Not a believer, Tuxchick?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| dinotrac Oct 17, 2005 3:43 AM EDT |
I'm disappointed, Tuxchick. By now, I should think that you would understand the power of freedom a little bit better. Freedom works, and it doesn't need that crazy Stallman dude to do it. I worry about this Stallmania. Your references seem, but may not be, a swipe at people like Eric Raymond, Linus Torvalds, and Brian Behlendorf, people who have contributed mightily to the cause of free software. The truth is that freedom and free software are not the sole province of Richard Stallman. Freedom, like democracy, is an ugly thing that beats all the alternatives. They only time you know you're free is when you're arguing about it or fighting for it. There can be no freedom dictator, benevolent or otherwise. I've managed to miss where people like Raymond have diverged from the free software philosophy, whatever you may take that to be. At most, they've encouraged selling business-friendly aspects of free software. I haven't seen them say that freedom doesn't matter. Stallman has been an important agitator. The GPL remains a marvelous gift to everybody who cares about free software. He is not alone and he is not infallible. For me, the end of free software will come when all its adherents feel the need to lay lotus blossoms at the feet of an idol. |
| peragrin Oct 17, 2005 3:59 AM EDT |
In this day and age though you need a radical in order to counter the other side's radicals. And if you don't consider MSFT strangle hold on the IT industry as radical then you need to stop drinking the kool aid. If you balance Stallman's idealism with MSFT's demand to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. You get the path that we are now begining to walk. |
| richo123 Oct 17, 2005 4:26 AM EDT |
Dino, As an ex-colonial from Australia, I have to say that all the grovelling at the feet of radicals like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and company gives me pause at times ;-) ;-) BTW Good luck in the World Series! |
| TxtEdMacs Oct 17, 2005 5:10 AM EDT |
Quoting:BTW Good luck in the World Series! richo123 - Sorry, dino just doesn't sound like a South Sider to me. He is probably a Cubbie. You know the type: " ... well not this year, but wait until the next ... !!!". |
| richo123 Oct 17, 2005 5:46 AM EDT |
TxtEdMacs, No your wrong, I'm a Red Sox fan so really got it from him! |
| dinotrac Oct 17, 2005 6:29 AM EDT |
TxtEdMacs -- Cubbie!!! Sorry, but no. Born in Tallahassee, Daddy from Pontotoc, Mississippi. Couldn't go for North Side of anything!!!! Besides, the Cubbies are a bit effete for my taste. I'll take Ozzie and the boys any day. |
| dinotrac Oct 17, 2005 6:31 AM EDT |
richo - Thanx. |
| PaulFerris Oct 17, 2005 7:07 AM EDT |
Quoting: I'll take Ozzie and the boys any day. I always thought you were into drugged-out head-banger music. Now I have proof! --FeriCyde |
| tuxchick Oct 17, 2005 11:17 AM EDT |
dino, I'm at a loss to understand why my single reference to RMS set off such a tirade. Do you believe that not listing the entire pantheon of people that I respect and admire equates to dissing them? |
| hkwint Oct 17, 2005 12:46 PM EDT |
Personally, I think tuxchick meant: You don't need the crazy Stallman-dude for it (freedom), you need the absence of companies like Microsoft. To add something (from a EU perspective) to that: for freedom, you also need: -Political parties which aren't paid by big companies; -Elections not organized by political parties payed by big companies; (-More than two 'big' political parties, because the democrats and republicans are covering each others backs very much: "I don't tell you screwed up something if you don't mention I screwed up". Why doesn't anybody mention Cheney is still paid 1million/year by Haliburton? Why doesn't anybody mention Rumsfeld was in Iraq with Saddam in 1984, but didn't mention weapons of mass destruction, when he knew Saddam posessed these? Why doesn't anybody mention about the terrorist arrested by the FBI in the 90's telling the FBI they had plans for letting the world trade centre-towers collapse, one over the other, and there were plans to crash 18 plains in the ocean? Simple, they doesn't mention it because the democrats screwed up too.) In my humble opinion, this is the biggest issue with freedom in America. Politicians (like Bush for examle) are representatives of big companies, and those big companies are owned by shareholders, so you could say America is a aristocracy, it is ruled by the rich stockholders. The most clear property of stockholders is, they just want more money on the short term, they don't give a damn about the long term. You can see this the best when looking at the US budget deficit. Instead of spending less money, they go to war in Iraq, and borrow more money from countries like China. When you look at the history of the stock-market, you'll see, only thinking about short-term profits can be disastrous. So, my conclusion: as long as the US-political parties are paid by big companies, democracy is just a joke. Disclaimer: The situation in the EU is also pretty f*cked up, and my own government (NL) is trying to be the biggest friend of the US in whole Europe (buying Tomahawks and JSFs), so don't think it's much better over here, we have also plenty of DMCA-like laws, and surveying-cameras everywhere, and all network-traffic will be logged in the near future. Most of this because of terrorism. But the difference is: elections are organized by the government, and political parties aren't allowed to take money from companies, and also very important: the government decides who may vote and who not, and not a company like in Florida. |
| TxtEdMacs Oct 17, 2005 1:22 PM EDT |
Quoting: ... the government decides who may vote and who not, and not a company like in Florida. You got it wrong, that company is just correcting the vote count as needed to make sure that every right thinking voter has cast their vote properly. Just think of it as a public service. I would not doubt that the same vote counting technique is being employed in Iraq along the same lines, albeit with more manual labor. It's the process that counts along with the right results and photo ops. |
| TxtEdMacs Oct 17, 2005 5:02 PM EDT |
Update: even sick jokes about voting fraud are grounded in fact ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4351680.stm ). Quoting:Iraq result delay over fraud fear And Quoting: ... Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said it needed several more days to complete the count "after finding that the figures from most provinces were too high". Those slops Brinks again hard coding in the variable values in V.B., damn! |
| dinotrac Oct 17, 2005 5:46 PM EDT |
TxtEdMacs -- Hmmm.... Does it mean anything at all that possible election fraud is considered to be a problem instead of the plan? For all of the Bush-bashing, for really foul pieces of "journalism" by the New York Times that have the gall to compare foreign-led insurgents blowing innocent Iraqi men, women, and children to smithereens to free software developers who manage to make their points without killing anybody, etc, etc, Ain't it grand that 2/3 of the people show up and vote? |
| dinotrac Oct 17, 2005 5:53 PM EDT |
tuxchick - A knee-jerk reaction on my part, perhaps. If I done you wrong, I apologize. I'm just so used to "it's the philosophy, stupid" pieces aimed at friends of free software just because they call it "Open Source" and include a program or 2 that the Friars of Freedom consider insufficiently unencumbered due to the unfortunate placement of a comma, or, worse, the grant of freedoms that RMS considers, er, unfree, that I may read more into a piece like yours than is intended. |
| tuxchick Oct 18, 2005 12:55 PM EDT |
dino, you are right on with the 'Friars of Freedom' comment. Gave me a good chuckle. OTOH, given the current state of the legal system in the US, it's almost required to indulge in that level of nitpicking. :( |
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