Posted on 03/10/2007 12:31:56 PM PST by nickcarraway
Open Source != Communism > If we agreed on everything there would be no debate :)
No need to oppose for the hell of it though
> You did not provide a commercial/business answer to > who is going to continue funding the development of > free software, we all have to pay bills.
Actually I did. I said that virtually all the Linux Kernel update code over the last few years has been supplied by paid for developers from the likes of Red Hat, Suse, IBM etc. This is quite common. I have seen several surveys that confirm that the bulk of all GPL code is coming from commercial concerns these days. This is not to say that there are no longer any private individuals contributing code of course.
I have written a small amount of GPL code for major applications, but I did so because I wanted to use the features I wrote and it was the easiest way for me to get hold of this functionality.
> Look back in history Socialism and Communism has > not been a success, just look at North Korea. Russia > and even China have realised that capitalism is the > way to survive. Getting a bit deep here.
Mmmm .. and way off target. I am still at a loss as to why people think that Open Source is a left wing concept.
As I also mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Open Source is competitive capitalism in it's purest form. One of the biggest blockers to the free market is monolisation and cartels. You cannot monopolise something that must be open to all of it's users.
I look at it more like the old concept of "Common Land". People accepted that there was utility in having an area of their daily life that was owned by the village, rather than by the local laird. Likewise there is utility in having bodies of the software used in our daily lives outside of the control of a self interested commercial body. This isn't communism, this is just common sense.
> Soon or later if open source spreads as all the open > source advocates predict, the developers will wake up > and see that others have made money off of their efforts > and that paid jobs are difficult to find. Remember that > there is no free lunch.
I have countrered this point several times in this thread. I guess that you have skipped over it because it completely nullifies your argument. Right .. listen up:
Virtually all of the people I know who have contributed significantly to the body of Open Source code were paid to do so.
Your point is quite simply misinformed.
We are not talking about cheapo contracts thrown out as bones here. These are, in several cases, very skilled and experienced developers, writing complex code for a decent wage. The only difference being that their product is made common property, useable by all, rather than being hidden away and used to bulk up a monopoly.
> Might be the time to argue to keep mainframes and > learn mainframe skills.
I agree .. IBM for one are using Linux as the client OS for general purpose processing on their BigIron boxes ;)
Reference article on why this came up in British politics:Tories Campaign for Open Source Software
Ping
Open Source = Soros.
Neither, it equals anarchy.
Of course, how much capitalism is there left at the mega-corporation level, given the way patent law, copyright law, threat of lawsuits, legistlation, mergers, aquisitions and everything else now are tailor made to feed into the pockets of the big guys?
Communism...yah. Sure.
Don't like it? don't use it. Like it? enjoy, maybe float a couple of bucks to the people who contribute their time to making it better.
Virus free? There can be a lot of security advantages for open source, but I have never even heard the biggest open source advocates to claim it was virus free. If Windows disappeared from every computer tomorrow and everyone was running open source, do you think that all viruses would cease?
Secondly, a lot of open source is high-quality, but some of it isn't. I haven't heard othe people claim that software being open source automatically makes it high-quality.
The difference is that any *nix OS requires that you accept whatever you are allowing to be installed outside of your user directory. While you can set up that level of security in Windows, try running any program that requires access to the video card or sound card with a limited user account.
Open source software is not automatically high-quality. I never claimed it was. Open Office.org SUCKED when it first came out. Now it's terrific. NeoOffice sucks now, but it won't suck forever.
I'm not one of those hippie-types that hates MS or Adobe or anyone that makes good software and expects to make a profit from it. More power to them, I say.
However, I do resent someone insinuating that I'm a communist or anarchist because I prefer Linux to Windows, or because my primary computer is a Powerbook G4 with no Microsoft software.
Like I said: Don't like it, don't use it.
Also, I love The Great Gatsby. Hope we can get along, old sport.
I saw MySQL CEO Marten Mickos speak at the Organzation of Pakistani Entrepreneurs conference and he makes a great case for the open source business model. I recommend hearing his talk.
Oh yes, and keep on reaching for that green light!
It's more towards capitalism.
Nobody is forcing anybody to give away their software.
Commodies. Perhaps you've heard the word? That's what an OS is. Very common word in capitalist lingo.
I like the open source movement because of this. Who else in the software development realm can threaten them, keep them going? MS has virtually unlimited capital to put into development, but they have a limited number of developers.
Other end of the spectrum, the open source movement has barely enough capital to buy a latte at Starbucks, but they have virtually unlimited development resources.
So I think it's not a David v Goliath nor a Capitalism v Socialism. It's a matter of choice.
Gatsby believed in the green light; in the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but one day we will run faster, stretch our arms farther until--
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly to the past.
That's from memory--probably got it wrong. Nice to meet you.
How so? For example in order to get some of your code into the official Linux kernel it has to go through an apporval chain.
Perhaps that's just an urban legend. Anyway, my point is that open source is no threat to capitalism, and people who use open source software are not all wacko communists. Some of us just like a bargain :-)
Wow. I downloaded Puppy and loaded from a CD. This is AMAZING, and the entire system is running IN RAM. Networking set up in seconds, no headaches, and the entire OS is >90 Meg. Just watched youtube, no prompts for plug-ins, the browser works great, and I'm now using it to post to FR. There is no way I'm going to be going to Vista.
Communism? How utterly silly. This is an excellent product, nothing like a product of communism.
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