Thank you for replying. But I still don't know if I get your point, then or now.
What I'm saying is, for those child laborers, the term "local/regional labor market" is an oxymoron. I realize you're being deliberate in pointing out that it's local. But that's the whole problem.
The labor market is rigged. In this case, by former Maoist communists. Those working conditions are a product of centralized control.
It wasn't my idea to define "free market" in global terms, but since we now do, it means we have a free market in goods, but not in labor. Labor can't pick among the world's factories. Or the world's sets of rules. These kids don't have a democracy. For practical purposes, they can't even leave.
Thus, your statement makes no sense. Calling their choice of child-labor factories a "local regional labor market" is like calling the prison's rec room a "local regional leisure activity market."
That sounds like a rational argument based in fundamental economic principles.
But here's where that argument breaks down.
There is no labor market.
The goods can cross borders. The laborers are stuck where they are. Why else do you think those teenagers are "willing" to "choose" this life?
To make it crystal clear: it is only because men with guns will stop them from making most of the choices they would prefer.
Imagine if those children had the same freedom to come to the US or EU that their plastic products do, instead of being essentially imprisoned. There would be massive labor shortages in areas with oppressive regimes and backwards social and economic policies.
This is the genius of the "free trade" meme. It is no more "free" than Fox News is "fair and balanced." Manufacturers can shop the laws of the world for the most oppressive governments and the worst labor conditions imaginable. Of course they must do this, to lower their costs and be competitive. You cannot even blame Microsoft or HP for this - they are only doing what they must, based on the particular rules we have in place.
So, the governments of the world compete in a race to the bottom. Their laborers are kept safely under control by national borders, immigration policy, and ultimately, xenophobia.
I don't know why we have a nostalgic love of 19th century neo-feudal manufacturing economies - they were terrible for everyone, even the rich. But apparently that's the new hotness.
This is actually a very interesting issue. I would argue that, just as the GPL actually increases software freedom by imposing some limited rules on distribution, democracy is very tightly bound to freedom, by virtue of being the best principle (or set of principles) thus far devised to increase it.
OK, you found another source with a different definition. This is a reputable way to argue and I appreciate it.
Of course, you're still wrong. You don't think democracy is primarily about equality and freedom? You want to argue otherwise? You are on thin rhetorical ice.
You think that statement is dubious? It wasn't made up by an anonymous internet user. Here's the source for that statement used in wikipedia. It is Aristotle.
Is there a government in open source? Yes. Open source operates under the governments of the societies we live in. Most practitioners are operating under a common set of criminal and civil laws that set the backdrop for how open source software can work.
"absence or denial of any authority or established order b : absence of order:" - In other words, Anarchy is not GPL compatible. Thanks very much. You proved my point even more strongly than I did.
You are free to make up new definitions for words, I guess, but that is all you are doing at this point.
I think your confusion may be coming from how the democracies you are familiar with are designed. Yes, the USA or France, etc. may have a particular set of rules, but democracy does not equal centralized control, or secret ballots, or an elaborate system. Three people on an island can have a democracy even if they do not have a scrap of paper, any running water, or a toilet.
The fact is, in open source, and unlike in anarchy, we are all free and all equal. Mark Shuttleworth is no more a totalitarian open source developer than you would be a totalitarian homeowner, for telling me I cannot sleep over at your house tonight.
Democracy is not defined in a standard way. The things common to all definitions are equality and freedom.
Anarchy is undemocratic, because for practical purposes, in an anarchic state, the strong rule the weak. For example, if I don't like Shuttleworth's tree, in anarchy, I can shoot him, unless he shoots me first.
Meanwhile, in the modern world, an open source project is utterly democratic, because everyone gets one voice, and no one can suppress it.
In France, Marie Antoinette sometimes entertained visitors to her court who had grievances against her sovereign rule. I imagine even she occasionally agreed with someone's grievance and did what they asked.
France was still not a democracy until after the revolution.
Because her indulgence was optional. Anecdotes like this are worse than meaningless. They have the potential to be confusing.
No. Anarchy is undemocratic, because for practical purposes, in an anarchic state, the strong rule the weak.
In the modern world, an open source project is utterly democratic, because everyone gets one voice, and no one can suppress it.
You own your source tree the same way you own your home or Taco owns this website. There is nothing the least bit undemocratic about being able to have your own code and your own opinion.
But it is only with open source that you can even copy someone else's code and do it your own way. No one can stop you from doing it your way, nor can you stop anyone else from doing it theirs. Hence, not anarchy, or even close.
You could put it that way. The point is this, the article, starting with its headline, was so utterly wrong versus the facts, that it was pathetic.
Open source is about as undemocratic as Canada's beaches are tropical.
The "free market" is not even as democratic as the "free press" or "open source," because we may have many dollars or few, but we each have only one voice. One pair of hands.
It certainly is. You may organize your own tree however you like. You can start a giant company and have a big office and spend a billion dollars on it if you want. Rule it with an iron fist. It doesn't change the fact that the smallest child can still fork your code and do it their own way.
Your giant company cannot tell that child what to do. Nor can the child tell the company what to do.
Websites are also a democratic medium, since we can all participate equally. Each of us brings just our own voice.
If we do not like Taco's story, does that mean the web is not a democracy? But no one says things like this, because they are absurd.
Obviously the web is utterly democratic, but feel free to split that hair and make up another name for what it actually is.
Each of us may have our own source tree. If we can convince others to come join us in it, isn't that fun. Those who come and join you are always there voluntarily, either because they feel like it, or you are payiong them to be there. And maybe no one feels like it. And maybe you don't feel like paying anyone. Maybe you are alone there. Maybe you didn't bother to make your tree at all. But you have that right to, at any moment. And this is utterly democratic, and it is at the heart of why open source exists. In fact, this is why it works so much better.
Shuttleworth has a very big, popular tree. He pays many participants and many others join him for free. He gets to make the decisions in his own tree, because it's his. He can't tell anyone else what to do in theirs.
Now if it's a Bill Gates product, and you do not like where those buttons got moved to, or i.e. you have a critical bug derailing years of your work, or whatever your issue may be, you will be ignored, or if you are very lucky, someone may even explicitly take a moment to personally tell you, "fuck off, peon." Your only real option is not to be so foolish as to use a Bill Gates product again in the future.
But in open source, if you so choose, you, or anyone, from the youngest child to Bill Gates himself, can fork Shuttleworth's tree, right then and there. Then you can have it your way. And if you are right, and people care, then people will join you and leave Shuttleworth out in the cold. It's happened many times before. And if not, then maybe your idea just wasn't that great, or that important, after all. Happens all the time. But the result, as with any democracy, is that leadership is largely consensual and generally merit-driven.
(All those who have never lived under a monarch, dictator, or cabal, please identify yourselves now with cynical comments about your democratic government.)
So I reiterate, as stories go, this is pure -1 Troll. IT World and Proffitt look like an 8 year old trying to say something "controvertial" about global warming by noting that it's snowing outside. I'm a bit sad that Taco rewarded them by sending them some traffic.
I agree with you, except that progressivism is the root of the problem, or more precisely the type of people who are attracted to the power necessary to run a proper progressive society.
From my point of view, greed and corruption are part of the human condition, and the choice is between an attempt at a transparent and democratic government, or the various ways wealth and power inevitably accumulate. Strip off the propaganda, and a corporatist oligarchy, whether American or Chinese-style, or a Russian "communist" monarchy, are the same in the essentials: a small group, or even one individual, controls everything, accountable to no one.
This is our classic recipe for human misery.
You could argue the whole point of enlightenment philosophy was a rejection of this. Progressivism is about accountability and diffusion of power and authority. It doesn't stop men from dreaming of becoming king - only keeps them in check by constant vigilance. The PR agencies of the would-be kings make every little flaw and failing of a progressive, democratic government - of which there are many - out to be worse than the alternatives - which they are not.
This PR can lead to a belief by some that collective action (ala democratic governments) is essentially impossible - and that no government can ever represent its people. I think this may be central to libertarianism?
There is a reason that all the world's most sought after passports are of progressive or even socialist nations. Not only was this approach more morally sound, but those who succeeded at creating more progressive societies achieved unprecedented wealth - not just for their average citizens, but for their elites. Modern economies are ~70% consumer spending. But this can only happen when there is some redistributive mechanism that counters the natural (and deliberate) accumulation of all possible wealth and power into the hands of those already wealthy and powerful enough to seek it.
Not every redistributive mechanism is automatically evil, as is the fad to say these days. But at least libertarians have the balls to be logically consistent about this argument, which I respect. Whereas most conservatives are too afraid to follow this to its conclusion and openly advocate for shutting down libraries, schools, state universities, museums, parks, hospitals, the FDA, the EPA, and so forth.
I have not repeated anything of the sort.
And I quote: "The Chinese system is the progressive dream, not the conservative dream."
But I won't quibble if you say I have somehow misunderstood you.
I think we can get caught in a trap between progressive ideology and democratic politicians, which I agree could not be more different.
Even so, I prefer my freedom's chances under modern democrats rather than republicans. Yes, this is deciding whether to be eaten by the bear or the snake, but the liberals still have a constitutional tradition - there is nothing compatible with either the founding principles of the nation, or its constitution, by trying to make America a Christian nation, with all that that implies.
Since we're off and running with generalizations, I honestly do have great respect for libertarianism, even if I don't always find myself persuaded by it. I don't know that you can have a working society without the libertarian impulse: the reality check on any attempt to build human agency where one has power over others.
If you believe laissez faire capitalism is a good recipe for happiness, at least this is something about which we can have a rational discussion. We could, for instance, start with comparisons of societies throughout history that did, or didn't, educate their children by government spending.
China is essentially a neo-feudal oligarchy. They dress it up with communist rhetoric, because that's part of how you control the population. It's just an upgrade on the empire's PR. It is about as progressive as I am a three headed alien.
Leninist Russia, for another example: the fact that Lenin called it Marxism or communism rather a monarchy was about on a par with the Nazi's murdering millions of Germans for the good of the German people. Doublethink is just one of the ingredients in that type of ideology.
And now you have repeated one of the conservative troll's many lines about progressives - likening the enlightenment thinking of the founding fathers, about the freedom, equality and dignity of all men - and women - to the Chinese. This is just about exactly opposite from the truth. And that is the point - it is so wrong as to be confusing, even when (easily) argued against, among those not trained in rational argument.
A brief study of history makes all this clear - but that's the point of rewriting the history books, isn't it?
Good job on it - you'll have lots more people who believe radical conservative falsehoods in a generation, without having to home-school them all. You just won't have the most precious gift we can pass down to our children - truth about the past, that they can use to make a better life for themselves. I would be careful about taking too much satisfaction in it, though. Believe me, the spoils of the conservative victory over history are not for you.
What I probably did not make clear is that I hate the liberals more than the conservatives in this.
The liberal elites never even dreamed of what the conservatives are doing to school textbooks.
Yes, I am aware that the conservative talking point is that they are just "correcting liberal bias" in Texas.
Propaganda? Rewriting history? Unconstitutional restrictions on speech? Democratic party management is crooked, contemptible, and after many years in power, empty. Most liberal elites just don't have strong enough feelings about their ideology to motivate these kinds of behaviors. With more complete control over the government that either Bush ever dreamed of, they have even failed at achieving even the stupidest version of their least interesting dream - healthcare reform! (This remains true even if they pass that pathetic bill so discussed lately in the news.) Are these the people to hold up to the conservatives as rivals?
I think if you did, you do the conservatives a grave injustice.:)
Now that the conservatives are taking this step, the liberal elites still can't even believe it. Of the few that even grasp the significance of what's happening, most would rather flee than make a stand. I hope Canada and the remainder of the first world are as tepid towards refugees as I expect they will be. Liberal, Enlightenment America was relatively solitary in understanding the value in cultural diversity, egalitarianism, and immigration. It was they who said, "Give me your poor, your tired." When the last remnants of the liberals try to flee in earnest, they will discover this is one of the many unique things about America they should have stood to fight for.
This is why the conservatives will dominate this country.
And I imagine that dominance will continue for far long after they destroy it. Have no illusions. The Chinese have been under the bootheel for 60 years. This is the conservative dream: 19th century economics and the return of the de-facto class system, without the troubling problems of an informed public choosing to reject it. They have seen how it is done. They have been won over. And they are importing it.
Frankly I'm surprised the politicization of classroom materials hasn't been more flagrant and widespread. I'm also wondering why there isn't more of a flip-flop between liberal and conservative influence on school curriculums as voting blocks swing between conservatives and liberals?
The ping pong of history books that was dramatized in 1984 was also a reality as power shifted and people and principles went in and out of favor in Chinese and Russian totalitarian states. I imagine now we will see it here.
Did we think we were going to make China more democratic? We are the tail and they are the dog. We are becoming more like them every day. The high castes of the conservative party long for it. They see the setup of China's ruling class - the iron grip on history - the apparently successful stifling of dissent - and salivate.
If Thomas Jefferson can be "deemphasized" in American History and the separation of church and state can be erased from the history books, there is no longer any break on this. Freedom of ("liberal") speech is not far behind. Make no mistake, this is a bellweather for how much further our society can fall. It also suggests the way America could balkanize, as different regions of the country no longer share a common history.
That's another great question. I have the idea that it was both. For many I'm sure survival was a 24 hour a day job. For others, human intelligence probably opened up staggeringly easy shortcuts to calories, to which the natural world would take many years, or decades, or centures etc. to adapt.
No. I'm ruminating about what it was like for an intelligent person's fiddling with ink or clay carving to take on some of the characteristics of writing. How it happened, how it looked, whether it was a solitary development, and if so, how often it happened?
Yes, that's the question I was getting at. You could be exactly right. Although I could just as easily imagine a solitary memory aid to a gifted individual growing in lonely complexity. Perhaps again and again - before the aggregation of people brought such folks into contact with each other, and their ideas began to intermingle. Then again, the need for this kind of memory aid is supposed to be associated with the growth of agriculture and the consequent increase in the complexity of human society. Perhaps more sophisticated writing and more sophisticated writers meeting each other followed quickly.
The more canonical record postulated by professional archaeologists has us going from clay tokens to tokens with markings - to markings - made on the clay tokens - now tablets. But of course, we can only infer from what evidence survives. It seems unreasonable to imagine we have a very meaningful part of the physical evidence.
I wish in articles like these they presented more of the source images, and in higher resolution. The small sample they provide is beautiful, but to the layman appears as a kind of meandering, simple decoration. Of course the claims are limited: communication via graphic art is distinct from communication via modern written languages.
It's interesting to imagine the first lonely human writers at the dawn of written language - how many wrote things only they themselves could understand, before coincidence formed the first community of proto-literate people? How much of this early writing was just the smooth flow of art - abstract or representational - into more concrete meanings relevant to the every day lives even of the illterate?
Funnily enough I was deliberate in saying there is no legal argument. You're right in one sense. My way of looking at it assumes that a legal argument must also be a rational argument. Which you can take as a joke, or not, at your discretion.:)
If we must pay Microsoft to use Linux, then we must also pay thousands of other patent holders to use Linux. Every Microsoft product also infringes innumerable patents, and that includes patents held by Linux developers. So Microsoft users must also pay Linux developers for using Windows, Office, and so forth. But this barely begins to describe Microsoft's position. Because every piece of software infringes, every software developer and user is a potential shakedown victim. Every patent holder is a winner. The need for lawyers, judges, and patent lawsuits is effectively infinite. This is probably why software patents were snuck into the patent mandate in the first place - by lawyers, judges, and USPTO bureaucracy, without explicit legislative action.
If this kind of thinking passes as a "legal argument," this cannot be good news to those in the business of law - or for any rational human being for that matter.:)
Ah... it's certainly a fair point that Amazon has been the poster child for playing dirty with patents, which makes their getting worked by MS all the sweeter. But...
Microsoft has sued over Linux. Just because they use tricks to obscure their brand name when doing it doesn't mean they aren't known to be behind SCO.
Every piece of software ever written infringes patents. No one can determine what patents their work infringes - not even Microsoft. Even if the baby jesus came down from heaven and told you exactly which 20,000 patents you infringe, you are screwed again tomorrow, when another 1,000 are filed.
If this system sounds retarded, that's because it is. This may have something to do with why every other civilized country rejects the idea that patents can apply to software.
If there is no assertion that Linux infringes patents, then the Novell deal has no reason to exist, end of story.
MS is playing this game because until we get off our asses and fix this broken system, it can be used to create FUD (it's unlikely to be directly profitable), and exert short or long term negative effects on Linux marketshare, and they think they will pick up some of the pieces.
It does not matter if the threat is implied or explicit. It does not matter if customers or Novell are the ones "worried." It does not matter if the deal is broad or narrow.
The bottom line is that it's the most egregious insult imaginable for Microsoft to imply that they should be compensated by people who use Linux, in any way, for any reason. It's a staggering affront. There is no conceivable moral or legal reasoning that could justify it.
This suggests Microsoft's anti-Linux patent strategy is alive and well.
For those just getting up to speed:
Microsoft doesn't feel like competing fairly against open source products. So it attempts to use dubious legal trickery instead.
This started with SCO - a failed Unix company that took Microsoft investment in exchange for executing a legal attack on Linux vendors and users (based on copyright and licensing issues). The claim: that Linux infringed on their intellectual property rights. Their conduct in the case was truly awful (making the claim but resisting an explanation about what infringed; trying to shake down any and every Linux owner). Latest status here:
This was only one aspect of the FUD campaign. Patents were another. Microsoft struck a patent deal with struggling Novel, and it feels very similar to what we see here. The implication: Novel agrees its use of Linux somehow infringed on Microsoft's patents, and that it (and by extension everyone else) must pay Microsoft to use Linux.
Now we have Amazon making a deal. They have far fewer reasons on the surface, but I imagine we'll find out why at some point, and it probably has something to do with a much stronger, non-Linux-related, perhaps non-software patent that Microsoft holds and which they violate. In the process of being sued and settling, Microsoft enticed them to accept terms which included a similar "Linux-FUD" clause - allowing an announcement just like this.
Although software patents are utterly and obviously ridiculous, and although most first world nations besides the US don't allow them, and although even the US is moving away from them (see Bilski)... even given that many large companies such as IBM have announced that they will defend Linux with their own patent portfolios... even after Microsoft has weathered an antitrust trial (and should feel themselves on thin ice when it comes to anticompetitive behavior)... they appear to still be pursuing a legal strategy of attacking Linux via barratry.
In the deranged world of software patents, there is not exactly any such thing as sane legal reasoning. But as Microsoft convinces more companies to pay them for their use of Linux, then their patent claim gains a slimy veneer of legitimacy (or so they hope). Otherwise "why would so many people pay them?" This circular reasoning strengthens them in their eventual legal battles to come, as they attempt to hurt (or even end) the use of Linux.
Of course, this is not just about Linux. Were Microsoft or any other company to succeed at this game, they would effectively make open source software impossible.
Hah! You could be right. But I optimistically think it's going to be a net improvement. Today you can still go into businesses heavily dependent on technology, yet find CEO's who can barely use a computer, let alone understand how it works. But gradually this type of person is ceasing to exist.
In another 10-20 years, it will seem absurd to have a management team at a tech-dependent company with no direct experience in their own field, just as we frown on pharma concerns that don't have MD's and PhDs in top slots. If your business makes software, it will not be obvious how a CEO who hasn't made software herself at some point will run that business well. Steering the ship will come down to judging talent (which can't always be done by acting like a 21 year old in a liquor store and buying the highest price or the fanciest label), and making the right calls when strategic technical decisions arise. We are rife with good failure stories on this score. Eventually investors get sick of hearing them.
It makes sense if you see "IT proficiency" as fundamentally a way of thinking, where individual tools and technologies come and go, but the overall paradigm seems relatively stable. For the same reason, I don't think we should fear growing older, only losing the desire to keep in the game.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for replying. But I still don't know if I get your point, then or now.
What I'm saying is, for those child laborers, the term "local/regional labor market" is an oxymoron. I realize you're being deliberate in pointing out that it's local. But that's the whole problem.
The labor market is rigged. In this case, by former Maoist communists. Those working conditions are a product of centralized control.
It wasn't my idea to define "free market" in global terms, but since we now do, it means we have a free market in goods, but not in labor. Labor can't pick among the world's factories. Or the world's sets of rules. These kids don't have a democracy. For practical purposes, they can't even leave.
Thus, your statement makes no sense. Calling their choice of child-labor factories a "local regional labor market" is like calling the prison's rec room a "local regional leisure activity market."
That sounds like a rational argument based in fundamental economic principles.
But here's where that argument breaks down.
There is no labor market.
The goods can cross borders. The laborers are stuck where they are. Why else do you think those teenagers are "willing" to "choose" this life?
To make it crystal clear: it is only because men with guns will stop them from making most of the choices they would prefer.
Imagine if those children had the same freedom to come to the US or EU that their plastic products do, instead of being essentially imprisoned. There would be massive labor shortages in areas with oppressive regimes and backwards social and economic policies.
This is the genius of the "free trade" meme. It is no more "free" than Fox News is "fair and balanced." Manufacturers can shop the laws of the world for the most oppressive governments and the worst labor conditions imaginable. Of course they must do this, to lower their costs and be competitive. You cannot even blame Microsoft or HP for this - they are only doing what they must, based on the particular rules we have in place.
So, the governments of the world compete in a race to the bottom. Their laborers are kept safely under control by national borders, immigration policy, and ultimately, xenophobia.
I don't know why we have a nostalgic love of 19th century neo-feudal manufacturing economies - they were terrible for everyone, even the rich. But apparently that's the new hotness.
This is actually a very interesting issue. I would argue that, just as the GPL actually increases software freedom by imposing some limited rules on distribution, democracy is very tightly bound to freedom, by virtue of being the best principle (or set of principles) thus far devised to increase it.
OK, you found another source with a different definition. This is a reputable way to argue and I appreciate it.
Of course, you're still wrong. You don't think democracy is primarily about equality and freedom? You want to argue otherwise? You are on thin rhetorical ice.
You think that statement is dubious? It wasn't made up by an anonymous internet user. Here's the source for that statement used in wikipedia. It is Aristotle.
Is there a government in open source? Yes. Open source operates under the governments of the societies we live in. Most practitioners are operating under a common set of criminal and civil laws that set the backdrop for how open source software can work.
"absence or denial of any authority or established order b : absence of order :" - In other words, Anarchy is not GPL compatible. Thanks very much. You proved my point even more strongly than I did.
No, it is not anarchy. If the strong rule the weak, then we do not have equality, nor do we have freedom. These two things are the essential components of democracy.
You are free to make up new definitions for words, I guess, but that is all you are doing at this point.
I think your confusion may be coming from how the democracies you are familiar with are designed. Yes, the USA or France, etc. may have a particular set of rules, but democracy does not equal centralized control, or secret ballots, or an elaborate system. Three people on an island can have a democracy even if they do not have a scrap of paper, any running water, or a toilet.
The fact is, in open source, and unlike in anarchy, we are all free and all equal. Mark Shuttleworth is no more a totalitarian open source developer than you would be a totalitarian homeowner, for telling me I cannot sleep over at your house tonight.
I looked it up.
Democracy is not defined in a standard way. The things common to all definitions are equality and freedom.
Anarchy is undemocratic, because for practical purposes, in an anarchic state, the strong rule the weak. For example, if I don't like Shuttleworth's tree, in anarchy, I can shoot him, unless he shoots me first.
Meanwhile, in the modern world, an open source project is utterly democratic, because everyone gets one voice, and no one can suppress it.
In France, Marie Antoinette sometimes entertained visitors to her court who had grievances against her sovereign rule. I imagine even she occasionally agreed with someone's grievance and did what they asked.
France was still not a democracy until after the revolution.
Because her indulgence was optional. Anecdotes like this are worse than meaningless. They have the potential to be confusing.
No. Anarchy is undemocratic, because for practical purposes, in an anarchic state, the strong rule the weak.
In the modern world, an open source project is utterly democratic, because everyone gets one voice, and no one can suppress it.
You own your source tree the same way you own your home or Taco owns this website. There is nothing the least bit undemocratic about being able to have your own code and your own opinion.
But it is only with open source that you can even copy someone else's code and do it your own way. No one can stop you from doing it your way, nor can you stop anyone else from doing it theirs. Hence, not anarchy, or even close.
We have these stories about lots of vendors, from Oracle to Lotus, but Bill has more than his share.
You could put it that way. The point is this, the article, starting with its headline, was so utterly wrong versus the facts, that it was pathetic.
Open source is about as undemocratic as Canada's beaches are tropical.
The "free market" is not even as democratic as the "free press" or "open source," because we may have many dollars or few, but we each have only one voice. One pair of hands.
It certainly is. You may organize your own tree however you like. You can start a giant company and have a big office and spend a billion dollars on it if you want. Rule it with an iron fist. It doesn't change the fact that the smallest child can still fork your code and do it their own way.
Your giant company cannot tell that child what to do. Nor can the child tell the company what to do.
Websites are also a democratic medium, since we can all participate equally. Each of us brings just our own voice.
If we do not like Taco's story, does that mean the web is not a democracy? But no one says things like this, because they are absurd.
Obviously the web is utterly democratic, but feel free to split that hair and make up another name for what it actually is.
Open source is utterly a democracy.
Each of us may have our own source tree. If we can convince others to come join us in it, isn't that fun. Those who come and join you are always there voluntarily, either because they feel like it, or you are payiong them to be there. And maybe no one feels like it. And maybe you don't feel like paying anyone. Maybe you are alone there. Maybe you didn't bother to make your tree at all. But you have that right to, at any moment. And this is utterly democratic, and it is at the heart of why open source exists. In fact, this is why it works so much better.
Shuttleworth has a very big, popular tree. He pays many participants and many others join him for free. He gets to make the decisions in his own tree, because it's his. He can't tell anyone else what to do in theirs.
Now if it's a Bill Gates product, and you do not like where those buttons got moved to, or i.e. you have a critical bug derailing years of your work, or whatever your issue may be, you will be ignored, or if you are very lucky, someone may even explicitly take a moment to personally tell you, "fuck off, peon." Your only real option is not to be so foolish as to use a Bill Gates product again in the future.
But in open source, if you so choose, you, or anyone, from the youngest child to Bill Gates himself, can fork Shuttleworth's tree, right then and there. Then you can have it your way. And if you are right, and people care, then people will join you and leave Shuttleworth out in the cold. It's happened many times before. And if not, then maybe your idea just wasn't that great, or that important, after all. Happens all the time. But the result, as with any democracy, is that leadership is largely consensual and generally merit-driven.
(All those who have never lived under a monarch, dictator, or cabal, please identify yourselves now with cynical comments about your democratic government.)
So I reiterate, as stories go, this is pure -1 Troll. IT World and Proffitt look like an 8 year old trying to say something "controvertial" about global warming by noting that it's snowing outside. I'm a bit sad that Taco rewarded them by sending them some traffic.
I agree with you, except that progressivism is the root of the problem, or more precisely the type of people who are attracted to the power necessary to run a proper progressive society.
From my point of view, greed and corruption are part of the human condition, and the choice is between an attempt at a transparent and democratic government, or the various ways wealth and power inevitably accumulate. Strip off the propaganda, and a corporatist oligarchy, whether American or Chinese-style, or a Russian "communist" monarchy, are the same in the essentials: a small group, or even one individual, controls everything, accountable to no one.
This is our classic recipe for human misery.
You could argue the whole point of enlightenment philosophy was a rejection of this. Progressivism is about accountability and diffusion of power and authority. It doesn't stop men from dreaming of becoming king - only keeps them in check by constant vigilance. The PR agencies of the would-be kings make every little flaw and failing of a progressive, democratic government - of which there are many - out to be worse than the alternatives - which they are not.
This PR can lead to a belief by some that collective action (ala democratic governments) is essentially impossible - and that no government can ever represent its people. I think this may be central to libertarianism?
There is a reason that all the world's most sought after passports are of progressive or even socialist nations. Not only was this approach more morally sound, but those who succeeded at creating more progressive societies achieved unprecedented wealth - not just for their average citizens, but for their elites. Modern economies are ~70% consumer spending. But this can only happen when there is some redistributive mechanism that counters the natural (and deliberate) accumulation of all possible wealth and power into the hands of those already wealthy and powerful enough to seek it.
Not every redistributive mechanism is automatically evil, as is the fad to say these days. But at least libertarians have the balls to be logically consistent about this argument, which I respect. Whereas most conservatives are too afraid to follow this to its conclusion and openly advocate for shutting down libraries, schools, state universities, museums, parks, hospitals, the FDA, the EPA, and so forth.
I have not repeated anything of the sort.
And I quote: "The Chinese system is the progressive dream, not the conservative dream."
But I won't quibble if you say I have somehow misunderstood you.
I think we can get caught in a trap between progressive ideology and democratic politicians, which I agree could not be more different.
Even so, I prefer my freedom's chances under modern democrats rather than republicans. Yes, this is deciding whether to be eaten by the bear or the snake, but the liberals still have a constitutional tradition - there is nothing compatible with either the founding principles of the nation, or its constitution, by trying to make America a Christian nation, with all that that implies.
Since we're off and running with generalizations, I honestly do have great respect for libertarianism, even if I don't always find myself persuaded by it. I don't know that you can have a working society without the libertarian impulse: the reality check on any attempt to build human agency where one has power over others.
If you believe laissez faire capitalism is a good recipe for happiness, at least this is something about which we can have a rational discussion. We could, for instance, start with comparisons of societies throughout history that did, or didn't, educate their children by government spending.
You couldn't be more wrong.
China is essentially a neo-feudal oligarchy. They dress it up with communist rhetoric, because that's part of how you control the population. It's just an upgrade on the empire's PR. It is about as progressive as I am a three headed alien.
Leninist Russia, for another example: the fact that Lenin called it Marxism or communism rather a monarchy was about on a par with the Nazi's murdering millions of Germans for the good of the German people. Doublethink is just one of the ingredients in that type of ideology.
And now you have repeated one of the conservative troll's many lines about progressives - likening the enlightenment thinking of the founding fathers, about the freedom, equality and dignity of all men - and women - to the Chinese. This is just about exactly opposite from the truth. And that is the point - it is so wrong as to be confusing, even when (easily) argued against, among those not trained in rational argument.
A brief study of history makes all this clear - but that's the point of rewriting the history books, isn't it?
Good job on it - you'll have lots more people who believe radical conservative falsehoods in a generation, without having to home-school them all. You just won't have the most precious gift we can pass down to our children - truth about the past, that they can use to make a better life for themselves. I would be careful about taking too much satisfaction in it, though. Believe me, the spoils of the conservative victory over history are not for you.
What I probably did not make clear is that I hate the liberals more than the conservatives in this.
The liberal elites never even dreamed of what the conservatives are doing to school textbooks.
Yes, I am aware that the conservative talking point is that they are just "correcting liberal bias" in Texas.
Propaganda? Rewriting history? Unconstitutional restrictions on speech? Democratic party management is crooked, contemptible, and after many years in power, empty. Most liberal elites just don't have strong enough feelings about their ideology to motivate these kinds of behaviors. With more complete control over the government that either Bush ever dreamed of, they have even failed at achieving even the stupidest version of their least interesting dream - healthcare reform! (This remains true even if they pass that pathetic bill so discussed lately in the news.) Are these the people to hold up to the conservatives as rivals?
I think if you did, you do the conservatives a grave injustice. :)
Now that the conservatives are taking this step, the liberal elites still can't even believe it. Of the few that even grasp the significance of what's happening, most would rather flee than make a stand. I hope Canada and the remainder of the first world are as tepid towards refugees as I expect they will be. Liberal, Enlightenment America was relatively solitary in understanding the value in cultural diversity, egalitarianism, and immigration. It was they who said, "Give me your poor, your tired." When the last remnants of the liberals try to flee in earnest, they will discover this is one of the many unique things about America they should have stood to fight for.
This is why the conservatives will dominate this country.
And I imagine that dominance will continue for far long after they destroy it. Have no illusions. The Chinese have been under the bootheel for 60 years. This is the conservative dream: 19th century economics and the return of the de-facto class system, without the troubling problems of an informed public choosing to reject it. They have seen how it is done. They have been won over. And they are importing it.
Frankly I'm surprised the politicization of classroom materials hasn't been more flagrant and widespread. I'm also wondering why there isn't more of a flip-flop between liberal and conservative influence on school curriculums as voting blocks swing between conservatives and liberals?
The ping pong of history books that was dramatized in 1984 was also a reality as power shifted and people and principles went in and out of favor in Chinese and Russian totalitarian states. I imagine now we will see it here.
Did we think we were going to make China more democratic? We are the tail and they are the dog. We are becoming more like them every day. The high castes of the conservative party long for it. They see the setup of China's ruling class - the iron grip on history - the apparently successful stifling of dissent - and salivate.
If Thomas Jefferson can be "deemphasized" in American History and the separation of church and state can be erased from the history books, there is no longer any break on this. Freedom of ("liberal") speech is not far behind. Make no mistake, this is a bellweather for how much further our society can fall. It also suggests the way America could balkanize, as different regions of the country no longer share a common history.
That's another great question. I have the idea that it was both. For many I'm sure survival was a 24 hour a day job. For others, human intelligence probably opened up staggeringly easy shortcuts to calories, to which the natural world would take many years, or decades, or centures etc. to adapt.
No. I'm ruminating about what it was like for an intelligent person's fiddling with ink or clay carving to take on some of the characteristics of writing. How it happened, how it looked, whether it was a solitary development, and if so, how often it happened?
Yes, that's the question I was getting at. You could be exactly right. Although I could just as easily imagine a solitary memory aid to a gifted individual growing in lonely complexity. Perhaps again and again - before the aggregation of people brought such folks into contact with each other, and their ideas began to intermingle. Then again, the need for this kind of memory aid is supposed to be associated with the growth of agriculture and the consequent increase in the complexity of human society. Perhaps more sophisticated writing and more sophisticated writers meeting each other followed quickly.
The more canonical record postulated by professional archaeologists has us going from clay tokens to tokens with markings - to markings - made on the clay tokens - now tablets. But of course, we can only infer from what evidence survives. It seems unreasonable to imagine we have a very meaningful part of the physical evidence.
I wish in articles like these they presented more of the source images, and in higher resolution. The small sample they provide is beautiful, but to the layman appears as a kind of meandering, simple decoration. Of course the claims are limited: communication via graphic art is distinct from communication via modern written languages.
It's interesting to imagine the first lonely human writers at the dawn of written language - how many wrote things only they themselves could understand, before coincidence formed the first community of proto-literate people? How much of this early writing was just the smooth flow of art - abstract or representational - into more concrete meanings relevant to the every day lives even of the illterate?
Funnily enough I was deliberate in saying there is no legal argument. You're right in one sense. My way of looking at it assumes that a legal argument must also be a rational argument. Which you can take as a joke, or not, at your discretion. :)
If we must pay Microsoft to use Linux, then we must also pay thousands of other patent holders to use Linux. Every Microsoft product also infringes innumerable patents, and that includes patents held by Linux developers. So Microsoft users must also pay Linux developers for using Windows, Office, and so forth. But this barely begins to describe Microsoft's position. Because every piece of software infringes, every software developer and user is a potential shakedown victim. Every patent holder is a winner. The need for lawyers, judges, and patent lawsuits is effectively infinite. This is probably why software patents were snuck into the patent mandate in the first place - by lawyers, judges, and USPTO bureaucracy, without explicit legislative action.
If this kind of thinking passes as a "legal argument," this cannot be good news to those in the business of law - or for any rational human being for that matter. :)
Ah... it's certainly a fair point that Amazon has been the poster child for playing dirty with patents, which makes their getting worked by MS all the sweeter. But...
Microsoft has sued over Linux. Just because they use tricks to obscure their brand name when doing it doesn't mean they aren't known to be behind SCO.
Every piece of software ever written infringes patents. No one can determine what patents their work infringes - not even Microsoft. Even if the baby jesus came down from heaven and told you exactly which 20,000 patents you infringe, you are screwed again tomorrow, when another 1,000 are filed.
If this system sounds retarded, that's because it is. This may have something to do with why every other civilized country rejects the idea that patents can apply to software.
If there is no assertion that Linux infringes patents, then the Novell deal has no reason to exist, end of story.
MS is playing this game because until we get off our asses and fix this broken system, it can be used to create FUD (it's unlikely to be directly profitable), and exert short or long term negative effects on Linux marketshare, and they think they will pick up some of the pieces.
It does not matter if the threat is implied or explicit. It does not matter if customers or Novell are the ones "worried." It does not matter if the deal is broad or narrow.
The bottom line is that it's the most egregious insult imaginable for Microsoft to imply that they should be compensated by people who use Linux, in any way, for any reason. It's a staggering affront. There is no conceivable moral or legal reasoning that could justify it.
This suggests Microsoft's anti-Linux patent strategy is alive and well.
For those just getting up to speed:
Microsoft doesn't feel like competing fairly against open source products. So it attempts to use dubious legal trickery instead.
This started with SCO - a failed Unix company that took Microsoft investment in exchange for executing a legal attack on Linux vendors and users (based on copyright and licensing issues). The claim: that Linux infringed on their intellectual property rights. Their conduct in the case was truly awful (making the claim but resisting an explanation about what infringed; trying to shake down any and every Linux owner). Latest status here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO-Linux_controversies
This was only one aspect of the FUD campaign. Patents were another. Microsoft struck a patent deal with struggling Novel, and it feels very similar to what we see here. The implication: Novel agrees its use of Linux somehow infringed on Microsoft's patents, and that it (and by extension everyone else) must pay Microsoft to use Linux.
The FSF's response explains the problem:
http://www.fsf.org/news/microsoft_response
The article describes other similar cases.
Now we have Amazon making a deal. They have far fewer reasons on the surface, but I imagine we'll find out why at some point, and it probably has something to do with a much stronger, non-Linux-related, perhaps non-software patent that Microsoft holds and which they violate. In the process of being sued and settling, Microsoft enticed them to accept terms which included a similar "Linux-FUD" clause - allowing an announcement just like this.
Although software patents are utterly and obviously ridiculous, and although most first world nations besides the US don't allow them, and although even the US is moving away from them (see Bilski)... even given that many large companies such as IBM have announced that they will defend Linux with their own patent portfolios... even after Microsoft has weathered an antitrust trial (and should feel themselves on thin ice when it comes to anticompetitive behavior)... they appear to still be pursuing a legal strategy of attacking Linux via barratry.
In the deranged world of software patents, there is not exactly any such thing as sane legal reasoning. But as Microsoft convinces more companies to pay them for their use of Linux, then their patent claim gains a slimy veneer of legitimacy (or so they hope). Otherwise "why would so many people pay them?" This circular reasoning strengthens them in their eventual legal battles to come, as they attempt to hurt (or even end) the use of Linux.
Of course, this is not just about Linux. Were Microsoft or any other company to succeed at this game, they would effectively make open source software impossible.
Hah! You could be right. But I optimistically think it's going to be a net improvement. Today you can still go into businesses heavily dependent on technology, yet find CEO's who can barely use a computer, let alone understand how it works. But gradually this type of person is ceasing to exist.
In another 10-20 years, it will seem absurd to have a management team at a tech-dependent company with no direct experience in their own field, just as we frown on pharma concerns that don't have MD's and PhDs in top slots. If your business makes software, it will not be obvious how a CEO who hasn't made software herself at some point will run that business well. Steering the ship will come down to judging talent (which can't always be done by acting like a 21 year old in a liquor store and buying the highest price or the fanciest label), and making the right calls when strategic technical decisions arise. We are rife with good failure stories on this score. Eventually investors get sick of hearing them.
It makes sense if you see "IT proficiency" as fundamentally a way of thinking, where individual tools and technologies come and go, but the overall paradigm seems relatively stable. For the same reason, I don't think we should fear growing older, only losing the desire to keep in the game.