we don't have schools, roads, libraries, etc. Turning these institutions over to corporate interests is far worse than having them run by the gov't. At least the gov't has a shred of interest in our rights, corporations have none. They just want money.
WAKE UP.The government has NO interest in your rights. None. They circumvented the Constitution to institute an income tax. They attempted to censor the net via the CDAs. Police regularly stop individuals who are guilty of nothing more than "looking suspicious", and gov't spooks are trying to get backdoors to every encryption algorithm created to spy on YOUR communication.
And you think the government cares about your rights? What separates the government from corporations is that both take your money, but corporations must fight for it while the government can just take it. And if you don't like it, they can throw you in jail, freeze your assets, and basically make your life a living hell. Ever see "Enemy of the State"? You think that movie is REALLY that far from reality?
We DON'T need taxes, because we DON'T need public schools, roads, libraries. I went to a private high school, and while they were certainly interested in my money, they were also extaordinarily interested in students. We had teachers with doctorates in their fields, but who could not teach in a MA public school because they didn't go to a teacher's college. Our school was kept in great shape, there were NO discipline problems (the vice principal once threatened to expel two students who harassed me), and I actually LEARNED something. The financial aid was one of the best packages in the state, and more than half our student body came from low-income homes.
According to my school's annual report, the average amount of money spent per student was $2,300 (approx.). This paid for a great education. According to the MA dept. of Education, the state spent about $8,000 per student on Boston public schools, which are well known for spawning racist, sexist homophobic brats of ALL skin colors.
Taxation can be extorsion (and with our governement it often is) but we DO need it, otherwise we don't have schools, roads, libraries, etc. Turning these institutions over to corporate interests is far worse than having them run by the gov't. At least the gov't has a shred of interest in our rights, corporations have none. They just want money.
WAKE UP.The government has NO interest in your rights. None. They circumvented the Constitution to institute an income tax. They attempted to censor the net via the CDAs. Police regularly stop individuals who are guilty of nothing more than "looking suspicious", and gov't spooks are trying to get backdoors to every encryption algorithm created to spy on YOUR communication.
And you think the government cares about your rights? What separates the government from corporations is that both take your money, but corporations must fight for it while the government can just take it. And if you don't like it, they can throw you in jail, freeze your assets, and basically make your life a living hell. Ever see "Enemy of the State"? You think that movie is REALLY that far from reality?
We DON'T need taxes, because we DON'T need public schools, roads, libraries. I went to a private high school, and while they were certainly interested in my money, they were also extaordinarily interested in students. We had teachers with doctorates in their fields, but who could not teach in a MA public school because they didn't go to a teacher's college. Our school was kept in great shape, there were NO discipline problems (the vice principal once threatened to expel two students who harassed me), and I actually LEARNED something. The financial aid was one of the best packages in the state, and more than half our student body came from low-income homes.
According to my school's annual report, the average amount of money spent per student was $2,300 (approx.). This paid for a great education. According to the MA dept. of Education, the state spent about $8,000 per student on Boston public schools, which are well known for spawning racist, sexist homophobic brats of ALL skin colors.
raping and pillaging. do shut up. I thought people finally came around on socialism, how they saw what kind of misery it created, but I guess there are a few people who still need lessons... Anyways, this article really strikes me as underlining the obvious. OF COURSE companies are out there to make money. OF COURSE they support Linux because it makes them money. Why else? Because of "the principle of the matter"? Ha. Linux is popular because linux is powerful. It is useful. And lots of people use it. And companies, by offering linux products, appeal to those people. simple market economics. it has nothing to do with raping, pillaging, or keepin it real to tha old-sk00l linux hackerz there at the beginning. Damnit. This is why I got out of punk rock; because too many people were more interested in out-classing each other by how long they've been there. Get a grip. Linux is an operating system, a tool for human productivity. Its a good tool. The fact that companies are buying it, supporting it and pushing it is a sign that they see it as valuable. Why is it okay for little guys to make it big, but its some grand injustice if the big guys make it big too? Oh, and to my marxist friend, your "community based social model" actually destroyed communities. A whole lot of them. In Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania. In the Ukraine. The Caucasus. And myriad other places around the globe. Your "social model" also destroyed half my family because they were "counterrevolutionaries". So if I seem bitter, that's cause I am. 24 million dead, courtesy of Josef Stalin. 17 million dead courtesy of V.I. Lenin. And you say capitalism is bad.
Slashdot Mirror
Its not about liberation, freedom, or giving a damn about anyone else. Its about power. They want it. They want to run the world. They recognize that they cannot do so without the approval of a large number of people. They then parrot lines and stories and arguments that make said people think the cadre is fighting for them. And then, with the blood, sweat, tears and lives of those very same people, the cadre "betrays" them (the cadre always intended to, so there's no real betrayal), milks them, bleeds them dry.
Orwell's pigs pleading to the rest of the farm about how much they are sacrificing for the freedom of all farm animals.
No, this guy isn't kidding: he understands all too well. He just didn't keep the secret, secret.
He may mean warm bodies now, but whether they're warm or cold is irrelevant once his type have seized power.
step 1: define the following words(or at least know what parts of a sentence they go in):
...
multinational, social awareness, activism, greed, power, oppression, oligarchy, indigenous, alienated, dictatorship, elite, culture, people, sit-in, social order, social welfare, social , corporatism, diversity, censorship, rally, third world, progressive, society, demonstration, people, sexist, human rights, destruction, proletariat, regime, patriarchy, environmentalism, gender, control, aristocrat, resist, protest, fascist, democracy, stratification, poverty, privilege,
step 1b: use these words in everyday conversation, i.e.:
andrew: hi, betty, how are you?
betty: your sexist patriarchal gender oppression will be smashed by the progressive social awareness of the people resisting the privileged power elite!
step 2: read (or at least pose with book in public) one or more of the following authors:
Karl Marx, Howard Zinn, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Abbie Hoffman, Freidrich Engels, Mario Savio, Bob Avakian, V.I. Lenin, Mao Zedong, Noam Chomsky (good source for more big, intelligent sounding words. stump your friends!)
step 3: know the following organizations, and whether they are good or bad
IMF, greenpeace, IWW, WTO, US government, Earth First!, NOW, World Bank, Monsanto, Shell Oil Corporation, Free Speech Movement, Food not Bombs, Monsanto, Amnesty International, Monsanto.
step 4: attend rally, sit-in, protest, demonstration of your choice in one or more of the following causes: environmentalism, workers' rights, women's rights, animal rights, human rights, welfare rights, anti-WTO, anti-IMF, anti-bad group (see step 3).
congratulations! You are now a fully tuned in social activist, hip to what's going on! The fascist oppressors can't pull the wool over your eyes!
Well, the problem with "basic necessities" like water, electric, gas, etc. is that they are regulated industries, and as such usually a local provider has a gov't.-mandated monopoly over a given region. In this case, you're absolutely right: its not fair for companies to refuse service, because by law, there are no alternatives. By law, these companies are required to provide service if so requested (and even during certain times of year, such as winter up here in the northeast, regardless of customer payment status).
But even in regard to such basic necessities as power, water, heat, etc., in a free market, companies have the right to refuse service. And in a free market, there's nothing to stop a competitor from offering the service or from the customer from supplying his own. People out in the Mojave Desert have no phone access, no power lines, no water lines; they provide their own.
People are entitled to things like power, heat, water, food only insofar as they are entitled to either provide themselves with it or enter into voluntary agreements with others to have it provided to them. People are NOT entitled to these services simply by virtue of being a human alive in the 21st century.
If you like taxes so much, you pay 'em. Me and the rest of the people who like choosing what we buy will go somewhere else. Everyone's happy. So why do you care?
B
------
"I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buying?" --James Brown
B
".sig."
"A common carrier can't refuse or terminate service at will. They can't terminate you because you have controversial views or are a pain in the ass to deal with." I understand this is true in the legal sense, i.e. there are laws which forbid discrimination of this sort. But if your arguing in the moral sense, the "it just isn't right" sense, my answer is "well, why not?" Ignoring the various laws on the books about this for a second and arguing in the strictly moral sense (i.e., what is proper and improper), an ISP has the right to refuse and/or terminate service to any user it wants. And this is for precisely the same reason you may see disclaimers in restaurants that say "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone". When its your property (routers, servers, boxes, etc) and your service (net connection) that you are allowing people to use, and you collect $$$ in return, you are engaged in an agreement with the user. And if the user intentionally or inadvertently brings harm to you, your property or your service, you have the right to bring a stop to it. This happens all the time in the real world: restaurants refuse service, advertisers pull spots from a controversial TV show, Wal-mart pulls music from its shelves it finds offensive. If a user brings disrepute or downright damage in the form of DoS attacks, the ISP has every right to terminate service. Now, if such termination is unwarranted in some form of contract specified and agreed to by ISP and user, THEN you've got a case. But otherwise, its simply a matter of protecting one's own name, reputation and/or quality of service. B "how dare you call them dogs? they're 'siberian american huskies'." -- Mark Adkins
I hope I needn't remind optimistic slashdotters that earth's atmosphere is overwhemingly comprised of nitrogen. Then of course, there are atmospheric pressure issues...I don't know about making Mars breathable with this machine, but its certainly a step in the right direction and has some useful applications (most notably for fueling those old solid- and liquid-rocket boosters).
Well, it seems to make sense. If government can influence business, isn't it only fair that business can influence government? I mean, government can inhibit, prohibit or outright destroy businesses. Shouldn't they at least be afforded the mechanism to defend themselves?
They don't even get a guarantee that their lobbying dollars will pay off. Their "in the pocket" senator could vote the other way on that crucial issue. Seems to me the only ones who make out good on the deals are the representatives.
B
Kanamori's definition of infinity: "you don't go there."
In any case, I submitted a proposal to H2k for a presentation addressing the very questions Katz raises in this article. If anyone's interested in my slightly unqualified opinion on this, and you'll be in the NYC area July 14-16, consider stopping by. And while you're at it, urge Emmanuel and everyone else to put me in the program.
Thank yew fer yur support.
B
So if I understand this correctly: if I come up with an idea for a new type of steel which will revolutionize the railroad industry, and I keep it all to my greedy self, I am harming the "global public good"? If I have the cure for AIDS locked up in my head and I don't share it, I am stealing something that belongs to "the people"?
The scarcity argument doesn't work, because ideas ARE scarce. Someone has to come up with them. If all we did was sit around and reap the benefits of an idea's tangible repercussions, well, we wouldn't reap dog crap because no one would've had any new ideas to begin with.
The key in determining what thought is free and what is protected depends on the type of idea. If I come up with a catchy slogan, I can't claim copyright on the individual words, but I CAN (legally and morally) claim copyright on that particular arrangement of words. Yet I cannot claim copyright on the idea conveyed. For instance, I could come up with a slogan for buying beef jerky and stake a claim on it, but I cannot claim copyright on the notion of buying beef jerky.
There is a point to this; here it comes.
Products that are primarily intellectual (software is often cited as such) are subject to the same moral rules in regards to property as any other product of the human mind. I can't claim property on the right to smelt steel; however, I can claim as property a particular METHOD of smelting steel (the Bessemer Process, for example).
Likewise with software. I can't claim copyright on what a piece of software DOES, but on how it is implemented. I can't own an object-oriented language; I can, however, own a compiler.
Free stuff is only free so long as it does not infringe on the individual rights of others; just because its publicly available doesn't mean you're not necessarily improperly expropriating the blood, sweat and tears of someone else.
bry m.
"its always in the last place you look."
"well duh. you'd be pretty stupid to keep looking after you've found it."
Someone else here said it best: Unjustified alarmist words.
Notice how everyone's got an angle on how the world's going to hell? And somehow it all relates back to corporations. Hm. That's a shocking coincidence.
Of course, you wouldn't see these sorts of problems if corporations weren't so tied up in governments. But do people talk about separating the two? No, they talk about restricting corporations, beating them, bashing them to a bloody pulp, because (see above), they're the cause of every human problem, from the ozone layer to the necessity of viagra. (Don't laugh, I once read an article by a maoist who said that sexual frustration are caused by the "alienation" of capitalism.)
Again, another shocking coincidence. Why, it lends me to believe there's some sinister work afoot.
Governments build up monopolies they like, and smash down monopolies they dislike. They provide incentives to join markets and disincentives. Despite the amazing market power some companies wield, it is insignificant next to the power of big brother. Yet companies, the willing and unwilling pawns of the government master, are the ones who get the beat. Why?
The difference between a government and a corporation is that a corporation can offer you a choice, a government can force it upon you. Companies have advertising; governments have guns.
Honestly, which is the more dangerous weapon?
bry m.
"I'm not anti-government, government's anti-me" -- Mike Muir
WAKE UP.The government has NO interest in your rights. None. They circumvented the Constitution to institute an income tax. They attempted to censor the net via the CDAs. Police regularly stop individuals who are guilty of nothing more than "looking suspicious", and gov't spooks are trying to get backdoors to every encryption algorithm created to spy on YOUR communication.
And you think the government cares about your rights? What separates the government from corporations is that both take your money, but corporations must fight for it while the government can just take it. And if you don't like it, they can throw you in jail, freeze your assets, and basically make your life a living hell. Ever see "Enemy of the State"? You think that movie is REALLY that far from reality?
We DON'T need taxes, because we DON'T need public schools, roads, libraries. I went to a private high school, and while they were certainly interested in my money, they were also extaordinarily interested in students. We had teachers with doctorates in their fields, but who could not teach in a MA public school because they didn't go to a teacher's college. Our school was kept in great shape, there were NO discipline problems (the vice principal once threatened to expel two students who harassed me), and I actually LEARNED something. The financial aid was one of the best packages in the state, and more than half our student body came from low-income homes.
According to my school's annual report, the average amount of money spent per student was $2,300 (approx.). This paid for a great education. According to the MA dept. of Education, the state spent about $8,000 per student on Boston public schools, which are well known for spawning racist, sexist homophobic brats of ALL skin colors.
And you don't trust PRIVATE COMPANIES with this?
WAKE UP.The government has NO interest in your rights. None. They circumvented the Constitution to institute an income tax. They attempted to censor the net via the CDAs. Police regularly stop individuals who are guilty of nothing more than "looking suspicious", and gov't spooks are trying to get backdoors to every encryption algorithm created to spy on YOUR communication.
And you think the government cares about your rights? What separates the government from corporations is that both take your money, but corporations must fight for it while the government can just take it. And if you don't like it, they can throw you in jail, freeze your assets, and basically make your life a living hell. Ever see "Enemy of the State"? You think that movie is REALLY that far from reality?
We DON'T need taxes, because we DON'T need public schools, roads, libraries. I went to a private high school, and while they were certainly interested in my money, they were also extaordinarily interested in students. We had teachers with doctorates in their fields, but who could not teach in a MA public school because they didn't go to a teacher's college. Our school was kept in great shape, there were NO discipline problems (the vice principal once threatened to expel two students who harassed me), and I actually LEARNED something. The financial aid was one of the best packages in the state, and more than half our student body came from low-income homes.
According to my school's annual report, the average amount of money spent per student was $2,300 (approx.). This paid for a great education. According to the MA dept. of Education, the state spent about $8,000 per student on Boston public schools, which are well known for spawning racist, sexist homophobic brats of ALL skin colors.
And you don't trust PRIVATE COMPANIES with this?
raping and pillaging. do shut up. I thought people finally came around on socialism, how they saw what kind of misery it created, but I guess there are a few people who still need lessons... Anyways, this article really strikes me as underlining the obvious. OF COURSE companies are out there to make money. OF COURSE they support Linux because it makes them money. Why else? Because of "the principle of the matter"? Ha. Linux is popular because linux is powerful. It is useful. And lots of people use it. And companies, by offering linux products, appeal to those people. simple market economics. it has nothing to do with raping, pillaging, or keepin it real to tha old-sk00l linux hackerz there at the beginning. Damnit. This is why I got out of punk rock; because too many people were more interested in out-classing each other by how long they've been there. Get a grip. Linux is an operating system, a tool for human productivity. Its a good tool. The fact that companies are buying it, supporting it and pushing it is a sign that they see it as valuable. Why is it okay for little guys to make it big, but its some grand injustice if the big guys make it big too? Oh, and to my marxist friend, your "community based social model" actually destroyed communities. A whole lot of them. In Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania. In the Ukraine. The Caucasus. And myriad other places around the globe. Your "social model" also destroyed half my family because they were "counterrevolutionaries". So if I seem bitter, that's cause I am. 24 million dead, courtesy of Josef Stalin. 17 million dead courtesy of V.I. Lenin. And you say capitalism is bad.