I don't think that the GPL is an obstacle to Linux pickup. In fact, if anything, the GPL is what made Linux as popular as it is today. The GPL may have more restrictions than the BSD or MIT licenses, but it is much less restrictive (not to mention much less expensive) than licenses for proprietary Unix systems that would often not give you source code. (And, if you wanted source code, you would need to pay thousands of dollars to AT&T and agree to a very restrictive license; BSD was based on that code until about 1991 or so, and even then, BSD for the next three years had to fight lawsuits over about 50 or so files in the distribution).
The Linux system made it possible for anybody with a 386 or better PC and a modem to download, compile, and study a full Unix-like operating system without paying AT&T thousands of dollars for a research license. The thought of being able to study operating system code with your own personal computer and freely available and redistributable code was unheard back in the early 1990s. Because the Linux kernel was able to make it "out of the gate" before BSD was able to fully rid itself of encumbered code, people were more ready to develop for Linux and the GNU utitlies, and because of the popularity of those systems, the GPL became the almost-official license of the free software movement (recall that the BSD license didn't become GPL-compatible until 1999).
I prefer BSD over Linux for technical reasons that I won't explain here (and I also do have a preference to the BSD license as well), but I do see that the GPL is much more popular to free software developers than the BSD license is mostly because the GPL guarantees that your source will always be used in free software projects. Somebody isn't going to take your code and lock away their modifications to it; they'll have to share their modifications to the rest of the community. Hence, the GPL kind of provides some "insurance" that the BSD license doesn't offer. The BSD license, on the other hand, is a bit more laissez-faire and says, "We don't care what you do with it as long as you give the creators credit." Both the GPL and BSD licenses promote freedom; just different types of freedom.
Of course one can hypothesize and value whatever one wishes, but within some approximation, Linux without the GPL is just *BSD.
I don't know about that. BSD and Linux have two different philosophies as far as design goes. BSD is a system, Linux is a kernel. You need a separate userland (not provided by Linus himself) in order to do anything with the Linux kernel.
Yes, Linus is a talented manager. But he also started without the tremendous codebase that BSD has always had.
I agree. He didn't have the codebase that BSD has had access to since the 1970s. However, he had access to GNU. GNU had everything needed to build an operating system except for a kernel. Linus had just a kernel, but no userland. This was a perfect match, since the GNU userland and development tools are quite portable and of great quality.
I think you'll have a Linux kernel without the GPL, but you wouldn't have the current Linux system without those utilities from GNU, which are licensed under the GPL. Indeed, GNU has made a huge contribution to the computing world with its tools and license, and even BSD users like myself benefit from GNU; most of my software (KDE, OpenOffice, GIMP, GAIM, etc.) are GPL-licensed, and GCC is the main compiler on all BSD systems.
I don't think takeup would neccesarily be better with a BSD license, either - as evidenced by the fact that BSD takeup lags far behind Linux.
I think that the biggest reason why Linux has a higher adoption rate on servers and desktops than BSD does is mostly because of the old AT&T vs. BSDi lawsuit (386BSD was being developed about the same time Linux was started; keep in mind that 386BSD was a complete OS that just needed six kernel files written and the kernel ported to the 386, whereas Linux was fresh). By 1995 (when the lawsuit ended and Berkeley released 4.4BSD-Lite, free of any encumbered code), Linux was fully ready to use and already had a substantial user base, whereas the free BSDs were still trying to gain a user base.
Linux, for some reason, also gains much more publicity than BSD does. Just talk to any non-CS person (or even some freshmen/sophomore CS majors, for that matter), and they'll definitely know what Linux means, but some of them would scratch their heads when you mention BSD.
Yeah, X is a piece of 20-year old cruft that needs to be replaced in the Unix world. People as early back as 1993 has written about the problem (read this chapter from the Unix Haters' Handbook; although dated, many of the issues are still prevalent in X). All modern features (from new toolkits to font handling to graphics acceleration) seem to be a hack built on top of a hack.
It would be nice to get a new windowing system, kind of like what Apple has in OS X. Unfortunately, there are so many *nix X11 programs out there that I don't know if it would be economically viable or practical to switch to a brand new windowing system with a new toolkit and new ways of doing things.
With OpenBSD, even though they have a decent amount of applications, they have nowhere near the variety that Linux has, so that gives Redhat an edge.
Wrong!
OpenBSD can run all FOSS software avaliable for Linux (as long as the source doesn't use too many Linuxisms; e.g., code that extensively uses the Linux kernel won't compile). As long as the source uses standard Unix libraries, standard X libraries, standard QT/GTK toolkits, then it should run fine on OpenBSD.
OpenBSD also has a Linux binary compatibility layer, too, meaning that it can run Linux-only closed-source binary software such as the Java JDK, Oracle, Mathematica, StarOffice, etc. OpenBSD can also run FreeBSD applications and even SCO Unix applications.
So, OpenBSD has just the same variety in applications that Linux does. Try again, troll.
Yes. You might want to check out the history of Pinochet's rule in Chile. Pinochet was a totalitarian ruler who brought free-market economics to Chile. Laissez-faire capitalism can exist in a totalitarian government, just like socialism can exist in a democracy or a republic.
Opera, while certainly better than IE, hurts the world wide web by dividing the population even further. With more browsers out there, I can't count on my (standards compliant) code working everywhere, and I have to add hacks for each browser to make it work. Things get even uglier when I try to write a "fat" web app - different browsers support radically different scripting standards.
That's funny, because last time I checked, Opera is standards compliant. I never had a problem opening web pages that used proper CSS and XHTML with Opera. As long as you stick to standard HTML or XHTML/CSS, you shouldn't have problems opening your web pages in Firefox and Opera. (IE still doesn't support all of the web standards, unfortunately).
As a web developer, I think there's no reason for anyone to use anything but firefox,
Hate to break it to you, but not everybody thinks Firefox is the best thing since sliced bread. I switched to Opera from Firefox a few days ago because it is much faster and much more responsive on my machine (an old 266MHz Pentium II with 64MB RAM). Free Opera was a godsend to me; I couldn't deal with Firefox using my hard drive swap space any more. And then Konqueror and Safari are also nice, standards-compliant browsers. Opera, Konqueror, and Safari users don't need to drop whatever they are doing and switch to Firefox. Heck, I wouldn't even force an IE user to switch to an alternative browser. Hey, whatever floats your boat....
Anyone want to have a go at rethinking word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software?
I would love to have a new, innovative, word processing software, spreadsheet software, and presentation software (although I use LaTeX and text editors for the former, so I'm not much of a word processor user anymore). However, OpenOffice's goal was never to become an innovative office suite (in the sense of revolutionizing word processors like Apple's Pages (or even LyX for that matter), revolutionizing spreadsheets like Lotus Improv, and presentations like Apple Keynote); it's goal was to provide 90% of MS Office's features and interface at a much lower price: free (as in beer and as in speech). And it does a decent job of doing that if you just can't afford MS Office (and, in some instances, a Windows or Mac OS license). I use OpenOffice on my computer. Even though I don't use it too often (I have been indoctrinated^Wintroduced to LaTeX, and don't have a need for spreadsheets and presentations [LaTeX can handle presentations, too]), I keep OpenOffice on my machine just in case I must work with MS Office documents.
OpenOffice is a very nice, pragmatic software project used for a free alternative to MS Office. OpenOffice isn't perfect and I actually prefer MS Office to OpenOffice for a few reasons (faster loading is the main key), but it is the no-cost solution to dealing with the MS world out there. OpenOffice didn't set out to become a revolutionary, innovative project. OpenOffice is an example of a program that tries to do a job that a $300+ program does, except offered for free.
Calling someone a pirate is worse than the "n-word". The "n-word" is a racial slur, but calling people "pirates" who share information freely is outright slander and deffimation. The "n-word" is rude and hurts peoples feelings, but "piracy" is an outright criminal accusation. And since when did copyrights help artists? And since when did copying their songs freely hurt them?
The emphasis on the first sentence is from me. I would assume that you're not a person affected by the "n word" at all. Copyright infringement is a crime, but I do agree now that the word piracy is a bit too strong to describe copyright infringement. However, let's not say that calling somebody a pirate is worse than calling somebody the "n word" (especially if that person is a person defined by that word). The "n word" has over 300 years of baggage that the word "pirate" can never attain. Pirates may go around and steal treasures, rape innocent people, murder, and do other bad things, but let's not underestimate the power of a word that is associated with hundreds of years of slavery, segregation, discrimination, hatred, disenfranchsizement, inferiority, and other racial feelings over the past 300 years. When you're a member of a group who had had to endure 300+ years of that crap, I would think that you definitely would rather be called a pirate any day. Being called the most evil pirate just can't compete to me.
Piracy as a term conflates bootlegging and copyright infringement with the attack and robbery of (originally) ships at sea. Piracy carries a connotation therefore of attack, as well as theft, and additionally, the other baggage of heinous crimes committed by actual pirates like rape, murder, and the occasional arson or bombardment of a port. Just to let that sink in -- pirates attacked, robbed, raped, and murdered their victims. Now why would we want to call kids using Napster pirates again?
Good point. Piracy may be too strong of a word to describe copyright infringement. However, I am still not a fan of comparing the use of the word piracy to the use of the "n word." (Just to clarify things, I am black, too). I still feel that the original poster used much too strong and offensive of a word to compare to "pirate," which deserves being modded down (perhaps "overrated," but not necessarily "troll"). Calling copyright infringers "pirates," even if the use of the word is based on the emotions of the music industry rather than the actual definition of piracy, is much different than calling African-Americans the "n word." The former may get a response like the one above (or sometimes no response, or even a laugh by infringers themselves), while the latter may get the response of a balled-up brown fist....
I still don't promote copyright infringement at all, and I still think that the "n word" is way too strong to compare to "piracy" being applied to copyright infringers, but I agree with your point about the conflation of the term "piracy." Just call them the proper term--copyright infringers. Not "thieves," not "pirates," just copyright infringers. That way the term doesn't reflect the emotions of the corporations, and reflects on the actual acts that the infringers are doing.
Opera is lightning fast on my old 266MHz Pentium II laptop with 64MB RAM and FreeBSD, which I'm stuck with as my production machine (I'm a poor college student). Firefox, while a great browser, just takes too much memory on my FreeBSD machine and I have a hard time switching between applications or even between tabs. Firefox takes 60MB and sometimes even 70MB of RAM after 30 minutes of usage. I have been looking for other free and lightweight browsers for days, but you're not going to go too far on the Web these days with dillo, w3m, and links. This announcement of free Opera has literally been a godsend to me. I've been using Opera for about 15 minutes now and I see a remarkable performance difference on my computer. Opera has all of the features that made me like Firefox (like tabbed browsing and popup blocking), yet the programmers have did a great job over the years optimizing the browser for performance. Opera is only taking about 43MB RAM now, and I still have room for other tabs and other applications.
What more can I say about Opera! Free Opera has been a godsend for me. I no longer have to muck around with text-based and minimalist browsers. I can now have my cake and eat it too. Thank you Opera.
Oh, please! Piracy and the "n word" are two completely different things and topics altogether. The "n word" (I don't feel like typing it here) isn't just a descriptive adjective, it is a racial slur. Piracy is a term used for infringing on the copyrights of software and music by copying it without the owner's permission. Please never compare "piracy" to a racial slur (especially the "n word"); it makes you look immature and ignorant.
And you condone piracy? Hey, I can't stand the RIAA's practices as much as the next Slashdotter, but shouldn't the artists get fair compensation from their works? If we don't buy music from the artists, then the artists won't get compensated for their performances. Piracy, to me, is selfish and doesn't reward the artist at all. Now, do I believe that the RIAA should be suing 13 year olds left and right? No. However, I believe that piracy is wrong and shouldn't be condoned.
Just NEVER compare piracy to the "n word" ever again!
Past the point of no return, no backwards glances
Our days of global warming have now begun
Past all thoughts of right or wrong, no going back now
Abandon thoughts, and let the warmth begin
When will the fires shall burn the forest, when will the flood hit my costal mansion
When will the warming at last consume us?
Past the point of no return, the final threshold
The iceberg is crossed, so stand and watch it melt
We're past the point of no return.
(with apologies to the Phantom of the Opera musical).
Dell boxen do start out at lower prices, don't get me wrong. Where else can you get a machine for $299 after mail-in rebates? In fact, the markets where Dell sells the most volume are schools and businesses that need a huge amount of computers, and home users who just need something to email letters and type documents. They are the ones buying Dell's $399 specials. It is very tough competing with Dell on those price levels. When was the last time you've seen a brand new Apple or Sun sell for that low of a price?
Now, when you step into the higher price ranges (like $2000 and more), this is when Dell starts to get beaten by Apple and Sun, as far as hardware quality and performance. The PowerPC G5 and the Sun UltraSPARC are much more elegant processors and better performing than most Pentium 4s and the Xeon. The hardware quality that you'll get from a Mac or from Sun is much better than what you'll get from Dell. And the level or corporate support is much greater from Sun. Finally, you get Solaris on your Sun. With a Dell, you get Windows or Linux.
If you want a good, cheap box that will get you around, then you can't go wrong with a Dell. I have seen plenty of higher-end Dells that made me drool. However, if you want a quality, well-engineered box with excellent support and an excellent vendor-made Unix-based OS then you should go to Sun.
Sun and Dell are innovative and successful corporations, just in different ways. Sun's innovations are in processors (the UltraSPARC), OSes (Solaris), and in languages (Java). Dell's innovation is building decent computers at competitive prices (even if they aren't technically the best), and at mass production.
I, for one, would rather buy a Sun UltraSPARC workstation than a Dell Pentium 4 or Xeon workstation any day of the week. However, Dell is doing better financially because they are able to sell their products (usually) at much cheaper prices than what Sun sells their products for. Plus, not everybody needs the power of a Sun workstation. However, there is a huge difference in quality between a Sun workstation and a Dell workstation. Sun is kind of like Apple; their computers may start out at higher prices, but your purchase is worth every dime.
Another scene today at Balmer's office in Redmond, Washington
Adjunct: Good morning, Mr. Balmer
Balmer: Good morning to you, sir. I'm smelling the nice aroma of freshly printed $100 bills coming to our empire today. Hopefully Windows Vista and MS Office 12 preorder sales are through the roof. I can hear geeks online shouting about the virtues of IE 7, Avalon, and C#. Do you have any good news to tell me today, sir?
Adjunct: Well, I'm afraid another one of your customers made a switch. This time, it's Munich, and they're dumping MS Office.
Balmer: WHAAAAAAT! They're switching? To what?
Adjunct: Well....
Balmer: Please don't tell me it's OpenOffice. Just tell me it's not OpenOffice.
Adjunct: It is. They're switching to OpenOffice.
Balmer then roars into a rage. Roaring and pounding his chest with his fists, he then picks up a chair and throws it at his table, splitting the chair into two.
Balmer: "I'm going to f***ing bury Munich, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill OpenOffice."
Balmer: "I'm going to kill every single OpenOffice developer that I find. Them dang developers. Developers. Developers, developers, developers, developers...."
Balmer then runs around the entire Microsoft campus like an angry 800-pound gorilla and sings his "Developers" hit.
Similarly with education, in science at least, there is only one group of schools which is capable of delivering the goods: secular academia. The rest are various flavours of medieval religious zealotry masquerading as "science". Very much as the Madrasses in the Middle East. Allowing them to brainwash people until they start believing and acting on superstition and all sorts of nonsense in order to empower the various religious cults in America is what the "vouchers" are all about, and that is in addition to removing funding from public schools in order to destroy them. Only selfish people who have access to private schools (and religious zealots) would support such a thing.
How in the hell is school vouchers selfish? School vouchers enable poor people trapped in underfunded, ghetto schools that don't offer all of the things needed to properly educate their pupils to escape their failing schools and be able to attend whatever school they want to. School vouchers, if done right, enable all people to pay for schooling and enable them to go to any school that they wish (as opposed to full privatization). Since students can attend any school that they wish, the schools will now compete on a market system in which the schools that offer the most programs and has the best performance gets the most voucher money. In the current version of primary and secondary education, poor people get stuck in underfunded public schools while rich people get to go to excellent public schools or private schools. Which is more selfish to you: poor students forced to go to poor schools, or an environment where schools compete with each other for students based on a market system?
Negative income tax? As in the government paying you money from its income on its assets on the planet Pluto? That is the only place the money could come from, other then from dismantling and destroying everything all the previous generations worked to establish: all the public assets. The "negative tax" would soon end after the last one of them is sold and the government no longer existed. Which could only serve few wealthy and selfish individuals. Selfish and extremely Libertarian.
Now how in the world is NIT selfish? In a negative income tax system, poor people are guaranteed a minimum income---
...
Fine, I'm done! I'm done with this Hurricane Katrina talk. I through with trying to give you a lesson on libertarian thought. You don't have a clue about capitalism, free markets, laissez-faire economics, libertarianism, etc., and I don't think you'll ever will. You call the free-market a religion and selfishism, but it's not. I guess your belief that the government solves all social problems can be a religion, too. Government schools, government checks, government medicine, government subsidies, government cheese, government this, government that. Government needs to stay out of most of these issues and let the free-market do its thing. Now, does this mean I want the government completely eliminated? Hell no. The government needs to exist for protection, law enforcement, infrastructure, and some other very basic things.
However, I am sick and tired of free-market ideas being branded as "selfish," as if your utopian collectivist government can do any better. I'm not rich, but I'm also tired of all rich people being lumped together as Mr. Scrooges that need to be forever taxed because they are sinful, selfish creatures that need to be forever punished. Let's quote you. "Rich people are greedy and selfish, otherwise they would not be rich." Huh? What the f*** is that? Michael Jordan didn't become rich because he selfishly played basketball. Your favorite musicians didn't become rich because they selfishly played music. Your lottery winners didn't become rich because they selfishly won the lottery. NOT ALL RICH PEOPLE ARE GREEDY AND SELFISH! There. Do you
I couldn't agree with you more. People are trying to call this "racism" and point the finger at other people, but the local government and the state government didn't prepare for it, the federal government didn't respond fast enough, and the city of New Orleans is paying big time mostly because of the incompetent mayor's and governor's actions, and because of the molasses-slow response of the federal government. This isn't about Bush and the rest of them deciding to "let the Negroes die."
The breakdown begins from the local government, all the way up. It is a shame that the Congressional Black Caucus is trying to politicize and racialize the entire drama happening in New Orleans. But hey, if people are listening, and if you have big people like college-dropout Kanye West saying ad hominems like "George Bush doesn't care about black people," then this racialism of the hurricane drama will continue. And this is coming from a African-American poster.
If nobody cares, they why are so many people donating millions of dolars to help the poor people in New Orleans?
I wouldn't call it racism. If that were the case, then nobody would be donating and nobody will be helped. I would call this drama the result of local and state governments finger-pointing instead of being proactive (these people should have been evacuated days before the hurricane), and FEMA's molasses-slow response to the hurricane and flooding.
I would agree with you here in the sense that blame goes to the cult of extreme selfishness and disdain for everything "common" or "public" which the neo-cons with the help of libertarians have been instilling in the American public for a few decades now. The result are cowering, frightened local government who consult with lawyers for days before declaring mandatory evacuation because they are afraid of "lawsuits by the casino and hotel owners". Then comes fright of lawsuits by citizens if they are forced to leave on buses. And then there is cost. FEMA is now under these people a "charity coordinator". Dont expect a "charity coordinator" to pre-emptively force an evacuation. And so on and so forth. Weak, and attuned to the rich exclusively, government is the source of all of this. Grover Norquist (one of the chief ideologues of neo-con moement) wants to "get the government to the size where we (neo-cons/libertarians) can drown it in a bathtub". He got his wish, except the bathtub he spoke of is the city of New Orleans.
More of this anti-libertarian and anti-conservative hate bull that I hear from leftists like you. For the final time, the events in New Orleans is NOT representative of the right-wing view of small government at all!!! The breakdown in New Orleans has nothing to do with the size of government; it just shows how inefficient the local, state, and federal governments are! This is representative of how local, state, and federal government breaks down under a heavy load. The local and state governments weren't able to evacuate their citizens quickly enough (which they should have done so at least 4 days before the storm arrived), and FEMA (federal government) acted in the way that the federal government always acts: slow and bureaucratic. It took the feds four days for them to finally show up to New Orleans. Meanwhile, thousands of people ended up dying because help didn't come their way quickly enough because of the snail-pace speed of these layers of government. It's not because a conservative is in office.
And what is so "selfish" about free-market ideas that libertarians and conservatives champion, such as school vouchers, privatized social security, privatized health care, negative income taxes, limiting inflation, and more? Sounds to me you're a socialist or communist who have heard that "capitalism is evil" rhetoric and "rich people are greedy and selfish" and want to blame the entire situation on (neo)conservative and libertarian ideas. Sounds to me that you don't fully understand right-wing government at all. You need to read some Milton Friedman, some libertarianism, and some conservatism, and some neoconservatism before you start spewing some crap about how conservatives and libertarians are rich, selfish individuals who don't donate and don't help out people who are in dire need. Libertarians and conservatives generally wish that the layers of government had stepped in a bit quicker. However, because of the molasses-slow response of the federal government, it looks like these people will be dependent on the citizen's donations from Red Cross and the rest of these private organizations, which is normally the case in a disaster, since the government is slow and apathetic.
To paraphrase the grandparent post, the blame starts from the bottom (local government) to the top (federal government). They all broke down. However, IgnoramusMaximus (bravo, you just got another explanation of libertarianism), what you are seeing is NOT representative of neither libertarianism or neoconservatism (the latter tends to support more social spending), no matter how much you disdain right-wing politics. This is government breakdown.
WHAT!? Are you denying my freedom to own slaves? What if somebody chooses to sign a contract offering their lifetime services to me, in exchange for food and shelter? Surely you wouldn't deny them the freedom to sign such a contract.
Well, according to all of the libertarian books and articles that I have read, nearly all libertarians are opposed to slavery because slavery deprives the slaves of many freedoms. The core of libertarian thought is that people should be free to do their actions as long as they don't use their power to restrict the freedoms of others. Slavery is one of the ultimate restrictions of freedom, and most libertarians are strongly opposed to slavery.
I sort of agree with you on the last paragraph. All libertarians don't think alike. Some are minarchists (small government), some are anarcho-capitalists (almost no government), some are Objectionists, and some are neolibertarians and geolibertarians. Many libertarians disagree with how small they want to make the government and what practices will they use to one day reach the libertarian goal. However, libertarianism isn't about "no laws and no order". Freedom doesn't mean a "free-for-all." A society needs law and order to survive, and there isn't a better organization that can handle law and order than the government.
Judging from all of the anti-libertarian posts here, I'm starting to think that libertarianism has already gotten a nasty reputation for being anarchist and overtly narcissic, even though it libertarianism is virtually unheard of in the mainstream society. Libertarianism is quite misunderstood. Libertarians aren't anarchists trying to destroy the government and give all power to corporations trying to suck your blood. All libertarians generally want is for this government to become less bloated and start respecting personal freedoms and free market economics.
I don't think you understand the word libertarian. Libertarianism != anarchy (complete lack of rule). Libertarians don't believe in raiding high ground or infrastructure, and they don't believe in slavery (they believe it is a violation of one's freedom; remember, libertarianism has the philosophy of freedom and of non-coercion). And many libertarians have the heart to rescue innocent people for no charge.
I don't know what you've been taught about libertarianism, but somebody must have taught you that all libertarians are cold, apathetic, greedy, and selfish individuals. That's not true. Many libertarians support helping others, and many libertarians are filling the government's shoes and helping donate to Red Cross and other organizations. (Libertarians love private charity). I wish that the local, state, and federal governments (especially the local and state governments) had a more active role in providing these citizens food and water. It doesn't help to be in a huge shelter if you're going to die of dehydration. (And, yes, I'm a libertarian. Whaddo'ya know, a Libertarian who supports pinko commie ideas like giving food and water to displaced citizens. Who would've thought....) What you are seeing in the streets of New Orleans isn't representative of libertarianism at all. You're seeing almost pure anarchy.
Sir, you have your ideologies mixed up. As far as I know, as per Ayn Rand, "altruism is a folly". Ergo, in a Libertarian society, following the sacred rules, there would be no aid. You see, all those poeple down there brought that disaster onto themselves by being... I guess black, poor or the combination of thereof. Or something.
I'm a libertarian, but I don't know if I agree with your assessment. I've always understood that one role of government in a libertarian society (of the minarchist form) is to protect its citizens. Minarchists want to keep the police and military in government hands. And some libertarians (like myself) don't mind using our tax dollars to give some people in a natural disaster some food, water, and basic shelter. These people are in dire need of some food and water; some people had died of dehydration, and if nothing happens in the next few days, there will be many more deaths(you can only live without water for 2-4 days).
Now, if you replaced the word libertarian with anarcho-capitalist in your post, then you'll be correct.
However, before an anarcho-capitalist calls me a "pinko LINO (Libertarian in Name Only)," I have some news for you. Some of you are probably going to respond saying, "Well, they should have saved up money to prepare for this event." Well, even if these people were rich, what good does money in the bank does if all of the banks and ATMs are closed, and when all of the stores are closed as well? "Well, that's what they get for living in a place that's 15 feet below sea level," somebody else will say. Well, even though the idea of personal choices does apply here (they shouldn't expect their house to be completely rebuilt for free), that shouldn't deny the fact that these people need food, water, and shelter to get them back on their feet before they decide to either rebuild their homes or leave. Well, I wonder what's going to happen to that anarcho-capitalist when a flood hits his home (and he doesn't live in a flood zone), or when Osama hits his city with a nuclear bomb. Oh well, "that's life" and "that's what you get for living in Osama's target" is probably going to be what he'll hear, and he'll be crawling for food and water for days, assuming he can make it.
IgnoramusMaximus, remember that not all libertarians think alike on different topics. All libertarians generally believe that government should be shrank, that people should have personal freedom and rely on personal responsibility, and that free-market economics is the optimal economic method and a useful tool for solving some societal issues, but libertarians disagree with how much government should be limited.
Speaking as a libertarian (of the minarchist/classical liberal variety, NOT of the anarcho-capitalist kind), part of the government's responsibility is protecting its citizens. Protection can take many forms, such as protecting its citizens from outside threats, from criminals, and (in this case) recovering from natural disasters.
In this case, the local, state, and federal governments should have done much more in order to properly evacuate, house, and feed and hydrate these now displaced citizens. No, we don't need to give them all plane tickets to wherever in the US, give them fancy meals, and build them all $500,000 two-story homes with a nice new car waiting for them in their garages. However, many people, especially the poor who weren't able to drive or fly out of there, are now stuck in this virtual ocean city with no food, no water, no shelter, and possibly no future, depending on how far they are in that bus line. There are elderly people and even babies dying of dehydration.
The government's job is to protect its citizens. Giving these people food, water, shelter, and a bus ride isn't socialism or communism at all. This isn't about socialized health care, income redistribution, or all of that other stuff that us libertarians are usually against. Between local, state, and federal levels, they should have enough food reserves and money to help out these people. These people desperately need some help. I may be one of those right-wingers and I may be individualistic, but even I believe that these levels of government need to join forces with private charity (which I fully support) and help feed and evacuate all of these citizens.
Anyways, back on topic, I think that the idea of using a USB key that holds directions and other information, as well as starting the vehicle, is a nice and innovative idea. However, the article nor the specifications state anything about where the information about starting the car is stored on the USB drive. My only potential worry about this is the failure of the USB port or computer inside of the vehicle (you can't start your car manually), and whether or not we'll see "Mazda bootkits" widely available online by crackers who now have something else to break in to.
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I don't think that the GPL is an obstacle to Linux pickup. In fact, if anything, the GPL is what made Linux as popular as it is today. The GPL may have more restrictions than the BSD or MIT licenses, but it is much less restrictive (not to mention much less expensive) than licenses for proprietary Unix systems that would often not give you source code. (And, if you wanted source code, you would need to pay thousands of dollars to AT&T and agree to a very restrictive license; BSD was based on that code until about 1991 or so, and even then, BSD for the next three years had to fight lawsuits over about 50 or so files in the distribution).
The Linux system made it possible for anybody with a 386 or better PC and a modem to download, compile, and study a full Unix-like operating system without paying AT&T thousands of dollars for a research license. The thought of being able to study operating system code with your own personal computer and freely available and redistributable code was unheard back in the early 1990s. Because the Linux kernel was able to make it "out of the gate" before BSD was able to fully rid itself of encumbered code, people were more ready to develop for Linux and the GNU utitlies, and because of the popularity of those systems, the GPL became the almost-official license of the free software movement (recall that the BSD license didn't become GPL-compatible until 1999).
I prefer BSD over Linux for technical reasons that I won't explain here (and I also do have a preference to the BSD license as well), but I do see that the GPL is much more popular to free software developers than the BSD license is mostly because the GPL guarantees that your source will always be used in free software projects. Somebody isn't going to take your code and lock away their modifications to it; they'll have to share their modifications to the rest of the community. Hence, the GPL kind of provides some "insurance" that the BSD license doesn't offer. The BSD license, on the other hand, is a bit more laissez-faire and says, "We don't care what you do with it as long as you give the creators credit." Both the GPL and BSD licenses promote freedom; just different types of freedom.
I don't know about that. BSD and Linux have two different philosophies as far as design goes. BSD is a system, Linux is a kernel. You need a separate userland (not provided by Linus himself) in order to do anything with the Linux kernel.
I agree. He didn't have the codebase that BSD has had access to since the 1970s. However, he had access to GNU. GNU had everything needed to build an operating system except for a kernel. Linus had just a kernel, but no userland. This was a perfect match, since the GNU userland and development tools are quite portable and of great quality.
I think you'll have a Linux kernel without the GPL, but you wouldn't have the current Linux system without those utilities from GNU, which are licensed under the GPL. Indeed, GNU has made a huge contribution to the computing world with its tools and license, and even BSD users like myself benefit from GNU; most of my software (KDE, OpenOffice, GIMP, GAIM, etc.) are GPL-licensed, and GCC is the main compiler on all BSD systems.
I think that the biggest reason why Linux has a higher adoption rate on servers and desktops than BSD does is mostly because of the old AT&T vs. BSDi lawsuit (386BSD was being developed about the same time Linux was started; keep in mind that 386BSD was a complete OS that just needed six kernel files written and the kernel ported to the 386, whereas Linux was fresh). By 1995 (when the lawsuit ended and Berkeley released 4.4BSD-Lite, free of any encumbered code), Linux was fully ready to use and already had a substantial user base, whereas the free BSDs were still trying to gain a user base.
Linux, for some reason, also gains much more publicity than BSD does. Just talk to any non-CS person (or even some freshmen/sophomore CS majors, for that matter), and they'll definitely know what Linux means, but some of them would scratch their heads when you mention BSD.
Yeah, X is a piece of 20-year old cruft that needs to be replaced in the Unix world. People as early back as 1993 has written about the problem (read this chapter from the Unix Haters' Handbook; although dated, many of the issues are still prevalent in X). All modern features (from new toolkits to font handling to graphics acceleration) seem to be a hack built on top of a hack.
It would be nice to get a new windowing system, kind of like what Apple has in OS X. Unfortunately, there are so many *nix X11 programs out there that I don't know if it would be economically viable or practical to switch to a brand new windowing system with a new toolkit and new ways of doing things.
Wrong!
OpenBSD can run all FOSS software avaliable for Linux (as long as the source doesn't use too many Linuxisms; e.g., code that extensively uses the Linux kernel won't compile). As long as the source uses standard Unix libraries, standard X libraries, standard QT/GTK toolkits, then it should run fine on OpenBSD.
OpenBSD also has a Linux binary compatibility layer, too, meaning that it can run Linux-only closed-source binary software such as the Java JDK, Oracle, Mathematica, StarOffice, etc. OpenBSD can also run FreeBSD applications and even SCO Unix applications.
So, OpenBSD has just the same variety in applications that Linux does. Try again, troll.
Yes. You might want to check out the history of Pinochet's rule in Chile. Pinochet was a totalitarian ruler who brought free-market economics to Chile. Laissez-faire capitalism can exist in a totalitarian government, just like socialism can exist in a democracy or a republic.
That's funny, because last time I checked, Opera is standards compliant. I never had a problem opening web pages that used proper CSS and XHTML with Opera. As long as you stick to standard HTML or XHTML/CSS, you shouldn't have problems opening your web pages in Firefox and Opera. (IE still doesn't support all of the web standards, unfortunately).
Hate to break it to you, but not everybody thinks Firefox is the best thing since sliced bread. I switched to Opera from Firefox a few days ago because it is much faster and much more responsive on my machine (an old 266MHz Pentium II with 64MB RAM). Free Opera was a godsend to me; I couldn't deal with Firefox using my hard drive swap space any more. And then Konqueror and Safari are also nice, standards-compliant browsers. Opera, Konqueror, and Safari users don't need to drop whatever they are doing and switch to Firefox. Heck, I wouldn't even force an IE user to switch to an alternative browser. Hey, whatever floats your boat....
I would love to have a new, innovative, word processing software, spreadsheet software, and presentation software (although I use LaTeX and text editors for the former, so I'm not much of a word processor user anymore). However, OpenOffice's goal was never to become an innovative office suite (in the sense of revolutionizing word processors like Apple's Pages (or even LyX for that matter), revolutionizing spreadsheets like Lotus Improv, and presentations like Apple Keynote); it's goal was to provide 90% of MS Office's features and interface at a much lower price: free (as in beer and as in speech). And it does a decent job of doing that if you just can't afford MS Office (and, in some instances, a Windows or Mac OS license). I use OpenOffice on my computer. Even though I don't use it too often (I have been indoctrinated^Wintroduced to LaTeX, and don't have a need for spreadsheets and presentations [LaTeX can handle presentations, too]), I keep OpenOffice on my machine just in case I must work with MS Office documents.
OpenOffice is a very nice, pragmatic software project used for a free alternative to MS Office. OpenOffice isn't perfect and I actually prefer MS Office to OpenOffice for a few reasons (faster loading is the main key), but it is the no-cost solution to dealing with the MS world out there. OpenOffice didn't set out to become a revolutionary, innovative project. OpenOffice is an example of a program that tries to do a job that a $300+ program does, except offered for free.
The emphasis on the first sentence is from me. I would assume that you're not a person affected by the "n word" at all. Copyright infringement is a crime, but I do agree now that the word piracy is a bit too strong to describe copyright infringement. However, let's not say that calling somebody a pirate is worse than calling somebody the "n word" (especially if that person is a person defined by that word). The "n word" has over 300 years of baggage that the word "pirate" can never attain. Pirates may go around and steal treasures, rape innocent people, murder, and do other bad things, but let's not underestimate the power of a word that is associated with hundreds of years of slavery, segregation, discrimination, hatred, disenfranchsizement, inferiority, and other racial feelings over the past 300 years. When you're a member of a group who had had to endure 300+ years of that crap, I would think that you definitely would rather be called a pirate any day. Being called the most evil pirate just can't compete to me.
Good point. Piracy may be too strong of a word to describe copyright infringement. However, I am still not a fan of comparing the use of the word piracy to the use of the "n word." (Just to clarify things, I am black, too). I still feel that the original poster used much too strong and offensive of a word to compare to "pirate," which deserves being modded down (perhaps "overrated," but not necessarily "troll"). Calling copyright infringers "pirates," even if the use of the word is based on the emotions of the music industry rather than the actual definition of piracy, is much different than calling African-Americans the "n word." The former may get a response like the one above (or sometimes no response, or even a laugh by infringers themselves), while the latter may get the response of a balled-up brown fist....
I still don't promote copyright infringement at all, and I still think that the "n word" is way too strong to compare to "piracy" being applied to copyright infringers, but I agree with your point about the conflation of the term "piracy." Just call them the proper term--copyright infringers. Not "thieves," not "pirates," just copyright infringers. That way the term doesn't reflect the emotions of the corporations, and reflects on the actual acts that the infringers are doing.
Opera is lightning fast on my old 266MHz Pentium II laptop with 64MB RAM and FreeBSD, which I'm stuck with as my production machine (I'm a poor college student). Firefox, while a great browser, just takes too much memory on my FreeBSD machine and I have a hard time switching between applications or even between tabs. Firefox takes 60MB and sometimes even 70MB of RAM after 30 minutes of usage. I have been looking for other free and lightweight browsers for days, but you're not going to go too far on the Web these days with dillo, w3m, and links. This announcement of free Opera has literally been a godsend to me. I've been using Opera for about 15 minutes now and I see a remarkable performance difference on my computer. Opera has all of the features that made me like Firefox (like tabbed browsing and popup blocking), yet the programmers have did a great job over the years optimizing the browser for performance. Opera is only taking about 43MB RAM now, and I still have room for other tabs and other applications.
What more can I say about Opera! Free Opera has been a godsend for me. I no longer have to muck around with text-based and minimalist browsers. I can now have my cake and eat it too. Thank you Opera.
Oh, please! Piracy and the "n word" are two completely different things and topics altogether. The "n word" (I don't feel like typing it here) isn't just a descriptive adjective, it is a racial slur. Piracy is a term used for infringing on the copyrights of software and music by copying it without the owner's permission. Please never compare "piracy" to a racial slur (especially the "n word"); it makes you look immature and ignorant.
And you condone piracy? Hey, I can't stand the RIAA's practices as much as the next Slashdotter, but shouldn't the artists get fair compensation from their works? If we don't buy music from the artists, then the artists won't get compensated for their performances. Piracy, to me, is selfish and doesn't reward the artist at all. Now, do I believe that the RIAA should be suing 13 year olds left and right? No. However, I believe that piracy is wrong and shouldn't be condoned.
Just NEVER compare piracy to the "n word" ever again!
Past the point of no return, no backwards glances
Our days of global warming have now begun
Past all thoughts of right or wrong, no going back now
Abandon thoughts, and let the warmth begin
When will the fires shall burn the forest, when will the flood hit my costal mansion
When will the warming at last consume us?
Past the point of no return, the final threshold
The iceberg is crossed, so stand and watch it melt
We're past the point of no return.
(with apologies to the Phantom of the Opera musical).
Dell boxen do start out at lower prices, don't get me wrong. Where else can you get a machine for $299 after mail-in rebates? In fact, the markets where Dell sells the most volume are schools and businesses that need a huge amount of computers, and home users who just need something to email letters and type documents. They are the ones buying Dell's $399 specials. It is very tough competing with Dell on those price levels. When was the last time you've seen a brand new Apple or Sun sell for that low of a price?
Now, when you step into the higher price ranges (like $2000 and more), this is when Dell starts to get beaten by Apple and Sun, as far as hardware quality and performance. The PowerPC G5 and the Sun UltraSPARC are much more elegant processors and better performing than most Pentium 4s and the Xeon. The hardware quality that you'll get from a Mac or from Sun is much better than what you'll get from Dell. And the level or corporate support is much greater from Sun. Finally, you get Solaris on your Sun. With a Dell, you get Windows or Linux.
If you want a good, cheap box that will get you around, then you can't go wrong with a Dell. I have seen plenty of higher-end Dells that made me drool. However, if you want a quality, well-engineered box with excellent support and an excellent vendor-made Unix-based OS then you should go to Sun.
Sun and Dell are innovative and successful corporations, just in different ways. Sun's innovations are in processors (the UltraSPARC), OSes (Solaris), and in languages (Java). Dell's innovation is building decent computers at competitive prices (even if they aren't technically the best), and at mass production.
I, for one, would rather buy a Sun UltraSPARC workstation than a Dell Pentium 4 or Xeon workstation any day of the week. However, Dell is doing better financially because they are able to sell their products (usually) at much cheaper prices than what Sun sells their products for. Plus, not everybody needs the power of a Sun workstation. However, there is a huge difference in quality between a Sun workstation and a Dell workstation. Sun is kind of like Apple; their computers may start out at higher prices, but your purchase is worth every dime.
Another scene today at Balmer's office in Redmond, Washington
Adjunct: Good morning, Mr. Balmer
Balmer: Good morning to you, sir. I'm smelling the nice aroma of freshly printed $100 bills coming to our empire today. Hopefully Windows Vista and MS Office 12 preorder sales are through the roof. I can hear geeks online shouting about the virtues of IE 7, Avalon, and C#. Do you have any good news to tell me today, sir?
Adjunct: Well, I'm afraid another one of your customers made a switch. This time, it's Munich, and they're dumping MS Office.
Balmer: WHAAAAAAT! They're switching? To what?
Adjunct: Well....
Balmer: Please don't tell me it's OpenOffice. Just tell me it's not OpenOffice.
Adjunct: It is. They're switching to OpenOffice.
Balmer then roars into a rage. Roaring and pounding his chest with his fists, he then picks up a chair and throws it at his table, splitting the chair into two.
Balmer: "I'm going to f***ing bury Munich, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill OpenOffice."
Balmer: "I'm going to kill every single OpenOffice developer that I find. Them dang developers. Developers. Developers, developers, developers, developers...."
Balmer then runs around the entire Microsoft campus like an angry 800-pound gorilla and sings his "Developers" hit.
Time to try to extinguish some of flames here.
How in the hell is school vouchers selfish? School vouchers enable poor people trapped in underfunded, ghetto schools that don't offer all of the things needed to properly educate their pupils to escape their failing schools and be able to attend whatever school they want to. School vouchers, if done right, enable all people to pay for schooling and enable them to go to any school that they wish (as opposed to full privatization). Since students can attend any school that they wish, the schools will now compete on a market system in which the schools that offer the most programs and has the best performance gets the most voucher money. In the current version of primary and secondary education, poor people get stuck in underfunded public schools while rich people get to go to excellent public schools or private schools. Which is more selfish to you: poor students forced to go to poor schools, or an environment where schools compete with each other for students based on a market system?
Now how in the world is NIT selfish? In a negative income tax system, poor people are guaranteed a minimum income---
...
Fine, I'm done! I'm done with this Hurricane Katrina talk. I through with trying to give you a lesson on libertarian thought. You don't have a clue about capitalism, free markets, laissez-faire economics, libertarianism, etc., and I don't think you'll ever will. You call the free-market a religion and selfishism, but it's not. I guess your belief that the government solves all social problems can be a religion, too. Government schools, government checks, government medicine, government subsidies, government cheese, government this, government that. Government needs to stay out of most of these issues and let the free-market do its thing. Now, does this mean I want the government completely eliminated? Hell no. The government needs to exist for protection, law enforcement, infrastructure, and some other very basic things.
However, I am sick and tired of free-market ideas being branded as "selfish," as if your utopian collectivist government can do any better. I'm not rich, but I'm also tired of all rich people being lumped together as Mr. Scrooges that need to be forever taxed because they are sinful, selfish creatures that need to be forever punished. Let's quote you. "Rich people are greedy and selfish, otherwise they would not be rich." Huh? What the f*** is that? Michael Jordan didn't become rich because he selfishly played basketball. Your favorite musicians didn't become rich because they selfishly played music. Your lottery winners didn't become rich because they selfishly won the lottery. NOT ALL RICH PEOPLE ARE GREEDY AND SELFISH! There. Do you
I couldn't agree with you more. People are trying to call this "racism" and point the finger at other people, but the local government and the state government didn't prepare for it, the federal government didn't respond fast enough, and the city of New Orleans is paying big time mostly because of the incompetent mayor's and governor's actions, and because of the molasses-slow response of the federal government. This isn't about Bush and the rest of them deciding to "let the Negroes die."
The breakdown begins from the local government, all the way up. It is a shame that the Congressional Black Caucus is trying to politicize and racialize the entire drama happening in New Orleans. But hey, if people are listening, and if you have big people like college-dropout Kanye West saying ad hominems like "George Bush doesn't care about black people," then this racialism of the hurricane drama will continue. And this is coming from a African-American poster.
If nobody cares, they why are so many people donating millions of dolars to help the poor people in New Orleans?
I wouldn't call it racism. If that were the case, then nobody would be donating and nobody will be helped. I would call this drama the result of local and state governments finger-pointing instead of being proactive (these people should have been evacuated days before the hurricane), and FEMA's molasses-slow response to the hurricane and flooding.
More of this anti-libertarian and anti-conservative hate bull that I hear from leftists like you. For the final time, the events in New Orleans is NOT representative of the right-wing view of small government at all!!! The breakdown in New Orleans has nothing to do with the size of government; it just shows how inefficient the local, state, and federal governments are! This is representative of how local, state, and federal government breaks down under a heavy load. The local and state governments weren't able to evacuate their citizens quickly enough (which they should have done so at least 4 days before the storm arrived), and FEMA (federal government) acted in the way that the federal government always acts: slow and bureaucratic. It took the feds four days for them to finally show up to New Orleans. Meanwhile, thousands of people ended up dying because help didn't come their way quickly enough because of the snail-pace speed of these layers of government. It's not because a conservative is in office.
And what is so "selfish" about free-market ideas that libertarians and conservatives champion, such as school vouchers, privatized social security, privatized health care, negative income taxes, limiting inflation, and more? Sounds to me you're a socialist or communist who have heard that "capitalism is evil" rhetoric and "rich people are greedy and selfish" and want to blame the entire situation on (neo)conservative and libertarian ideas. Sounds to me that you don't fully understand right-wing government at all. You need to read some Milton Friedman, some libertarianism, and some conservatism, and some neoconservatism before you start spewing some crap about how conservatives and libertarians are rich, selfish individuals who don't donate and don't help out people who are in dire need. Libertarians and conservatives generally wish that the layers of government had stepped in a bit quicker. However, because of the molasses-slow response of the federal government, it looks like these people will be dependent on the citizen's donations from Red Cross and the rest of these private organizations, which is normally the case in a disaster, since the government is slow and apathetic.
To paraphrase the grandparent post, the blame starts from the bottom (local government) to the top (federal government). They all broke down. However, IgnoramusMaximus (bravo, you just got another explanation of libertarianism), what you are seeing is NOT representative of neither libertarianism or neoconservatism (the latter tends to support more social spending), no matter how much you disdain right-wing politics. This is government breakdown.
Well, according to all of the libertarian books and articles that I have read, nearly all libertarians are opposed to slavery because slavery deprives the slaves of many freedoms. The core of libertarian thought is that people should be free to do their actions as long as they don't use their power to restrict the freedoms of others. Slavery is one of the ultimate restrictions of freedom, and most libertarians are strongly opposed to slavery.
I sort of agree with you on the last paragraph. All libertarians don't think alike. Some are minarchists (small government), some are anarcho-capitalists (almost no government), some are Objectionists, and some are neolibertarians and geolibertarians. Many libertarians disagree with how small they want to make the government and what practices will they use to one day reach the libertarian goal. However, libertarianism isn't about "no laws and no order". Freedom doesn't mean a "free-for-all." A society needs law and order to survive, and there isn't a better organization that can handle law and order than the government.
Judging from all of the anti-libertarian posts here, I'm starting to think that libertarianism has already gotten a nasty reputation for being anarchist and overtly narcissic, even though it libertarianism is virtually unheard of in the mainstream society. Libertarianism is quite misunderstood. Libertarians aren't anarchists trying to destroy the government and give all power to corporations trying to suck your blood. All libertarians generally want is for this government to become less bloated and start respecting personal freedoms and free market economics.
I don't think you understand the word libertarian. Libertarianism != anarchy (complete lack of rule). Libertarians don't believe in raiding high ground or infrastructure, and they don't believe in slavery (they believe it is a violation of one's freedom; remember, libertarianism has the philosophy of freedom and of non-coercion). And many libertarians have the heart to rescue innocent people for no charge.
I don't know what you've been taught about libertarianism, but somebody must have taught you that all libertarians are cold, apathetic, greedy, and selfish individuals. That's not true. Many libertarians support helping others, and many libertarians are filling the government's shoes and helping donate to Red Cross and other organizations. (Libertarians love private charity). I wish that the local, state, and federal governments (especially the local and state governments) had a more active role in providing these citizens food and water. It doesn't help to be in a huge shelter if you're going to die of dehydration. (And, yes, I'm a libertarian. Whaddo'ya know, a Libertarian who supports pinko commie ideas like giving food and water to displaced citizens. Who would've thought....) What you are seeing in the streets of New Orleans isn't representative of libertarianism at all. You're seeing almost pure anarchy.
I'm a libertarian, but I don't know if I agree with your assessment. I've always understood that one role of government in a libertarian society (of the minarchist form) is to protect its citizens. Minarchists want to keep the police and military in government hands. And some libertarians (like myself) don't mind using our tax dollars to give some people in a natural disaster some food, water, and basic shelter. These people are in dire need of some food and water; some people had died of dehydration, and if nothing happens in the next few days, there will be many more deaths(you can only live without water for 2-4 days).
Now, if you replaced the word libertarian with anarcho-capitalist in your post, then you'll be correct.
However, before an anarcho-capitalist calls me a "pinko LINO (Libertarian in Name Only)," I have some news for you. Some of you are probably going to respond saying, "Well, they should have saved up money to prepare for this event." Well, even if these people were rich, what good does money in the bank does if all of the banks and ATMs are closed, and when all of the stores are closed as well? "Well, that's what they get for living in a place that's 15 feet below sea level," somebody else will say. Well, even though the idea of personal choices does apply here (they shouldn't expect their house to be completely rebuilt for free), that shouldn't deny the fact that these people need food, water, and shelter to get them back on their feet before they decide to either rebuild their homes or leave. Well, I wonder what's going to happen to that anarcho-capitalist when a flood hits his home (and he doesn't live in a flood zone), or when Osama hits his city with a nuclear bomb. Oh well, "that's life" and "that's what you get for living in Osama's target" is probably going to be what he'll hear, and he'll be crawling for food and water for days, assuming he can make it.
IgnoramusMaximus, remember that not all libertarians think alike on different topics. All libertarians generally believe that government should be shrank, that people should have personal freedom and rely on personal responsibility, and that free-market economics is the optimal economic method and a useful tool for solving some societal issues, but libertarians disagree with how much government should be limited.
Speaking as a libertarian (of the minarchist/classical liberal variety, NOT of the anarcho-capitalist kind), part of the government's responsibility is protecting its citizens. Protection can take many forms, such as protecting its citizens from outside threats, from criminals, and (in this case) recovering from natural disasters.
In this case, the local, state, and federal governments should have done much more in order to properly evacuate, house, and feed and hydrate these now displaced citizens. No, we don't need to give them all plane tickets to wherever in the US, give them fancy meals, and build them all $500,000 two-story homes with a nice new car waiting for them in their garages. However, many people, especially the poor who weren't able to drive or fly out of there, are now stuck in this virtual ocean city with no food, no water, no shelter, and possibly no future, depending on how far they are in that bus line. There are elderly people and even babies dying of dehydration.
The government's job is to protect its citizens. Giving these people food, water, shelter, and a bus ride isn't socialism or communism at all. This isn't about socialized health care, income redistribution, or all of that other stuff that us libertarians are usually against. Between local, state, and federal levels, they should have enough food reserves and money to help out these people. These people desperately need some help. I may be one of those right-wingers and I may be individualistic, but even I believe that these levels of government need to join forces with private charity (which I fully support) and help feed and evacuate all of these citizens.
Woohoo, my first first post
Anyways, back on topic, I think that the idea of using a USB key that holds directions and other information, as well as starting the vehicle, is a nice and innovative idea. However, the article nor the specifications state anything about where the information about starting the car is stored on the USB drive. My only potential worry about this is the failure of the USB port or computer inside of the vehicle (you can't start your car manually), and whether or not we'll see "Mazda bootkits" widely available online by crackers who now have something else to break in to.
Still, it is quite innovative.