Capitalists only give things away because they expect to make more in return. OSS does work that way, but only in terms of the intangibles that capitalism is quick to scorn.
Apple gave away the source code to Darwin and reaped the very same returns that every other OSS project reaps. I see no contradiction between Apple's capitalist decision to open-source their kernel, and any other project's decision to open-source. Apple did expect to make more in return, but indirectly, through having a better kernel and a dedicated group of interested kernel hackers. If any company knows the value of developing a loyal and interested consumer base, it's Apple, and OSS fits perfect into that scheme, because of the loyalty, community, and interest that OSS fosters. Developing a loyal, interested community of consumers is 100% capitalist, even if developing that community requires some initial losses rather than straight returns-on-investment.
True capitalism is greed based.
I'd urge you to read Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments to understand why your statement is incorrect.
Once scientists started to share information by publishing it, technology took off. The capitalist idea of hoarding information and patenting everything and suing everyone is just backward.
Patents were originally a way to induce inventors to share their discoveries with the public. The requirement for a patent is that the method be detailed and published publically. In return for revealing this information the inventor received a short-term monopoly (14-20 years) on the production of their invention--long enough to recoup their investment costs and make some profit.
It's not about capitalism. It's about freedom, and yes it's about liberalism.
Capitalism is liberalism's economic system. Liberalism is a political philosophy that came out of the Enlightenment which sought the protection of freedom through the limitation of government power. Capitalism was also a product of Enlightenment thought that sought the securing of economic freedom via limitation of the power of the state. Individual agency, no central planning, no digiste economic direction, no over-regulation, entrepreneurialism, private rather than government ownership--capitalism is liberal economics, pure and simple.
I think we got a bit mixed up. I didn't mean that Marx's slogan comported with capitalism. I meant that great-grandparent's statement comported with capitalism. I agree with you that central allocation is fundamentally opposed to a market system.
if you scam someone out of his money, you've "earned" it by the definition of capitalism.
This is incorrect. In microeconomics or Econ 101 or whatever introductory econ course you end up taking, you'll learn that one of the assumptions of an ideal capitalist system is something called Perfect Information in which every consumer has correct and comprehensive knowledge of the product they are looking to buy. Scamming someone violates the idea of "perfect information" and is the reason we have anti-fraud laws on the books in every capitalist country.
In the last twenty years, the real wages for college educated US workers have barely
kept up with inflation.
In the last twenty years there has been a significant increase in the number of college-educated U.S. workers. As the supply goes up, the price of their labor (i.e. wages) goes down. Only because demand for college-educated works has also gone up has their real wage level remained constant.
Hmm, how about figuring it out for yourself rather than blindly adopting someone else's ideology?
That's a nice idea, but it's not very practical. We can't all be Spinoza's and mathematically deduce an comprehensive framework of ethics in our spare time. Mathematicians reduce complex problems to problems that have already been solved. To illustrate:
When a fireman is asked how to put out a fire, if he is in a room with a bucket of water on a table, the fireman answers that he'd pick up the bucket of water and douse the flames. When the mathematician is asked how to put out a fire, if he is in a room with a fireman and a bucket of water on the windowsill, he answers that he'd move the bucket to the table. QED.
One need not go through life re-creating the wheel if someone has already done the work for you. There are a vast array of ideologies, world views, religions, philosophies, and ethical codes in existence. One can have a virtual smorgasbord of mixing and matching ideologies. The point is not to reject ideals and principles, but to be open to changing them or reconsidering them.
Any good capitalist will trumpet their value based on supply and demand. Then when someone decides to give something away they'll cry like babies.
I don't understand, are you calling him a bad capitalist, or are you saying that a capitalist wouldn't give away the source code? Because neither is the case. Capitalists give things away all the time--sales, promotions, loyalty rewards, bonus miles, etc. Open source is just one more way of involving your consumers. Think Darwin and Apple. This highly successful capitalist corporation open sourced parts of its operating system. As a result, the community got involved, people got interested, and lots of geeks returned (or tried out) the Mac platform. Apple won by giving something away, and the community got to see some source. Capitalism and open source side-by-side, no one "crying like babies."
On the other hand, there's something to be said for adopting ideals and sticking to them. After all, if you don't set out with a general direction, you may end up aiding something abhorrent in the end. Ideals, principles, ideology, world-view, ethics--whatever you call it, it can be useful in keeping yourself on the right track. If Stallman wants to avoid capitalism, so be it. If you want to avoid collectivism, again so be it. But I wouldn't take a stance that rejects all ideological positions prima facia. Instrumental pragmatism is just as bad, and in many cases worse.
you get out of it what you want to get out of it, and you put into it what you want to put into it.
Funny, because that statement alone could be interpreted as Christian, Marxist, and Capitalist all at the same time.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a slogan popularized by Karl Marx. It was derived from two parts of the Book of Acts in the Bible, Acts 2:44-45 and Acts 4:34-35, describing the system set up amongst the apostles. And in a more general sense, the statement comports with capitalist ideas of individual agency and self-interest.
The simplest solution is to use Courier or Courier New. Noone uses typewriters anymore, so it will confuse everyone and set you apart from everyone else.
I never said that Clinton gets a free pass for DMCA.
I know you didn't. The meat of my post was not ad hominem--it wasn't attacking you or your point. It comment was more general observation of/.'s dynamics. That being said, the UID swipe was unnecessary and I take it back.
Still, while I realize that technology is more and more integrated with our lives every day, and that the politicization of technology is therefore greater, it is incorrect to assert that many of the things going on today were not going on pre-Bush. The FBI's Carnivore, for example, was instituted under Clinton. Slashdotter's bitched about it, but it was never reduced to "those evil Democrats." But vice-versa occurs when the Republican president does something similarly unconstitutional.
Admittedly, it's not easy to get huevos the size of Ike's since you would have to lead one of the most brilliant coalition wars in history, not to mention the largest amphibious invasion in history, and let's not forget having to corral the personalities of *both* Patton and Montgomery (probably the hardest of the three tasks).
People's SSN's are leaked from corporate databases and sold to the black market. Newer scams like phishing are making even more people vulnerable.
Corporate data leaks and phishing were going strong pre-9/11 too, it's just that now we have a Republican president to blame everything on. Nobody ever spares a good word for the positive things Republicans have done for the internet (e.g. prevented it from being taxed), but Clinton gets a free pass for the DMCA. There are a *lot* of things that Bush has done wrong, but/. only became overtly political when a Republican took office.
Also, for the record, I would like to point out the UID disparity between parent (who thinks the new design is sexy) and grandparent. The latter is clearly better qualified to opine on the descent of/. into political flamebaiting.
Digg has a lot of crap all over the front page all the time. I don't care about most of it and don't enjoy sifting through it.
I agree. I wish there was some way I could raise the threshold on the stories that get sent to me through their RSS feed. Something like, only stories with 350+ diggs. It's a pain to go through the huge volume of output.
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. We made two types of sandwiches: 1) ham sandwiches; and, 2) peanut butter sandwiches. I agree that ham and peanut butter would be a terrible combination.
Give the homeless guy in a park a sandwhich, he's liable to throw it back at you. He'll never say no to the quarter though.
My freshman year we did this as a community service project. We spent an hour making a bunch of ham and peanut butter sandwiches and then went out to a circle where a lot of homeless guys crash. Most of them ended up asking for cigarettes instead of the sandwiches.
and in Chicago, where there are now several magazines, most of which aren't so good.
Washington D.C. has a pretty good one, called Street Sense which is written or co-written by the homeless in addition to being sold by them. One of the most gripping headlines they ran with a few months ago was a city initiative that hired homeless people to evict residents who defaulted on their rent/mortgage. Talk about screwed up...
Ronald Reagan abandoned formal rhetoric for folksy chat, and now we're stuck with it.
If you're looking for folksy one-on-one's with buddy-prez, you should go back further to FDR's "Fireside chats." Reagan was the "Great Communicator," but he certainly didn't invent Presidential pandering to the lowest common denominator.
I think it's a new feature. When you write a journal entry you can click a checkbox to submit it as a story as well. I think this is a nicer option, because I like to save the stories I've submitted anyway.
Scuttlemonkey wrote "An anonymous reader writes..." despite the fact that this is my journal entry, and says qo quite clearly at the top of the story: "Journal written by anaesthetica (596507) and posted by ScuttleMonkey on 14:12 Saturday 24 June 2006"
I mean, I may not stand out in a crowd, but this is just an unnecessary blow to my ego.
They can cuff you any time they please, as far as I understand even for just looking at them.
It's not that simple. If you are arrested for something that trivial you can sue the police department for wrongful arrest and make yourself a tidy little sum.
The "Javagator" project - a parallel project at Netscape to completely rewrite Netscape Navigator in Java - is one commonly cited reason why Netscape failed.
That's probably more Netscape's fault than the parallel project's fault. If Apple can maintain a parallel x86 compatible version of their entire OS for five years in secret, then a parallel browser version should be a piece of cake.
Wow. I think this is the one instance I've ever seen where having a dramatically higher UID actually gave you more cred. Jeez, next thing you know, Macs will be running on Intel chips...
I think minors still have to obey terms of service however. It would be absurd if all terms of service were waived simply because of one's age. It would mean that all that stuff I did on AOL back in the day shouldn't have gotten my account banned. Or something.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple gave away the source code to Darwin and reaped the very same returns that every other OSS project reaps. I see no contradiction between Apple's capitalist decision to open-source their kernel, and any other project's decision to open-source. Apple did expect to make more in return, but indirectly, through having a better kernel and a dedicated group of interested kernel hackers. If any company knows the value of developing a loyal and interested consumer base, it's Apple, and OSS fits perfect into that scheme, because of the loyalty, community, and interest that OSS fosters. Developing a loyal, interested community of consumers is 100% capitalist, even if developing that community requires some initial losses rather than straight returns-on-investment.
I'd urge you to read Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments to understand why your statement is incorrect.
Patents were originally a way to induce inventors to share their discoveries with the public. The requirement for a patent is that the method be detailed and published publically. In return for revealing this information the inventor received a short-term monopoly (14-20 years) on the production of their invention--long enough to recoup their investment costs and make some profit.
Capitalism is liberalism's economic system. Liberalism is a political philosophy that came out of the Enlightenment which sought the protection of freedom through the limitation of government power. Capitalism was also a product of Enlightenment thought that sought the securing of economic freedom via limitation of the power of the state. Individual agency, no central planning, no digiste economic direction, no over-regulation, entrepreneurialism, private rather than government ownership--capitalism is liberal economics, pure and simple.
I think we got a bit mixed up. I didn't mean that Marx's slogan comported with capitalism. I meant that great-grandparent's statement comported with capitalism. I agree with you that central allocation is fundamentally opposed to a market system.
This is incorrect. In microeconomics or Econ 101 or whatever introductory econ course you end up taking, you'll learn that one of the assumptions of an ideal capitalist system is something called Perfect Information in which every consumer has correct and comprehensive knowledge of the product they are looking to buy. Scamming someone violates the idea of "perfect information" and is the reason we have anti-fraud laws on the books in every capitalist country.
In the last twenty years there has been a significant increase in the number of college-educated U.S. workers. As the supply goes up, the price of their labor (i.e. wages) goes down. Only because demand for college-educated works has also gone up has their real wage level remained constant.
That's a nice idea, but it's not very practical. We can't all be Spinoza's and mathematically deduce an comprehensive framework of ethics in our spare time. Mathematicians reduce complex problems to problems that have already been solved. To illustrate:
One need not go through life re-creating the wheel if someone has already done the work for you. There are a vast array of ideologies, world views, religions, philosophies, and ethical codes in existence. One can have a virtual smorgasbord of mixing and matching ideologies. The point is not to reject ideals and principles, but to be open to changing them or reconsidering them.
I don't understand, are you calling him a bad capitalist, or are you saying that a capitalist wouldn't give away the source code? Because neither is the case. Capitalists give things away all the time--sales, promotions, loyalty rewards, bonus miles, etc. Open source is just one more way of involving your consumers. Think Darwin and Apple. This highly successful capitalist corporation open sourced parts of its operating system. As a result, the community got involved, people got interested, and lots of geeks returned (or tried out) the Mac platform. Apple won by giving something away, and the community got to see some source. Capitalism and open source side-by-side, no one "crying like babies."
On the other hand, there's something to be said for adopting ideals and sticking to them. After all, if you don't set out with a general direction, you may end up aiding something abhorrent in the end. Ideals, principles, ideology, world-view, ethics--whatever you call it, it can be useful in keeping yourself on the right track. If Stallman wants to avoid capitalism, so be it. If you want to avoid collectivism, again so be it. But I wouldn't take a stance that rejects all ideological positions prima facia. Instrumental pragmatism is just as bad, and in many cases worse.
Funny, because that statement alone could be interpreted as Christian, Marxist, and Capitalist all at the same time.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a slogan popularized by Karl Marx. It was derived from two parts of the Book of Acts in the Bible, Acts 2:44-45 and Acts 4:34-35, describing the system set up amongst the apostles. And in a more general sense, the statement comports with capitalist ideas of individual agency and self-interest.
I know you didn't. The meat of my post was not ad hominem--it wasn't attacking you or your point. It comment was more general observation of /.'s dynamics. That being said, the UID swipe was unnecessary and I take it back.
Still, while I realize that technology is more and more integrated with our lives every day, and that the politicization of technology is therefore greater, it is incorrect to assert that many of the things going on today were not going on pre-Bush. The FBI's Carnivore, for example, was instituted under Clinton. Slashdotter's bitched about it, but it was never reduced to "those evil Democrats." But vice-versa occurs when the Republican president does something similarly unconstitutional.
Admittedly, it's not easy to get huevos the size of Ike's since you would have to lead one of the most brilliant coalition wars in history, not to mention the largest amphibious invasion in history, and let's not forget having to corral the personalities of *both* Patton and Montgomery (probably the hardest of the three tasks).
Corporate data leaks and phishing were going strong pre-9/11 too, it's just that now we have a Republican president to blame everything on. Nobody ever spares a good word for the positive things Republicans have done for the internet (e.g. prevented it from being taxed), but Clinton gets a free pass for the DMCA. There are a *lot* of things that Bush has done wrong, but /. only became overtly political when a Republican took office.
Also, for the record, I would like to point out the UID disparity between parent (who thinks the new design is sexy) and grandparent. The latter is clearly better qualified to opine on the descent of /. into political flamebaiting.
I agree. I wish there was some way I could raise the threshold on the stories that get sent to me through their RSS feed. Something like, only stories with 350+ diggs. It's a pain to go through the huge volume of output.
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. We made two types of sandwiches: 1) ham sandwiches; and, 2) peanut butter sandwiches. I agree that ham and peanut butter would be a terrible combination.
My freshman year we did this as a community service project. We spent an hour making a bunch of ham and peanut butter sandwiches and then went out to a circle where a lot of homeless guys crash. Most of them ended up asking for cigarettes instead of the sandwiches.
If you're looking for folksy one-on-one's with buddy-prez, you should go back further to FDR's "Fireside chats." Reagan was the "Great Communicator," but he certainly didn't invent Presidential pandering to the lowest common denominator.
I think it's a new feature. When you write a journal entry you can click a checkbox to submit it as a story as well. I think this is a nicer option, because I like to save the stories I've submitted anyway.
Scuttlemonkey wrote "An anonymous reader writes..." despite the fact that this is my journal entry, and says qo quite clearly at the top of the story: "Journal written by anaesthetica (596507) and posted by ScuttleMonkey on 14:12 Saturday 24 June 2006"
I mean, I may not stand out in a crowd, but this is just an unnecessary blow to my ego.
It's not that simple. If you are arrested for something that trivial you can sue the police department for wrongful arrest and make yourself a tidy little sum.
That's probably more Netscape's fault than the parallel project's fault. If Apple can maintain a parallel x86 compatible version of their entire OS for five years in secret, then a parallel browser version should be a piece of cake.
Wow. I think this is the one instance I've ever seen where having a dramatically higher UID actually gave you more cred. Jeez, next thing you know, Macs will be running on Intel chips...
I think minors still have to obey terms of service however. It would be absurd if all terms of service were waived simply because of one's age. It would mean that all that stuff I did on AOL back in the day shouldn't have gotten my account banned. Or something.