Who is "we"? Let me guess, the folks with the biggest guns?
Allow me a prophecy: You're going to scream like a stuck pig about your "rights" and your "innocence" when those same guns are pointed at you to take your property against your will. I suggest you do not come crawling to me for help when it happens.
Your use of defense of property is as a justification for government is curious, because the government expropriates property at will. They are indeed the foxes left, by such cowards as yourself, to supposedly guard the chicken coop. If this is your idea of proof of the importance of intrusive government, your logic and rhetoric instructors must be turning over in their graves. Unless, of course, they were government employees. In that case, they did their job perfectly.
"A MAN pays for what he uses, don't you agree?"
Indeed. Which is why you only demonstrate your own cowardice and impotence by deligating the messy task of collecting the stolen property of your neighbors to others.
Your whole social debt thing is demonstrably false. By its own premise, everyone cancels everyone else out. If I owe you, you also owe me. A logical zero.
So even using your own argument, the only thing left to civilized men is to not initiate force against each other. That is a concept you would be well served to meditate upon.
I owe NOTHING to others. I carry no debt. Your argument is one of greed and averace for things that others produce that you want. Envy.
Freedom also means that no one is required to trade with me. They choose to buy what I sell, and sell to me what I wish to buy. I neither demand that they give me something just because I want it, nor does anyone (except leaches like you) demand that I give to them merely because they want it.
Rather than deligate the act to others, you try going to people and robbing them like an honest thief. Voting away other peoples money is cowardice in the extreme, because you don't have to soil your hands with the collection.
You are more than welcome to give all your money to NASA if that is what you want to do.
I resent that you think it's ok to hold a gun to my head, taking my money to pay for something merely because you approve of it. Were I to do the same, you would object and call it "theft". Hypocrite.
Taxation is a perfect example of the ends justifying the means.
This is a kluge, made by the lowest bidder that would build facilities in favored politicians districts, hamstrung by bureaucrats and inane regulation at every turn. The design was loaded with "everything for everyone" until it was a miracle that if flew at all.
I admire the individual scientists and engineers that could make progress in this environment. No wonder they burn out at such a rate.
Scrap the entire system, sell off NASA to the highest bidders, and have done with it. Putting more lives at risk on those craft is pointless. Any private effort wouldn't be able to afford the liability insurance for craft like those, aren't you glad it's your tax money being spent to kill people instead?
If there is overwhelming support for such efforts, there is no need for taxes to taken at gun point to fund them. If the programs do not have such public support, there is no mandate for government to be doing it in the first place.
How can anyone treat prison as a "day job"? Forced attendance is the one lesson that government schooling teaches. Submission to arbitrary authority.
Funded at gun point, attended under threat of death, infested with ignorant toadies who know better how to kiss butt than teach, endless failures. The incentive for teachers isn't successful teaching, it's simple attendance just like the inmates. Colleges are in dire straights trying to teach "remedial" everything.
Why is anyone surprised when there is violence in a "school"? Violence is the very foundation of the "public school".
What few quality teachers exist would get hired at decent salaries in an instant if the government forced day-prisons were closed. Rather than having a hundred layers of pointless bureaucracy to pay for, from numerous secretaries and vice principals to a Federal Cabinet level department, all that vast money will be available to the people themselves to fund whatever schooling they prefer.
Unlike the forced prison camps, disruptive students will simply be dismissed. There is no reason to tollerate bullies, if there is nothing forcing someone to be there in the first place. Many, many problems which prevent actual teaching are eliminated in one simple step.
Like there's any reason to think that (i) Anyone on slashdot is old enough to remember Salvage, and (ii) That anyone on slashdot could remember the show anyway.
On the Futurama episode, thank you. I watched one episode, about the "smell" telescope, and was uninspired to watch anything more.
Grammar and spelling flames are in bad taste, but they're so much fun too. However, back to the subject.
Yes, I have. One of the Mayflower Pilgrims is a direct ancestor. I have photographs of both myself and my father at the site, and will be taking my daughter there when she's old enough to remember it.
It's too bad that the Pilgrims lessons about the failure of socialism isn't taught in public schools. Why was there so much to be thankful for? Because after starving nearly to death for two years, the "collective" farms were broken up into individual plots and considered "private" property. People reaped what they sowed, and profited thereby.
Those who previously couldn't be bothered to work an iota beyond their allotment were to be found out tending their fields, working their land and skills for PROFIT. Instead of starving for yet a third year, the colony had plenty and more.
Plymoth Rock may be a disappointment, with one empty shack left standing in the Peoples Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but the lessons of the Plymoth settlers echo down through time with both wisdom and folly.
The first entrepreneurs able to get into space efficiently have a large supply of trophies and memorabilia available for salvaging!
I hope that the homesteaders on Earth's moon have the integrity to set up a barrier around the Apollo 11 landing site, that is one patch of tracks in the dust and debris that I would consider sacred.
Now you say you have the right to forbid me duplicating what you have made.
No, I did not say that.
I object to a positive obligation that I provide source code if I do not wish to. To require me to act under under threat is no different than any other extortion.
You may do with what you buy what you wish to do. If you take my work and represent it as your own, that's fraud.
government takes away my rights to give you what you percieve as your rights,...
What you missed is that I object to government creating a positive obligation in the first place. I am not demanding "copyright", I am objecting to force.
Maybe, just maybe, you and I don't disagree at all. Semantics sucks.
Compelling me to provide source code is a positive obligation, exactly like taxation and the military draft. It requires me to do something I might not otherwise do. I am punished for *not* doing something.
Preventing murder (which doesn't work, one can only be prosecuted after the fact) is a negative obligation. It requires that I have deliberately acted upon someone against their will. I must have initiated force in order for it to be "murder" at all.
Were I to deny someone the source code after making them believe that it would be supplied, that would be fraud. There is neither force nor fraud in my releasing binary-only programs.
I'm quite pleased to see that you know who Mises was. It's amazing how many people believe the political spectrum is merely argument over how to split the loot (which is no argument at all).
But you would expect goverment to protect your copyright?
No.
I believe in the prosecution of force and fraud. Claiming that my work is your own is fraud, even if no force is used at all.
Unfortunately, copyright is enumerated in the US Constitution, so we're stuck with it. I consider it another example of the vast expansion of power that was embedded in the Constitution that protected and created vested interest groups antithetical to actual Liberty.
Node 3, were that the end of it I would have no argument with him at all. He is perfectly at liberty to "urge" people all he wants.
Hopefully, if I do find where he stated that people should not be allowed to publish software without releasing the source code too, this will not have scrolled off and I'll be able to provide the citation.
To state my personal opinion on the matter, I believe people have the right to do with what they own whatever they want to do with it, subject to attribution. That means you don't take my work as your own, give credit where credit is due. Take my words and call them your own, it's fraud. Same with words that happen to be in computer language.
It also means that if you buy a program in binary form, and choose to reverse-engineer it, that's fine too.
...I'm supposed to give that person's beliefs the same respect...
I do wish you would read what I wrote. I said disagreement has thing to do with respect for the INDIVIDUAL.
No matter how "wrong" someone may be, they deserve respect for who they are.
Someone can also be "correct" in their beliefs and a complete reprobate.
There are lots of people who have "integrity" that are wrong. It doesn't make them less wrong.
So you either respect people who are "correct" on some subject in your opinion, regardless of their integrity, or you're contradicting yourself. If simply being considered "wrong" about something meant you were contemptable, does his considering you wrong mean you're contemptable? Are you ready to accept the logical extention of your own theory?
He has, actually. Sorry to ask you to take my word for it, but I don't have the citation.
Do note, however, that he considers a law requiring all software to be "libre" to be the same thing as product labeling, a law with tremendous public support. It's difficult to find anyone who will argue that the law is an infringement on the rights of the producer to label their product as they see fit.
Keep in mind that RMS is not a "libertarian", he fully believes in the use of government force for things he likes, which is why he does not reject such a law. He only says he's not calling for one now.
The scene in the movie _Revolution OS_ where Torvalds and the Linux show organizers present RMS with a large donation to the Free Software Foundation is very, very illuminating.
Why should I respect someone whose views are flat-out wrong?
Because respect has nothing to do with agreement.
Contempt for your enemy, arrogance in thinking that because you think they are wrong means that they will lose, has lost far more battles than any other single factor. "But, they're only slaves..." says the defeated Roman commander after losing to Spartacus.
Watch a real hunter some time. See how deeply they respect their prey. Recall from the move "Patton", the line, "Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I READ YOUR BOOK!"
You can consider him wrong, I'm sure he considers you wrong. Don't let your arrogance blind you to his integrity.
Of course. It would also be better if everyone ate brown rice, drank water instead of sugar soda, drove electric cars, and turned off their water heater when they went on vacation.
But I'm not going to put a gun to their head (which is all that government is) to make them do it.
Luckily, we still have the option not to buy products that do not give us the attributes we want.
I really like the project to produce an entirely open-source accelerated video card. If ATI and NVidia see their cards being passed over for this upstart "open" card, they will open their APIs in an instant to try to get the customers back.
It really surprises me that hardware vendors don't open their APIs, because for them software is a cost. If they can have developers refine the software (and support it!) for nothing, it's a win-win for them!
Slashdot Mirror
"We demand because you owe it."
Who is "we"? Let me guess, the folks with the biggest guns?
Allow me a prophecy: You're going to scream like a stuck pig about your "rights" and your "innocence" when those same guns are pointed at you to take your property against your will. I suggest you do not come crawling to me for help when it happens.
Your use of defense of property is as a justification for government is curious, because the government expropriates property at will. They are indeed the foxes left, by such cowards as yourself, to supposedly guard the chicken coop. If this is your idea of proof of the importance of intrusive government, your logic and rhetoric instructors must be turning over in their graves. Unless, of course, they were government employees. In that case, they did their job perfectly.
"A MAN pays for what he uses, don't you agree?"
Indeed. Which is why you only demonstrate your own cowardice and impotence by deligating the messy task of collecting the stolen property of your neighbors to others.
Your whole social debt thing is demonstrably false. By its own premise, everyone cancels everyone else out. If I owe you, you also owe me. A logical zero.
So even using your own argument, the only thing left to civilized men is to not initiate force against each other. That is a concept you would be well served to meditate upon.
Bob-
I owe NOTHING to others. I carry no debt. Your argument is one of greed and averace for things that others produce that you want. Envy.
Freedom also means that no one is required to trade with me. They choose to buy what I sell, and sell to me what I wish to buy. I neither demand that they give me something just because I want it, nor does anyone (except leaches like you) demand that I give to them merely because they want it.
Rather than deligate the act to others, you try going to people and robbing them like an honest thief. Voting away other peoples money is cowardice in the extreme, because you don't have to soil your hands with the collection.
Bob-
You are more than welcome to give all your money to NASA if that is what you want to do.
I resent that you think it's ok to hold a gun to my head, taking my money to pay for something merely because you approve of it. Were I to do the same, you would object and call it "theft". Hypocrite.
Taxation is a perfect example of the ends justifying the means.
Bob-
This is a kluge, made by the lowest bidder that would build facilities in favored politicians districts, hamstrung by bureaucrats and inane regulation at every turn. The design was loaded with "everything for everyone" until it was a miracle that if flew at all.
I admire the individual scientists and engineers that could make progress in this environment. No wonder they burn out at such a rate.
Scrap the entire system, sell off NASA to the highest bidders, and have done with it. Putting more lives at risk on those craft is pointless. Any private effort wouldn't be able to afford the liability insurance for craft like those, aren't you glad it's your tax money being spent to kill people instead?
If there is overwhelming support for such efforts, there is no need for taxes to taken at gun point to fund them. If the programs do not have such public support, there is no mandate for government to be doing it in the first place.
Bob-
How can anyone treat prison as a "day job"? Forced attendance is the one lesson that government schooling teaches. Submission to arbitrary authority.
Funded at gun point, attended under threat of death, infested with ignorant toadies who know better how to kiss butt than teach, endless failures. The incentive for teachers isn't successful teaching, it's simple attendance just like the inmates. Colleges are in dire straights trying to teach "remedial" everything.
Why is anyone surprised when there is violence in a "school"? Violence is the very foundation of the "public school".
What few quality teachers exist would get hired at decent salaries in an instant if the government forced day-prisons were closed. Rather than having a hundred layers of pointless bureaucracy to pay for, from numerous secretaries and vice principals to a Federal Cabinet level department, all that vast money will be available to the people themselves to fund whatever schooling they prefer.
Unlike the forced prison camps, disruptive students will simply be dismissed. There is no reason to tollerate bullies, if there is nothing forcing someone to be there in the first place. Many, many problems which prevent actual teaching are eliminated in one simple step.
Separate school and state. Now.
Bob-
Like there's any reason to think that (i) Anyone on slashdot is old enough to remember Salvage, and (ii) That anyone on slashdot could remember the show anyway.
On the Futurama episode, thank you. I watched one episode, about the "smell" telescope, and was uninspired to watch anything more.
Dude, you ever been to Plymouth Rock?
Grammar and spelling flames are in bad taste, but they're so much fun too. However, back to the subject.
Yes, I have. One of the Mayflower Pilgrims is a direct ancestor. I have photographs of both myself and my father at the site, and will be taking my daughter there when she's old enough to remember it.
It's too bad that the Pilgrims lessons about the failure of socialism isn't taught in public schools. Why was there so much to be thankful for? Because after starving nearly to death for two years, the "collective" farms were broken up into individual plots and considered "private" property. People reaped what they sowed, and profited thereby.
Those who previously couldn't be bothered to work an iota beyond their allotment were to be found out tending their fields, working their land and skills for PROFIT. Instead of starving for yet a third year, the colony had plenty and more.
Plymoth Rock may be a disappointment, with one empty shack left standing in the Peoples Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but the lessons of the Plymoth settlers echo down through time with both wisdom and folly.
Bob-
For three generations, government schools have been drilling into children how awful and evil atomic energy is.
Why do you act surprised that there is foul fruit to this effort to discredit clean, efficient atomics?
Bob-
The first entrepreneurs able to get into space efficiently have a large supply of trophies and memorabilia available for salvaging!
I hope that the homesteaders on Earth's moon have the integrity to set up a barrier around the Apollo 11 landing site, that is one patch of tracks in the dust and debris that I would consider sacred.
Bob-
...the more computer systems will slip through your fingers.
The Linux installer. The ultimate remover for malicious spyware.
Bob-
The grand prize winner is home-schooled. Another demonstration of what getting out of the government prison camps can do.
Brava, Miss Tylor. And many thanks to the rest of the entrants, I have a couple new wallpapers!
Bob-
I never said I disagree with open source, public domain, copyleft, or any other aspect of this except one.
I even agree with you that having open source code is beneficial for everyone.
I object to compulsion. If someone wants to release closed code, go for it.
The difference here is between "should" and "must".
Bob-
Now you say you have the right to forbid me duplicating what you have made.
No, I did not say that.
I object to a positive obligation that I provide source code if I do not wish to. To require me to act under under threat is no different than any other extortion.
You may do with what you buy what you wish to do. If you take my work and represent it as your own, that's fraud.
government takes away my rights to give you what you percieve as your rights,...
What you missed is that I object to government creating a positive obligation in the first place. I am not demanding "copyright", I am objecting to force.
Maybe, just maybe, you and I don't disagree at all. Semantics sucks.
Bob-
I appologise for the confusion.
Compelling me to provide source code is a positive obligation, exactly like taxation and the military draft. It requires me to do something I might not otherwise do. I am punished for *not* doing something.
Preventing murder (which doesn't work, one can only be prosecuted after the fact) is a negative obligation. It requires that I have deliberately acted upon someone against their will. I must have initiated force in order for it to be "murder" at all.
Were I to deny someone the source code after making them believe that it would be supplied, that would be fraud. There is neither force nor fraud in my releasing binary-only programs.
I'm quite pleased to see that you know who Mises was. It's amazing how many people believe the political spectrum is merely argument over how to split the loot (which is no argument at all).
Bob-
But you would expect goverment to protect your copyright?
No.
I believe in the prosecution of force and fraud. Claiming that my work is your own is fraud, even if no force is used at all.
Unfortunately, copyright is enumerated in the US Constitution, so we're stuck with it. I consider it another example of the vast expansion of power that was embedded in the Constitution that protected and created vested interest groups antithetical to actual Liberty.
Bob-
Let's say I write a story. You buy a copy of the story, tear off the covers, put your name on it and sell it as your own.
You have taken a copy and done what you want with it. I still have my original, it is intact and I still have perfect use of it.
Would you consider this perfectly fine? Is it perfectly fine as long as you only tear out and re-use one or two chapters?
Hopefully, this will more clearly point out what I was trying to say.
Bob-
Node 3, were that the end of it I would have no argument with him at all. He is perfectly at liberty to "urge" people all he wants.
Hopefully, if I do find where he stated that people should not be allowed to publish software without releasing the source code too, this will not have scrolled off and I'll be able to provide the citation.
To state my personal opinion on the matter, I believe people have the right to do with what they own whatever they want to do with it, subject to attribution. That means you don't take my work as your own, give credit where credit is due. Take my words and call them your own, it's fraud. Same with words that happen to be in computer language.
It also means that if you buy a program in binary form, and choose to reverse-engineer it, that's fine too.
Bob-
...I'm supposed to give that person's beliefs the same respect...
I do wish you would read what I wrote. I said disagreement has thing to do with respect for the INDIVIDUAL.
No matter how "wrong" someone may be, they deserve respect for who they are.
Someone can also be "correct" in their beliefs and a complete reprobate.
There are lots of people who have "integrity" that are wrong. It doesn't make them less wrong.
So you either respect people who are "correct" on some subject in your opinion, regardless of their integrity, or you're contradicting yourself. If simply being considered "wrong" about something meant you were contemptable, does his considering you wrong mean you're contemptable? Are you ready to accept the logical extention of your own theory?
Bob-
We're talking about software, not murder. If I choose to write a piece of code and sell it or give it away, that is my choice.
Compel me to provide the source code, now it is no longer my choice.
Can you grasp the difference?
He has, actually. Sorry to ask you to take my word for it, but I don't have the citation.
Do note, however, that he considers a law requiring all software to be "libre" to be the same thing as product labeling, a law with tremendous public support. It's difficult to find anyone who will argue that the law is an infringement on the rights of the producer to label their product as they see fit.
Keep in mind that RMS is not a "libertarian", he fully believes in the use of government force for things he likes, which is why he does not reject such a law. He only says he's not calling for one now.
The scene in the movie _Revolution OS_ where Torvalds and the Linux show organizers present RMS with a large donation to the Free Software Foundation is very, very illuminating.
Bob-
If you don't want to abide the wishes of a software writer, don't use their work.
I don't let you walk your dog on my front lawn, either.
Bob-
Agreed. I saw that too, but I'll let you get modded down for it. :^)
"Non-violet democratic political" is an oxymoron.
But do keep in mind that RMS is not a Libertarian. He believes in the use of force by the state, for things he agrees with.
Bob-
Why should I respect someone whose views are flat-out wrong?
Because respect has nothing to do with agreement.
Contempt for your enemy, arrogance in thinking that because you think they are wrong means that they will lose, has lost far more battles than any other single factor. "But, they're only slaves..." says the defeated Roman commander after losing to Spartacus.
Watch a real hunter some time. See how deeply they respect their prey. Recall from the move "Patton", the line, "Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I READ YOUR BOOK!"
You can consider him wrong, I'm sure he considers you wrong. Don't let your arrogance blind you to his integrity.
Bob-
wouldn't it be better for (their) consumers
if...
Of course. It would also be better if everyone ate brown rice, drank water instead of sugar soda, drove electric cars, and turned off their water heater when they went on vacation.
But I'm not going to put a gun to their head (which is all that government is) to make them do it.
Bob-
Luckily, we still have the option not to buy products that do not give us the attributes we want.
I really like the project to produce an entirely open-source accelerated video card. If ATI and NVidia see their cards being passed over for this upstart "open" card, they will open their APIs in an instant to try to get the customers back.
It really surprises me that hardware vendors don't open their APIs, because for them software is a cost. If they can have developers refine the software (and support it!) for nothing, it's a win-win for them!
Bob-