I was planning to buy a CDR drive. Does this news have any bearing on my decision? I know that a DVD-RAM hold a whole lot more, but can it write CDs that mere mortals can read in their old CD-ROM drives?
In addition, though a driver exists (all three lines of it?), how reliable is the whole shebang? Will I, assuming I go and buy this drive tomorrow, be able to produce real and productive results?
The Leninist gulags were, as you pointed out, simply prison facilties. The Bolsheviks had just grabbed power and won a Civil War. I imagine that it would be nigh impossible to successfully win a war and not have thousands upon thousands of dispossed and otherwise hostile people. You have to do something with them. Look at the United States interning Japanese-Americans during WWII. My US Civil War history isn't as good as it should be, but I'm sure that there was some sort of similar arrangement after the Union victory.
Ehh, not to be unnecessarily pro-bolshevik, but they weren't that bad. Certainly at least Lenin and Trotsky were ideologically driven. And Zinoviev and Kaminev, though of questionable ideological constancy, thought that they were working for the best interests of the people. And you can't doubt that such people such as the first GenSec (I can't remember his name right now) were true believers.
This is all coming from memory, but I think that the Petrograd Soviet formed, initially--with the rest of the country's Soviets--after the 1905 revolution. They spontaneously reformed after the february revoultion in 1917.
You are right about the parallel development of Soviet power and the ProvGov. The military aspect of the relationship that you mention is the MRC, the Military Revolutionary Committee. Ultimately, the MRC had to countersign all orders to the troops, so they had equal influence over the ProvGov's military policy. Regardless, the troops were, for the most part, loyal to the MRC and the Soviet.
I like the alternate metaphor. The Romanov family could be IBM, whose decline prompted the growth of MS (the ProvGov was initially the liberal nobles--not supporters of the old order, but not revolutionaries). The ProvGov (MS) later shared power with the soviets (linux).
Unfortunately, the Soviets did not make a bid for power in October, the Bolsheviks did. So, who is going to grab all of this from underneath us? As I pointed out above, the Soviets were bypassed by Lenin so that he didn't have to share power.
I love Soviet history (in case you couldn't tell) and am now going to go reread the appropriate parts of Trotsky's magnificent work, "History of the Russian Revolution," to make sure that I have the details correct.
I, for one, love the over-extension of metaphors. Here's some more fuel for the fire.
One of the reasons that the Bolsheviks lost their attempted coup in the summer was that there was little popular support in the countryside. Lenin was out of the country at the time, and was horrified. By October, Lenin was confident that the Bolsheviks had popular support. The reason for that was that they had solid majorities in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, and in the other Soviets (councils) around the country--even in the countryside--they were making strong gains if they didn't already have majorities.
That the Bolsheviks had a majority in the Petrograd Soviet is inherently linked to the fact that the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC--Trotsky's little military-control group) had gained control over the army. By October, Lenin had demanded from Krensky, and secured, the right for the MRC of the Petrograd Soviet to countersign all orders for the P. garrisson. The Bolsheviks were very strongly supported by the army, and Kerensky knew that. He had no choice but to grant that power to the MRC, which was not even a governmental entity.
At that point, the MRC--an organ of the P. Soviet in the control of a Bolshevik (Trotsky)--was in the position to leverage a significant portion of the military forces of the area. What surprised everyone was that Lenin decided to make his bid for power completely independent of the Soviet. By bypassing the Soviet, and taking the MRC as his own, he got the army without the baggage of the democracy of the city Soviet which would have bogged him down fatally.
So, with the army, the armory, and the mutiny aboard the Aurora, Lenin had the firepower and the people to take power. And he did.
W/regard to your comment about the elected governemnt. That was the Constituent Assembly. The ProvGov had promised that a Constituent Assembly would be created to replace it (the ProvGov), and elections were held. When the Bolsheviks seized power in October, that happened before the CA met. You are right in saying that Lenin didn't want the CA to meet and create a government that would have any legitimacy. He couldn't very well take power from a popularly elected government in the name of the people. Ultimately, he did permit one meeting of it, but it was so completely lopsided that it, in effect, voted itself out of existance.
There really arn't any weapons to seize from MS. You're right. That's the major difference between 1917 and the Open Source movement. It is quite possible and effective for the computing world to be under two or more "governments" (Windows & Linux, etc.), whereas the Russian state could really only have one government at a time.
Well, i might be wrong. Look at the period between the February Revolution and the October one. The Soviets had some role (nobody know what it was, really. They were a mysterious result of the revolution with no true place--Linux?) and the Provisional Government was the self-proclaimed true government. Microsoft?
Two governemnts worked simultaneously on the state, but they didn't work well together, and one finally beat the other one out.
That's not a bad idea. It might be worthwhile to have an OSI memorandum stating what it considered to be open. It, though, (IMO) should be disclaimed heavily as the opinion of one group of voices in the OS community.
Though it is not stylish to compare the OS movement to Communism, as is being discussed in another thread, there are some similarities between operating systems today and the Russian Revolution. Similarly, if one voice somehow becomes the only voice to be heard, the original ideals of the revolution will be quickly obscured by the policies (whether benevolent or not) of the single voice. While this is not a bad thing as long as that voice caters to the needs of the masses, should it cease doing so without sufficient recourse available to the people, that voice quickly degenerates into what we saw develop under the "Stalinist" period of Soviet history.
A historical nit to pick. I do like your analogy. Particularly w/ regard to the fragmentation of the SRs. And the BSD folks really do embody the reality of the Mensheviks. Even down to their (probably) majority status, despite being named the 'minority' party.
-------------------------- The Bolshevics gained popular support quickly due to ingenius propaganda techniques and due to the inability of the other groups to connect with the populus. The Bolshevics showed themselves as a group of the people. The other groups, especially the SR's, were eccentially decendents of the Populists, who, although dedicated to helping the people, couldn't relate to them because of their up-bringing in different society. Although the Bolshevics also were brought up in a different society they were able to adapt to draw in the masses. ---------------------------
This isn't wholly accurate. Here is where I see thre Bolsheviks acting just like the FSF and RMS. The Bolsheviks were successful because they did not join the Provisional Government when Kerensky and the other socialist parties won majorities in the elections of summer, 1917. The Bolsheviks attempted a coup and lost. Kerensky, afraid of the true appeal of the Bolshevik party, did not pursue them. He even invited Lenin and Co. into the government.
Meanwhile, WWI was dragging on, and the Provisional Government (which had grabbed power with no real mandate from the peopl--remember that it started with the liberal nobles) grew increasingly discredited through its reluctance to abandon the old order. Lenin knew that the longer the ProvGov delayed pursuing a truely socialist policy, the more support decayed. The ProvGov never addressed the lack of food for the workers or Russia's role in WWI.
By late October 1917, the Bolsheviks had gained majorities in the Soviets and Lenin felt that popular support for the other socialists (then firmly identified with the ineffective Provisional Government) had decayed to a point where he and the Bolsheviks could snag power.
And that's RMS. He has maintained his ideology all along. At no point has he compromised with the 'capitalist/imperialists,' and plans to use this unsullied record to form the basis of a true appeal to the people.
The problem is that the people in charge are still the Romanovs, and the masses have not yet overthrown Tsarist government. The majority of people are not yet ready for the pure ideology of Mr. Stallman, so he'll have to remain pure for a little longer.
One might wonder--after the revolution and RMS's seizure of power--and the internally destructive Civil War--will RMS pursue a quasi-capitalist policy (NEP) to restructure software?
Great comparisons, though!
With Free Greetings, (anyone remember that old C*mmunist signoff?)
Ehhhh....are you sure you want to vest so much power in any single group/organization that they have the power to determine a "freeness-quotient" (FQ?) of a software licence?
It's one things for ESR and RMS (and their associated groups) to proclaim judgments, but for those people to provide official licences for use is pushing it. As I see it, the GPL is already pushing it somewhat, as it is quickly becoming the 'benchmark' OS licence. It seems that one licence won't fit every application. Look at the BSD vs. GPL fight--there are some things in the GPL that make it unacceptable for a large number of people, yet make it very appealing for another large group of people. It would be very hard to reconcile all of the different desires among the OS community.
Besides, the holy war that would ensue during the drafting/selection process could possibly be _very_ damaging.
Ehhh, not to pick nits, but the Europeans took a great deal more of a beating in the last two world wars than the Americans. Look at the USSR--they lost an entire generation in WWII. A similar thing happened to the Btitish. Sure the Americans got there eventually, but the Soviets and the British had borne the brunt of the fighting for a good bit of time before they did.
What's more, we (Americans) haven't had a war fought on our own soil (that wasn't amongst ourselves) in more than 200 years. The poor Belgians are overrun every time somebody drops a crossiant over the German border!
Well, you might want to focus on places with really good art programs. I don't know how well you could do collages at Harvard.
Sorry for the spelling flame, but it was required for a message that misspelled 'college' while discussing the possibility of going to Harvard. Or is that Harverd?
--------------- IMHO, "Triumph of the Nerds," though a documentary, is a far richer and more dramatic offering. PofSV might just as well have been an entirely fictional story "inspired by actual events." ---------------
Uhh, it wsa a fictional story inspired by actual events. I really don't know where people got the idea that the filmmakers were interested in anything other than a good story.
And an illegitimate child is much better drama than a geeky guy programming at the age of 12. At least, it is for most of TNT's audience.
Are you talking about commercial success or 'holistic' success? I think that the Mac II and the NeXT hardware are both holistically successful products. They did what they were intended to do extrememly well--the Mac II opened up the Macintosh platform via NuBus to a significant degree. That promoted its longevity.
The NeXT hardware is some of the most satisfying computer equipment I have ever owned. Some things might have missed a little (like the dustdeath-prone optical drives and the megapixel displays that run out of juice after about eight years), but those are oversights, and not significant design flaws. The cube was a brilliant bit of hardware that did away with the floppy drive in what, 1991?
Steve isn't a designer, but he is a vision machine. His visions aren't always perfectly implementable, or successful, but they almost _always_ change the way things are done.
Look at all of the PC cases with ugly translucent cases. And have you noticed all of the USB devices that are in clear blue plastic? Do you wonder why?
I was somewhat bothered that there was _no_ mention of Jef Raskin.
And John Sculley didn't look at all like that actor who played him--I had hoped to see a lot more of the John character (note that I'm calling him a character).
Slashdot Mirror
I was planning to buy a CDR drive. Does this news have any bearing on my decision? I know that a DVD-RAM hold a whole lot more, but can it write CDs that mere mortals can read in their old CD-ROM drives?
In addition, though a driver exists (all three lines of it?), how reliable is the whole shebang? Will I, assuming I go and buy this drive tomorrow, be able to produce real and productive results?
Thanks for the help.
-awc
The Leninist gulags were, as you pointed out, simply prison facilties. The Bolsheviks had just grabbed power and won a Civil War. I imagine that it would be nigh impossible to successfully win a war and not have thousands upon thousands of dispossed and otherwise hostile people. You have to do something with them. Look at the United States interning Japanese-Americans during WWII. My US Civil War history isn't as good as it should be, but I'm sure that there was some sort of similar arrangement after the Union victory.
-awc
The Finns are not, though, the best friends of the Russians, as we all know.
-awc
I don't see Leninist Communism as totally dissimilar from the Linux development model.
After all, in the end, there are very few people who have control over the kernel (the true government).
-awc
Ehh, not to be unnecessarily pro-bolshevik, but they weren't that bad. Certainly at least Lenin and Trotsky were ideologically driven. And Zinoviev and Kaminev, though of questionable ideological constancy, thought that they were working for the best interests of the people. And you can't doubt that such people such as the first GenSec (I can't remember his name right now) were true believers.
-awc
This is all coming from memory, but I think that the Petrograd Soviet formed, initially--with the rest of the country's Soviets--after the 1905 revolution. They spontaneously reformed after the february revoultion in 1917.
You are right about the parallel development of Soviet power and the ProvGov. The military aspect of the relationship that you mention is the MRC, the Military Revolutionary Committee. Ultimately, the MRC had to countersign all orders to the troops, so they had equal influence over the ProvGov's military policy. Regardless, the troops were, for the most part, loyal to the MRC and the Soviet.
I like the alternate metaphor. The Romanov family could be IBM, whose decline prompted the growth of MS (the ProvGov was initially the liberal nobles--not supporters of the old order, but not revolutionaries). The ProvGov (MS) later shared power with the soviets (linux).
Unfortunately, the Soviets did not make a bid for power in October, the Bolsheviks did. So, who is going to grab all of this from underneath us? As I pointed out above, the Soviets were bypassed by Lenin so that he didn't have to share power.
I love Soviet history (in case you couldn't tell) and am now going to go reread the appropriate parts of Trotsky's magnificent work, "History of the Russian Revolution," to make sure that I have the details correct.
-awc
Het, Amerikanyets.
I, for one, love the over-extension of metaphors. Here's some more fuel for the fire.
One of the reasons that the Bolsheviks lost their attempted coup in the summer was that there was little popular support in the countryside. Lenin was out of the country at the time, and was horrified. By October, Lenin was confident that the Bolsheviks had popular support. The reason for that was that they had solid majorities in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, and in the other Soviets (councils) around the country--even in the countryside--they were making strong gains if they didn't already have majorities.
That the Bolsheviks had a majority in the Petrograd Soviet is inherently linked to the fact that the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC--Trotsky's little military-control group) had gained control over the army. By October, Lenin had demanded from Krensky, and secured, the right for the MRC of the Petrograd Soviet to countersign all orders for the P. garrisson. The Bolsheviks were very strongly supported by the army, and Kerensky knew that. He had no choice but to grant that power to the MRC, which was not even a governmental entity.
At that point, the MRC--an organ of the P. Soviet in the control of a Bolshevik (Trotsky)--was in the position to leverage a significant portion of the military forces of the area. What surprised everyone was that Lenin decided to make his bid for power completely independent of the Soviet. By bypassing the Soviet, and taking the MRC as his own, he got the army without the baggage of the democracy of the city Soviet which would have bogged him down fatally.
So, with the army, the armory, and the mutiny aboard the Aurora, Lenin had the firepower and the people to take power. And he did.
W/regard to your comment about the elected governemnt. That was the Constituent Assembly. The ProvGov had promised that a Constituent Assembly would be created to replace it (the ProvGov), and elections were held. When the Bolsheviks seized power in October, that happened before the CA met. You are right in saying that Lenin didn't want the CA to meet and create a government that would have any legitimacy. He couldn't very well take power from a popularly elected government in the name of the people. Ultimately, he did permit one meeting of it, but it was so completely lopsided that it, in effect, voted itself out of existance.
There really arn't any weapons to seize from MS. You're right. That's the major difference between 1917 and the Open Source movement. It is quite possible and effective for the computing world to be under two or more "governments" (Windows & Linux, etc.), whereas the Russian state could really only have one government at a time.
Well, i might be wrong. Look at the period between the February Revolution and the October one. The Soviets had some role (nobody know what it was, really. They were a mysterious result of the revolution with no true place--Linux?) and the Provisional Government was the self-proclaimed true government. Microsoft?
Two governemnts worked simultaneously on the state, but they didn't work well together, and one finally beat the other one out.
And the metaphor continues.
With Open Source greetings,
awc
That's not a bad idea. It might be worthwhile to have an OSI memorandum stating what it considered to be open. It, though, (IMO) should be disclaimed heavily as the opinion of one group of voices in the OS community.
Though it is not stylish to compare the OS movement to Communism, as is being discussed in another thread, there are some similarities between operating systems today and the Russian Revolution. Similarly, if one voice somehow becomes the only voice to be heard, the original ideals of the revolution will be quickly obscured by the policies (whether benevolent or not) of the single voice. While this is not a bad thing as long as that voice caters to the needs of the masses, should it cease doing so without sufficient recourse available to the people, that voice quickly degenerates into what we saw develop under the "Stalinist" period of Soviet history.
With Open Source greetings,
awc
A historical nit to pick. I do like your analogy. Particularly w/ regard to the fragmentation of the SRs. And the BSD folks really do embody the reality of the Mensheviks. Even down to their (probably) majority status, despite being named the 'minority' party.
--------------------------
The Bolshevics gained popular support quickly due to ingenius propaganda techniques and due to the inability of the other groups to connect with the populus. The Bolshevics showed themselves as a group of the people. The other groups, especially the SR's, were eccentially decendents of the Populists, who, although dedicated to helping the people, couldn't relate to them because of their up-bringing in different society. Although the Bolshevics also were brought up in a different society they were able to adapt to draw in the masses.
---------------------------
This isn't wholly accurate. Here is where I see thre Bolsheviks acting just like the FSF and RMS. The Bolsheviks were successful because they did not join the Provisional Government when Kerensky and the other socialist parties won majorities in the elections of summer, 1917. The Bolsheviks attempted a coup and lost. Kerensky, afraid of the true appeal of the Bolshevik party, did not pursue them. He even invited Lenin and Co. into the government.
Meanwhile, WWI was dragging on, and the Provisional Government (which had grabbed power with no real mandate from the peopl--remember that it started with the liberal nobles) grew increasingly discredited through its reluctance to abandon the old order. Lenin knew that the longer the ProvGov delayed pursuing a truely socialist policy, the more support decayed. The ProvGov never addressed the lack of food for the workers or Russia's role in WWI.
By late October 1917, the Bolsheviks had gained majorities in the Soviets and Lenin felt that popular support for the other socialists (then firmly identified with the ineffective Provisional Government) had decayed to a point where he and the Bolsheviks could snag power.
And that's RMS. He has maintained his ideology all along. At no point has he compromised with the 'capitalist/imperialists,' and plans to use this unsullied record to form the basis of a true appeal to the people.
The problem is that the people in charge are still the Romanovs, and the masses have not yet overthrown Tsarist government. The majority of people are not yet ready for the pure ideology of Mr. Stallman, so he'll have to remain pure for a little longer.
One might wonder--after the revolution and RMS's seizure of power--and the internally destructive Civil War--will RMS pursue a quasi-capitalist policy (NEP) to restructure software?
Great comparisons, though!
With Free Greetings, (anyone remember that old C*mmunist signoff?)
-awc
Ehhhh....are you sure you want to vest so much power in any single group/organization that they have the power to determine a "freeness-quotient" (FQ?) of a software licence?
It's one things for ESR and RMS (and their associated groups) to proclaim judgments, but for those people to provide official licences for use is pushing it. As I see it, the GPL is already pushing it somewhat, as it is quickly becoming the 'benchmark' OS licence. It seems that one licence won't fit every application. Look at the BSD vs. GPL fight--there are some things in the GPL that make it unacceptable for a large number of people, yet make it very appealing for another large group of people. It would be very hard to reconcile all of the different desires among the OS community.
Besides, the holy war that would ensue during the drafting/selection process could possibly be _very_ damaging.
Just my two bits.
-awc
Quite true. What I mean was "try using your eight year old PC with Windows" etc. etc. etc.
-awc
Woz hasn't been at Apple for a long time.
-awc
At least the british don't surrender _every time_. Look out! Behind you! The Germans!
Badda-boom
Ehhh, not to pick nits, but the Europeans took a great deal more of a beating in the last two world wars than the Americans. Look at the USSR--they lost an entire generation in WWII. A similar thing happened to the Btitish. Sure the Americans got there eventually, but the Soviets and the British had borne the brunt of the fighting for a good bit of time before they did.
What's more, we (Americans) haven't had a war fought on our own soil (that wasn't amongst ourselves) in more than 200 years. The poor Belgians are overrun every time somebody drops a crossiant over the German border!
-awc
"Ribbit"
-awc
Well, you might want to focus on places with really good art programs. I don't know how well you could do collages at Harvard.
Sorry for the spelling flame, but it was required for a message that misspelled 'college' while discussing the possibility of going to Harvard. Or is that Harverd?
-awc
But Bell Canada is a bunch of labor-hating assholes.
Now, that's a troll if I've ever seen one.
I live in Southwest Florida (Naples), when not in school, and have never seen a bottle of Bawls.
/. So, there are apparently three of us. We could have some pretty lame parties.
I do, though, know _two_other_ SW Floridians who read
-awc
---------------
IMHO, "Triumph of the Nerds," though a documentary, is a far richer and more dramatic offering. PofSV might just as well have been an entirely fictional story "inspired by actual events."
---------------
Uhh, it wsa a fictional story inspired by actual events. I really don't know where people got the idea that the filmmakers were interested in anything other than a good story.
And an illegitimate child is much better drama than a geeky guy programming at the age of 12. At least, it is for most of TNT's audience.
-awc
Are you talking about commercial success or 'holistic' success? I think that the Mac II and the NeXT hardware are both holistically successful products. They did what they were intended to do extrememly well--the Mac II opened up the Macintosh platform via NuBus to a significant degree. That promoted its longevity.
The NeXT hardware is some of the most satisfying computer equipment I have ever owned. Some things might have missed a little (like the dustdeath-prone optical drives and the megapixel displays that run out of juice after about eight years), but those are oversights, and not significant design flaws. The cube was a brilliant bit of hardware that did away with the floppy drive in what, 1991?
Steve isn't a designer, but he is a vision machine. His visions aren't always perfectly implementable, or successful, but they almost _always_ change the way things are done.
Look at all of the PC cases with ugly translucent cases. And have you noticed all of the USB devices that are in clear blue plastic? Do you wonder why?
-awc
I was somewhat bothered that there was _no_ mention of Jef Raskin.
And John Sculley didn't look at all like that actor who played him--I had hoped to see a lot more of the John character (note that I'm calling him a character).
-awc
Hey, now. I don't read ad copy. One of my primary machines is an '040 NeXT cube. The thing rocks, even eight years later.
Try using an eight year-old PC for useful word processing, browsing, news reading, etc.
-awc
I heard that Packet Storm had gone down due to some copyright mess. Of course, I heard that on alt.2600, so take it in context, eh?
-awc