100% correct
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| windowsrefund Jan 11, 2006 1:48 PM EDT |
Open Source is not a movement, it's just a group of freeloaders riding on the coat tails of the Free Software movement. It's about time more people realize it and call things for what they really are. |
| AnonymousCoward Jan 11, 2006 2:01 PM EDT |
Disagree. We actually need the two groups. In many cases, it changes the question from "shall we open our source?" to "how shall we open our source?" RMS's unreasonability over the GPL is very valuable, but RMS is unreasonable about many things. The presence of Eric and his cowboys gives people a "moderate alternative" for those occasions when RMS's position is too unreasonable. But without RMS, there would be no stake in the ground, no position for them to be less unreasonable than. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 11, 2006 2:47 PM EDT |
RMS is only "unreasonable" in that he wants all software to be libre. He wants to remove the option to keep source closed, programs proprietary. Period. I agree that the "open source" method will eventually win, as ESR states, because the improvements and quality will crowd out proprietary methods. Just as a demand economy is far more efficient than any command economy can be. However, as has been learned the hard way over and over in human history, you cannot legislate morality. Removing choice from people, even the choice to do bad to themselves, does not make them happy. The "moderate" stand of the OSI is merely that they focus on the benefits to the producer. RMS and "Free Software" focus on the benefits to the consumer. Both are right, and competition is very healthy. |
| salparadise Jan 11, 2006 10:46 PM EDT |
Quoting:Open Source is not a movement Then it ought to be. The proprietary mindset is useless. It only understands secrecy and profit and manipulation. It sees itself as above the common people and thus able to steal from and abuse them. This is not the road we should be going down. Why should people in Africa die of AIDS because Western companies are too greedy to understand these are human lives going down the pan and can only see profit profit profit? Why do Western governments protect them with laws to allow them to continue such behaviour? It's beyond evil. Only human beings are capable of such appalling shittiness. Microsoft are wrong. Capitalism is wrong. How much longer does this insane money grabbing fest have to go on before you realise it's destroying everything it touches? How many more wrecked environments, how many extinct species, how many lost rights and prosecuted innocents does it take? How many Peter Quinns? How long will you put up with such a castrated political system? You better believe that for some of us Open Source is a movement. It presents an opportunity to find a different way of doing things. One that doesn't involve a few percent of the population riding rough shod over the other 9x%. One where the knowledge we have is shared openly and freely with all people, equally, regardless of their financial standing. Are we not in this together? Is there a man on this planet who isn't my brother? Let me quote to you from Noam Chomsky; "You aren't supposed to learn that dedicated, committed effort can bring about significant changes of consciousness and understanding. That's a very dangerous idea so it's been wiped from history" (from Imperial Ambitions. Published by HamishHamilton 2005 p41) His point being that the commonly held opinion is that (for example) segregation was defeated by Rosa Parks "suddenly deciding to rebel" rather than then by a protracted campaign of mutually supportive people with plans and that this idea is encouraged to make people think history is changed by out-of-the-ordinary "special" people rather than by you and me standing up at the same time and saying "ENOUGH". |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 12, 2006 4:54 AM EDT |
Sal, I'm impressed. It's clear that you have confused fascism with capitalism. Begin at the beginning. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Private. That's you and me and ever other individual first and foremost in control of our own talents and stuff. Fascism is government control of everything through regulation, while individuals are still allowed to own things on paper. As opposed to socialisms greater honesty in simply taking away any illusion of private ownership. Why are Africans dieing of AIDS? Because their governments rob them of their stuff, preventing them from building their own infrastructure, and intercept "international aid" to line their own pockets. Also, blaming "AIDS" on every death, or just making them up, ensures a larger flow of aid into their pockets. Why would anyone invest in Africa when their investment can be stolen, "nationalized", if it shows promise of profitability? Or if your aspirin factory can be bombed randomly by idiot "superpowers"? Note, please, that patent and copyright are arbitrary grants of monopoly control by *governments*. OpenSource is a movement because it is voluntary. The people who participate do so because they wish to, each contributing as they wish with what they wish. That is why it works so very well, and why it is endangered by things like patents which involve the use of force. The only way that the change of attitude you suggest can come to pass is if it happens voluntarily. Such a change cannot be forced. And guess what happens when people are left to choose without being coerced? Capitalism. http://www.mises.org/ Just scan the daily articles, and see what you think. |
| salparadise Jan 12, 2006 5:43 AM EDT |
The brand of capitalism practiced in the West is closer to fascism than the freemarket ideal so often described by it's supporters. Fascism noun [U] a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control and extreme pride in country and race, and in which political opposition is not allowed Tell me how this differs from US culture and Microsoft corporate culture. Africans are dying because their continent is a wreck, mostly due to the West dumping surplus into African markets, selling arms to wildly unstable regimes and groups and because drug companies will NOT sell them drugs at prices they can realistically afford. Quoting:Fascism is government control of everything through regulation Fascism is forcing a particular set of values/regulations on people, against their will and often by force. You may not reverse enginner, you may not copy, you may not distribute, you may not share, you have no rights, this is not your computer it's ours and we can look when we want and install when we want and you HAVE NO SAY. In what way is Microsofts EULA different from fascism? In what way is US Gov support of Microsoft not the same? In what way are American market values (which are great for the few that own US Corps') and absolutely useless for everyone else, not financial fascism? Children being paraded in front of US media as "dirty pirates with only their just deserts to look forward to"! I see no difference between that and making people walk around with pink triangles sown onto their clothes so everyone can see them for what they are - deviants! If you are not a happy subscriber then you are "on the side of the terrorists", this is cultural and intellectual fascism. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 12, 2006 10:56 AM EDT |
Sal, maybe you didn't understand. I agree with you. All I was doing was correcting a few of your terms. |
| Kagehi Jan 12, 2006 11:06 AM EDT |
So of course the alternative is to force companies that don't act like Microsoft, Sony, etc., to give everything away? The problem isn't capitalism, its protectionism that keeps getting extended out to infinite lengths, instead of serving the purpose of limited protections, so the original idea can be used by the person that came up with it, **after which**, it becomes usable to everyone. For a physical object, this is perfectly valid, for an idea or computer code, by the time even the limited patents run out, the techology they where designed for cease to exist. If you where to compare it to real world situations, its like passing a law that says that the use of X by group Y is protected for so long as the entire bloody continent still exists, even if the group itself vanishes in a few hundred years. Patents are geologic time, software and computer hardware are generational time. The two time scales don't coexists all that well when passing laws. And copyright is even stupider, since it appropriately defends things that companies make *existing* profits on, like Mickey Mouse to Disney, but in turn buries things that have no direct commercial value. I personally think we need to reinstitute copyright registration and let things return to the public if not re-registered, like it was originally, before some companies convinced the government that spending millions sueing people for posting fan art was somehow more valuable to them than spending $10 to register the copyright for another 5 years, or letting it laps if they don't plan to reuse the material. Your point is generally valid, but unfortunately your exageration of the situation, extreme solution and complete disinterest in the real consequence *of* such a solution make you look like a raving lunitic, not someone arguing against the excesses of stupid companies, who have proven that they can and will find ways to screw us, with or without patents. |
| tadelste Jan 12, 2006 11:13 AM EDT |
Kagehi: Thank you. Quite excellent, thoughtful commentary. I also liked the way you expressed your indignation without attacking the person. I wish that others understood how to characterize behavior without attacking the soul of another. Well done, Kagehi, well done. |
| salparadise Jan 12, 2006 10:54 PM EDT |
complete disinterest in the real consequence *of* such a solution I do think about such things a lot. I have children. I am concerned for their future. I realise the situation is not fixable easily nor can it be sorted by sweeping idealistic statements (which I have to confess to being prone to). Companies like Microsoft need controlling not destroying. I don't advocate their destruction. I just want the lies and the bribery and the extortion to stop. I want Microsoft to respond in the traditional way - "oh, we have a competitor, a competitor with a better product than ours, we have to meet the challenge" and not "we have a competitor, get on the phone to the lawyers and get them stamped on". Which is all coupled with a deep frustration and horror over current US/UK foreign policy. Which is beyond the remit of this site so I'll say no more on the matter. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 13, 2006 4:01 PM EDT |
So of course the alternative is to force companies that don't act like Microsoft, Sony, etc., to give everything away? Hmm, I don't quite understand where that came from. Respect for private property doesn't force anyone to give anything away, it is the direct opposite. Respect for private property also means that if I purchase something, I get to dispose of it as I wish. If I cannot do that, then how can I be said to own something in any real sense? but unfortunately your exageration of the situation, extreme solution and complete disinterest in the real consequence *of* such a solution make you look like a raving lunitic, not someone arguing against the excesses of stupid companies Hmmm. Ok, let's look at this logically. Can we agree that the extremes to which copyright and patent have been taken have exacerbated the problems involved with government granted monopolies on ideas to the point where everyone can see them? Those problems do not vanish just because "limited times" is the rule. It just means those problems exist for "only" 7 or 14 years, instead of 70 years past the death of the creator (or whatever copyright is now, thank you Disney Corp). Arguing that those problems outweigh the benefits, regardless of the time frame, is not the extremity of a raving lunatic. Force and fraud remain prosecutable, as they have been since the beginning of civilization. Even if you perfectly reverse-engineer the McCoy bearing oiler, you cannot sell what you make as "The Real McCoy" because that is not yours to sell. That would be fraud, regardless of copyright or patent or their lack. As far as a lack of attention to consequences, I have found that to be a very interesting argument element from many people who object to the concept of not having copyright and patent. They suggest that I am trying to say it will solve all problems, and am ignoring the reality that problems will in fact continue to exist. Of course problems will continue. Human nature doesn't change just because laws change, or there would be no murder, no theft, no speeding. Alcohol prohibition would not have caused an increase in drinking, and the War on Some Drugs would have long since eradicated marijuana and cocaine. RCA kept Filo T. Farnsworth in court trying to enforce his patent on television until his patent ran out anyway, and he died broke and broken. And I'd love to know how you can say people look like raving lunatics, and still get labeled as "not attacking the person". I'm very impressed. I usually get labeled as attacking people when I point out they're logically inconsistent or doing straw-man arguments, things like that. Anyway, if you're interested in practical arguments against patent and copyright, Mises.org has lots on the subject. I can tell you've not read any of the arguments (pro and con) that are posted there. Bob- |
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