Isn't it perfectly clear that the actual freedom that the internet provides is a problem for the government and corporations? Ever since they realized that people started to understand that freedom, they have been trying to shut it down. The problem is that the "democratic" leaders can't say, "Oops, our mistake, we don't really want you people communicating."
The government can't do that right away, so it allows corporations to make the case that "We The People" are a problem to THEIR bottom line and thus "We The People" MUST be stopped for the sake of international copyright treaties and laws. (Cry for the artists!)
This is all so fishy. It is too convenient. We have western governments trying to spy, snoop, eves drop, detain, and torture and make it legal to do so. There are private corporations who have a vested interest in locking down all forms of media and communications, in the name of copyright and royalties. We have ISPs who, while their charter forbids their inference, offer to filter content.
Is it me, or is it obvious, it is like one big huge multiheaded monster telling us to do what we are told. Shut up, work harder, buy more stuff.
The cost of the laptop, while not exactly trivial, certainly manageable and replaceable. You must keep all your data from the government because they'll hang you with it if they want to. Remember this quote:
Cardinal Richelieu: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him"
If they have your data, they will destroy you.
The costs in being charged as a terrorist, becoming an "enemy combatant," and/or losing all your data is by far, much much, higher.
The U.S.A. tortures its prisoners and the attorney general won't even rule out torture of American citizens. Of course, these criminals won't call it torture, they'll call it "waterbording" or something else. They'll use a name that implies nothing about the methods and argue that it is not torture. They use the cloud of dispute over the definition of torture to continue to use methods that were used by the Spanish Inquisition.
Use Linux Use and encrytped drive. Have a "functional" environment that is unencrypted that has nothing more challenging than an email about how you think U.S. government is doing everything right and how the shrub is gods ear piece.
We need to do what the French did in WWII. When the Nazi's ask for your papers, make sure you show them nice pleasant things. Transmit everything back and forth over the internet (encrypted locally).
The Nazi movement, or The Nazis began to take over the USA starting with Roy Cohn and Senator McCarthy in the '50s, through Nixon, Reagan, Bush I/II.
There are a lot of "energies" around us. A simple AM crystal radio circuit can generate power from existing electromagnetic fields. Solar batteries generate power from light. I would not be surprised if an electromechanical process were to be discovered that generated power seemingly for free. People have been looking for it for centuries and while it is sort of mythical unicorn of physics. The earth is a magnet, the moon has a magnetic field, who knows? We derive power from wind, water, light, volcanic energy, etc.
Take, for instance, the sterling engine, this device creates rotational energy out of a mere differential of temperature. I don't see how it would be impossible to harness the varying magnetic fields around us in some way. Now is there enough to make it worth while? That is the interesting question.
I think it is too easy to dismiss these things, because, well, though the law of thermodynamics remains intact, there is always the possibility of harnessing untapped energies.
All that being said, I'm always skeptical and there is a difference between a nice parlor trick and a science.
"When you think that half the people you meet are below average intelligence." haha, well since you don't understand averages, clearly you are on the low side of things.
Perhaps you don't understand what an "average" is. It is a number created by the sum of entries divided by number of entries. There need not ever be an actual entry that equals the average. Of course we have to assume that the curve is fairly symmetrical.
Aside from the obvious assumptions, it was supposed to be a representative comment not a mathematical theory.
Please stop opening your mouth.
Apparently you need to open your mouth to type? I do not suffer from that disability.
"We Linux users..." there is your problem, everything is Us and Them in all your posts. The world is gray, no black and white.
I agree the world is a very gray place, but it is absurd to assume that there are no black and white issues.
Maybe you only use Linux because that's what you are comfortable with?
Maybe you don't know enough to say anything meaningful
Seriously, RMS is outspoken enough for others to put the Free Software Movement into practice. Linus has done just as much for GNU by managing an open source project that attracted the attention of the computing powerhouses, as RMS has done by dueling windmills. Linus is the Yin, to RMS's Yang. Without a concrete demonstration of a successful open source project, RMS would be nothing more than an obscure footnote in MIT history. Without RMS' vision and passion about GNU, Linus' project would be just another free implementation of a unix like operating system.
I would argue that the BSD kernel, which was free in 1992, would have been used instead of Linus' kernel. In fact, one could say that a GNU system based on a unencumbered BSD kernel in 1992 would have been superior to Linux in 1992.
Before anyone gets too offended, RMS started GNU in 1983 and GNU really didn't become a "household word" until people had a product to identify with it. Evidently a nice editor, compiler, debugger, and some unix command replacements weren't enough. Lucky for us, Linus chose to license his work as GPL.
It is hard to give historical commentary without offending people. Yes, Linus was a good guy and he GPL's his kernel. It was, however, a right place at the right time sort of deal. If it were not for AT&T making BSD poison, Linux would have had no reason for anyone to use it. If Tannenbaum was a little more open with *HIS* MINIX system people would have used it instead.
Any viable that came along would have worked. The Linux kernel of today has so very little in common with the original that it is hard to even track the similarities. In the mean time, Linus has done a very good job at managing and contributing to the Linux kernel and he should be recognized for that.
I think a good way to describe what I'm doing would be to say that I don't ask for everything that I want, because I wouldn't get much of it at all if I did. This does not mean that I've compromised any ideals.
Like I said in an earlier response, I respect your contributions and believe that you are probably an honorable guy. Its obvious you are passionate and believe you are doing what you are doing for noble reasons. I don't think I'm arguing that.
I think you have put the objective before the means and have thus harmed the objective.
I think the major difference in objectives between Open Source and Free Software evangelists is that the Free Software folks say that proprietary software does not have a right to exist. Unfortunately, I can't say that and win the argument where it's important to win. You have to sound fair to everybody to win with politicians, if you ask to disenfranchise someone else you generally won't get very far.
Ahh, so you admit, you are not bound by "free software," but promote "open source" which is not necessarily free. You created a new movement because the previous movement was to strict for you. You benefit off the free software movement but moderate or obfuscate its objectives. You should make that clear in your articles and posts.
Ideals are a funny thing, they are never 100% applicable as there are always exceptions. The same goes with free software. That being said, it is often against one's objective to compromise their ideals too readily. I think the "Open Source" movement is too readily compromising and clouds the real and present dangers associated with non-free software.
As a primarily Linux user, I have to acknowledge what RMS has done for the free software movement and I do have some admiration for a man who is obviously driven by his beliefs and not by the accumulation of wealth.
Well, don't saint him just yet, he does all right.
But the fact is that his views that all software needs to be free are at the opposite end of, but as extreme as, Microsoft's (and other commercial vendors') views that all software needs to be profitable.
He doesn't say that "all software," he merely states that proprietary software should not be required and that you give up a lot when you do purchase proprietary software.
That means, in my view, that there is room for both commercial and free software to work side-by-side and that the main problem with this situation today is simply that far too many standards are closed. Force all commercial vendors to make all of their standards open and then, potentially, any free operating system or application can integrate easily with any commercial one.
I'm not sure how this fits in the open source vs free software debate.
In my view, I have far more admiration for Linus Torvalds than I do for RMS - at least Linus pretty much refuses to get involved in all the political arguing and just seems to get on and make decisions about what is ***TECHNICALLY*** the best thing to do with Linux.
And this is one thing that I have a problem with Linus about. Those who ignore politics will be done in by politics.
I'm out to help people understand Free Software with a gentle introduction. I tried to make that clear in the article.
I'm sorry, and while I greatly respect your individual contributions and I think you're probably a pretty honorable guy, history has shown repeatedly that expedience in the form of subjugating ideals for gain is always a long term error.
I don't think the the "Open Source" movement has done anything constructive. The whole ESR Cathedral blather is an embarrassment, in most professional circles it is an hysterical joke. "Open Source" does not imply freedom of any kind, and the very words you have used are so meaningless they have been co opted by those with which the free software movement would compete.
The success that Linux and free software has had has been for mostly economic reasons, I will grant you, but the freedom is a drug that IT shops love once they have a taste.
No body cares about "Open Source," developers care about free (as in freedom which includes source) software and IT cares about TCO. Open Source is a distraction, and even worse, be it intentional or not, the open source movement confuses the public about the differences between "Open Source" and "Free (as in freedom) Software." Your own article that you reference plays up a lot about being aligned with the free software movement, but the "Open Source" movement is NOT the free software movement as they have very different objectives, and I find it pretty disingenuous to say the least.
I'm sorry but the "Open Source" movement is a bogus attempt to water down the original purpose of GNU and the Free Software movement.
I've been in the industry for about 25 years and RMS was a visionary. While we we focused on software and what it could do and how to do it, he also focused on the dangers that our own creativity would bring to us and how to protect us from it.
Make no mistake, RIAA, MPIAA, SCO, et. al. are *ALL* apparitions RMS saw over a decade or so ago. The Open Source movement is nothing more than a selfish group of little people with a narrow scope and no plan. RMS has had a plan all along, and while he may seem to be an extremist and might not have been right 100% of the time, in retrospect, he has been right pretty darn close and his extremism seems less and less unwarranted over time.
The truth is both a blessing and a curse. It takes a lot of work to realize the truth and most people will not challenge themselves. Once you learn the truth, however, you are cursed with trying to explain it to others.
Encrypt everything. Send it back and forth to your home across the internet already encrypted. When the border guards ask you for your papers, present the Nazi pigs a nice clean system.
Face it guys, we have to study how the french did it in WWII and update it for the 21st century. The Nazi party didn't die, it took hold in the U.S.A. and has been slowly asserting itself.
We have to present evidence anonymously because even though we may have freedom of speech, we have to watch out for trade secrets, copyright infringement, and the lawyers. Blow the whistle and lose your home and livelihood, no jail time, nope, just homelessness and poverty. So, they can destroy you without even making you a martyr.
The more irritating part of this is that this is proof that Microsoft has monopoly power.
Any software company in a competitive environment would bend over backward to give paying customers what they want. Microsoft's monopoly position allows them to say "Nope, you have to buy our new product." If there were an actual competitive environment, customers would say screw you, I'll use someone else's product.
Now, this power over the market has also allowed Microsoft and the MAFIAAS to push anti-consumer nonsense that never would have been possible in a truly competitive.
Does anyone remember software "dongles" back in the 80s? Companies could not sell software with a dongle. People didn't want it. It was something the treated paying customers like criminals. We now have the same crap in DVDs, HD televisions, HDMI, and more. People don't want it, but the huge multinational corporations have conspired to push this crap on us. In the old days, the FCC would have put a stop to it, but like other previously protective regulatory agencies, the FCC has become a tool for the industries.
Copyright USED to be for the common good of society, but now it is a way to control and justify all sorts of horrible affronts to freedom. Just think, once paper is no longer used and ISPs regularly filter all content, how will we keep accurate records? If trying to use any old newspaper report for any purpose is a copyright violation with a fine of 1.2 million dollars, how to we keep track of history? I know you are saying "fair use," but how long can it last under the onslaught?
Now, can the sheeple wrest control from the corporations?
I'm sorry, I just can't believe that 5 under sea cables have been cut in so short of a time and not have it been deliberate. OK, it is possible that these have all been accidents, but who are we kidding? Seriously.
Now, who has the most to gain from this? I would assume that these cables have already been monitored by the US, so I doubt it is the U.S.A inserting monitoring systems. Not, mind you, that I would put it past us, but I believe that they probably already had this capability. Also, I think they would be able to do it without being so blatant.
Could it be Iranian agents purposefully cutting the internet to sever information to and from the country? Could it be the US cutting the cables, not to insert monitoring, but to actually reduce information flow? Is there a common denominator we are over looking? Is Kuwait affected? Oman? Qatar? UAE?
If we assume it is not an accident, there must be a purpose. Is it an anti-cyber-terrorism preemptive action? It certainly an interesting set of events.
I know this goes against the prevailing wisdom that they are all crooks, and they probably are, but one of these idiots will be the president. I'm voting for Obama, here's why:
I liked president Clinton. I thought he was a "good" president. He did a good job in the office. 8 years of relative peace is a good thing. Did he have scandals? Yes, but nothing like Nixon or the shrub. Was he perfectly squeeky clean? No, of course not. He had his crap. But I honestly felt like he took the job seriously. I know that may sound naive, but everyone is corrupt at some level, we have to expect that, but we should also expect that people will do the job, otherwise, what's the point at all?
Hillary, I used to like her, but over the years, I think we've seen an idealistic liberal being corrupted to a power hungry cynical power broker. I think the same goes for Bill as well. I'm kind of sad that The clintons have really diminished themselves in this race.
I liked Biden and Dodd, but neither of them has an ounce of Charisma. Edwards, I liked despite the used-car-salesmen presentation. I Liked what he was saying. If only he didn't sound like he was trying to sell me an old Buick.
So, that leaves Obama. I don't think he can do any worse than the shrub or any of the other candidates, so, via con dios!
I wonder what would happen if MS did buy Y!, and tried to migrate to MS systems, and 90% of the engineers (having previously arranged things) simply said, "No." MS couldn't really fire them all without really screwing things up.
Even if they did not say "no," but instead worked less enthusiastically, which is quite understandable if you are forced to work on Windows coming from a BSD background.
It will be a lot of work. Yahoo uses a lot of PHP and perl, and while these work on windows, they are certainly not optimized for it. Yahoo has been working on reducing its server load to cut operational costs and power usage. Moving to Windows will certainly increase costs and make the Yahoo "product" much less profitable.
I have been offer a job at Microsoft several times, looking back maybe I should have taken it for a few years for the cash, but no, I don't work there.
OK, Yahoo isn't a small company. This isn't like other acquisitions MS has made. This is more like a Compaq buying DEC. Think about it, Yahoo is sort of losing against Google. So Microsoft is buying a faltering competitor to (a) merge income and (2) reduce the competition by one player.
That makes the game Microsoft vs Google.
Now, can Microsoft really take on Yahoo without destroying it? Will it be like when Compaq bought DEC? Or will it work? Yahoo is all FreeBSD, the engineers there HATE and laugh at Microsoft and its products. I know for a fact that moral will sink and people will leave Yahoo.
There is something different going on here. FAST, Fast Search and Transfer, previous owners of www.alltheweb.com, a search engine competitor to google in the late 1990s split from its search engine business which it sold to overture, which was bought by Yahoo. Microsoft is currently in the process of buying FAST, and next on the agenda is Yahoo. Bringing back together, the two halves of the old company.
It may be a coincidence, but it is curious. Why would Microsoft buy technology that it arguably already has or could build cheaper? What is it they are out to get? Are there patents or other "intellectual property" owned collectively by the two parts of FAST that they can use to sue Google?
Also, Yahoo is a HUGE open source user/contributor. A purchase by Microsoft will almost certainly reduce the number and amount of contribution to the open source environment.
Lastlt, isn't this *exactly* what the Sherman act was designed to prevent?
I recall Tom Lehrer's "Plagiarize" more that 40 years ago
Plagiarize, Let no one else's work evade your eyes, Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, So don't shade your eyes, But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure always to call it please, "research".
has anyone ever told you that you are a fucking moron, because you are indeed a fucking moron.
You may call me a moron if you like, but under what grounds? My perspective of history and current events? If so, let's discuss it, compare and contrast our perspectives and see where we differ.
But, no, you don't want to engage in an intellectual discussion about our differences or even post a reasonable argument where I may be wrong vs where you are right, you'd rather use ad hominem. I guess this is because you can't form a rational argument. So, who's the moron?
In case you forgot, most of that began under Clinton and a Democratic Congress. In case YOU forgot, we had a republican controlled congress from 1996 to 2006, and even now the republicans still have enough control to stop legislation.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't it perfectly clear that the actual freedom that the internet provides is a problem for the government and corporations? Ever since they realized that people started to understand that freedom, they have been trying to shut it down. The problem is that the "democratic" leaders can't say, "Oops, our mistake, we don't really want you people communicating."
The government can't do that right away, so it allows corporations to make the case that "We The People" are a problem to THEIR bottom line and thus "We The People" MUST be stopped for the sake of international copyright treaties and laws. (Cry for the artists!)
This is all so fishy. It is too convenient. We have western governments trying to spy, snoop, eves drop, detain, and torture and make it legal to do so. There are private corporations who have a vested interest in locking down all forms of media and communications, in the name of copyright and royalties. We have ISPs who, while their charter forbids their inference, offer to filter content.
Is it me, or is it obvious, it is like one big huge multiheaded monster telling us to do what we are told. Shut up, work harder, buy more stuff.
It has to be stopped!
Remember, even paranoids have enemies. Ridiculing an idea is much easier than disputing it.
The cost of the laptop, while not exactly trivial, certainly manageable and replaceable. You must keep all your data from the government because they'll hang you with it if they want to. Remember this quote:
Cardinal Richelieu: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him"
If they have your data, they will destroy you.
The costs in being charged as a terrorist, becoming an "enemy combatant," and/or losing all your data is by far, much much, higher.
The U.S.A. tortures its prisoners and the attorney general won't even rule out torture of American citizens. Of course, these criminals won't call it torture, they'll call it "waterbording" or something else. They'll use a name that implies nothing about the methods and argue that it is not torture. They use the cloud of dispute over the definition of torture to continue to use methods that were used by the Spanish Inquisition.
It makes me sick.
This is the SECOND time I've posted this advice:
Use Linux
Use and encrytped drive.
Have a "functional" environment that is unencrypted that has nothing more challenging than an email about how you think U.S. government is doing everything right and how the shrub is gods ear piece.
We need to do what the French did in WWII. When the Nazi's ask for your papers, make sure you show them nice pleasant things. Transmit everything back and forth over the internet (encrypted locally).
The Nazi movement, or The Nazis began to take over the USA starting with Roy Cohn and Senator McCarthy in the '50s, through Nixon, Reagan, Bush I/II.
Can ANYONE dispute that this description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism
Does not describe what is becoming of the U.S.A, the U.K. and a lesser extent the rest of Europe?
The irony is that while Hitler and his armies were defeated in WWII, the power brokers and players that created him live on in power.
There are a lot of "energies" around us. A simple AM crystal radio circuit can generate power from existing electromagnetic fields. Solar batteries generate power from light. I would not be surprised if an electromechanical process were to be discovered that generated power seemingly for free. People have been looking for it for centuries and while it is sort of mythical unicorn of physics. The earth is a magnet, the moon has a magnetic field, who knows? We derive power from wind, water, light, volcanic energy, etc.
Take, for instance, the sterling engine, this device creates rotational energy out of a mere differential of temperature. I don't see how it would be impossible to harness the varying magnetic fields around us in some way. Now is there enough to make it worth while? That is the interesting question.
I think it is too easy to dismiss these things, because, well, though the law of thermodynamics remains intact, there is always the possibility of harnessing untapped energies.
All that being said, I'm always skeptical and there is a difference between a nice parlor trick and a science.
"When you think that half the people you meet are below average intelligence."
haha, well since you don't understand averages, clearly you are on the low side of things.
Perhaps you don't understand what an "average" is. It is a number created by the sum of entries divided by number of entries. There need not ever be an actual entry that equals the average. Of course we have to assume that the curve is fairly symmetrical.
Aside from the obvious assumptions, it was supposed to be a representative comment not a mathematical theory.
Please stop opening your mouth.
Apparently you need to open your mouth to type? I do not suffer from that disability.
"We Linux users..."
there is your problem, everything is Us and Them in all your posts. The world is gray, no black and white.
I agree the world is a very gray place, but it is absurd to assume that there are no black and white issues.
Maybe you only use Linux because that's what you are comfortable with?
Maybe you don't know enough to say anything meaningful
Seriously, RMS is outspoken enough for others to put the Free Software Movement into practice. Linus has done just as much for GNU by managing an open source project that attracted the attention of the computing powerhouses, as RMS has done by dueling windmills. Linus is the Yin, to RMS's Yang. Without a concrete demonstration of a successful open source project, RMS would be nothing more than an obscure footnote in MIT history. Without RMS' vision and passion about GNU, Linus' project would be just another free implementation of a unix like operating system.
I would argue that the BSD kernel, which was free in 1992, would have been used instead of Linus' kernel. In fact, one could say that a GNU system based on a unencumbered BSD kernel in 1992 would have been superior to Linux in 1992.
Before anyone gets too offended, RMS started GNU in 1983 and GNU really didn't become a "household word" until people had a product to identify with it. Evidently a nice editor, compiler, debugger, and some unix command replacements weren't enough. Lucky for us, Linus chose to license his work as GPL.
It is hard to give historical commentary without offending people. Yes, Linus was a good guy and he GPL's his kernel. It was, however, a right place at the right time sort of deal. If it were not for AT&T making BSD poison, Linux would have had no reason for anyone to use it. If Tannenbaum was a little more open with *HIS* MINIX system people would have used it instead.
Any viable that came along would have worked. The Linux kernel of today has so very little in common with the original that it is hard to even track the similarities. In the mean time, Linus has done a very good job at managing and contributing to the Linux kernel and he should be recognized for that.
I think a good way to describe what I'm doing would be to say that I don't ask for everything that I want, because I wouldn't get much of it at all if I did. This does not mean that I've compromised any ideals.
Like I said in an earlier response, I respect your contributions and believe that you are probably an honorable guy. Its obvious you are passionate and believe you are doing what you are doing for noble reasons. I don't think I'm arguing that.
I think you have put the objective before the means and have thus harmed the objective.
I think the major difference in objectives between Open Source and Free Software evangelists is that the Free Software folks say that proprietary software does not have a right to exist. Unfortunately, I can't say that and win the argument where it's important to win. You have to sound fair to everybody to win with politicians, if you ask to disenfranchise someone else you generally won't get very far.
Ahh, so you admit, you are not bound by "free software," but promote "open source" which is not necessarily free. You created a new movement because the previous movement was to strict for you. You benefit off the free software movement but moderate or obfuscate its objectives. You should make that clear in your articles and posts.
Ideals are a funny thing, they are never 100% applicable as there are always exceptions. The same goes with free software. That being said, it is often against one's objective to compromise their ideals too readily. I think the "Open Source" movement is too readily compromising and clouds the real and present dangers associated with non-free software.
As a primarily Linux user, I have to acknowledge what RMS has done for the free software movement and I do have some admiration for a man who is obviously driven by his beliefs and not by the accumulation of wealth.
Well, don't saint him just yet, he does all right.
But the fact is that his views that all software needs to be free are at the opposite end of, but as extreme as, Microsoft's (and other commercial vendors') views that all software needs to be profitable.
He doesn't say that "all software," he merely states that proprietary software should not be required and that you give up a lot when you do purchase proprietary software.
That means, in my view, that there is room for both commercial and free software to work side-by-side and that the main problem with this situation today is simply that far too many standards are closed. Force all commercial vendors to make all of their standards open and then, potentially, any free operating system or application can integrate easily with any commercial one.
I'm not sure how this fits in the open source vs free software debate.
In my view, I have far more admiration for Linus Torvalds than I do for RMS - at least Linus pretty much refuses to get involved in all the political arguing and just seems to get on and make decisions about what is ***TECHNICALLY*** the best thing to do with Linux.
And this is one thing that I have a problem with Linus about. Those who ignore politics will be done in by politics.
Generally speaking, Open Source folks have the same goal as the Free Software community, but differ in their preferred means.
The Open Source community has a lot of differences with the free software community. And while the differences may be subtle, they are crucial.
I'm out to help people understand Free Software with a gentle introduction. I tried to make that clear in the article.
I'm sorry, and while I greatly respect your individual contributions and I think you're probably a pretty honorable guy, history has shown repeatedly that expedience in the form of subjugating ideals for gain is always a long term error.
I don't think the the "Open Source" movement has done anything constructive. The whole ESR Cathedral blather is an embarrassment, in most professional circles it is an hysterical joke. "Open Source" does not imply freedom of any kind, and the very words you have used are so meaningless they have been co opted by those with which the free software movement would compete.
The success that Linux and free software has had has been for mostly economic reasons, I will grant you, but the freedom is a drug that IT shops love once they have a taste.
No body cares about "Open Source," developers care about free (as in freedom which includes source) software and IT cares about TCO. Open Source is a distraction, and even worse, be it intentional or not, the open source movement confuses the public about the differences between "Open Source" and "Free (as in freedom) Software." Your own article that you reference plays up a lot about being aligned with the free software movement, but the "Open Source" movement is NOT the free software movement as they have very different objectives, and I find it pretty disingenuous to say the least.
I'm sorry but the "Open Source" movement is a bogus attempt to water down the original purpose of GNU and the Free Software movement.
I've been in the industry for about 25 years and RMS was a visionary. While we we focused on software and what it could do and how to do it, he also focused on the dangers that our own creativity would bring to us and how to protect us from it.
Make no mistake, RIAA, MPIAA, SCO, et. al. are *ALL* apparitions RMS saw over a decade or so ago. The Open Source movement is nothing more than a selfish group of little people with a narrow scope and no plan. RMS has had a plan all along, and while he may seem to be an extremist and might not have been right 100% of the time, in retrospect, he has been right pretty darn close and his extremism seems less and less unwarranted over time.
The truth is both a blessing and a curse. It takes a lot of work to realize the truth and most people will not challenge themselves. Once you learn the truth, however, you are cursed with trying to explain it to others.
Encrypt everything. Send it back and forth to your home across the internet already encrypted. When the border guards ask you for your papers, present the Nazi pigs a nice clean system.
Face it guys, we have to study how the french did it in WWII and update it for the 21st century. The Nazi party didn't die, it took hold in the U.S.A. and has been slowly asserting itself.
We have to present evidence anonymously because even though we may have freedom of speech, we have to watch out for trade secrets, copyright infringement, and the lawyers. Blow the whistle and lose your home and livelihood, no jail time, nope, just homelessness and poverty. So, they can destroy you without even making you a martyr.
The more irritating part of this is that this is proof that Microsoft has monopoly power.
Any software company in a competitive environment would bend over backward to give paying customers what they want. Microsoft's monopoly position allows them to say "Nope, you have to buy our new product." If there were an actual competitive environment, customers would say screw you, I'll use someone else's product.
Now, this power over the market has also allowed Microsoft and the MAFIAAS to push anti-consumer nonsense that never would have been possible in a truly competitive.
Does anyone remember software "dongles" back in the 80s? Companies could not sell software with a dongle. People didn't want it. It was something the treated paying customers like criminals. We now have the same crap in DVDs, HD televisions, HDMI, and more. People don't want it, but the huge multinational corporations have conspired to push this crap on us. In the old days, the FCC would have put a stop to it, but like other previously protective regulatory agencies, the FCC has become a tool for the industries.
Copyright USED to be for the common good of society, but now it is a way to control and justify all sorts of horrible affronts to freedom. Just think, once paper is no longer used and ISPs regularly filter all content, how will we keep accurate records? If trying to use any old newspaper report for any purpose is a copyright violation with a fine of 1.2 million dollars, how to we keep track of history? I know you are saying "fair use," but how long can it last under the onslaught?
Now, can the sheeple wrest control from the corporations?
I'm sorry, I just can't believe that 5 under sea cables have been cut in so short of a time and not have it been deliberate. OK, it is possible that these have all been accidents, but who are we kidding? Seriously.
Now, who has the most to gain from this? I would assume that these cables have already been monitored by the US, so I doubt it is the U.S.A inserting monitoring systems. Not, mind you, that I would put it past us, but I believe that they probably already had this capability. Also, I think they would be able to do it without being so blatant.
Could it be Iranian agents purposefully cutting the internet to sever information to and from the country? Could it be the US cutting the cables, not to insert monitoring, but to actually reduce information flow? Is there a common denominator we are over looking? Is Kuwait affected? Oman? Qatar? UAE?
If we assume it is not an accident, there must be a purpose. Is it an anti-cyber-terrorism preemptive action? It certainly an interesting set of events.
I know this goes against the prevailing wisdom that they are all crooks, and they probably are, but one of these idiots will be the president. I'm voting for Obama, here's why:
I liked president Clinton. I thought he was a "good" president. He did a good job in the office. 8 years of relative peace is a good thing. Did he have scandals? Yes, but nothing like Nixon or the shrub. Was he perfectly squeeky clean? No, of course not. He had his crap. But I honestly felt like he took the job seriously. I know that may sound naive, but everyone is corrupt at some level, we have to expect that, but we should also expect that people will do the job, otherwise, what's the point at all?
Hillary, I used to like her, but over the years, I think we've seen an idealistic liberal being corrupted to a power hungry cynical power broker. I think the same goes for Bill as well. I'm kind of sad that The clintons have really diminished themselves in this race.
I liked Biden and Dodd, but neither of them has an ounce of Charisma. Edwards, I liked despite the used-car-salesmen presentation. I Liked what he was saying. If only he didn't sound like he was trying to sell me an old Buick.
So, that leaves Obama. I don't think he can do any worse than the shrub or any of the other candidates, so, via con dios!
I wonder what would happen if MS did buy Y!, and tried to migrate to MS systems, and 90% of the engineers (having previously arranged things) simply said, "No." MS couldn't really fire them all without really screwing things up.
Even if they did not say "no," but instead worked less enthusiastically, which is quite understandable if you are forced to work on Windows coming from a BSD background.
It will be a lot of work. Yahoo uses a lot of PHP and perl, and while these work on windows, they are certainly not optimized for it. Yahoo has been working on reducing its server load to cut operational costs and power usage. Moving to Windows will certainly increase costs and make the Yahoo "product" much less profitable.
morale vs moral doh! Stupid spell checker didn't know what I meant! Its not my fault!
because there will be massive(!) layoffs as Microsoft eliminates duplicated jobs
I mean in addition to those jobs. The key players at Yahoo, whom Microsoft would want to keep, will leave.
You wouldn't happen to work there by any chance?
I have been offer a job at Microsoft several times, looking back maybe I should have taken it for a few years for the cash, but no, I don't work there.
OK, Yahoo isn't a small company. This isn't like other acquisitions MS has made. This is more like a Compaq buying DEC. Think about it, Yahoo is sort of losing against Google. So Microsoft is buying a faltering competitor to (a) merge income and (2) reduce the competition by one player.
That makes the game Microsoft vs Google.
Now, can Microsoft really take on Yahoo without destroying it? Will it be like when Compaq bought DEC? Or will it work? Yahoo is all FreeBSD, the engineers there HATE and laugh at Microsoft and its products. I know for a fact that moral will sink and people will leave Yahoo.
There is something different going on here. FAST, Fast Search and Transfer, previous owners of www.alltheweb.com, a search engine competitor to google in the late 1990s split from its search engine business which it sold to overture, which was bought by Yahoo. Microsoft is currently in the process of buying FAST, and next on the agenda is Yahoo. Bringing back together, the two halves of the old company.
It may be a coincidence, but it is curious. Why would Microsoft buy technology that it arguably already has or could build cheaper? What is it they are out to get? Are there patents or other "intellectual property" owned collectively by the two parts of FAST that they can use to sue Google?
Also, Yahoo is a HUGE open source user/contributor. A purchase by Microsoft will almost certainly reduce the number and amount of contribution to the open source environment.
Lastlt, isn't this *exactly* what the Sherman act was designed to prevent?
I recall Tom Lehrer's "Plagiarize" more that 40 years ago
Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".
has anyone ever told you that you are a fucking moron, because you are indeed a fucking moron.
You may call me a moron if you like, but under what grounds? My perspective of history and current events? If so, let's discuss it, compare and contrast our perspectives and see where we differ.
But, no, you don't want to engage in an intellectual discussion about our differences or even post a reasonable argument where I may be wrong vs where you are right, you'd rather use ad hominem. I guess this is because you can't form a rational argument. So, who's the moron?
In case you forgot, most of that began under Clinton and a Democratic Congress.
In case YOU forgot, we had a republican controlled congress from 1996 to 2006, and even now the republicans still have enough control to stop legislation.