Ralph Nader tells government buyers to use Linux, release Microsoft source code.

World Tech Tribune.com ^ | Copyright June 5, 2002 | Scott McCollum

[Scott McCollum]

“Ralph Nader, the self- styled consumer advocate, multi-millionaire champagne socialist and Green Party presidential candidate that stole votes away from Democrat Al Gore, blasted the Bush Administration for supporting the 'Microsoft monopoly' because Federal workers use Microsoft Office products.

Most Federal Government computer and software purchases were made in 1998-1999 during the second term of the Clinton Administration.”

Full details at World Tech Tribune.com

[Bush2000]

B2K, I'm right with you on this one. Nader here makes a strong showing of both his communist leanings and computer illiteracy. Trying to force all government contracts to Linux is just as bad as locking all aerospace contracts with Armalite to the exclusion of Colt, or Boeing to the exclusion of Lockheed.

Just for the record, I think the government should evaluate its software needs and consider Linux. But it should do so for the right reasons: lowering costs, improving efficiency, increasing productivity -- not punishing Microsoft.

And this whole "buy the Windows source code and release it into the public domain" is just pure Communist Manifesto. The guy is so patently loony on this point that it's a wonder he isn't committed.

[dheretic]

Right. That's why most people that use Linux or are sympathetic to OSS (which I am) not so subtely tell him to keep his mouth shut when trying to "advocate" our positions.

[Bush2000]

Miracle of miracles ... we actually agree for a change. Wonders never cease. ;-p

[Liberal Classic]

Shouldn't come as much of a suprise with regards to Ralph "unsafe at any megahertz" Nader. :)

[Liberal Classic]

What? No. Nader couldn't care less about the state of the art in operating systems, he just wants to nationalize your computer.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I've discovered people who liked and voted for Nader also like having the trains run on time.

[Skip Ripley]

Nope

Ralph made millions investing in the market. My guess is he's shorted Microsoft...

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I've discovered people who liked and voted for Nader also like having the trains run on time.

[Liberal Classic]

Oh yeah, and feather his own nest while he's at it.

[Dimensio]

Personal playground? I just get annoyed at an inbox overflowing with junk e-mail (yes, increased stupidity on the Internet does lead to increased junk e-mail because it's a well-documented fact that spammers are always stupid -- no stupid people on the Internet == no junk e-mail) and having my connection bogged down with hundreds of hits per hour from other people on the network who don't realise that their unpatched computer is sending out constant attempts to bang into a port that I don't have open so that it can infect a webserver that I don't run with itself. Their machines got infected because they run an "easy-to-use" webserver package called IIS -- so easy to use you might not even know that it's been installed -- and they don't bother to ever check for security updates to their operating system even though Microsoft has provided an easy-to-use method of obtaining and installing them since Windows 98.

I don't have a problem with people using the Internet. I do have a problem when people who have bought into the "ease of use" illusion create detrimental side-effects to innocent third parties because they don't realise that there is more to running a computer than point-and-click.

[Dimensio]

Geez, I'm blind. I didn't realise that this was put up by the same guy who yesterday blasted an MIT grad student for hacking the XBox console. His article was written with the implication that the hacker's intentions were to facilitate software piracy yet even a casual look at the work (though a more in-depth analysis of the console hacking mentality does help) would make it obvious that his efforts were in line with attempts to make the XBox console run arbitrary "homebrew" programs so that independant software writers could create their own (perfectly legal) projects that would run on the console. He also blasted the hacker's use of reverse engineering to "crack" the XBox system BIOS and criticized a cited court case where it was ruled legal for another software company to reverse engineer Sony's Playstation console (he then got the facts regarding the later settlement wrong).

I very much question Scott's technical expertise and I'd take any commentary he has to offer on subjects even remotely related to issues like this with a grain of salt.

[Dimensio]

One thing to remember is that Linux is just a kernel, and that's been "cobbled together" by only one man. Well, two men when Alan Cox starts working on it (that happens when Linus starts developing the next kernel release) and individual users are free to submit their own patches, but it is wholly inaccurate to refer to the Linux kernel as though it's a thrown-together patchwork of code from anonymous geeks around the world.

Oh, and the best description I've seen of Windows (at least back in the 9X/ME era) was that it was a 32-bit GUI slapped over a 16-bit extention to an 8-bit operating system originally written for a 4-bit processor by a 2-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition.

[danelectro]

I very much question Scott's technical expertise and I'd take any commentary he has to offer on subjects even remotely related to issues like this with a grain of salt.

he's just writing outrage articles to drive traffic to his site. the fact that he posts the articles on fr, not interested readers, says something about their merit, don't you think?

[avg_freeper]

The following comments I made regarding the Tiawan government's proposed push to adopt open source software ring true here as well:

---

Regardless if the open source community acknowledges it or likes it, their software could not of been developed in a vacuum.

That there are plenty of technically knowledgeable people able to expend their free time creating open source software on cheap computers is a testament to the many good things that companies like Microsoft have brought us.

The open source crowd stands on the shoulders of private industry so-to-speak.

Perhaps one can make the case that open source software development has been beneficial to private industry.

But it is easy to see the converse. Private industry has been necessary for open source development.

---

As we all know our government more often creates the monopolies like the post office to the detriment of us all. This is simply an opportunity to do the same.

[Liberal Classic]

Well, I don't agree that MS is a monopoly and should be partitioned, and I especially don't agree that MS should be nationalized. For me, it's just one more Nader windmill to tilt.

[dheretic]

Pity you can't use the Internet for your own personal geek playground anymore...

Pity the government doesn't fine people who help propagate email worms because they are too stupid to take security adviseries seriously. People who spread worms out of stupidity deserve to be fined because they are guilty for spreading the damage. There have been too many instances where people have been told to not do something with a computer and they do it and something like that happens. How many worms is it going to take for the government to tell them to shut up because while the guy who wrote the worm will end up in jail, as far as the government is concerned they were his accomplices because at this point there is no excuse.

There have been probably 20-30 major email worms in the past 2 years. They all spread the same exact way. People were warned every time about what behavior helps spread them yet they continue to do it. Why should the geeks that actually *learn from their mistakes* be punished in any way? I check on Windows Update for updates every week. I don't use IE, I use Mozilla. I use OpenOffice to keep from spreading Macrovirii and I have set Explorer to display file extensions by default. I and other geeks aren't the problem. The secretary and soccer mom that cannot be bothered to learn from their mistakes are.

If this was about guns you'd be demanding that these people be forced into a gun safety course. For some reason computers are off limits, no one has to use any intelligence when using them. People with the attitude you displayed need to realize that if your computer geeks hijacked and involved in a DDoS attack on a major eCommerce site, you are costing them money. If their site is down for 1 hour because of a DDoS attack, they have lost business. It would be like shutting down the power to a local business for an hour. No one would be able to buy anything because the cash registers and credit card readers wouldn't be working. People's ignorance can come back to hurt others in a tangible way.