Slashdot: News for Nerds? Or Propaganda for the Impressionable?
Day in and day out, Slashdot sings the praises of "open source" software. New readers of the site must be a little puzzled to find items like "GPL Violation discovered" and "Open Source Guru Speaks" listed on the main page alongside the "straight" science and technology news. Unfortunately, few people really know what Open Source stands for. Perhaps Richard Means Stallman, one of the founders of the movement, can elucidate.
"[The GNU goal was] to be able to use a computer without using any proprietary software," declaims RMS. "Because that way, you can lead a better life." Of course, the only way to get rid of proprietary software is to destroy the software companies that produce it. One way this is accomplished is by putting software that would normally be public domain under a license RMS himself created, called the "General Public License," or "GPL." Simply put, this license allows code to be reused-- unless the final product is distributed without its source code, as a proprietary product must be.
Software is a commodity, and people will often take the cheapest product, even if they have to spend inordinate amounts of time struggling with poor documentation and clumsy user interfaces. "One of the best things I could do with my life is: find a gigantic pile of proprietary software that was a trade secret, and start handing out copies on a street corner so it wouldn't be a trade secret any more," enthuses RMS. "Perhaps that would be a much more efficient way for me to give people new free software than actually writing it myself."
It's time to stop the doubletalk and start thinking about the real meaning of intellectual property. By some measures, intellectual property is the main export of the developed countries of the world. Artists, actors, and musicians make a living off the intellectual property they produce. Programmers and engineers create designs to be sold. And journalists and writers depend on intellectual property. Ironically, the only jobs not deeply tied to intellectual property are the jobs many slashdot readers affect to despise, like service workers, menial laborers, and administrators. If slashdot readers can't stomach Scott McNealy, maybe they would prefer to work with Ronald McDonald. From the other side of the fast food counter.
Not everyone enjoys working at a menial job in the day, simply in order to slave away at poorly organized programming projects. Not everyone enjoys being told that he has the "freedom" to work, without pay, for a small clique of free software partisans. It is one thing to oppose microsoft's monopoly on the desktop, and the RIAA's slow strangulation of fair use rights. It is quite another to embrace a whole economic and political ideology that centers around the exploitation of childlike programming savants.
This message is not a troll, although many slashdot readers may take it as such. It is simply a warning to users to think carefully before they blindly follow the political lead of Rob Malda, Jon Katz, and the like. I encourage readers to repost the text of this message, and others like it, to the supposedly "free" message boards of slashdot and other sites.
Slashdot: News for Nerds? Or Propaganda for the Impressionable?
Day in and day out, Slashdot sings the praises of "open source" software. New readers of the site must be a little puzzled to find items like "GPL Violation discovered" and "Open Source Guru Speaks" listed on the main page alongside the "straight" science and technology news. Unfortunately, few people really know what Open Source stands for. Perhaps Richard Means Stallman, one of the founders of the movement, can elucidate.
"[The GNU goal was] to be able to use a computer without using any proprietary software," declaims RMS. "Because that way, you can lead a better life." Of course, the only way to get rid of proprietary software is to destroy the software companies that produce it. One way this is accomplished is by putting software that would normally be public domain under a license RMS himself created, called the "General Public License," or "GPL." Simply put, this license allows code to be reused-- unless the final product is distributed without its source code, as a proprietary product must be.
Software is a commodity, and people will often take the cheapest product, even if they have to spend inordinate amounts of time struggling with poor documentation and clumsy user interfaces. "One of the best things I could do with my life is: find a gigantic pile of proprietary software that was a trade secret, and start handing out copies on a street corner so it wouldn't be a trade secret any more," enthuses RMS. "Perhaps that would be a much more efficient way for me to give people new free software than actually writing it myself."
It's time to stop the doubletalk and start thinking about the real meaning of intellectual property. By some measures, intellectual property is the main export of the developed countries of the world. Artists, actors, and musicians make a living off the intellectual property they produce. Programmers and engineers create designs to be sold. And journalists and writers depend on intellectual property. Ironically, the only jobs not deeply tied to intellectual property are the jobs many slashdot readers affect to despise, like service workers, menial laborers, and administrators. If slashdot readers can't stomach Scott McNealy, maybe they would prefer to work with Ronald McDonald. From the other side of the fast food counter.
Not everyone enjoys working at a menial job in the day, simply in order to slave away at poorly organized programming projects. Not everyone enjoys being told that he has the "freedom" to work, without pay, for a small clique of free software partisans. It is one thing to oppose microsoft's monopoly on the desktop, and the RIAA's slow strangulation of fair use rights. It is quite another to embrace a whole economic and political ideology that centers around the exploitation of childlike programming savants.
This message is not a troll, although many slashdot readers may take it as such. It is simply a warning to users to think carefully before they blindly follow the political lead of Rob Malda, Jon Katz, and the like. I encourage readers to repost the text of this message, and others like it, to the supposedly "free" message boards of slashdot and other sites.
Slashdot Mirror
Day in and day out, Slashdot sings the praises of "open source" software. New readers of the site must be a little puzzled to find items like "GPL Violation discovered" and "Open Source Guru Speaks" listed on the main page alongside the "straight" science and technology news. Unfortunately, few people really know what Open Source stands for. Perhaps Richard Means Stallman, one of the founders of the movement, can elucidate.
"[The GNU goal was] to be able to use a computer without using any proprietary software," declaims RMS. "Because that way, you can lead a better life." Of course, the only way to get rid of proprietary software is to destroy the software companies that produce it. One way this is accomplished is by putting software that would normally be public domain under a license RMS himself created, called the "General Public License," or "GPL." Simply put, this license allows code to be reused-- unless the final product is distributed without its source code, as a proprietary product must be.
Software is a commodity, and people will often take the cheapest product, even if they have to spend inordinate amounts of time struggling with poor documentation and clumsy user interfaces. "One of the best things I could do with my life is: find a gigantic pile of proprietary software that was a trade secret, and start handing out copies on a street corner so it wouldn't be a trade secret any more," enthuses RMS. "Perhaps that would be a much more efficient way for me to give people new free software than actually writing it myself."
It's time to stop the doubletalk and start thinking about the real meaning of intellectual property. By some measures, intellectual property is the main export of the developed countries of the world. Artists, actors, and musicians make a living off the intellectual property they produce. Programmers and engineers create designs to be sold. And journalists and writers depend on intellectual property. Ironically, the only jobs not deeply tied to intellectual property are the jobs many slashdot readers affect to despise, like service workers, menial laborers, and administrators. If slashdot readers can't stomach Scott McNealy, maybe they would prefer to work with Ronald McDonald. From the other side of the fast food counter.
Not everyone enjoys working at a menial job in the day, simply in order to slave away at poorly organized programming projects. Not everyone enjoys being told that he has the "freedom" to work, without pay, for a small clique of free software partisans. It is one thing to oppose microsoft's monopoly on the desktop, and the RIAA's slow strangulation of fair use rights. It is quite another to embrace a whole economic and political ideology that centers around the exploitation of childlike programming savants.
This message is not a troll, although many slashdot readers may take it as such. It is simply a warning to users to think carefully before they blindly follow the political lead of Rob Malda, Jon Katz, and the like. I encourage readers to repost the text of this message, and others like it, to the supposedly "free" message boards of slashdot and other sites.
Peace out, and God bless.
Day in and day out, Slashdot sings the praises of "open source" software. New readers of the site must be a little puzzled to find items like "GPL Violation discovered" and "Open Source Guru Speaks" listed on the main page alongside the "straight" science and technology news. Unfortunately, few people really know what Open Source stands for. Perhaps Richard Means Stallman, one of the founders of the movement, can elucidate.
"[The GNU goal was] to be able to use a computer without using any proprietary software," declaims RMS. "Because that way, you can lead a better life." Of course, the only way to get rid of proprietary software is to destroy the software companies that produce it. One way this is accomplished is by putting software that would normally be public domain under a license RMS himself created, called the "General Public License," or "GPL." Simply put, this license allows code to be reused-- unless the final product is distributed without its source code, as a proprietary product must be.
Software is a commodity, and people will often take the cheapest product, even if they have to spend inordinate amounts of time struggling with poor documentation and clumsy user interfaces. "One of the best things I could do with my life is: find a gigantic pile of proprietary software that was a trade secret, and start handing out copies on a street corner so it wouldn't be a trade secret any more," enthuses RMS. "Perhaps that would be a much more efficient way for me to give people new free software than actually writing it myself."
It's time to stop the doubletalk and start thinking about the real meaning of intellectual property. By some measures, intellectual property is the main export of the developed countries of the world. Artists, actors, and musicians make a living off the intellectual property they produce. Programmers and engineers create designs to be sold. And journalists and writers depend on intellectual property. Ironically, the only jobs not deeply tied to intellectual property are the jobs many slashdot readers affect to despise, like service workers, menial laborers, and administrators. If slashdot readers can't stomach Scott McNealy, maybe they would prefer to work with Ronald McDonald. From the other side of the fast food counter.
Not everyone enjoys working at a menial job in the day, simply in order to slave away at poorly organized programming projects. Not everyone enjoys being told that he has the "freedom" to work, without pay, for a small clique of free software partisans. It is one thing to oppose microsoft's monopoly on the desktop, and the RIAA's slow strangulation of fair use rights. It is quite another to embrace a whole economic and political ideology that centers around the exploitation of childlike programming savants.
This message is not a troll, although many slashdot readers may take it as such. It is simply a warning to users to think carefully before they blindly follow the political lead of Rob Malda, Jon Katz, and the like. I encourage readers to repost the text of this message, and others like it, to the supposedly "free" message boards of slashdot and other sites.
Peace out, and God bless.