The Penguin Ping.
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Got root?
Posted on 03/07/2004 7:15:14 AM PST by Clint Williams
Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday March 07, @09:56AM
from the now-thats-serious-flamebait-1 dept.
I confirm writes "The BBC's Bill Thompson summarises the GNU/Linux vs. Microsoft struggle as a " cold war", and in one choice quote says:"It is rather ironic that Microsoft and other closed model companies rather resemble the Stalinist or Maoist model of a command economy with complete centralised control." I'm not sure I accept Thompson's conclusions, however: "So now would be a good time to start thinking about how we persuade governments that market in software may eventually need to be regulated, just as the market in electricity, water and food is, and that that regulation may well include a statutory duty to disclose source code and allow it to be used elsewhere." "
( Read More... | 8 of 16 comments | developers.slashdot.org )
Socialism is where a limited resource is divied up by the government.
Copies of software are UNLIMITED in quantity.
With Linux, the people who wrote it each wrote a small piece, but they got a whole operating system in return.
And so did everybody else.
Neither are especially capitalistic or socialistic.
Ever heard the word copyright? I suppose you don't think software should be copyrighted. Ok, fine. Copies are unlimitied, but the first copy of most professional software costs in the millions. So are you going to be the one to pay $5 million for your copy of your next software?
By the way, the "volunteers" aren't going to be so happy "volunteering" now that they are being outsourced to India.
I was not advocating making copies of proprietary software.
The GNU software license under which Linux is published specifically allows it to be freely copied.
Do you advocated making such a license illegal?
Socialism is an example of state monopoly where decisions are all made by the self styled elite "who know better" and keep the rabble in the dark... A perfect paradigm for how Microsoft's software actually works and the exact antithesis of the chaotic, freewheeling and highly democratic, yet extremely cooperative way Open Source software works.
Only a fool would accuse Microsoft of being 'innovative', unless you mean innovative in terms of inventing novel approaches to extend its monopoly and destroy the competition. The SCO fracas is a perfect example. SCO is at the same time a stock kiting scheme and a fully funded attack subsidiary of Microsoft...
If you want to find out what TRUE capitalism is, I strongly suggest you read George Gilder...
I could accuse you of something.
Would that make you guilty?
Here are some facts about the Microsoft-financed SCO FUD campaign, not that you require any.
No, but I do believe such licenses will die off. Maybe not immediately, but long before MS goes out of business. The only analogy between OSS and socialism is that they both attempt to engineer human behavior without accepting the funamental laws of human nature.
Once computers program themselves, source code will no longer have a value and noone will give a damn whether it's open, closed or slightly ajar.
WTF does that mean?
You must be a touch-feely sort of guy, eh?
Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!
Got root?
It's called property rights....it's the foundation of all your other rights. You could ask the founding fathers about it.
If you can, please explain what open source software has to do with government ownership of the means of production. If you cannot explain that, then please explain why we should not dismiss your comment as ignorant sloganeering.
Within a short time after that I called SCO (the original SCO, not this SCOG/Caldera/Boise law firm) and told the gentleman running SCO that they better watch Linux. It was becoming a real product quickly. And had native features that SCO was selling as "add ons". I also told him that SCO had the most disjointed, complicated and silly product segmentation anywhere. To the point of absurdity and that even their own people didn't understand all the complexity. I told him Linux was simple and getting to be as dependable as SCO's products. And he needed to bundle his products into 2 or 3 packages and just sell them. He didn't care. He scoffed at Linux.
Over the following years the original SCO made so many errors regarding Linux they are too numerous to list. They also pushed their own version or pushed SCO+Linux. SCO was already dead or dying. So they started messing with Tarantella and whatnot.
If the original SCO had any problems with Linux scabbing their code I never heard a peep from any of their people about it. The issue only came about after Caldera came along (who even sold their own Linux distro). And did the same thing they kinda did with DR-DOS. Having a business plan that apparently has litigation as the main focus.
I personally do not see Linux or the GPL as free software. I see it as a inexpnsive platform on which we run commercial applications that ain't cheap. In the beginning we used free versions but it's been years since that. We usually purchase Red Hat. And now Red Hat Enterprise. I know some people that run it on IBM s/390's and pay nearly $20k for the "OS".
As far as Microsoft? Just like Linux they are another tool in the tool box. More power and flexible than Linux in some areas or worthless compared to Linux in other areas.
I don't care if people see Linux as some socialist thing or Microsoft as some kind of huge and nasty monster. I could care less. It's all hammers and nails to me. Stuff to build things with. That make money. And that's all I care about because I'm an American in business to make money.
It is. According to IDC, "Fourth quarter 2003 shipments of linux servers were up 63% over 4Q02. That compares to 16% growth for Windows servers."
It's not doing so well
What could compel you to write such a thing? You obviously don't know how well it's doing. Yet you would tell your fellow Freepers that "it's not doing so well," as if you knew what you were talking about. You clearly do not.
You could also ask the founding fathers about the duration of copyright, except for the fact that you wouldn't like the answer.
"In pertuity" is not the answer.
Doesn't open source also depend on copyright?
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