So you have switched positions. You now think it's OK for Bill Gates to call open source programmers communist but somehow it's not OK for Stallman to call Bill Gates a communist.
I also notice you continually characterize stallman as "hysterical" which exposes your bias in this matter. The fact that stallman gets to Bill Gates and shills like you is a testament to the effectiveness of using hyperbole. Bill Gates understands the power of slandering open source people with the communist comment and so does stallman.
"No, this is not the case. A non-country, without power, that has SOME elected officials, and only for the past 1 year is not a democracy. Not to mention, Arafat was de facto dictator. You CAN make an argument that the PLO is on the path to democracy. You CAN'T call the Palestinian authority of even 2 years ago remotely democratic. That's NOT the definition of democracy. Communist russia?"
Once again. They had an election which was monitored and approved by the UN. I do conceed that the idea of an occupied nation holding elections is kind of silly.
"Iran under the shah was most definitely NOT a democracy, or even close."
Of course not. The US engineered a coup to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran and installed the shah instead. One democracy waged war on another one.
"I disagree with your assertion that the US goes to war every 5 to ten years."
Disagree all you want, just crack open a history book and check for yourself.
"South Africa is CLEARLY not a democracy. "
It's not? Just exactly how do you define a democracy anyway?
"No, but I would say the number of civilians killed by/under dictatorships, fascisms, military governments, etc FAR exceeds those killed in conflicts between democracies and others."
Ah well I guess that makes it OK then. As long as you kill less people then brutal dictators everything is perfectly OK. So if george bush kills one less person then Saddam did then he is better then saddam!.
"-I never said democracies don't go to war with non-democracies"
I know, that's what bothers me. To you it seems perfectly OK for democracies to go to war as long as it's not with another a democracy. You seem to feel that people who live in countries who are not democracies should be killed or subjected by democracies if they don't buy their goods.
"IF GOODS DON'T CROSS BORDERS, ARMIES WILL"
Well good cross the israeli palestenian border every day, so do armies. Even if what you sia d was true, (it's not as israel and palestine prove) what an awful immoral statement to make. Buy my shit or I will kill you.
"Democracies very, very rarely go to war with each other. I still don't think you've pointed out a single example."
You keep saying this but obviously your opinion is not based on reality. Bill Gates does not look ridiculus to CIOs, press, politicians, or the average person because he called open source developers communists.
People who take that kind of verbal abuse lying down are the ones that look ridiculus.
Like I said. They had an election which was monitored and approved of by the UN. That means they had a legally elected political apparatus which is the definition of democracy.
"the US isn't at war with the Palestinian authority."
No Israel is at war with palestine. One democracy is at war with another democracy and has been for the last twenty years or so.
"Iran likewise is no democracy."
Iran WAS a democracy when the US engineered a coup to overthrow the democratically elected leader and installed the shah. Again one democracy attacked another one.
"So I challenge you yet again--find an example of two democracies going to war."
Despite the complete irrelevence of your point I have pointed out two examples. Now answer me this.
Democracies seem to be rather fond of going to war and killing people who don't agree with them. US goes to war once every five to ten years like clockwork. Israel is perfectly happy to keep a few million palestenians under brutal occupation. South Africa ran state sponsored apartheid for decades. England went to war in the falklands. Apparently there is nothing that special about democracies, they kill by bombs, they kill by blockades, they kill by engineering coups, they kill by supporting "freedom fighters", they keep minorities under brutal occupation etc.
Apparently all that's perfectly OK with you as long as they don't attack another democracy. Is that because you feel that only humans who live under a democracy are worth something and that it's perfectly OK to kill humans who don't live in democracies by the tens of thousands?
" I think there's a big difference between politics and advocating products."
No there is not. A candidate is a product. Also Microsoft is trying to advocate their products by calling open source advocates communists and calling open source cancer.
"If you're trying to convince people to use, for example, Linux, scaring them away from Windows will only help if Linux is actually better for their needs."
No. It's enough to scare them away from windows. If you succeed in scaring people away from windows it will weaken MS. You have to work to weaken your enemy, it's not enough to make yourself stronger.
"Microsoft executives made a lot of stupid comments about Open Source, but did they work, or did they just make Microsoft look panicked and irrational?"
It worked and it continues to work. Bill Gates would never have made those comments unless the MS public relations dept hadn't already done the research and decided it would work. These people are evil but they are not stupid. they are not going to make statements like that without careful study.
"If leading Linux supporters adopt the strategy that made Microsoft look ridiculous, they'll just end up looking ridiculous themselves."
That's an opinion based on nothing. It's just wrong. Does Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer look ridiculus to the world? to the CIOs? does the average joe on the street think Bill Gates is ridiculus and linux is better then windows because Bill called open source developers communists? No of course not. Your opinion is silly in face of reality.
And yet he quit in a hissy fit after calling them names names. Lucky for him the mozilla foundation had great hackers and they stuck to their guns and created firefox.
So in the end JWZ was wrong on top of being an asshole.
Is the market share of linux going up or down for last five years. Is linux supporting more or less devices in the last five years. Is the linux desktop getting better or worse in the last five years. Is the linux desktop marketshare growing or shrinking in the last five years.
"I say that it isn't, and it risks being exiled to servers, embedded solutions, and hobbyist machines"
Where are the facts to back up your claim. Show some stats and lets see. Linux has been around logn enough to gather enough data points.
"I don't know for sure, nobody does- but I think my point is valid enough to avoid being called a bozo."
As long as you talk out of your ass sprouting your opinions as if they were facts then I will continue to refer to you as bozo.
" wow, the Palestinian Authority is in no ways a democracy!"
Well they were elected. Of course the idea of elections by an occupied people is kind of a joke but they were elected nevertheless. The UN observed the election and verified it too.
"When WAS the last time you saw two democracies go to war? Maybe there is something inherent in democracies that makes them not go to war with each other."
Once again. The US goes to war every five to ten years. Sometimes it's against democracies, (iran, panama etc) and other times it's not. So the better question is why do democracies like to go to war so often.
An have you considered that I and millions of other do not give a flying fuck what you or JWZ use? Have you consiered that I and a million other people don't really want to hear you bitch about how much linux is teh sux?
It's amazing what gets modded up to five on slashdot.
Is linux growth on the desktop declining? Has it stopped? Is the linux desktop development slowing down? Is linux getting worse? Are the less devices supported last year then this year?
This bozo thinks linux on the desktop is not going to survive! It's going to DIE people DIE I tell ya unless you do what I say!.
Why don't we let actualy facts into this conversation once a while? Maybe that would be a good idea. Nah it's slashdot, chicken little over here predicting the death of the desktop linux is the most insightful guy here.
"If it wasn't for MythTV, all my servers would probably be OSX by now"
LOL, sounds like somebody who has never run OSX Server. Go listen in the omnigroup OSX admin mailing list for a while before you make that leap OK. The consensus there seems to be that OSX server is not ready for prime time and I for one agree 100%. I won't go into the thousands of reasons why, just go read the mailing list archives.
Neither is JWZ what's yoru point? All of his code has been ditched out of mozilla by now.
Do you really think JWZ is responsible for firefox? He was the guy who slandered the mozilla foundation and called them names and then quit in a hissy fit. This guy has nothing nice to say about any open source project.
JWZ is just another nightclub owner making profits by feeding other people's addictions. I for one don't give a flying fuck what operating system he uses. Why do you?
He runs a nightclub and feeds people's alcohol addiction. He thinks that more honest. Surrounding yourself with a room full of drunks every nights looking to get laid. Nice.
Maybe but he inherited a bunch of others. No OS is perfect, every one has it's share of problems. I expect JWZ to start whining about OSX any day now. The guy is a pathalogical complainer, nothing will make him happy. Expect to see another article about how he switched to windows in a couple of years.
"When was the last time any two democracies you know went to war?"
Israel and palestine have been at war for decades now.
The question you ask is a weird one though. The US is a democracy and it can't seem to help but go to war every five or six years. So why is it OK for a democracy to wage war against a not-so-democracy.
"Do you really expect every moral employee at Microsoft to quit their jobs over this?"
No but wouldn't it be a better world if they did.
"To you really expect every Microsoft stockholder to dump their shares over this?"
No but wouldn't it be a better world if they did.
"And if it does, are you willing to dump all of it today?"
If I knew about it then yes. I refuse to invest in MS. MS thinks open source is communist and a cancer on society. I have no desire to give a company that thinks like that any money.
They were both related to software distribution. They were both irrational.
Take a look at the moderations on any MS related topic (hell just look at the ones on the calendering topic). People who praise MS and MS products get modded up to five. That's slashdot, it has become a playground for the astro turfers and shills.
"IMO that was a valid point and related directly to the OO installation process."
Then I submit that you are a dumbass. Let me explain.
You are comparing OO to MS office. You download and install OO. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL MS OFFICE. SO in this feature OO clearly wins. Hands down. Here is a feature OO has and MS is missing. In order to install MS office you have to BUY the thing and install it off the CD. Guess what fuckwad, you can do the same thing with OO. You can buy a fucking CD and install it just like MS office.
In summary. Downloading and installing OO is a billion times easier then downloading and installing MS office because it's impossible to download and install MS office.
I could not disagree more. It's bloated, overly complex, has options buried 15 clicks deep, slow as hell, and really gives you no more functionality then dozens of other PIMs on the market for the windows platform. I used to be forced to use it at work, I am so glad I don't work there anymore.
Do you remember a few days ago when some commenter was bitching about how the open office installer came as a zip file instead of an exe or msi? He was rated a five!. He kept bitching about how it was so confusing to an average joe to unzip a file and run setup.exe. He got rated a five despite the fact that MS office can't be downloaded and installed at all!!.
So the lesson here is that if you critize any open source software for being hard to download and install then you get rated a 5. If you critize any MS software for the same reason you get bashed.
Political parties and corporations do a massive amount of research to try and gauge how the public will react to something they say. There are millions of dollars of research thrown into this every year.
Both the political parties and the corporations have adopted viscious hyperbole and name calling as an effective means of communicating their point across without alienating potential customers.
We in the open source community can benefit from their research by simply adopting their techniques. It's time to ratchet up the rhetoric to meet or exceed theirs. They are calling you communist? You should call them fascists (which technically they are). They are calling you a cancer on society? you should refer to them as the ebola or something. Without tit for tat they will kick your ass from here to dawn and you will all be roadkill. The current level of advocasy and zealotry from the open source is weak and wimpy.
"Some people get turned off by evangelists they disagree with, almost everyone gets turned off by zealots they disagree with."
My observation seems to contradict yours. Whether it's an evangelist or a zealot they only seem to help their cause and not hurt it. Look at how much people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter have helped the republican party. These people have called their "enemies" traitors, terrorists, evil, and painted them as un american, godless communists. As a result the republicans control all three branches of govt.
In the tech world take a look at Bill Gates, Ballmer, McNealy, Ellison etc. They have all resorted to calling their enemies communists, cancer, evil, hippies, wimps, babies etc.
I need not go into the kind of language used by the Bush Administration do I?
Empirically painting your enemies in the worst possible light, using the most severe language and hyperbole has been wildly successful in helping political parties, governments, and businesses succeed. If anything the proponents of open source, linux and apple need to ratchet up their rhetoric. Yes it really does work and indeed my be the only thing that works anymore.
First of all what makes you think that "art fags" aren't smart?
Secondly go hang out at any open source conference or poll the top 100 open source contributors and and I think you will find that the powerbook hasa the best "market share" amongst them.
Slashdot Mirror
So you have switched positions. You now think it's OK for Bill Gates to call open source programmers communist but somehow it's not OK for Stallman to call Bill Gates a communist.
I also notice you continually characterize stallman as "hysterical" which exposes your bias in this matter. The fact that stallman gets to Bill Gates and shills like you is a testament to the effectiveness of using hyperbole. Bill Gates understands the power of slandering open source people with the communist comment and so does stallman.
"No, this is not the case. A non-country, without power, that has SOME elected officials, and only for the past 1 year is not a democracy. Not to mention, Arafat was de facto dictator. You CAN make an argument that the PLO is on the path to democracy. You CAN'T call the Palestinian authority of even 2 years ago remotely democratic. That's NOT the definition of democracy. Communist russia?"
Once again. They had an election which was monitored and approved by the UN. I do conceed that the idea of an occupied nation holding elections is kind of silly.
"Iran under the shah was most definitely NOT a democracy, or even close."
Of course not. The US engineered a coup to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran and installed the shah instead. One democracy waged war on another one.
"I disagree with your assertion that the US goes to war every 5 to ten years."
Disagree all you want, just crack open a history book and check for yourself.
"South Africa is CLEARLY not a democracy. "
It's not? Just exactly how do you define a democracy anyway?
"No, but I would say the number of civilians killed by/under dictatorships, fascisms, military governments, etc FAR exceeds those killed in conflicts between democracies and others."
Ah well I guess that makes it OK then. As long as you kill less people then brutal dictators everything is perfectly OK. So if george bush kills one less person then Saddam did then he is better then saddam!.
"-I never said democracies don't go to war with non-democracies"
I know, that's what bothers me. To you it seems perfectly OK for democracies to go to war as long as it's not with another a democracy. You seem to feel that people who live in countries who are not democracies should be killed or subjected by democracies if they don't buy their goods.
"IF GOODS DON'T CROSS BORDERS, ARMIES WILL"
Well good cross the israeli palestenian border every day, so do armies. Even if what you sia d was true, (it's not as israel and palestine prove) what an awful immoral statement to make. Buy my shit or I will kill you.
"Democracies very, very rarely go to war with each other. I still don't think you've pointed out a single example."
You are not reading my posts are you?
" Go ahead then! You'll only look ridiculous"
You keep saying this but obviously your opinion is not based on reality. Bill Gates does not look ridiculus to CIOs, press, politicians, or the average person because he called open source developers communists.
People who take that kind of verbal abuse lying down are the ones that look ridiculus.
" Like I said, Palestine isn't there yet."
Like I said. They had an election which was monitored and approved of by the UN. That means they had a legally elected political apparatus which is the definition of democracy.
"the US isn't at war with the Palestinian authority."
No Israel is at war with palestine. One democracy is at war with another democracy and has been for the last twenty years or so.
"Iran likewise is no democracy."
Iran WAS a democracy when the US engineered a coup to overthrow the democratically elected leader and installed the shah. Again one democracy attacked another one.
"So I challenge you yet again--find an example of two democracies going to war."
Despite the complete irrelevence of your point I have pointed out two examples. Now answer me this.
Democracies seem to be rather fond of going to war and killing people who don't agree with them. US goes to war once every five to ten years like clockwork. Israel is perfectly happy to keep a few million palestenians under brutal occupation. South Africa ran state sponsored apartheid for decades. England went to war in the falklands. Apparently there is nothing that special about democracies, they kill by bombs, they kill by blockades, they kill by engineering coups, they kill by supporting "freedom fighters", they keep minorities under brutal occupation etc.
Apparently all that's perfectly OK with you as long as they don't attack another democracy. Is that because you feel that only humans who live under a democracy are worth something and that it's perfectly OK to kill humans who don't live in democracies by the tens of thousands?
" I think there's a big difference between politics and advocating products."
No there is not. A candidate is a product. Also Microsoft is trying to advocate their products by calling open source advocates communists and calling open source cancer.
"If you're trying to convince people to use, for example, Linux, scaring them away from Windows will only help if Linux is actually better for their needs."
No. It's enough to scare them away from windows. If you succeed in scaring people away from windows it will weaken MS. You have to work to weaken your enemy, it's not enough to make yourself stronger.
"Microsoft executives made a lot of stupid comments about Open Source, but did they work, or did they just make Microsoft look panicked and irrational?"
It worked and it continues to work. Bill Gates would never have made those comments unless the MS public relations dept hadn't already done the research and decided it would work. These people are evil but they are not stupid. they are not going to make statements like that without careful study.
"If leading Linux supporters adopt the strategy that made Microsoft look ridiculous, they'll just end up looking ridiculous themselves."
That's an opinion based on nothing. It's just wrong. Does Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer look ridiculus to the world? to the CIOs? does the average joe on the street think Bill Gates is ridiculus and linux is better then windows because Bill called open source developers communists? No of course not. Your opinion is silly in face of reality.
And yet he quit in a hissy fit after calling them names names. Lucky for him the mozilla foundation had great hackers and they stuck to their guns and created firefox.
So in the end JWZ was wrong on top of being an asshole.
"True survival depends on market share."
OK mr Bozo. Riddle me this.
Is the market share of linux going up or down for last five years. Is linux supporting more or less devices in the last five years. Is the linux desktop getting better or worse in the last five years. Is the linux desktop marketshare growing or shrinking in the last five years.
"I say that it isn't, and it risks being exiled to servers, embedded solutions, and hobbyist machines"
Where are the facts to back up your claim. Show some stats and lets see. Linux has been around logn enough to gather enough data points.
"I don't know for sure, nobody does- but I think my point is valid enough to avoid being called a bozo."
As long as you talk out of your ass sprouting your opinions as if they were facts then I will continue to refer to you as bozo.
" wow, the Palestinian Authority is in no ways a democracy!"
Well they were elected. Of course the idea of elections by an occupied people is kind of a joke but they were elected nevertheless. The UN observed the election and verified it too.
"When WAS the last time you saw two democracies go to war? Maybe there is something inherent in democracies that makes them not go to war with each other."
Once again. The US goes to war every five to ten years. Sometimes it's against democracies, (iran, panama etc) and other times it's not. So the better question is why do democracies like to go to war so often.
An have you considered that I and millions of other do not give a flying fuck what you or JWZ use? Have you consiered that I and a million other people don't really want to hear you bitch about how much linux is teh sux?
It's amazing what gets modded up to five on slashdot.
Is linux growth on the desktop declining? Has it stopped? Is the linux desktop development slowing down? Is linux getting worse? Are the less devices supported last year then this year?
This bozo thinks linux on the desktop is not going to survive! It's going to DIE people DIE I tell ya unless you do what I say!.
Why don't we let actualy facts into this conversation once a while? Maybe that would be a good idea. Nah it's slashdot, chicken little over here predicting the death of the desktop linux is the most insightful guy here.
"If it wasn't for MythTV, all my servers would probably be OSX by now"
LOL, sounds like somebody who has never run OSX Server. Go listen in the omnigroup OSX admin mailing list for a while before you make that leap OK. The consensus there seems to be that OSX server is not ready for prime time and I for one agree 100%. I won't go into the thousands of reasons why, just go read the mailing list archives.
Neither is JWZ what's yoru point? All of his code has been ditched out of mozilla by now.
Do you really think JWZ is responsible for firefox? He was the guy who slandered the mozilla foundation and called them names and then quit in a hissy fit. This guy has nothing nice to say about any open source project.
JWZ is just another nightclub owner making profits by feeding other people's addictions. I for one don't give a flying fuck what operating system he uses. Why do you?
He runs a nightclub and feeds people's alcohol addiction. He thinks that more honest. Surrounding yourself with a room full of drunks every nights looking to get laid. Nice.
Maybe but he inherited a bunch of others. No OS is perfect, every one has it's share of problems. I expect JWZ to start whining about OSX any day now. The guy is a pathalogical complainer, nothing will make him happy. Expect to see another article about how he switched to windows in a couple of years.
"When was the last time any two democracies you know went to war?"
Israel and palestine have been at war for decades now.
The question you ask is a weird one though. The US is a democracy and it can't seem to help but go to war every five or six years. So why is it OK for a democracy to wage war against a not-so-democracy.
"Do you really expect every moral employee at Microsoft to quit their jobs over this?"
No but wouldn't it be a better world if they did.
"To you really expect every Microsoft stockholder to dump their shares over this?"
No but wouldn't it be a better world if they did.
"And if it does, are you willing to dump all of it today?"
If I knew about it then yes. I refuse to invest in MS. MS thinks open source is communist and a cancer on society. I have no desire to give a company that thinks like that any money.
As far as I am concerned exchange is the 74 pinto to notes 72 pinto. Marginally better but still sucky and lible to go up in flames.
They were both related to software distribution. They were both irrational.
Take a look at the moderations on any MS related topic (hell just look at the ones on the calendering topic). People who praise MS and MS products get modded up to five. That's slashdot, it has become a playground for the astro turfers and shills.
"IMO that was a valid point and related directly to the OO installation process."
Then I submit that you are a dumbass. Let me explain.
You are comparing OO to MS office. You download and install OO. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL MS OFFICE. SO in this feature OO clearly wins. Hands down. Here is a feature OO has and MS is missing. In order to install MS office you have to BUY the thing and install it off the CD. Guess what fuckwad, you can do the same thing with OO. You can buy a fucking CD and install it just like MS office.
In summary. Downloading and installing OO is a billion times easier then downloading and installing MS office because it's impossible to download and install MS office.
Got it?
I could not disagree more. It's bloated, overly complex, has options buried 15 clicks deep, slow as hell, and really gives you no more functionality then dozens of other PIMs on the market for the windows platform. I used to be forced to use it at work, I am so glad I don't work there anymore.
Do you remember a few days ago when some commenter was bitching about how the open office installer came as a zip file instead of an exe or msi? He was rated a five!. He kept bitching about how it was so confusing to an average joe to unzip a file and run setup.exe. He got rated a five despite the fact that MS office can't be downloaded and installed at all!!.
So the lesson here is that if you critize any open source software for being hard to download and install then you get rated a 5. If you critize any MS software for the same reason you get bashed.
Let me put it this way.
Political parties and corporations do a massive amount of research to try and gauge how the public will react to something they say. There are millions of dollars of research thrown into this every year.
Both the political parties and the corporations have adopted viscious hyperbole and name calling as an effective means of communicating their point across without alienating potential customers.
We in the open source community can benefit from their research by simply adopting their techniques. It's time to ratchet up the rhetoric to meet or exceed theirs. They are calling you communist? You should call them fascists (which technically they are). They are calling you a cancer on society? you should refer to them as the ebola or something. Without tit for tat they will kick your ass from here to dawn and you will all be roadkill. The current level of advocasy and zealotry from the open source is weak and wimpy.
I think I would put CIOs in the category of the people who are incapable of critical thought.
"Some people get turned off by evangelists they disagree with, almost everyone gets turned off by zealots they disagree with."
My observation seems to contradict yours. Whether it's an evangelist or a zealot they only seem to help their cause and not hurt it. Look at how much people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter have helped the republican party. These people have called their "enemies" traitors, terrorists, evil, and painted them as un american, godless communists. As a result the republicans control all three branches of govt.
In the tech world take a look at Bill Gates, Ballmer, McNealy, Ellison etc. They have all resorted to calling their enemies communists, cancer, evil, hippies, wimps, babies etc.
I need not go into the kind of language used by the Bush Administration do I?
Empirically painting your enemies in the worst possible light, using the most severe language and hyperbole has been wildly successful in helping political parties, governments, and businesses succeed. If anything the proponents of open source, linux and apple need to ratchet up their rhetoric. Yes it really does work and indeed my be the only thing that works anymore.
First of all what makes you think that "art fags" aren't smart?
Secondly go hang out at any open source conference or poll the top 100 open source contributors and and I think you will find that the powerbook hasa the best "market share" amongst them.