That is a common feeling among FOSS supporters
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne Dec 15, 2010 7:56 PM EDT |
Quoting:..that politicians are ignoring or abusing the common trust... |
| phsolide Dec 16, 2010 12:31 PM EDT |
Unless memory fails me, tracyanne lives in Australia. I live in the USA. I believe hkwint lives in Holland. I know that other lxers live in other countries. I'd say that viewpoint is indeed common in the USA, especially among FOSS supporters. Is that viewpoint true *everywhere*? If so, why? |
| jdixon Dec 16, 2010 1:00 PM EDT |
> If so, why? Because human nature doesn't really change that much around the world. People are people. |
| hkwint Dec 16, 2010 1:59 PM EDT |
That believe is shared by a 'large' and very vocal minority over here (especially voters of you-know-who). It changes from country to country. For example, people in France would probably say their government is arrogant (especially Sarkozy), and I think in Italy a majority of the population wouldn't say the government is abusing 'common trust' because their government doesn't have any "common trust" at all, currently. To a lesser extent, the same goes for Ireland, and also Belgium; six months after elections BE still doesn't have a government; and drunk ministers don't help either. On the other hand, I think people in CH / DE have pretty much trust in their governments. So I don't agree to the article; what we've seen in Stuttgart is an incidence, a 'one of a kind' event. Nothing like we just saw in FR (labour unions), Italy (against Berlusconi / garbage, though some people will deny a difference between the two) or GR. I mean, whenever you go to one of those countries (or Spain) by plane, you take the risk of strikes into account before traveling. When you go to GB, IR, DE, CH; not so much. I can't remember last time we saw large strikes / protests in those countries. Only when traveling by nuclear train throughout Germany, you can expect delays, but otherwise, it's about the most "strike-safe" country in the EU. Considering what happened, namely Germany's / The Netherlands savings going down the drain via Spanish / US real estate and quantitative easing / bailouts in favour of Greece (which was helped by Goldman Sachs in their swindle), Ireland etc. it's in fact weird there are no large protests against the banks and the financial leaders. Italy's previous leader Romano Prodi worked at Goldam Sachs, and GS screwed lots of Italian municipalities with their derivatives on which only GS earned and lots of Italian Euro's were lost, but still nobody protests and demands Prodi's head. Everybody accepts the banks had to be bailed out because the financial leaders failed (and took all the money while doing so as well), but citizens don't accept the cuts our governments have to make because the money went to the banks. Weird! BTW I live in the Netherlands, not in Holland anymore since I (was) moved in 1986; but I understand nobody outside NL cares about the difference. Some countries are pushing open standards / open software though, so we can't be dissatisfied. Neelie Kroes is an important backer (happens to be Dutch), 'parts of' the NL-government are pushing OSS (while other conservative parts are trying to stop those efforts), some regions / municipalities in Spain, Italy and Germany are doing pretty well moving to OSS, but the best example in my opinion is France. Some French institutions made the right decision to move to web-apps / Firefox some years ago, like the Gendarmerie Nationale. If FF / Ubuntu isn't good for them, switching to another platform will be pretty easy (unless they rely on non-ECMAscript, like newer versions of JS supported by FF only). |
| gus3 Dec 16, 2010 5:10 PM EDT |
Quoting:drunk ministers don't help either.Nor would sober ministers, but this way, they're probably having more fun at it. |
| hkwint Dec 16, 2010 7:35 PM EDT |
Ah, sorry for all the political opinion above, I know some people don't like LXer becoming a 'politics forum', but I couldn't resist and have been reading too many 'BoomBustBlog' as of lately I'm afraid. But the topic was politics OTOH, so as long as I don't start another flamewar I hope it should be fine. gus3: There's a really cool and funny vid with English subs of the drunken Belgian Minister: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2gdcLM2_BA (sorry for not providing an open video format). I can't stop laughing even if only watching for 2 sec (also because it's a native French speaker, speaking Dutch, which sounds funny too). One of the greatest examples of loosing 'common trust' I think. Here same minister again drunk, but in French (Dutch subs); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6icNu70hx9o&feature=related Here he's caught sleeping during a speech (think Merkel is sitting two chairs next to him): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcXdLNN089k&NR=1 You can also find some vids of Sarkozy drunk, I especially remember him talking to Lance Armstrong, but I can't find the vid. This other vid has English subs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1HCFHjLndQ&playnext=1&list=P... Now, I can't imagine something like this with Ms. Merkel. |
| jdixon Dec 16, 2010 9:19 PM EDT |
> ...sorry for all the political opinion above,... Please note that my comment above was deliberately non-political in nature. :) |
| tracyanne Dec 16, 2010 10:40 PM EDT |
I think it's common enough over here, the opinion that our government is out of touch, no longer listens, at least to the "little people"i. Take our governments response to Terry Hicks and now Julian Asange. There appears to be an effort to wash their hands of any responsibility for any Australian citizen who might be an embarrassment (this is across governments and across political parties). Mostly our governments seem to work to ingratiate themselves with the big boys, what the US, for example wants, they seem to get, what mega corporations like Microsoft want, they seem to get, whether it actually benefits Australia on anything other than the immediate level seems unimportant. For example our copyright and patent laws have since the signing of the "Free Trade" Agreement with the US become, at the request (it' a requirement of the FTA) of the US, become much more aligned with the US's copyright and patent laws, this serves Australia no real benefit, but it does provide additional leverage for US mega Corporations, and bending over for the US has not done anything to improve our balance of trade. New Zealand who didn't sign the FTA, and who seem intent on not aligning their copyright and patent laws with the US, is no worse off trade wise. Our Farming lobbies and groups representing the "little people" made numerous submissions against the FTA and the idea of aligning our laws with US laws, but the people who were listened to were the lobbies representing US multinational corporations, not representatives of the Australian people. I think the feeling is common enough in FOSS circles in that the US government in particular appears intent on ceding power to the mega Corporations. |
| jimbauwens Dec 17, 2010 6:10 AM EDT |
>and also Belgium; six months after elections BE still doesn't have a government; and drunk ministers don't help either I'm proud to live in this country, that has now taken all the income of my father away and categorizes his brain disease as a psychological problem. |
| skelband Dec 20, 2010 5:18 PM EDT |
@hkwint: "BTW I live in the Netherlands, not in Holland anymore since I (was) moved in 1986; but I understand nobody outside NL cares about the difference." I read up on the difference on Wikipedia, and I am no wiser. It seems very complicated. Could you explain for us outsiders? |
| skelband Dec 20, 2010 5:36 PM EDT |
"But while open-source protests may have immediate political implications, Robb says, they’ve had little success with the issues at hand" When I was in the UK, and watching the UK situation at present, it seems that there is a growing problem across the EU involving distrust of all "authority". Certainly in the UK, which is what I know the best, some of this is at least in part due to the general distrust of the people by the government. - Terrorism being used to justify airport scanning and intrusive searches - Stringent restrictions on what you can take onto a plane - Police getting new powers (and using them) to stop people and search them in the street - Police stopping people for taking photographs - CCTV cameras everywhere - Identity cards (although theu have now been scrapped) These points all add to a definite feeling that we as the public are just not to be trusted. - Certain books we are not allowed to read (see "terrorist useful documents", certain types of pornography ..) "for our own good" or "because of the children" - You can't draw cartoons depicting sexual acts of animals or where children are notionally involved (think certain types of japanese manga, smutty visual jokes...) with the risk of being branded a pervert or worse a legally labeled paedophile. - Involvement, however fleeting, in political demonstrations having your photos taken, details recorded for the police to monitor you with. And I can't believe this: - Children having their fingerprints taken in schools (talk about being treated like a convict) - In school drugs testing - Labeling kids as "sexual deviants" if caught "sexting" - I remember kids drawing crude pictures of penises when I was a kid, but that is modern technology for you. I know it sounds like a bit of a Daily Mailesque rant but I do get the sense that there is more than ever a "us and them" environment developing not only in the UK but wider afield as well. It may be that it is not possible to put it down to any one thing but an accumulation of the changing face of politics from the people. |
| bigg Dec 20, 2010 5:38 PM EDT |
Isn't Holland only one part of the Netherlands? I know nothing about the Netherlands, but that is my understanding of the distinction, like calling someone from the US a New Englander. |
| jimbauwens Dec 20, 2010 5:43 PM EDT |
We in Belgium use "Holland' allot to refer to the Netherlands, and call them "Hollanders". My mother is from the Netherlands, and she also uses the term, so I think it ok to use it :) |
| dinotrac Dec 20, 2010 7:39 PM EDT |
Here in the US, Holland is used to refer to a breakfast food: Holland oats. It's especially good when you need something more than a kiss on your lips, and have an appetite big enough to down a bear or some other maneater. |
| hkwint Dec 20, 2010 8:40 PM EDT |
skelband: Well, when referring to the US, you don't say "Dakota". Even when the states (or provinces) of North and South Dakota are part of the US. So, when referring to The Netherlands, you don't say: "Holland". Even when the provinces (or states) North and South Holland are part of the Netherlands. That's the simplest explanation possible. The province of Holland (it was one province in the past) was the center of the government, power, arts, science and population of the Netherlands, hence the most important one. It still is today: famous cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Gouda and Alkmaar all are in Holland. But the oldest city of the Netherlands is not, the place where (Royal) Philips became big isn't, the place where the royal family was buried before the 16th century isn't**, the place where research for our last Nobel prize of Physics happened isn't in Holland, the home of the best soccer team of last year isn't, and we could go on. People in Limburg and Belgium always didn't feel represented well enough in the government based in Holland (Flemish / Walloon people never feel represented well enough it seems, even not in current day Belgium BTW), hence the Belgians separated, because they didn't like the "leaders in Holland" who governed them. So when people in Belgium refer to "Holland", most of the times it's a bad association, like in their jokes. Today, we don't care about their jokes because at least we have a government! Well, for the time being. It were the Brittish who messed up names when referring to the countries East of the Northsea: Lots of times they refer to Holland instead of the Netherlands, they called people from "Deutschland" Germans even while the Germans also lived in the Netherlands and parts of Scandinavia and Brittish themselvesare descendants of those Germanic tribes (so why don't they freakin' refer to themselves as Germans?)*, Brittish referred to "Deutschland" as Germany, they referred to people from the Netherlands as "Dutch" even while we don't live in "Deutschland". They're not the only ones, French / Italians / Spanish also use a totally different name to refer to our country (Pays-Bas), but at least it's their translation of "Netherland". We took revenge on the Brittish by using the terms "Great Britain" and "England" interchangeably; because most of the times we don't care Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland also are a part of Great Britain. History is much more complicated than the above alone, but last time I did my best to explain the difference in a better manner, it took me over an hour! *For our US readers, it's interesting to note most of them also descend from the very same Germanic tribes, and they're called "Americans" and not "United Statians" because apparently more weird naming screwups happened. The most interesting screwup in my opinion is people from India, those are Indians, just like the Indigenous peoples of the Americas who happen to live at the opposite side of the globe! No wonder Wittgenstein thought language is lacking when describing the world. **: See, now you know where I live! |
| skelband Dec 20, 2010 9:08 PM EDT |
@hkwint "just like the Indigenous peoples of the Americas who happen to live at the opposite side of the globe!" Wasn't that something to do with someone trying to find the coast of India and accidentally finding the coast of America? Talking about relatively perspectives as well, here in BC, when the say "asians" they are talking about Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc. whereas in the UK we are talking about Indians, Pakistanis etc. Make for some quite interesting conversations sometimes.... |
| jacog Dec 21, 2010 4:46 AM EDT |
Ssians? Pfff, those durn Russkies! |
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