GNU reeks of Communism
Jim Brooks
GNU reeks of Commumism. I'll tell you why:
1) Karl Marx is famous for his Manifesto.
GNU software includes a "Manifesto" file.
2) The Bolsheviks wanted to spread their Communist revolution all over the globe.
Using the Internet, a "free software revolution" is now spreading globally.
3) Linux is getting lots of media attention these days, scaring Microsoft
and Microsoft investors.
That is reminiscent of the "Red Scare" that occured in the US in the 1950s.
4) The press calls Richard Stallman a fanatic...
...and they also called Vladimir Lenin a fanatic.
5) Those who write copy-left software work without being paid,
for the good of the "free software community".
That's communism, folks.
P.S. This is intended as humor (and a troll) ;-)
--
| | Jim Brooks
| _ | mailto:j...@jimbrooks.org
______________|_(_)_|______________ http://www.jimbrooks.org
+|+ [ ( o ) ] +|+ PGP public key available
* O[_]---[_]O *
jik-
>
> GNU reeks of Commumism.
So?
> I'll tell you why:
>
> 1) Karl Marx is famous for his Manifesto.
>
> GNU software includes a "Manifesto" file.
So do various right wing hate groups.
>
> 2) The Bolsheviks wanted to spread their Communist revolution all over the >globe.
>
> Using the Internet, a "free software revolution" is now spreading globally.
The internet IS a revolution, should it be free or a police state?
>
> 3) Linux is getting lots of media attention these days, scaring Microsoft
> and Microsoft investors.
>
> That is reminiscent of the "Red Scare" that occured in the US in the 1950s.
With the exception that the media would be congress and the media of the
50s, and the people being abused would be Linux and GNU advocates. The
Red Scare was when congress went on this constitutionally illegal witch
hunt for communists and incarserating all of them, taking the 5th was an
admition of guilt.
If such an event took place today in the computer world, I am sure that
MS would be one of the key players on the side of congress....probably
creating the most scare and hype and paying off various senetors and
reps to keep crusifying people. It was all about political power and
money then, it would be the same today.
Course your example is MS being abused like the "communists" back then
when this is so far from the truth as to be beyond even commenting on,
any such comment would be pointless.
>
> 4) The press calls Richard Stallman a fanatic...
>
> ...and they also called Vladimir Lenin a fanatic.
Most great men are,...not saying RMS is a "great" man,....but being
called a fanatic is nothing to be ashamed of. John Lenin's records were
burned because he said "imagine".
>
> 5) Those who write copy-left software work without being paid,
> for the good of the "free software community".
>
> That's communism, folks.
Again...so?
Chris Costello
>
> GNU reeks of Commumism. I'll tell you why:
You forgot to mention anything about the GPL!
>
> P.S. This is intended as humor (and a troll) ;-)
>
>
> --
>
> | | Jim Brooks
> | _ | mailto:j...@jimbrooks.org
> ______________|_(_)_|______________ http://www.jimbrooks.org
> +|+ [ ( o ) ] +|+ PGP public key available
> * O[_]---[_]O *
--
Chris Costello
Hardware: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
Bev
>
> GNU reeks of Commumism. I'll tell you why:
>
>
> GNU software includes a "Manifesto" file.
>
>
> Using the Internet, a "free software revolution" is now spreading globally.
>
> and Microsoft investors.
>
> That is reminiscent of the "Red Scare" that occured in the US in the 1950s.
>
>
> ...and they also called Vladimir Lenin a fanatic.
>
> for the good of the "free software community".
>
> That's communism, folks.
>
Yeah, tell that to the guys in the Black Helicopters. When the doorbell
rings and a deep voice says "Avon Lady," don't believe it.
--
Cheers,
Bev
==================================================================
"I owed the government $3400 in taxes. So I sent them two hammers
and a toilet seat." --Michael McShane
Steve D. Perkins
die.
Steve
Matt Templeton
Matthias Warkus
..and Jim Brooks <j...@jimbrooks.org> wrote:
>
> GNU reeks of Commumism. I'll tell you why:
>
>
> 1) Karl Marx is famous for his Manifesto.
>
> GNU software includes a "Manifesto" file.
Oh, big deal. The Futurists had a Manifesto, too, and they were
decidedly fascist later on.
> 2) The Bolsheviks wanted to spread their Communist revolution all over the globe.
>
> Using the Internet, a "free software revolution" is now spreading globally.
Well, Coca Cola spread globally, too. I suppose Coca Cola is a
communist company.
> 3) Linux is getting lots of media attention these days, scaring Microsoft
> and Microsoft investors.
>
> That is reminiscent of the "Red Scare" that occured in the US in the 1950s.
Uh-huh.
> 4) The press calls Richard Stallman a fanatic...
>
> ...and they also called Vladimir Lenin a fanatic.
Uh-huh-huh.
> 5) Those who write copy-left software work without being paid,
> for the good of the "free software community".
>
> That's communism, folks.
>
>
> P.S. This is intended as humor (and a troll) ;-)
Yes. I see. *bangs head against wall*
mawa
--
And I'm not a stultifying geek. I'm a computer dweeb. Sheesh.
-- Michelle Lee, mi...@ontek.com
Karel Jansens
> >
> > ...and they also called Vladimir Lenin a fanatic.
>
> Most great men are,...not saying RMS is a "great" man,....but being
> called a fanatic is nothing to be ashamed of. John Lenin's records were
^^^^^^^
^
> burned because he said "imagine".
> >
Quite a funny typo, actually... if it's that.
Karel Jansens
jansens_at_ibm_dot_net
===============================================================
Having a kid at sixty, that's an accident.
Having a piano fallen on your head, that's just bad luck.
Agent WD40, Dick Steel
===============================================================
jik-
> relation. Got it?
God, I forgot how anal people get around here....I'll make sure to look
it up in ...well werever I could to know how to spell John Lennon's
name,....before I speak next time. Guess I could have looked on one of
the beatle's records, but I wasn't expecting this kind of reaction.
r.e.b...@usa.net
The whole concept of GNU is rather interesting. It consists of both communism
in it's purest form, and free-enterprise in it's purest form.
> 1) Karl Marx is famous for his Manifesto.
> GNU software includes a "Manifesto" file.
This was probably intentional knowing Richard Stallman. Stallman wrote the
Manefesto shortly after Gosling took Stallman's version of emacs, which he had
put in public domain, and proceeded to add proprietary extensions while
refusing share any of the benefits (royalties, enhancements, derivitave
products, ...) with Stallman. In effect, Gosling tried to steal emacs from
Stallman, who was a student or teacher at the time.
Stallman did a very capitalist thing. He went to a lawyer to find out how to
secure his copyright (initially in net.legal), and had some lawyers write up
a license agreement that we now know as the General Public License. Stallman
then published his agreement to the internet to get feedback. After about a
year of haggling, the GPL took it's current form.
The other very capitalist thing Stallman did was offer to sell his archive for
$400/copy on magnetic Tape. This may seem like a large amount of money for
"free software", but to a UNIX community accustomed to paying as much as
$50,000 for a single application, it was the deal of the century. Production
managers loved GNU software because they could put out their own fires.
An even more capitalistic thing happened after that. UNIX hackers all over
the country started selling GNU support agreements. Prices ranged from
$10/user/month and $100/server/month to $100/user/month and
$10,000/server/month depending on the quality of service you wanted. If you
just wanted a monthly upload to a shared drive, the price was low. If you
wanted the dumbest questions of you dumbest users answered any time, day or
night, by a live operator, that was very expensive. To an operations
manager, being able to choose from different vendors who could promise, and
deliver 24/7 availability on production systems, it was a pretty good deal.
> 2) The Bolsheviks wanted to spread their Communist
revolution all over the globe.
Ray Crock wanted to open McDonald's all over the world too. When you have a
good idea and you can help people, and you can do it at a fair price, it
catches on fast. I'm surprised that Stallman didn't franchise the support
operation. That is in effect what Red Hat is doing with Linux. Who knows,
maybe in a few years, you can go to the shopping center and go to the Red Hat
Kiosk and get a support contract.
Ray Crock didn't invent the hamburger, he didn't invent the milk shake (he
was actually trying to sell mixers originally), and he didn't invent the
french fries. What he did was take the basic meat, milk, bread, potato, and
vegatable (pickle) and packaged it at a price that was easy to afford, in a
format that was easy to access.
> Using the Internet, a "free software revolution" is now spreading globally.
Linux is a symptom of a much larger revolution. We're actually seeing the
formation of a global democracy. In usenet newsgroups, web sites, and chat
rooms, people are able to examine complex issues that have plagued mankind
since the dawn of history, and come up with real solutions.
We've seen the genetic code cracked through the Genome project. In the
politics groups, we've seen the diffusion of the cold war, the opening for
peace in the Middle East, and the possibility of economic abundance on a
global scale. We've seen the infant mortality rate drop by more than 45% in
the last 10 years. We've seen an increase in international trade that was
unimaginable only 8 years ago.
Rather than people being powerless victims of a government that doesn't care
and in which they can't make a difference, people are able to discuss the
issues for which they believe they can make a difference, and contribute.
Rather than get caught up in the heated argument of a face-to-face
confrontation where knee-jerk reactions often derail the best of intentions,
the contributors are forced to put their contributions into writing. They
are forced to take the time to carefully consider their responses.
> 3) Linux is getting lots of media attention these days, scaring Microsoft
> and Microsoft investors.
> That is reminiscent of the "Red Scare" that occured in the US in the 1950s.
Microsoft is a well established company with interests in hundreds of
secondary companies ranging in everything from banking and finance to cable
television and sattellite interests. The joint holdings of the top ten
shareholders of Microsoft would amaze even the Securities Exchange
Commission.
Paul Allen owns almost as much interest in Microsoft's competitors, such as
AOL, as he owns in Microsoft. Gates owns shares of PrimeStar, MSNBC, and
thousands of other companies.
If Linux became an overnight success and Microsoft didn't sell another copy
of Microsoft Windows, it would still be an incredibly successful company.
Greyhound doesn't drive buses anymore (Greyhound makes them, Trailways drives
them). Goodyear doesn't make rubber tires anymore (synthetic is much
better), and McDonalds doesn't own restaurants any more. In each case, these
companies underwent a paradigm shift. Companies who adapt well to paradigm
shifts do very well. When a company clings to an old paradigm, the way
Chrysler clung to the notion that people wanted big muscle cars in the late
1970s, when gas was $2/gallon, they don't do so well. Every indication is
that Microsoft is actually preparing to adapt to the paradigm shift if, and
when, it occurrs.
Microsoft is already beginning to take back much of it's customer service
functions, a practical move in the service oriented Linux market. They are
prepared to implement Linux versions of popular software (the UNIX versions
could be ported in a matter of a few weeks - it probably has been ported and
the masters are in a vault somewhere.
> 4) The press calls Richard Stallman a fanatic...
> ...and they also called Vladimir Lenin a fanatic.
They also called Ghandi a fanatic, they called Martin Luther King a fanatic,
they called Ronald Reagan a fanatic, they even called Richard Nixon a fanatic.
Each used unconventional means to improve quality of life for not only the
peaple they directly served, but also to the world at large. Ghandi show the
world that killing, shooting, and bloodshed is not the only way to instigate
change, even revolution or independence from one of the largest and oldest
empires in history. Today, several wars have been ended through nonviolent
demonstrations.
Martin Luthor King didn't advocate overthrowing the white government, he stood
for a world where people would be judget by the quality of their character,
rather than the color of their skin. After that, it stopped being about black
vs white. It started to be about bringing out the best in honorable, decent
people who are willing to work hard, live well, and serve others.
Ronald Reagan used the threat of immediate holocaust as a real and immediate
possibility to create the willingness for not only the Soviets, but also the
Amarican Military Industrial Complex, to stop spending billions of dollars to
build missles we didn't need, didn't want to use, and didn't really even
want, and start to focus on the real issues of creating stable economies in
both countries such that Nuclear stockpiling would not be necessary. Reagan
was able to make his own daughter think he was ready to push the button,
"just for fun".
Richard Stallman, and the original authors of the GPL, had an unconventional
vision themselves. After seeing companies like IBM and DEC attempt to hold
corporations hostage under the threat of MVS or VMS license revocation, he saw
the possibility of documents, stored on electronic media, in a publicly
available format, that could be viewed using software that could be easily
distributed. In effect, he was willing to give away the telephones, if only
because the real money was in sharing the wires.
AT&T actually discovered by accident, that divestature was actually one of
the best things that could have happened to them. By breaking up the
monopoly, AT&T and it's competitors were able to find a common ground which
enabled them to both innovate, and establish common standards by which they
could interoperate. Today, AT&T sells the phones at cost, or below, and makes
a tidy profit on the shared wire (fiber).
> 5) Those who write copy-left software work without being paid,
> for the good of the "free software community".
Mostly, the people who write copy-left software are people whose primary
function is to help their employer run a profitable business. Sendmail was
written by a group of UNIX administrators who needed technical support and
saw that electronic mail was the most cost-effective way to get it. The Web
server was developed by News publishers who saw that sending out full copies
of their publications to millions of users on huge sites like compuserve was
not going to go over with whoever was paying for the storage. The early
Mosaic browser and NCSA server were used because it was the best way to keep
control of both the content and the advertizing.
X11 was developed by administrators who needed the ability to monitor and
manage hundreds of computers distributed all over the world, from a single
console connected via TCP/IP.
Linux was developed by ISPs who needed cheap servers that could be installed
in the bedroom closet and didn't need special power, cooling, or logistical
support.
> That's communism, folks.
No, it's "Stone Soup". What Linus, or the author of Lynx, or the author of
X-wire protocol, or the author of emacs did, was take a crude implementation
of a relatively simple idea and ask for some help from a few friends. It was
like the lady who put a rock in a big kettle and started boiling it. Just as
the lady's friends started bringing some leftovers to improve the stock, so
too did thousands of anonymous contributors bring some of their own good
ideas, source code, support, or marketing skills to the table.
I'm no communist, in fact, I'm a capitalist, and an very expensive consultant.
I make a good living doing what I love to do, in part BECAUSE I contribute to
the development, marketing, and promotion of GPL software.
> P.S. This is intended as humor (and a troll) ;-)
I bit, but I posted anyway :-).
> --
>
> | | Jim Brooks
> | _ | mailto:j...@jimbrooks.org
> ______________|_(_)_|______________ http://www.jimbrooks.org
> +|+ [ ( o ) ] +|+ PGP public key available
> * O[_]---[_]O *
>
--
Rex Ballard - Open Source Advocate, Internet Architect, IT Architect
http://www.open4success.com
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Keven R. Pittsinger
jik- <j...@foxinternet.net> writes:
> Jim Brooks wrote:
>> 4) The press calls Richard Stallman a fanatic...
>>
>> ...and they also called Vladimir Lenin a fanatic.
>
> called a fanatic is nothing to be ashamed of. John Lenin's records were
OK, let's get the names straight. Vladimir Lenin. John Lennon. No
relation. Got it?
Keven
--
tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Science-Fiction Adventure
In Reavers' Deep
David Steuber
-> That's communism, folks.
->
->
-> P.S. This is intended as humor (and a troll) ;-)
->
->
-> --
->
-> | | Jim Brooks
-> | _ | mailto:j...@jimbrooks.org
-> ______________|_(_)_|______________ http://www.jimbrooks.org
-> +|+ [ ( o ) ] +|+ PGP public key available
-> * O[_]---[_]O *
Nice MIG in you .sig :-)
--
David Steuber
http://www.david-steuber.com
If you wish to reply by mail, _please_ replace 'trashcan' with 'david'
in the e-mail address. The trashcan account really is a trashcan.
Honorable, adj.:
Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative
bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the
honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
David Steuber
-> Sigh... if people would stop "feeding the trolls", perhaps they would get bored and
-> die.
Hah!
People always feed the trolls. They can't help it.
--
David Steuber
http://www.david-steuber.com
If you wish to reply by mail, _please_ replace 'trashcan' with 'david'
in the e-mail address. The trashcan account really is a trashcan.
It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is
thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have
drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
Filargiropoulos Stavros
Chris Hansson
> Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
Yea, but we are HUMANS, not ants. We have feelings, and <gasp,
sputter> AMBITION. This is why communism will never work. We (or atleast
most of us) have a drive to succeed. Not to mention humans are lazy and
want to do as little "nonfun" work as possible. But this disucssion does
NOT belong in these news-groups. So to the rest of you, I apologize in
advance of the flames :-)
/CMH
Charlie Stross
as <c...@nwlink.com> declared:
>Filargiropoulos Stavros wrote:
>
>> Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
>
>Yea, but we are HUMANS, not ants. We have feelings, and <gasp,
>sputter> AMBITION. This is why communism will never work.
Ahem. I take it you're not familiar with the theory of alienated labour?
What you came out with above is, in point of fact, the Marxist critique
of capitalism in a nutshell.
-- Charlie
Donal K. Fellows
[...]
> Mostly, the people who write copy-left software are people whose primary
> function is to help their employer run a profitable business. Sendmail was
> written by a group of UNIX administrators who needed technical support and
> saw that electronic mail was the most cost-effective way to get it. The Web
> server was developed by News publishers who saw that sending out full copies
> of their publications to millions of users on huge sites like compuserve was
> not going to go over with whoever was paying for the storage. The early
> Mosaic browser and NCSA server were used because it was the best way to keep
> control of both the content and the advertizing.
>
> X11 was developed by administrators who needed the ability to monitor and
> manage hundreds of computers distributed all over the world, from a single
> console connected via TCP/IP.
That's revisionist rot (at least in part.) There are more forces at
work in the OSS world than purely those that you discuss in the above
two paragraphs.
But there no time to discuss this properly. I've a train to catch,
and a long wait if I miss it...
Donal.
--
Donal K. Fellows http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/ fell...@cs.man.ac.uk
-- The small advantage of not having California being part of my country would
be overweighed by having California as a heavily-armed rabid weasel on our
borders. -- David Parsons <o r c @ p e l l . p o r t l a n d . o r . u s>
The Ghost In The Machine
Filargiropoulos Stavros <liz...@freemail.gr> wrote:
>Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
>
Yeah, sure it is. That's why the USSR is dominating our butts...
oh, wait, it doesn't exist anymore.
Hmmm....that should tell you something... :-)
The followups should also tell you something. :-)
----
ew...@aimnet.com
John S. Dyson
be practical in the short term or regressive (like GPL), or work
well in the longer term (practical capitalism and properly compensated
creativity.) For each person, it depends on timescale or personal
interest. Some systems elevate a "class" of individuals to take
advantage of others ("practical communism" and GPL), while others
are more egalitarian in practice (but not in the communist-like
theory that ignores true human nature.)
All ideas need to be tolerated, but one needs common sense and
discipline to stay away from implementing the seductive, but
damaging ones. Pragmatism needs to be considered for both the
short and long term. Unfortunately, it is often the idealogues
that seem to forget *long term* kindness to others, pragmatism
and the true cost to support an economy.
Recently, it seems that most idealogues have become better at "spin"
and misinformation, and are indeed much more destructive.
--
John | Never try to teach a pig to sing,
dy...@iquest.net | it makes one look stupid
jdy...@nc.com | and it irritates the pig.
Jerry Lynn Kreps
Jim, this is the best summary I've read in quite a while about a lot of
events.
It makes me say " I wish I had written that!"
Thanks for taking the time to respond to that 'troll'.
--
JLK
Linux, because it's STABLE, the source code is included, the price is
right.
Brandon
>
> Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
Oh yeah....that's why EVERY single country in the world uses it right?
Now I see. *yeah right*
Brandon
--
"Bill Gates?, I dont know any Bill Gates. Oh, you mean 'by putting
every conceivable
feature into an OPERATING SYSTEM, whether you want it or not, is
innovation' Bill
Gates? Yeah, I know the monopolizer"
http://web.mountain.net/~brandon/main.htm
For Beginners in Linux, Emulation, Midis, Playstation Info, and
Virii.
jik-
>
> Filargiropoulos Stavros wrote:
> >
> > Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
>
> Oh yeah....that's why EVERY single country in the world uses it right?
> Now I see. *yeah right*
No, the reason why every country uses it is because it is so easy for
the people in power to get more power and keep it. Because money is the
sole cause of most ambition in the world, and communism sort of enhances
the use and power of money.
Ewan Dunbar
> Filargiropoulos Stavros wrote:
> >
> > Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
>
> Oh yeah....that's why EVERY single country in the world uses it right?
> Now I see. *yeah right*
Many countries are far too conservative to believe in any such thing.
Many others have seen that, in the past, communism has been exploited so
easily, and opt against it. Some countries fear communism because of FUD
or past experience. Some just don't want it. Other countries are
communist and have used the ideology for greed, or at least corrupted it.
In any case, this thread is going wildly off-topic, so let's try and bring
it to a close.
------------------------------------------------
Ewan Dunbar nort...@ix.netcom.com
------------------------------------------------
Visit Preston Manning: Action Hero at
http://earl.thedunbars.com/pmah/index.html
------------------------------------------------
hellraiser
crap?? you probly don't know a single thing about communism besides the
lies that our government has poisoned your mind with.
Brandon wrote:
>
> Filargiropoulos Stavros wrote:
> >
> > Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
>
> Oh yeah....that's why EVERY single country in the world uses it right?
> Now I see. *yeah right*
>
Christopher Browne
>Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
No doubt it's great *ideology.*
Just so long as it stays as such, and people don't try to actually use
it in practice...
--
linux: the choice of a GNU generation
(k...@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93)
cbbr...@ntlug.org- <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/canada.html>
Colin R. Day
> In article <slrn7ib528...@lexi.athghost7038suus.net>,
> ew...@lexi.athghost7038suus.net (The Ghost In The Machine) writes:
> > On Tue, 27 Apr 1999 15:55:24 +0300,
> > Filargiropoulos Stavros <liz...@freemail.gr> wrote:
> >>Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
> >>
> >
> > Yeah, sure it is. That's why the USSR is dominating our butts...
> > oh, wait, it doesn't exist anymore.
> >
> > Hmmm....that should tell you something... :-)
> >
> > The followups should also tell you something. :-)
> >
> A given idealogy might just not be practical. Some idealogies might
> be practical in the short term or regressive (like GPL),
GPL only a short-term thing? Don't be so sure.
> or work
> well in the longer term (practical capitalism and properly compensated
> creativity.) For each person, it depends on timescale or personal
> interest. Some systems elevate a "class" of individuals to take
> advantage of others ("practical communism" and GPL),
GPL? How so? Users can hardly coerce programmers to
write code.
> while others
> are more egalitarian in practice (but not in the communist-like
> theory that ignores true human nature.)
>
> All ideas need to be tolerated, but one needs common sense and
> discipline to stay away from implementing the seductive, but
> damaging ones. Pragmatism needs to be considered for both the
> short and long term. Unfortunately, it is often the idealogues
> that seem to forget *long term* kindness to others, pragmatism
> and the true cost to support an economy.
>
> Recently, it seems that most idealogues have become better at "spin"
> and misinformation, and are indeed much more destructive.
>
> --
> John | Never try to teach a pig to sing,
> dy...@iquest.net | it makes one look stupid
> jdy...@nc.com | and it irritates the pig.
--
Colin R. Day cd...@ix.netcom.com alt.atheist #1500
EAC Cheerleader RAH! RAH! RAH! Go, team, go! (of course, there
is no EAC team)
Charlie Stross
>This was probably intentional knowing Richard Stallman. Stallman wrote the
>Manefesto shortly after Gosling took Stallman's version of emacs, which he had
>put in public domain, and proceeded to add proprietary extensions while
>refusing share any of the benefits (royalties, enhancements, derivitave
>products, ...) with Stallman. In effect, Gosling tried to steal emacs from
>Stallman, who was a student or teacher at the time.
I think you're completely missing the central point.
The free software movement is basically the little boy standing by the
parade, pointing at the Emperor, and shouting "but he isn't wearing
anything!" The emperor in question is, of course, our current notion of
intellectual property.
Let's go and take a peek through the wonderful cinemascope time-viewer,
and replay some interesting bits of history,
Back before the Gutenberg revolution, if you'd suggested the concept of
copyright to anyone who was literate they'd probably have stared at you
as if you were mad. Copying information was a highly labour-intensive
operation: a mass market for duplicated texts simply didn't -- and
couldn't -- exist.
Patents -- or their forerunners -- existed, in the form of royal grants
to some individual or guild to have exclusive ownership of some tool or
mechanism for production, and the guilds had their secrets, but the
legal basis for ownership of trade secrets was different from the basis
we understand today: you owned one because the King said he'd hang
anybody else who muscled in on your turf (as long as you behaved
yourself and paid your taxes). The contemporary explanation of patent
rights would be incomprehensible, because the concept of a society based
on a social contract and mutual observation of rights didn't exist: there
was no mechanism whereby society (or its legislators) could agree to
grant rights to inventors in order to encourage their creativity.
Let's hit the fast-forward button a bit, and take the leap into the age
of enlightenment -- post-printing-press, post-monarchical.
Duplicating texts had become a problem by the nineteenth century. Earlier
solutions included licensing printing presses, but in a society that
encourages free speech there's no obvious justification for that. A
situation arose where any aspiring novelist who published a book would
be vulnerable to unscrupulous printers copying their work and re-selling
it, pocketing the profits that accrued. Mass literacy brought its own
new social problems.
The solution to this problem was the idea of copyright; that the author of
a work had the power to grant a right of copying over it. A sensible
and moderate solution within the context of the time, because printing
presses were big and pirate printers could be tracked down and sued in
civil court.
A similar approach was taken to inventions; it was merely common sense
that an inventor who came up with a genuinely new innovation should have
the right to reap some profit from it before carpetbagging imitators
duplicated the idea and swamped the market. Patents originally were a
sign of progress; by protecting inventions they made it feasible to
publish details of them, rather than trying to maintain the secrecy
surrounding them. This in turn encouraged a climate of invention.
Secrecy, as we should all know, is one of the enemies of progress.
And now let's hit that fast-forward button again and jump all the way
to the present day.
The concept of copyright has been over-extended. From protecting an
individual author's rights to their work, it has been extended to
protect vast corporations. From covering published books and pamphlets
that some individual slaved over, it now covers what a Marxist economist
would call alienated labour -- the capital accumulation of information.
By extending copyright seventy years after the author's death our
legislators haven't done anything for their surviving families, but have
taken a large chunk of our common cultural heritage and handed it over
to faceless corporations who can dole it out on a commercial basis. By
extending copyright cover to music, the legislators have granted new
rights: the music industry in turn is concerned with constructively
extending their copyright in such a way that the consumers pay per
performance, rather than paying a one-off purchase fee related to the
recording medium. And so on.
The patent laws have also been shown to be defective. Software patents
run for the same 20-year period as normal patents: but in the febrile
world of software, 20 years covers as many generations as 75 years in
the automobile industry or 250 years in the construction industry.
Meanwhile, patent agency staff who are manifestly untrained for the task
grant patents on inappropriate inventions and things which simply are
_not_ inventions, such as the algorithms underlying public-key
encryption. By granting patents on mathematical principles, they are
hampering the growth of the industry rather than fostering it; it's as
if they had allowed some company to patent the refractive index of glass
and claim royalties from any other company producing materials that
shared that physical characteristic.
And so, we come to the free software movement: loudly declaring "but
your whole idea of copyrights and patents and selling something that can
be copied freely is a load of crap! Charge for support and services,
make the software itself free, and you won't have to deal with these
internal contradictions!"
Well, time will tell. Personally, I think the answer is a thorough
overhaul of copyright and patent laws, drafted _not_ from the point of
view of the big multinationals (who want to be able to copyright
database schemas and patent mathematical theorems if it helps them make
more profits) but from the point of view of the original agreed social
goals -- to protect the writers (and programmers, and musicians) from
plagiarism, and to encourage the inventors to keep inventing and raising
our standard of living.
-- Charlie
Tesla Coil
>> Well, despite what you think, communism is a great ideology.
Same day, The Ghost In The Machine replied:
> Yeah, sure it is. That's why the USSR is dominating our butts...
> oh, wait, it doesn't exist anymore.
>
> Hmmm....that should tell you something... :-)
Read carefully:
"...state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the
present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately
six months' time state capitalism became established in our Republic,
this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year
socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have
become invincible in our country."
--V.I. Lenin, one-half year after the 1917 Russian Revolution.
http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/LWC18.html
Some forty years later, Lenny Bruce would look at Russia and say:
"Communism, man, that's like one big phone company."
Communism, like monopoly capitalism.
Karl Marx calculated capitalism to be unsustainable in a monopoly
stage--he didn't say socialism was guaranteed to follow.
Rather unlikely when people are ignorant of the difference.
lo...@my.sig
: P.S. This is intended as humor (and a troll) ;-)
There's nothing wrong with Communism.
The fact that no government on earth has managed to actually abide by
Marksist doctrine proves nothing.
(And don't try to tell me Lenin was a Marksist.)
--
______________________________________________________________________________
|u5...@teach.cs.keele.ac.uk| "I'm alive!!! I can touch! I can taste! |
| Andrew Halliwell | I can SMELL!!! KRYTEN!!! Unpack Rachel and |
| Finalist in:- | get out the puncture repair kit!" |
| Computer Science | Arnold Judas Rimmer- Red Dwarf |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|GCv3.12 GCS>$ d-(dpu) s+/- a C++ US++ P L/L+ E-- W+ N++ o+ K PS+ w-- M+/++ |
|PS+++ PE- Y t+ 5++ X+/X++ R+ tv+ b+ DI+ D+ G e>e++ h/h+ !r!| Space for hire |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mlw
>
> In the sacred domain of comp.os.linux.misc didst Jim Brooks <j...@jimbrooks.org> eloquently scribe:
> : P.S. This is intended as humor (and a troll) ;-)
>
> There's nothing wrong with Communism.
> The fact that no government on earth has managed to actually abide by
> Marksist doctrine proves nothing.
>
> (And don't try to tell me Lenin was a Marksist.)
I think any absolute adherence to any one belief is bound to fail. Pure
communism will always fail. Pure capitalism will as well. It is when the
two differing philosophies are carefully combined does a society
prosper.
There needs to be a self interest (profit) motive to drive individual
participation.
There needs to be communal endeavors and responsibility to bind
individuals together.
Any society that attempts one without another is destined to fail.
--
Mohawk Software
Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
Take the Mohawk Software Computer Survey at: www.mohawksoft.com
Pete Barrett
>There's nothing wrong with Communism.
>The fact that no government on earth has managed to actually abide by
>Marksist doctrine proves nothing.
>
Ask yourself why. Could it be that it's hopelessly impractical?
Pete Barrett
Pete Barrett
Stross) wrote:
>
>I think you're completely missing the central point.
>
>The free software movement is basically the little boy standing by the
>parade, pointing at the Emperor, and shouting "but he isn't wearing
>anything!" The emperor in question is, of course, our current notion of
>intellectual property.
>
>....
>
>And so, we come to the free software movement: loudly declaring "but
>your whole idea of copyrights and patents and selling something that can
>be copied freely is a load of crap! Charge for support and services,
>make the software itself free, and you won't have to deal with these
>internal contradictions!"
>
Agree with the (snipped) analysis, but this author, who has no talent
for support and has no services to provide, would still like to make a
living somehow <g>.
>Well, time will tell. Personally, I think the answer is a thorough
>overhaul of copyright and patent laws, drafted _not_ from the point of
>view of the big multinationals (who want to be able to copyright
>database schemas and patent mathematical theorems if it helps them make
>more profits) but from the point of view of the original agreed social
>goals -- to protect the writers (and programmers, and musicians) from
>plagiarism, and to encourage the inventors to keep inventing and raising
>our standard of living.
>
Nice if it happens, but the multinationals have an awful lot of
economic power, and governments don't want to go against them.
Considering that some of the countries in the Far East seem to have no
concept of intellectual property, and information is getting easier
and easier to copy (why does nobody copy a book? because to do it
effieciently takes a large investment in plant; why does everyone
(including me, but only for personal use) copy music? because it takes
almost no investment to do so; and the same goes for software and
electronic books), I can see the concept of intellectual property
going down the drain. The FSF's ideas may be more practical.
Pete Barrett
Michael David Jones
Or perhaps not. No government on earth has managed to actually
establish a stable pure capitalist state, either.
Mike Jones | jon...@rpi.edu
Let me show you how the guards used to do it.
Jim Brooks
> > Communism is just for those who are jealous of the people who
> > have the initiative, intelligence, and forethought to make their own
> > money instead of sitting on their asses complaining that society is
> > pushing them down into the gutter.
>
> You're a moron. Go to Europe some day.
You imply that morons belong in Europe with other Europeons.
--
This discussion has degenerated into an *ism vs *ism war.
So to return to the topic...
I haven't yet read anyone mentioning the suffering caused by "GNU Communism".
For example, no longer can companies make money selling a UNIX port
or a C++ compiler, now that gcc and Linux is freely spreading like gonorrhea.
Those companies once used to provide jobs and salaries, which are now gone.
(If you live in an advanced democratic/capitalistic nation...)
Should we write to our congressman about stopping this new technocommunism?
Any (on-topic) comments for/against "GNU Communism"?
Daniel Johnson
news:jinx6568-270...@arc4a99.bf.sover.net...
> In article <kvsV2.13604$95.3...@news2.giganews.com>, cbbr...@hex.net
wrote:
> >On Tue, 27 Apr 1999 15:55:24 +0300, Filargiropoulos Stavros
> >Just so long as it stays as such, and people don't try to actually use
> >it in practice...
>
> electronic media.
I would have to argue that so far, this seems untrue. We've made amazing
progress in a very short time capitalistically.
> It's great to compete for money, but in a lot of areas
> the best way to compete is to _produce_ more. In electronic media, often
> the best way to compete is to _destroy_ more, and figure out ways to
> penalize anybody not doing things your way.
I think it's hard to serious charactarize that as *destroying* things. Evil
rotten
dirty tricks, but destructive in any non-metaphorical sense?
Anyway, the production of new software *is* rather common in the
industry today. Even Evil Nasty Darth-Vadery Companies (say, MS)
do it.
> This is because the common
> welfare is not a capitalistic value- it's more social than economic, and
> in fact the common welfare is likely to be measurably less profitable than
> greed, extortion and destruction of enemies.
Strangely, that is not how it usually works out. Of course, there are always
the exceptional cases.
Individual self interest and The Common Good are often not at odds at all;
this is because, basically, The Common Good (tm) is the sum of a lot
of individual self interests. There is no society apart from the people in
society.
> For this reason, a Commie approach to software (at least in theory-
> never mind historical examples of practice! o_O ) has marked advantages to
> turning it over to a capitalistic ethos.
Even granting that Capitalism is a Bad Way (tm) to do software, it is *far*
from obvious that communism, marxism, or Free Software is better. The
case must be made. You can't just say that your pet ideology (whatever
it happens to be) wins be default.
> *begin Strange Metaphor Block*
You're syntax is faulty. You mean
<BLOCK METAPHOR="STRANGE">
do you not?
> In goods manufacturing, storefront operation, whatever, it's very
> possible to have some people's success going along like an oxcart drawn by
> a tired donkey, and other people's success zipping along like a Mercedes.
> There are goods to produce, tangible supplies to manage which set sane
> limits to greed and cause the business to proceed in fairly reasonable
> fashion.
Except, of course, when it doesn't. :D
> In electronic media, the trouble is it's all weightless and
> hyper-accelerated, and the oxcart mode seems completely useless- until you
> notice that what with the crazed velocity of the whole race, all the
> players are spending their efforts shooting out each other's tires and
> laying land mines in the road, causing horrible pollution- and such is the
> nature of their industry that this is a winning tactic for them, because
> virtually the _only_ pressure on them is 'who leads the race?'.
The mercedes always gets the press, but do *not* think that the oxcarts
are gone. IBM is still selling it's good ole' big irons. Not that anybody
*cares*- outside of their customers.
But then, since when do ox-carts get on the front page of VroomVroomWeek?
Remember that these companies to have considerable costs- us programmers
don't come cheap, and we put down *lots* of Jolt- and they need sales to
pay for it. They have pressures, even if those pressures are different from
a company with a large investment is in inventory.
> Who gets
> the hype, who is 'the standard', the only acceptable choice?
You need product to get the hype, or to be the standard. Trying to
shoot the wheels out from under others won't do it.
> More sane
> businesses exist in a context where they produce something tangible,
> finite, perhaps unglamorous- nobody thinks much about the prospects of
> McDonald's destroying all other hamburger stands.
That does not mean it cannot happen. There *have* been monopolies in
tangible markets. Standard Oil, anyone?
It appears to be easier in a commodity market, when an upstart cannot
easily distinguish itself by offering something different, or maybe even
better.
The software industry is *emphatically* not a commodity market in this
sense- 'different, maybe even better' is our stock in trade!
> People will drink Coke
> and not think for a moment that they need to obliterate Pepsi from the
> earth-
Speak for yourself, buster! Dr. Pepper uber alles!
> and yet people will treat electronic media as if it's a battle for
> survival and those who won't fight have to die- and by playing along with
> this absurd viewpoint, they help to make it possible, and legitimise the
> extensive actions by many, many electronic media companies to damage other
> players in the industry.
We take it more seriously because it's an emerging field. What we do here
will be What is Done for who knows how long. It matters.
> In these circumstances, if the choices are commie oxcarts with wooden
> wheels which don't do any harm, or capitalistic James Bond vehicles
> throwing bombs at each other and blowing big holes in the road,
Of course, those are not the choices. But what did you expect us to say? :D
[snip]
> it's
> reasonable for anybody to conclude that gee- in a perfect world capitalism
> would absolutely rock, but in the real world the problem is that it's all
> too easy to make money by killing off your competitor- or sowing landmines
> so they blow up if they try to follow your path.
If it's easy, you try it. :D
Seriously, Capitalism is far from perfect. It does assume that people will
be too
short-sighted to 'cheat' in various and sundry ways. Of course, they aren't
that
short-sighted, and they do cheat, and we try to curb that with laws, and
they try
to get around them- and so on.
Messy, but it seems to work okay.
> If the only value (as in capitalism) is purely the self and absolutely
> no concern is taken for either others or indeed the condition of the
> environment you're in (i.e. the road), this is fine and indeed expected.
> However, it's a very strange perspective for anybody to take if they have
> the faintest clue or inkling that the world works through people
> cooperating and exchanging things with each other, which it does.
It is not wise to assume that self interest *necessary* translates into
malice towards others. The world *does* work through co-operating,
and only by co-operating can you gratify your self-interest.
> Therefore, while communism may be a very poor way to run a society of
> citizens, or establish manufacturing of goods, in an information economy
> communism can be the only way to hobble competition that is destroying the
> environment (a thing that leads to the loss of _all_ players).
You have not made a case that the environment is being significantly
weakened by current practices. It does not seem that way to me.
A metaphor is not an argument. I can answer a metaphor by saying
"is not!"
> And it would be fine to hope that capitalist competition does not
> destroy the environment, but it looks like it not only destroys the
> software environment, it also is tearing hell out of computer _hardware_,
> for instance Compaq. It's a death spiral of intra-capitalist hostilities,
> and it looks grand to the consumer until you realise that these guys are
> so busy killing each other that they won't have any money or resources
> left to meet the needs of consumers, or do any research and development,
> or indeed manufacture things properly.
This is pretty clearly inaccurate. They got their resources by selling to
the
consumer- if they can't meet the needs of consumers, this will no longer
happen, and they will die.
The survivors will be the ones who did not sacrifice manufacturing and R&D
so much.
> Look at the RAM market! Why are prices what they are? Because the RAM
> market was pursuing cuthroat capitalism- and damned near bled to death,
> shaking entire _economies_.
What entire economies?
> What happened? They got together and agreed to
> hold prices at certain levels and cut back on production- otherwise they
> would _all_ have bled to death making chips and selling them below cost to
> sell any at all because their enemies were also selling below cost etc
> etc. So they chose to produce from each according to their abilities, with
> prices for each according to their needs, and gave up on capitalism. Quite
> communist of them, isn't it? On the other hand, they didn't all die of
> financial hemorrhaging.
Price wars happen in capitalist economies. That's fine. Not *all* of the
vendors
die in them- only some. Once some have died (or possibly just changed) there
is less production, less competition, and the prices can rise again- without
price fixing.
And this way, you don't have excess production capacity going to waste.
> There are places where only communism (or socialism) will deliver
> acceptable results in practice. The trick is knowing _which_ places...
It depends on your criteria. As far as I can tell, the main place capitalism
fails
is terms of coverage: Not everyone gets the goods. Socialism (or communism)
does not suffer this as badly, but there are probably other ways, too.
John S. Dyson
"Jim Brooks" <j...@jimbrooks.org> writes:
>
> For example, no longer can companies make money selling a UNIX port
> or a C++ compiler, now that gcc and Linux is freely spreading like gonorrhea.
> Those companies once used to provide jobs and salaries, which are now gone.
>
10+yr old technology, with most of the real innovation over the last
10+yrs being ignored in the implementation. When the market tightens
up, it will be interesting to see how much "development" will be
done on a "product" that the end product cannot be owned by the
value added developer. (I am talking about kernel internals here.)
It is likely that the tolerance for the GPL is partially due to the
"good times" that are happening in the US. As soon as companies have
to have a real return on investment (reasonable P/E ratio's, etc) then
spending money on development by companies who are not in the closed
business of "GPL code support" that must be "source code released" will
slow down (or cease in some cases), except by those who have other
than profit and fiduciary responsibility as a motivating factor. At
least with free (GPL doesn't count here) license terms, those who
have fiduciary responsibility in companies can choose at a later time
to release software source code, after profiting on the capital
investment in the meantime. Once the GPL is (mistakenly or otherwise)
chosen, the GPL requires a bona-fide offer (*1) of source code
redistribution to those who receive binaries. In more realisitic
economic times, it might even be a breach of fiduciary responsibility
to "waste" development time on code that cannot effectively be
directly capitalized upon.
*1) Note also the fact that GPLed binaries cannot be redistributed
if you don't have source code. This is quite problematical in the
case of mistaken or irresponsible source code destruction. Such
things shouldn't happen, but can and do...
Charlie Stross
>Agree with the (snipped) analysis, but this author, who has no talent
>for support and has no services to provide, would still like to make a
>living somehow <g>.
Oh, there's support and there's support ;-)
F'r'xample, suppose you write a spreadsheet, but are crap at providing
front-line support or documentation. There's still a potential market
out there of people who will pay for support, and the guys who are good
at talking to the users will need someone with a deep understanding of
the software as a technical backstop for those _hard_ questions that
come up every so often.
-- Charlie
Donal K. Fellows
Pete Barrett <pe...@platypus.clara.co.uk> wrote:
[...]
> (why does nobody copy a book? because to do it
> effieciently takes a large investment in plant;
Not actually the case. There have been problems with both the use of
photocopiers and scanners to copy a book wholesale. IP is *very*
complex. Important too. Charlie Stross's mini-essay is actually
pretty good.
jedi
>In article <372a7d45...@news.clara.net>,
>Pete Barrett <pe...@platypus.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>[...]
>> (why does nobody copy a book? because to do it
>> effieciently takes a large investment in plant;
>[...]
>
>Not actually the case. There have been problems with both the use of
>photocopiers and scanners to copy a book wholesale. IP is *very*
>complex. Important too. Charlie Stross's mini-essay is actually
>pretty good.
One of the cabal's I was once acquainted with did
precisely that when they copied the software. They
also photocopied the manuals too.
Although, all that is peanuts when compared to the
photocopied 'texts' that were commonly used at my
alma mater. (not whole books mind you just bits and
pieced pulled from to and fro)
--
Microsoft subjected the world to DOS until 1995. |||
A little spite is more than justified. / | \
In search of sane PPP Docs? Try http://penguin.lvcm.com
Matthias Warkus
..and Jim Brooks <j...@jimbrooks.org> wrote:
> Matthias Warkus <mawa...@t-online.de> wrote in message news:slrn7ie5u...@audrey.my.box...
> > > Communism is just for those who are jealous of the people who
> > > have the initiative, intelligence, and forethought to make their own
> > > money instead of sitting on their asses complaining that society is
> > > pushing them down into the gutter.
> >
> > You're a moron. Go to Europe some day.
>
>
> You imply that morons belong in Europe with other Europeons.
Yes. I forgot you know better than me what I want to imply. I'm sorry.
mawa
--
remember that any degree should indicate, along with other pretenses,
some potential for educability
-- jim kohli
Matthias Warkus
Good intention.
> I haven't yet read anyone mentioning the suffering caused by "GNU Communism".
>
> For example, no longer can companies make money selling a UNIX port
> or a C++ compiler, now that gcc and Linux is freely spreading like gonorrhea.
Of course they can. They can sell gcc. What do you think Cygnus make a
living of?
> Those companies once used to provide jobs and salaries, which are now gone.
Well, if they failed to realise that the choice is to
- either sell gcc or
- develop a better alternative,
they deserved to die.
mawa
--
Ich kann mich noch ganz genau daran erinnern, als ich von meinem
Kanzler das erste Subventionsbonbon bekam. Es waren Wähler's Original,
bar und zinslos und unvergleichlich gut. Und ich wußte sofort: Du
wählst jemanden, für den du etwas ganz Besonderes bist.
jedi
>It was the Wed, 28 Apr 1999 19:53:14 -0700...
>> So to return to the topic...
>
>Good intention.
>
>> I haven't yet read anyone mentioning the suffering caused by "GNU Communism".
>>
>> For example, no longer can companies make money selling a UNIX port
>> or a C++ compiler, now that gcc and Linux is freely spreading like gonorrhea.
>
>Of course they can. They can sell gcc. What do you think Cygnus make a
>living of?
>
>> Those companies once used to provide jobs and salaries, which are now gone.
If you are an economic darwinist or anarchist, you really shouldn't
be whining about it. Adapt or die is what I would presume your usual
motto would be in this 'free market'.
>
>Well, if they failed to realise that the choice is to
>- either sell gcc or
>- develop a better alternative,
>they deserved to die.
It will be interesting to see how Metrowerks does.
Ramesh Fernando
> It is likely that the tolerance for the GPL is partially due to the
> "good times" that are happening in the US. As soon as companies have
> to have a real return on investment (reasonable P/E ratio's, etc) then
cheapest prices. Right now firms can afford the excessive costs of
licensing Microsoft backoffice crap, Oracle big end databases. When
their earnings start to go down the toilet, they will not enjoy spending
excessive cost on just the software license. They will only want to give money
for the support side. Even the big banks are IBM shops because of IBM's
support. Do banks really enjoy running outdated mainframes, OS/2 and AS/400
applications and paying the rental fees? NO, it's more the quality, mission
critical side. And most importantly support 24 hours a day.
A good example are some of the biggest government agencies in your
country, like NASA. Have you seen how far they are going towards using
Linux and other free software in mission critical applications. With
budget cutbacks, they are actually more efficient than most bloated firms
even GE even with the best CEO. Some of the credit has to go Mr. Bore, US
VP Al Gore. There will be some spillover effect to the private sector.
I had e-mail correspondence with RMS oh so many years ago. From what he
wrote, he didn't begrudge any person making profit from software. Just the
method of licensing. Actually he seemed to be quite a capitalist fellow.
Ramesh Fernando rfer...@chat.carleton.ca
Economics
Carleton University
Greg Yantz
> > > I haven't yet read anyone mentioning the suffering caused by
> > > "GNU Communism".
> >
> > For example, no longer can companies make money selling a UNIX port
> > or a C++ compiler, now that gcc and Linux is freely spreading like
> > gonorrhea.
That isn't quite true. If it were true, could you explain why?
> Of course they can. They can sell gcc. What do you think Cygnus make a
> living of?
> > Those companies once used to provide jobs and salaries, which are
> > now gone.
I've heard this sort of complaint before, and it got me to thinking.
You sound just like a protectionist. This got me to thinking about
efficiency, and free trade and economics in general.
First, some background. Please bear with me.
In short, the idea behind free trade is that some are better at doing
certain tasks, producing certain goods, than others. The free exchange
of goods (trade) allows the efficient to drive out the less efficient.
In theory, there may be some painful dislocations, but the overall
result is that everyone winds up wealthier due to the greater
availability of more efficiently produced stuff. In the past, new
technologies and new ways of doing things have changed or destroyed
entire industries, and it's still happening today. Many people have
gotten hurt, but we're all (in general) wealthier for it.
Protectionists tend to be apologists for the few who might get hurt-
they want the rest of us to (in effect) subsidize their inefficiency.
How does this relate the previous discussion?
> Well, if they failed to realise that the choice is to
> - either sell gcc or
> - develop a better alternative,
> they deserved to die.
True as far as it goes. The general case may (seems to be) that when code
is freely distributable and a certain starting threshold is passed , i.e.
there is a certain necessary initial codebase (akin to activation energy
for a chemical reaction), Open Source-type software development solves
problems and produces software more efficiently and more competitively
than closed source development. This seems to be a pleasant side-effect
of the FSF's goal of making software "free", such that once a problem
has been solved, it *stays* solved, and others are free to build upon
the previous work.
Now, Open Source software products, that can easily (and efficiently)
be tailored to fill customers' needs, and that must be done so
relatively cheaply (because others can easily do the same work to
fill the same need) would seem to spell the death of the traditional
software industry. The question is, is this bad?
If individuals and companies are able to avoid spending large sums of
money on software licenses for closed source software, if they are
able to avoid the Software Tax(tm) by using open source alternatives
(and sometimes funding new solutions that are then added to the
global pool of "solved software problems"!), they effectively become
richer. This money does not just go away because it didn't get spent
on software licenses. It *will* get spent elsewhere, improving the
quality of the lives of those who avoided the Software Tax, and
perhaps funding new industries and techcologies to benefit us all.
Now, about those poor, starving programmers- right now is already
an amazing amount of pent-up demand for the services of skilled
programmers. If some software companies go bust because open source
derailed their gravy train, there is other work ready and waiting
for their programmers. There are other problems that need to be solved,
the money to finance those solutions is still out there- you just need
to work harder to *earn* it.
"GNU Communism" isn't killing the software industry, but the new
way of doing things may force that industry to become more efficient
and more competitive. New techniques, technologies and processes have
revolutionized industries before; this is a good thing. We tend to
call it "progress".
-Greg
Ewan Dunbar
> For example, no longer can companies make money selling a UNIX port
> or a C++ compiler, now that gcc and Linux is freely spreading like gonorrhea.
>
> Should we write to our congressman about stopping this new technocommunism?
>
> Any (on-topic) comments for/against "GNU Communism"?
Yes. As the thread has mentioned before, there are areas in which
capitalistic ideas simply do not work. Technology is one of them,
especially computing. While it has a few meagre benefits, on the whole,
capitalism gets computers nowhere.
lo...@my.sig
: On 28 Apr 1999 15:23:20 GMT, lo...@my.sig wrote:
:>There's nothing wrong with Communism.
:>The fact that no government on earth has managed to actually abide by
:>Marksist doctrine proves nothing.
:>
: Ask yourself why. Could it be that it's hopelessly impractical?
It's more to do with the people in power getting greedy.
Everyone's equal, but some are more equal than others....
That's why it falls apart.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|u5...@teach.cs.keele.ac.uk| Windows95 (noun): 32 bit extensions and a |
| | graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit |
| Andrew Halliwell | operating system originally coded for a 4 bit |
| Finalist in:- |microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that|
| Computer Science | can't stand 1 bit of competition. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|GCv3.1 GCS/EL>$ d---(dpu) s+/- a- C++ U N++ o+ K- w-- M+/++ PS+++ PE- Y t+ |
|5++ X+/++ R+ tv+ b+ D G e>PhD h/h+ !r! !y-|I can't say F**K either now! :( |
Jerry Lynn Kreps
>
> In article <3727c99f$0$2...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
> "Jim Brooks" <j...@jimbrooks.org> writes:
> >
> > or a C++ compiler, now that gcc and Linux is freely spreading like gonorrhea.
> > Those companies once used to provide jobs and salaries, which are now gone.
> >
> 10+yr old technology, with most of the real innovation over the last
> 10+yrs being ignored in the implementation. When the market tightens
> up, it will be interesting to see how much "development" will be
> done on a "product" that the end product cannot be owned by the
> value added developer. (I am talking about kernel internals here.)
>
> "good times" that are happening in the US. As soon as companies have
> to have a real return on investment (reasonable P/E ratio's, etc) then
> business of "GPL code support" that must be "source code released" will
> slow down (or cease in some cases), except by those who have other
> than profit and fiduciary responsibility as a motivating factor. At
> least with free (GPL doesn't count here) license terms, those who
> have fiduciary responsibility in companies can choose at a later time
> to release software source code, after profiting on the capital
> investment in the meantime. Once the GPL is (mistakenly or otherwise)
> chosen, the GPL requires a bona-fide offer (*1) of source code
> redistribution to those who receive binaries. In more realisitic
> economic times, it might even be a breach of fiduciary responsibility
> to "waste" development time on code that cannot effectively be
> directly capitalized upon.
>
> *1) Note also the fact that GPLed binaries cannot be redistributed
> if you don't have source code. This is quite problematical in the
> case of mistaken or irresponsible source code destruction. Such
> things shouldn't happen, but can and do...
>
Not quite, the source code only has to be available if the recipient
wants it. And, the source code is ubiquitous.
--
JLK
Linux, because it's STABLE, the source code is included, the price is
right.
Christopher B. Browne
<nort...@ix.netcom.com> posted:
>> or a C++ compiler, now that gcc and Linux is freely spreading like gonorrhea.
>> Those companies once used to provide jobs and salaries, which are now gone.
>>
>> Should we write to our congressman about stopping this new
>> technocommunism?
>>
>> Any (on-topic) comments for/against "GNU Communism"?
>
>Yes. As the thread has mentioned before, there are areas in which
>capitalistic ideas simply do not work. Technology is one of them,
>especially computing. While it has a few meagre benefits, on the whole,
>capitalism gets computers nowhere.
And this thread nicely backs up my snide remark earlier in the week to
the effect that
"Communist ideology is fine so long as it's kept as ideology, and
out of practice."
The above comments, and most of the comments in this thread, whether
pro-capitalism or pro-communism represent presentations of *rhetoric*
about commonly-promoted ideologies about the respective "social
organization methodologies."
Note that I say *rhetoric* about *ideology,* which is quite separate
from reasoned arguments about the respective ideas.
These threads of discussion tend to turn into competitive "farting
sessions" where the air is filled with the flatulence of various
prejudices about these systems, rank enough to quickly scare off
non-competitors, and almost entirely free of any insight about the
respective natures of capitalism and communism.
The notion that it's "GNU Communism" flies in the face of the hundreds
of companies selling software that runs on Linux.
The notion that "Capitalism is Next To Godliness" flies in the face of
the consideration that there probably isn't any country that
implements more than very limited editions of capitalism, and
particularly not the putative "Home of the Free," which contains a
couple of the world's largest "planned economies" (in good communist
"five year plan" style).
--
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
-- Henry Spencer <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
cbbr...@hex.net - "What have you contributed to free software today?..."
Alex Gurney
if I am wrong - capitalism is fundamentally about making money.
In the case of technology, the most important thing is really that
the product should work. If we can make products (that work) in a
non-capitalistic or %2522bazaar%2522 environment, then that is good. Linux
as an OS is stable and practical, and it is a demonstration that
GPL distribution actually does work. If we allow ultra-capitalistic
free market politics to take over, then the quality of the product
will suffer. Cutting corners will be inevitable, because in the
capitalists' system the utility of the system is irrelevant - only
how much money one can make out of it is important. One of the
great strengths of Linux is the expertise of its core user base -
few commercial companies could afford to employ so many trained
people to look after their code.
In summary: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
-**** Posted from RemarQ, http://www.remarq.com/?b ****-
Real Discussions for Real People
Prins Olivier
I agree whole hartedly....
Prins Olivier
--
Running Windows on a PIII, is like driving a $200,000 Porsche only
backwards.....
jedi
>As I understand it - and please feel free to correct me *politely*
>if I am wrong - capitalism is fundamentally about making money.
>In the case of technology, the most important thing is really that
>the product should work. If we can make products (that work) in a
That is a catch with capitalism in general. There are conflicting
goals between producers and consumers. Ideally, there should be a
balance between these needs. However, as producers tend to get
larger and larger then tend to be able to lose touch with
significant portions of the consumer base.
Software aggravates this by encouraging, through the need to remain
'compatible', an all or nothing winner takes all situation. Niche
and boutique vendors are a remarkably less viable option than they
might be for cars, or soup, or lunch.
This leads to the frustration felt by the 'ABM' crowd.
Free software rebalances the situation by allowing the creation
of more than one 'monopolist'. In this case 'monopolist' refers
to any producer that is immune or nearly immune to the competition
pressures that are supposed to balance a captalist system and make
it work efficiently and effectively. The end result is the potential
for competition pressure to be restored to the original 'monopolist'.
In the absence of any real competition pressure, a given market
begins to more resemble a command economy with the 'monopolist'
taking the role of politburo.
While it might be true that Free Software undermines the abilities
of some to make profit, that is no the sole goal of capitalism. For
any particular thing, most of us are consumers. So, paying any more
that we need to for a office suite or being forced into only one OS
option is not necessarily in our best interests as consumers in
capitalism.
Intellectual Property released into the public's domain once the
initial granted monopoly has expired is also capital that can be
exploited in the persuit of profit (selling other things). That
afterall is what IP is specifically stated to be for (US Const.).
Free Software merely builds that common pool of software capital
that all coders that benefit from copyrights should eventually
be contributing to.
If IP were administered as it should be, RMS would be redundant.
>non-capitalistic or %2522bazaar%2522 environment, then that is good. Linux
>as an OS is stable and practical, and it is a demonstration that
>GPL distribution actually does work. If we allow ultra-capitalistic
>free market politics to take over, then the quality of the product
>will suffer. Cutting corners will be inevitable, because in the
>capitalists' system the utility of the system is irrelevant - only
>how much money one can make out of it is important. One of the
>great strengths of Linux is the expertise of its core user base -
>few commercial companies could afford to employ so many trained
>people to look after their code.
>
>In summary: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Or, alternately: There is more to sell than just software.
Mike Coffin
> Yes. As the thread has mentioned before, there are areas in which
> capitalistic ideas simply do not work. Technology is one of them,
> especially computing. While it has a few meagre benefits, on the
> whole, capitalism gets computers nowhere.
What kind of processor do you use? Was it developed for profit by a
capitalistic corporation?
-mike
(Not speaking for my employer.)
jedi
A souped up 80386: release date 1985, 14 years ago.
I would rather use an Alpha or PPC.
[deletia]
Peter Seebach
Alex Gurney <al...@gurney51.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>As I understand it - and please feel free to correct me *politely*
>if I am wrong - capitalism is fundamentally about making money.
Not exactly. Capitalism is largely a belief system that the most efficient
way to get everything done is to allow competition on many levels, by making
it so that the way you make money is to do what needs to be done.
Lighthouses are often offered as an example of a "public good", but a
surprisingly large number of them (most, I believe, throughout our written
history) have been privately funded.
>In the case of technology, the most important thing is really that
>the product should work.
Agreed.
>If we can make products (that work) in a
>non-capitalistic or %2522bazaar%2522 environment, then that is good.
"non-capitalistic" and "bazaar" are completely orthogonal terms in this
context.
A "bazaar" system may be capitalistic; a non-capitalistic system may use
"cathedral" development.
The terms are not especially related, and I think you err in treating them
as if they were equivalent.
>Linux
>as an OS is stable and practical, and it is a demonstration that
>GPL distribution actually does work.
Indeed.
>If we allow ultra-capitalistic
>free market politics to take over, then the quality of the product
>will suffer.
This is an unfounded assertion.
In fact, Linux is a beautiful example of capitalism and free-market politics.
It is the answer of the free market to the problem of a monopolistic vendor of
shoddy OS's; we replace them. We don't wait for something better to come
along, we come along and become something better.
>Cutting corners will be inevitable, because in the
>capitalists' system the utility of the system is irrelevant - only
>how much money one can make out of it is important.
The utility of the system is not *irrelevant* - it is, however, only one
of the many inputs.
That said, you don't make a lot of money being useless. RedHat makes money,
because RedHat offers something that is of use to people. Cygnus makes money
by offering utility to its customers.
My mom's article actually discussed why this works; free software is
capitalism at its finest, separating out the value (work) from the stuff
everyone can have for free (software). We pay, not for software of dubious
quality, but for work, which has quality we can judge and experience.
>One of the
>great strengths of Linux is the expertise of its core user base -
>few commercial companies could afford to employ so many trained
>people to look after their code.
Agreed.
But not all capitalism is about naive commercial companies that haven't caught
on to the technology. Capitalism is a system in which everyone gets to play
on whatever terms they want.
-s
--
Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/
Visit my new ISP <URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!
Christopher B. Browne
>if I am wrong - capitalism is fundamentally about making money.
Capitalism is fundamentally about the analysis of who has ownership
and control of some kinds of assets.
In contrast, when you talk about a fixation on making money, the most
appropriate term to use is the word "greed."
Craig Dowell
>If we allow ultra-capitalistic free market politics to take over, then
>the quality of the product will suffer. Cutting corners will be
>inevitable, because in the capitalists' system the utility of the system
>is irrelevant - only how much money one can make out of it is important.
Ummm. If a widget is useless who will buy it? Of course utility is
relevant. There is always going to be a population of suckers, but
try selling a box full of electric components, at cost, claiming that
"its internal hypergolic phenocryst will counteract the pandimensional
influence of aging on the human systole." Ponder the relevance of
the utility of the system while you are in prison.
As to the detrimental influence of the free market on product quality,
investigate the Trabant. Ultracaptialist free market influences were
notably absent in that case. Take a look at a BMW M5. Any differences?
It seems fashionable to criticise capitalism, but it works. For example,
a Ford Escort may not be the best car by any stretch of the imagination,
but it provides affordable, reliable transportation to milions of
people. It gives them what they need. Corners were cut in its design,
of course; if they weren't cut, you'd have ended up with a McLaren F1.
In that context, your "cutting corners" is not always a bad thing. You
may call it cutting a corner, someone else may call it a tradeoff or
product definition or design decision. Unix and Linux certainly weren't
built without any of this. Some people just like the result of the
tradeoffs and design decisions made for Unix better than those made for
Windows; and, of course, vice versa.
It seems to me that when free markets are removed, _that's_ when you
need to start worrying. It's been proved over, and over, and over
again.
None of this means, of course, that your sale price for a great design
and product cannot be zero (modulo minor inconveniences like anti-
trust laws).
Peter
> >As I understand it - and please feel free to correct me *politely*
> >if I am wrong - capitalism is fundamentally about making money.
>
> Capitalism is fundamentally about the analysis of who has ownership
> and control of some kinds of assets.
I think capatalism is best described as the analysisand use of
manufacturing methods and finding the best way to do something. "the best"
is the cheapest. But Capatalism has drawbacks. The cheapest is not
always the safest and capatalist do not care about the workers. For
example, see The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
--
Peter
" Don't you eat that yellow snow
Watch out where the huskies go"
FZ
bob@nospam
>
>>If we allow ultra-capitalistic
>>free market politics to take over, then the quality of the product
>>will suffer.
>
>This is an unfounded assertion.
>
This how do you explain that windows, the more used commercial software,
sucks by any standard, while Gnu software is much higher quality?
>In fact, Linux is a beautiful example of capitalism and free-market politics.
>It is the answer of the free market to the problem of a monopolistic vendor of
>shoddy OS's; we replace them.
huh? you are trying to have your cake and eat it too?
MS software is based on capitalism ideas (make software to make money only).
and yet, you claim this idea will produce good software, yet in the same
breath, you are saying Linux came due to need to replace "shoddy" OS's that
you just said was unfounded assertion.
Do you always proof yourself wrong in your discussions? :)
Make up your mind.
Bob
Prins Olivier
>In that context, your "cutting corners" is not always a bad thing. You
>may call it cutting a corner, someone else may call it a tradeoff or
>product definition or design decision. Unix and Linux certainly weren't
>built without any of this. Some people just like the result of the
>tradeoffs and design decisions made for Unix better than those made for
>Windows; and, of course, vice versa.
What do you get for your tradeoff when using Windows???...
The only advantage i could think would be that you'd have to pay less taxes,
because you've got to pay money for windows....
Chris Mikkelson
Peter <pxp...@pitt.edu> wrote:
>In article <slrn7ijve7....@godel.brownes.org>, cbbr...@hex.net wrote:
>
>> >As I understand it - and please feel free to correct me *politely*
>> >if I am wrong - capitalism is fundamentally about making money.
>>
>> Capitalism is fundamentally about the analysis of who has ownership
>> and control of some kinds of assets.
>
>I think capatalism is best described as the analysisand use of
>manufacturing methods and finding the best way to do something. "the best"
>is the cheapest.
Actually, I think you just described "Industrial Engineering."
>But Capatalism has drawbacks. The cheapest is not
>always the safest and capatalist do not care about the workers. For
>example, see The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
...which was somewhat exaggerated.
-Chris
Peter Seebach
>In article <TlnW2.2084$WA4.4...@ptah.visi.com>, se...@plethora.net says...
>>>If we allow ultra-capitalistic
>>>free market politics to take over, then the quality of the product
>>>will suffer.
>>This is an unfounded assertion.
>This how do you explain that windows, the more used commercial software,
>sucks by any standard, while Gnu software is much higher quality?
"A happened, then B happened, therefore, A causes B." Not so.
I have seen a lot of very good software, and a lot of very bad software,
from both the free and commercial communities.
GNU software has a *HUGE* technological advantage over closed-source software;
this has nothing to do with "capitalism" - we simply outnumber them.
>>In fact, Linux is a beautiful example of capitalism and free-market politics.
>>It is the answer of the free market to the problem of a monopolistic vendor of
>>shoddy OS's; we replace them.
>huh? you are trying to have your cake and eat it too?
Yes. That's what free software is all about. I can get, for free,
professionally developed software. I can make a living programming without
having to hoard my output.
I love it.
>MS software is based on capitalism ideas (make software to make money only).
That's not capitalism, that's greed.
>and yet, you claim this idea will produce good software, yet in the same
>breath, you are saying Linux came due to need to replace "shoddy" OS's that
>you just said was unfounded assertion.
The unfounded assertion is that capitalism is what made shoddy OS's.
Capitalism allows people to try to make a living selling anything they
think people will buy. RedHat makes money selling Linux, even though you
can get Linux for free.
I claim that the free market produced Linux; it certainly wasn't mandated
by any government. Linux has grown because capitalism works - people who
can get a better deal hiring someone to add a feature to Linux, than trying
to get it from Microsoft, will do so, and Linux grows.
>Make up your mind.
I have. It's not that complicated. Capitalism is not the reason that
Microsoft sucks; arrogance and incompetence are.
Compare OS/2 to Windows on technical merit; OS/2 is clearly better. It
lost, because technical merit isn't everything. Compare Windows to Linux;
Linux is getting more market share, Windows is getting less. Marketing
isn't everything either.
The ability of the market to replace, not just products, not just companies,
but entire *paradigms* when they aren't efficient, is why it's working.
Capitalism's sole long-term goal is to make the most efficient possible
use of resources. Like it or not, Linux is more efficient than Windows
at using developer time, and it's winning.
Peter Seebach
Video games, support from a lot more vendors, and an arguably more convienent
installer. (I personally don't think it's as flexible, but it *is* awfully
convenient. When it works at all.)
You get a big company promising that they really will, within a decade or
two, fix your bug.s
>The only advantage i could think would be that you'd have to pay less taxes,
>because you've got to pay money for windows....
Doesn't help in most cases.
Windows has a much larger variety of application software out for it, this
year. That's a trade-off. It's not one I generally want to make.
lr...@my-dejanews.com
In article <37238240...@jimbrooks.org>,
Jim Brooks <j...@jimbrooks.org> wrote:
>
> GNU reeks of Commumism. I'll tell you why:
>
> 1) Karl Marx is famous for his Manifesto.
>
> GNU software includes a "Manifesto" file.
>
> 2) The Bolsheviks wanted to spread their Communist revolution all over the globe.
>
> Using the Internet, a "free software revolution" is now spreading globally.
>
> 3) Linux is getting lots of media attention these days, scaring Microsoft
> and Microsoft investors.
>
> That is reminiscent of the "Red Scare" that occured in the US in the 1950s.
>
> 4) The press calls Richard Stallman a fanatic...
>
> ...and they also called Vladimir Lenin a fanatic.
>
> 5) Those who write copy-left software work without being paid,
> for the good of the "free software community".
>
> That's communism, folks.
>
> P.S. This is intended as humor (and a troll) ;-)
>
> --
>
> | | Jim Brooks
> | _ | mailto:j...@jimbrooks.org
> ______________|_(_)_|______________ http://www.jimbrooks.org
> +|+ [ ( o ) ] +|+ PGP public key available
> * O[_]---[_]O *
>
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Christopher B. Browne
>As for Communism, I doubt M$ could EVER be considered that.
>Learn what it means before spouting off.
I suggest that you take a look at RMS' essays at
<http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/>; there is a quite coherent argument
that reasonably suggests that the behaviour proprietary software
vendors like Microsoft may be quite readily compared with the
behaviour of communist nations.
>If anything, they are the OPPOSITE of communism...
You seem to be believing the common misapprehension that there is a
single axis that is the "political spectrum," where there is a "left
end," and a "right end."
Jerry Pournelle did an essay (and he tends to be considered on the
"right wing of the bird") where he provided two axes, and did a
taxonomy of various political positions based on those axes. He
seemed to do a reasonably honest job, and the classifications were
fairly good.
[His axes: [rational <----> nonrational], [authoritarian <-----> libertine])
My tendancy is to think that there are probably *at least* two axes,
and probably more.
Under such, "communism" and "fascism" might very well turn out to be
very nearly adjacent to one another.
Generally speaking, both kinds of states have turned out to be
extremely authoritarian, establishing and using "secret police" to
control their populaces. There certainly are differences in rhetoric,
but on some practical matters, the differences are small...
>(In the political spectrum, that tents to be Fascism, which is FAAAAR
>worse)
Fascism (and you at least spelled it right; so many call it "facism")
is the great "demon" of the 20th century; the fact that Godwin's Law
exists establishes that it's a great conversation-stopper.
It is less clear, difficult to prove, and *impossible* to (due to
things like Godwin's Law) usefully debate whether communism could have
caused FAAAAR worse results than fascism has.
There probably have been more deaths resulting from actions of
putatively communist states than from the actions of fascist states,
but it's not useful to debate this, because [flodA reltiH] (reverse
it!) tends to quickly come up, and peoples' prejudices and other
immensely strong feelings squelch the communication of ideas.
Peter Seebach
Prins Olivier <pri...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>Yes you do get more video games, but that isn't a fair trade-off, if Linux would
>be in the position Windows is in they would all be Linux games. And any video
>game you play with Linux runs better, than it does under Windows, for which they
>are made....
That's a fair trade-off. Engineering includes acknowledging the state the
world is in now, whether or not things would be the same if they were
different.
:)
That's like saying "it's not fair to blame new poorly-understood structural
materials for failures we have with them". It is fair to blame the
"poorly-understood" part.
Peter Seebach
Prins Olivier <pri...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>But you can do all those things With Linux too.
Many of them.
>and i still don't understand you saying
>windows is relatively inexpensive. Linux u can get for free, well you've got to
>pay the phone-bill but hey then just get cable.
Windows is still *relatively* inexpensive, as in, it's not very much of the
cost of the computer.
And, of course, there's a lot of freeware for Windows, too. They're still
way ahead on installed base and software selection, for a little while yet.
>And if u use Linux you dont have
>to buy a p III to get performance.
You don't for Windows, either. Now, you'll never get *as much* performance,
but often, that's okay.
Prins Olivier
> In article <372AB8E2...@xs4all.nl>,
> Prins Olivier <pri...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >Yes you do get more video games, but that isn't a fair trade-off, if Linux would
> >be in the position Windows is in they would all be Linux games. And any video
> >game you play with Linux runs better, than it does under Windows, for which they
> >are made....
>
> That's like saying "it's not fair to blame new poorly-understood structural
> materials for failures we have with them". It is fair to blame the
> "poorly-understood" part.
I dont understand your point here, do you mean that is said that it's not fair to
blame Windows for it's failures???
Prins Olivier
> In article <372ABAC5...@xs4all.nl>,
> Prins Olivier <pri...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >And if u use Linux you dont have
> >to buy a p III to get performance.
>
> You don't for Windows, either. Now, you'll never get *as much* performance,
> but often, that's okay.
>
>
You think that's okay?? Have you ever seen win95 run on a 4086 and compared it to
linux running on the same machine, or compare playing quake 1 on a p166 under linux
or under windows, on the first it's playable in a nice resolution on the later it's
not....And do you also think it's fair that Microsoft tries to take all the credit
for their supposed increase in performance that's actually caused by better
hardware???
brian moore
Peter Seebach <se...@plethora.net> wrote:
>
> Windows is still *relatively* inexpensive, as in, it's not very much of the
> cost of the computer.
Oh?
It's a pretty good chunk of the price of a sub-1000 dollar system.
> And, of course, there's a lot of freeware for Windows, too. They're still
> way ahead on installed base and software selection, for a little while yet.
Most of the 'freeware' for Windows is quite shoddy. You're talking
about a platform where people charge $20 for shareware that will tell
you your IP number.
We won't even get into the difference between 'freeware' and 'Free
Software'.
--
Brian Moore | "The Zen nature of a spammer resembles
Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker | a cockroach, except that the cockroach
Usenet Vandal | is higher up on the evolutionary chain."
Netscum, Bane of Elves. Peter Olson, Delphi Postmaster
Prins Olivier
You forget that if you use the word communism for those states, you are very
wrong those states ween't even close to communism. They could, arguably, be in
the state of the dictatorship of the working class. Which always turned out to
be just an ordinary dictatorship of a few ppl, no matter what other ppl try. The
communistic state has never been achieved, a lot of ppl say it isn't possible
because it would an utopia, it would be paradise on earth which THEY think is
impossible..
Peter Seebach
>> Prins Olivier <pri...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>> >Yes you do get more video games, but that isn't a fair trade-off, if
>Linux would
>> >be in the position Windows is in they would all be Linux games. And any video
>> >game you play with Linux runs better, than it does under Windows, for
>which they
>> >are made....
>> That's like saying "it's not fair to blame new poorly-understood structural
>> materials for failures we have with them". It is fair to blame the
>> "poorly-understood" part.
>I dont understand your point here, do you mean that is said that it's
>not fair to
>blame Windows for it's failures???
No. I mean it's not fair to say "this isn't a weakness because it's only
a weakness in the world we live in".
Linux doesn't have as much software support as Windows at the moment; it's
harder to go into a store and get a pre-built, easy-to-install, package to
do an arbitrary task. There are small exceptions, but Windows has better
software support.
It's not fair to pretend that this advantage doesn't exist, just because it
only exists because Windows is currently dominant. It may be a temporary
thing, but it's a real advantage.
The lack of support for Linux is probably temporary; Activision announced
that one of their games will ship for it. I'm guessing that Linux will be
a significant chunk of the gaming market within another five years or so,
because, well, it costs users very little to get Linux, and if games come
out for it that they want, they'll get it.
But, *RIGHT NOW*, it is an advantage Windows has over Linux.
Let's ignore games. I want to upgrade the firmware on my ISDN router. I can
download a firmware image, but for some reason, tftp isn't working very well
today. They suggested I get their special Windows management package.
Doesn't exist for anything but Windows. Ascend has a firewall feature in some
of their boxes, which you can't control from anything but Windows.
Are these advantages "intrinsic" to Windows? No. There is nothing in the
nature of Windows that makes it a good platform for this, and there are a
lot of flaws in it. However, there is something in the *situation* of Windows
that makes it a good platform to develop for - it is very, very, widespread.
That's one of the trade-offs, and it currently goes in the favor of Windows.
That said, when I wanted to get my mom set up with a laptop, I decided that
I considered "reliable" more important than "lots of software", so I set it
up with NetBSD.
Peter Seebach
>> but often, that's okay.
>You think that's okay??
Yes.
>linux running on the same machine, or compare playing quake 1 on a p166
>under linux
>or under windows, on the first it's playable in a nice resolution on the
>later it's
>not....
True enough, unless you have a good graphics card - which probably ran GLQuake
on Windows a year or two before it ran it on Linux. :)
That said, a friend of mine is running *NT*, for crying out loud, on a P166.
It works fine.
I have a Celery running Windows. It's not as powerful or as fast as any of
my other boxes - but in practice, the only time I experience delays, it's
because disks can only read a few megs a second still. Or because I have a
slow net feed.
>And do you also think it's fair that Microsoft tries to take all
>the credit
>for their supposed increase in performance that's actually caused by better
>hardware???
No. And I make a point of telling people, whenever I get the chance, that
Unix probably gets twice the performance (or more) out of a given piece of
hardware that Windows does.
But that doesn't mean the performance Windows get on a given box can't be
good enough for a given user.
>Running Windows on a PIII, is like driving a $200,000 Porsche only
>backwards.....
Nah. It's like getting a GPS system for your diesel Rabbit, and getting a
GPS that broadcasts your location to everyone. :)
Christopher B. Browne
>"Christopher B. Browne" wrote:
>> Fascism (and you at least spelled it right; so many call it "facism")
>> is the great "demon" of the 20th century; the fact that Godwin's Law
>> exists establishes that it's a great conversation-stopper.
>>
>> It is less clear, difficult to prove, and *impossible* to (due to
>> things like Godwin's Law) usefully debate whether communism could have
>> caused FAAAAR worse results than fascism has.
>>
>> There probably have been more deaths resulting from actions of
>> putatively communist states than from the actions of fascist states,
>> but it's not useful to debate this, because [flodA reltiH] (reverse
>> it!) tends to quickly come up, and peoples' prejudices and other
>> immensely strong feelings squelch the communication of ideas.
>
>You forget that if you use the word communism for those states, you are very
>wrong those states ween't even close to communism.
I most certainly did *not* forget the issue which I'd reword as "the
states that *claimed* to be ``communist'' weren't really following
Marx's original ideals;" I described such places using the phrase:
"putatively communist states"
which indicates (and was *directly intended* to indicate) that they
were called such, but that whether they were or not is arguable.
>They could, arguably, be in the state of the dictatorship of the
>working class. Which always turned out to be just an ordinary
>dictatorship of a few ppl, no matter what other ppl try.
Which represents another reason why "Communism" and "Fascism," as
expressed in our century, are more similar than anyone seems
comfortable with.
>The communistic state has never been achieved, a lot of ppl say it
>isn't possible because it would an utopia, it would be paradise on
>earth which THEY think is impossible..
That would probably be something to be claimed by those Christians
that *actually* understand Christian theology; the concept of "Utter
Depravity," one of the results of "The Fall of Man," is incompatible
with the construction of a "utopia."
Utter Depravity refers to the notion that human character is
inherently fatally flawed. It is commonly *misunderstood* to mean
that "pagans will tend to do the worst possible things," with the
assumption that Christians, being Holier Than Thou, don't have this
flaw. What it *actually* means is that even at our very best, our
characters are sufficiently flawed as to mean *everyone* has ample
opportunity to mess up.
Which is certainly not helpful when trying to construct a utopia.
The more common view is not that utopia is inherently impossible, but
rather that implementing the communist variety is impossible because
the methodology of getting to communism can't work.
We have seen a whole pile of would-be "Communist Revolutions;" they
all have had varying flaws that have resulted in failure to accomplish
the "communist utopia."
Personally, I'd go with both views; that utopia is impossible, *and*
that constructing a communist state that follows the ideals is *also*
impossible.
Peter Seebach
brian moore <b...@news.cmc.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 01 May 1999 18:13:47 GMT,
> Peter Seebach <se...@plethora.net> wrote:
>> Windows is still *relatively* inexpensive, as in, it's not very much of the
>> cost of the computer.
>Oh?
>It's a pretty good chunk of the price of a sub-1000 dollar system.
I'm not sure; from what e-machines did when they did a rebate ($26), it sounds
like it could be relatively cheap. Keep in mind, vendors don't pay as much
as you or I would.
Assume it's $50 on a $500 system. 10% isn't "very much", in my book.
Although I guess it's relative; I admit, it's enough that the only reason I
ended up getting it with a laptop is I couldn't afford the ones that didn't
come with it. :(
>Most of the 'freeware' for Windows is quite shoddy. You're talking
>about a platform where people charge $20 for shareware that will tell
>you your IP number.
I agree. It's pretty awful.
>We won't even get into the difference between 'freeware' and 'Free
>Software'.
I think we all know.
That said, there *is* free software that runs on Windows. Just not a whole
lot.
However, his argument was about *cost* of software, not freedom.
I'd like to point out that I by no means consider Windows a good system. I
just disapprove of making untrue claims about it - because we don't *need*
to. The truth is damning enough.
Mark S. Bilk
>...
>A given idealogy might just not be practical. Some idealogies might
>be practical in the short term or regressive (like GPL),
To a true-believer Capitalist, cooperation and sharing are
considered "regressive". Whereas using sexy ads to induce
people to buy tobacco, which kills one-third of them
(taking 25 years off their life) is considered "good
business", and perfectly alright.
This is basically because in Capitalism, it is OK to harm
other people in order to benefit oneself (this is a good
definition of "evil") as long as one can induce the victim
to "voluntarily" bite the hook. This can be done by with-
holding information, putting out false information, or
getting the suckers to start using something addictive,
like tobacco or MS-Windows.
>or work
>well in the longer term (practical capitalism and properly compensated
>creativity.)
In Capitalism, "proper" compensation for creativity is as
little as the capitalist (business owner) can get away
with paying his employees, who are forced, by the need
to survive, to accept it. This is what is meant by
"exploitation". There is no thought that all the people
in the company, including the owner(s), should receive
equal payment per hour of their life spent working hard
(which would be the pro-human, partnership way).
>For each person, it depends on timescale or personal
>interest. Some systems elevate a "class" of individuals to take
>advantage of others ("practical communism" and GPL),
Amazing! Exactly what "class of individuals" is enabled
to "take advantage of others" by means of the GPL? All of
humanity minus Bill Gates?
>while others
>are more egalitarian in practice (but not in the communist-like
>theory that ignores true human nature.)
There is very good evidence that true human nature *is*
communist-like (in the non-coercive sense) -- in other
words, desiring to help and share with others, and never
to exploit or otherwise harm anyone. See this book:
_The Chalice and the Blade_, by Riane Eisler, 1988, ISBN
0-06-250-289-1, HarperSanFrancisco, $16. An overview of
the archaeological work of Marija Gimbutas and others.
It explains the macro-history of human culture, and proves
that domination, patriarchy, and war are culturally
programmed, rather than biologically innate.
And this website:
>All ideas need to be tolerated, but one needs common sense and
>discipline to stay away from implementing the seductive, but
>damaging ones. Pragmatism needs to be considered for both the
>short and long term. Unfortunately, it is often the idealogues
>that seem to forget *long term* kindness to others, pragmatism
>and the true cost to support an economy.
If all the effort expended in competition, duplication of
effort, disinformation, coercion, advertising, and zero-sum
businesses (stock and real estate speculation, etc.) were
turned to creating products and services that people
actually use, and if people were paid simply according to
the number of hours of work they do (with compensation for
time spent getting educated, etc.), then all of us would
have to work only two or three days a week, and we'd have
as much as we do now, much better distributed, and we'd
live in a far more peaceful world.
>Recently, it seems that most idealogues have become better at "spin"
>and misinformation, and are indeed much more destructive.
Capitalism has an enormous system of propaganda-spewing
agencies, paid for by the wealthy people who benefit from
that system: Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heritage
Foundation, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute,
Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Investors' Business
Weekly, American Spectator, Weekly Standard, so-called
Insight and Reason, thousands of radio stations that broad-
cast Right-wing hate-talk programs, plus the Republican
Party (and many other organizations and publications).
<LI><a href="http://www.aliveness.com/msb.html">Links To Reality</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo">Steve Kangas -- Liberalism Resurgent -- Northwest Mirror</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.aliveness.com/kangaroo">Steve Kangas -- Liberalism Resurgent -- West Mirror</a>
Robert Krawitz
> On 30 Apr 1999, Peter Seebach wrote:
>
> > GNU software has a *HUGE* technological advantage over
> > closed-source software; this has nothing to do with "capitalism"
> > - we simply outnumber them.
>
> That a closed-source software company has only so much capital
> with which to employ developers who have access to that source
> has nothing to do with capitalism? The absence of that limit is
> why "we simply outnumber them."
Well, there are closed-source companies that make quite good
software. IBM and DEC have produced excellent operating systems;
Adobe makes quite good application software.
Mind you, the argument that free software is somehow anti-free-market
is flat out wrong. (I don't want to use the word "capitalism" because
I don't believe that free market and capitalism are one and the same
thing. A free market need not be capitalistic in nature; barter is
one such example. Likewise, a capitalistic system may have very
regulated markets. That's what I want to get at.)
My basic premise here is that patents (in particular) and copyrights
(to some extent) are in conflict with a truly free market. Patents in
particular are a government action that restricts the rights of
parties not under contract with the patent owner. Indeed, the very
premise of patents (that innovators need an incentive) is a direct
claim that the free market fails in a certain way.
That may or may not be true (I think it's exceedingly unlikely in the
field of computer hardware and software, but it may be true in
pharmaceuticals, which are heavily regulated in other ways, and that
regulation is what drives up their development cost), but let's be
clear on what's going on.
--
Robert Krawitz <r...@tiac.net> http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/
Tall Clubs International -- http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail l...@uunet.uu.net
"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
--Eric Crampton
brian moore
> In article <slrn7imki...@thorin.cmc.net>,
> brian moore <b...@news.cmc.net> wrote:
> >On Sat, 01 May 1999 18:13:47 GMT,
> > Peter Seebach <se...@plethora.net> wrote:
> >> Windows is still *relatively* inexpensive, as in, it's not very much of the
> >> cost of the computer.
>
> >Oh?
>
> >It's a pretty good chunk of the price of a sub-1000 dollar system.
>
> I'm not sure; from what e-machines did when they did a rebate ($26), it sounds
> like it could be relatively cheap. Keep in mind, vendors don't pay as much
> as you or I would.
>
> Assume it's $50 on a $500 system. 10% isn't "very much", in my book.
It's higher than the sales tax in most (all?) states in the US.
Something that costs less than 50c to make is higher than the margin
the manufacturer gets? I'd say that's high.
> That said, there *is* free software that runs on Windows. Just not a whole
> lot.
And most is crappy.
> However, his argument was about *cost* of software, not freedom.
But the mere existence of some shoddy zero-cost software doesn't make a
system useful.
> I'd like to point out that I by no means consider Windows a good system. I
> just disapprove of making untrue claims about it - because we don't *need*
> to. The truth is damning enough.
But claiming there is a wealth of free software for Windows is bogus:
there is a lot of zero-cost software for truly stupid things that
MS did wrong or left out (like a working telnet client), but even the
vast majority of little toys are sharware and not free in any sense of
the word.
There isn't a zero-cost word processor for Windows (unless you count
"NotePad") -- but Linux has many, including WP8 if your not in a
commercial setting, or LyX and AbiWord if you're at work. Add in
StarOffice and Applixware that are included with some distributions and
you've got a healthy choice of software that comes with the OS.
None of my statements were untrue: you may differ on whether 10% is a
significant portion of the cost, but consider it in comparison to the
manufacturer's margin on the machine and it is significant. Don't you
find it ironic that whilst Compaq, Dell, and others are complaining of
lower earnings due to the current hardware price wars, that MS is
proclaiming the PC industry is alive and well because they have record
profits?
Microsoft has a higher per-unit profit on sub-$1000 machines than the
manufacturers, and they have far less risk and capital on the line.
Pretty neat trick, eh?
Martin Ozolins
Christopher B. Browne wrote in message ...
Dictatorship of the Proletariat into just Dictatorship proved that old saw
into an axiom.
Martin Ozolins
Phil McRevis wrote in message <7gdpus$llg$1...@xmission.xmission.com>...
>c...@eskimo.com (Craig Dowell) spake the secret code
><7gdg34$7mb$1...@eskinews.eskimo.com> thusly:
>
>>[...] Junior can run his encyclopedia programs and
>>do his homework on it. Uncle Ralph can download porno with it. Mom can
>>print flyers for the local housewives' club. Dad can send faxes for the
>>NRA. Sissy can fill her address book and schedules with imaginary dates
>>with imaginary suitors. [...]
>
>Hey man, this is the 90s (still). Uncle Ralph is printing flyers for
>the local poker game, Mom is downloading porno for Sissy and Junior is
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Didn't you mean uploading porno of Sissy :-)
>showing Dad how to send the fax to the NRA.
>--
>http://www.xmission.com/~legalize Legalize Adulthood!
>lega...@xmission.com
>``Ain't it funny that they all fire the pistol, <URL: http://
> at the wrong end of the race?''--PDBT www.eden.com/~thewho>
Martin Ozolins
brian moore wrote in message ...
Win95's outset. Both will make letters and memo's etc fairly effiecently
and save them in RTF. WordPad will open Word Doc's too.
Martin Ozolins
Don Bashford wrote in message ...
>je...@dementia.mishnet (jedi) writes:
>
>> Intellectual Property released into the public's domain once the
>> initial granted monopoly has expired is also capital that can be
>> exploited in the persuit of profit (selling other things). That
>> afterall is what IP is specifically stated to be for (US Const.).
>
>No it isn't. The Constitution says, in Article 1, Section 8:
>
> The Congress shall have power ...
>
> To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for
> limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their
> respective writings and discoveries;
>
>The purpose is to promote useful works, not to provide a means of
>private profit. Note that Congress is merely empowered to create IP,
>not required to. If congress finds that IP fails to promote progress,
>in can abolish it.
>
No it can't. The key word is promote, they are allowed to fund foundations
to create this environment, but they can only control those feeding at the
public trough. Look at the problems that the National Endowment of the Arts
has, and how much difficulty congress experienced when they attempted to
abolish it.
Promote means, to me anyway, encourage and assist the developers of useful
intellectual property until it can stand on its own.
As an advocate of open source, isn't it a reach for you to want the
government's fingers in your business. Let them stick to their cottage
industry of selling election commercials and we should stick to ours.
Ewan Dunbar
>> --
>> Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
>> C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
>> Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/
>> Visit my new ISP <URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!
>
Hmm. An interesting thought -- this phrase is usually used in competition --
any thoughts on the social implications of using this phrase in a friendly
discussion?
--
------------------------------------------------
Ewan Dunbar nort...@ix.netcom.com
------------------------------------------------
Visit Preston Manning: Action Hero at
http://earl.thedunbars.com/pmah/index.html
------------------------------------------------
Prins Olivier
> In article <372B4E52...@xs4all.nl>,
> Prins Olivier <pri...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >Peter Seebach wrote:
> >> In article <372AB8E2...@xs4all.nl>,
> -s
> --
> Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
> C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
> Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/
> Visit my new ISP <URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!
Your argument on the ftp and the world we live in etc...is very correct i am wrong
there ( hey , it's the story of my life),...but the support you say ms and other
companies give on their software packages it is not real support....is saying: "just
install the program again", or : "wait for the upgrade" real support?? I dont think
so.
now you can get real support on linux problems, albeit no "official" support, the
problem is of course finding the right place to get it, often not easy for normal
end-users, but it is there ( on IRC or news-net)...
--
Prins Olivier
> In article <372B4FA3...@xs4all.nl>,
> Prins Olivier <pri...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >Peter Seebach wrote:
> >Running Windows on a PIII, is like driving a $200,000 Porsche only
> >backwards.....
>
> Nah. It's like getting a GPS system for your diesel Rabbit, and getting a
> GPS that broadcasts your location to everyone. :)
>
> -s
> --
> Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
> C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
> Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/
> Visit my new ISP <URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!
ok i think we'll call it a draw here :)? ok with you?
Prins Olivier
Well i'm sorry about that mix-up with "putatively communist states", but you see
English isn't my native language so i didn't quite understand, so my bad....
And i too think that there's something wrong with the methdology to get a
communist state, it's very vurnerable to a single dictator, in the so called
dictatorship of the working class...but leaving out the practical implementation
of communism ( of course that is important because the make a system work you've
got to implement it)....i think communism is the system to go for ( of course
most ppl dont agree on what communism really means), maybe Che guevara had good
practical ideas but also they had flaws, mainly about having a strong leader at
first.....
Christopher B. Browne
<Martin....@cwusa.com> posted:
>the Dictatorship of the Proletariat into just Dictatorship proved that
>old saw into an axiom.
I'd have no problem agreeing that Lord Aston's observation nicely
summarizes this, one of the most significant effects, that resulted in
the "corruption" of attempts at "communist utopia."
Christopher B. Browne
>In article <7g54ec$2d...@enews4.newsguy.com>, John S. Dyson
<to...@y.dyson.net> wrote:
>>...
>>A given idealogy might just not be practical. Some idealogies might
>>be practical in the short term or regressive (like GPL),
>
>To a true-believer Capitalist, cooperation and sharing are
>considered "regressive". Whereas using sexy ads to induce
>people to buy tobacco, which kills one-third of them
>(taking 25 years off their life) is considered "good
>business", and perfectly alright.
To a "true-believer Capitalist" of the Mark S. Bilk variety, it must
be quite acceptable to sell one's own children into slavery.
>This is basically because in Capitalism, it is OK to harm
>other people in order to benefit oneself (this is a good
>definition of "evil") as long as one can induce the victim
>to "voluntarily" bite the hook.
No, this is not an example of the Principles of Absolute Capitalism;
this is an example of the Principles of Insanely Blind Greed.
Please keep the difference clear.
Peter Seebach
Prins Olivier <pri...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>Your argument on the ftp and the world we live in etc...is very correct
>i am wrong
>there ( hey , it's the story of my life),...but the support you say ms and other
>companies give on their software packages it is not real support....is
>saying: "just
>install the program again", or : "wait for the upgrade" real support?? I
>dont think
>so.
Many companies offer truly atrocious support, yes. That said, a lot of
"support" means "I can just read the printed documentation, put a CD in a
drive, and expect something to happen, and if it doesn't, I can call someone
and ask for help".
RedHat is now offering this; that's their market. I think it's a good one to
be in.
>now you can get real support on linux problems, albeit no "official"
>support, the
>problem is of course finding the right place to get it, often not easy
>for normal
>end-users, but it is there ( on IRC or news-net)...
I think there's still some holes; I also think there's a lot of money to
be made filling those holes.
Peter Seebach
brian moore <b...@news.cmc.net> wrote:
>It's higher than the sales tax in most (all?) states in the US.
True. We only pay around 7% where I am...
>Something that costs less than 50c to make is higher than the margin
>the manufacturer gets? I'd say that's high.
Hmm. I'm not sure about margins; I know Apple used to brag about several
hundred dollar margins on some boxes.
That said, yes, it's high - but it's not *that* high.
I do think it'll change; it's not expensive to make copies of windows, but
it's very expensive to develop it. This is why free software is more
economically viable - you charge for the scarce resources, not the common
ones.
>And most is crappy.
Well, 90% of everything is crud. Certainly, most of the free packages I used
to download for Unix sucked too. ;)
>> However, his argument was about *cost* of software, not freedom.
>But the mere existence of some shoddy zero-cost software doesn't make a
>system useful.
I never claimed it was especially useful. Just that there are tradeoffs,
and Windows is ahead on some of them.
>None of my statements were untrue: you may differ on whether 10% is a
>significant portion of the cost, but consider it in comparison to the
>manufacturer's margin on the machine and it is significant. Don't you
>find it ironic that whilst Compaq, Dell, and others are complaining of
>lower earnings due to the current hardware price wars, that MS is
>proclaiming the PC industry is alive and well because they have record
>profits?
This is traditional behavior for the tail end of a monopoly - milk it for
all you can, raise prices, and pray that no one catches on.
>Microsoft has a higher per-unit profit on sub-$1000 machines than the
>manufacturers, and they have far less risk and capital on the line.
>Pretty neat trick, eh?
In general, yes - but if the house of cards falls, the manufacturers can
ship Linux, and MS is in a lot of trouble. They have a lot more long-term
risk.
Christopher B. Browne
>Many companies offer truly atrocious support, yes. That said, a lot of
>"support" means "I can just read the printed documentation, put a CD in a
>drive, and expect something to happen, and if it doesn't, I can call someone
>and ask for help".
>
>RedHat is now offering this; that's their market. I think it's a
>good one to be in.
It looks like they're charging $75/incident, which may feel outrageous
to home consumer, but isn't too bad from a commercial standpoint.
The price obviously has the positive effect of encouraging people to
start by actually looking for documentation/FAQs, rather than
immediately blathering about a problem that they probably had
documented locally already...
... And if you've sat on hold for 20 minutes on a Microsoft 1-900
line, it is probably cheaper :-).
PILCH Hartmut
article that makes some often muddled points clear):
>But there are
>other communists who reject the involvement of the State in
>production, and even want to abolish the state altogether. They
>believe the the workers are capable of spontaneously organizing
>themselves and taking charge of production. These are the "anarchist
>communists". As you might guess by now, GNU is anarchist communist.
Do you really mean that the GNU people have an agenda of trying to
"abolish the state altogether"?
Is there any evidence for this?
Actually the FSF is also an organisation that tries to centrally coordinate
some tasks, and RMS is very keen on having people think in terms of a
whole system, which is called GNU, even GNU/Linux, rather than just each
work for himself and produce a lot of disparate pieces that will somehow
grow together automatically.
So, I think, RMS is not quite an anarchist communist, even in the software
sense.
--
Hartmut Pilch http://www.ffii.org/~phm/
Funding association for a Free Informational Infrastructure
providing free Munich beer for free software projects
PILCH Hartmut
>>Some of us, the creators of good free software, do what needs to be done ---
>>without making money. Evidently the FSF doesn't make a lot of money.
>Perhaps - but nothing would prevent them from trying a bit harder to sell
>consulting services.
>The capitalist belief system is that you can do this and things that need
>to get done will still get done. It's not really possible to prove or
>disprove; real-world situations are too complicated. :)
I have the impression that by "capitalism" you mainly mean things like
"free market" or even "freedom for anyone to take initiatives". These
of course existed long before the industrial revolution that lead to the
typical capitalist situation of a few people owning production means and
everything being organised around the stock exchange.
If you use capitalism in the more specific, narrow meaning, you will find
that it is currently still driving the mainstream of the software market,
but not in a good direction. It has been ailing for decades, and now there
is some hope of a change of paradigm. From capitalism to something
non-capitalistic. Thanks to the "freedom for anyone to take initiatives",
which is allowed for in the capitalist system.
>>Redhat has acquired enough fame to occupy a very special and small niche in
>>the market system, where some money can be made.
>Probably, yes. But I'm not sure; I don't think they've found a "small niche".
>I think calling the service industry part of computing a "small niche" is
>like someone saying, many years ago, that this "fast food" thing might occupy
>a "small niche" in the restaurant business.
Has Redhat become a stock holding company yet? Are any of the OpenSource
based service companies serious players in the capitalist world, with a capital
of, let's say, 5% that of Oracle? 1% ?
>Economic systems tend to end up focusing trade on scarce resources; it turns
>out that software isn't scarce, but programming and support are, so we end
>up spending money on programming and support, not on software.
I am desperately looking for an open source machine translation program and
some open source vector fonts (TTF, Postscript). I find them extremely
scarce and at the same time extremely valuable to society.
But neither capitalism nor "GNU communism" has a means of providing them.
>If you try to "do what needs to be done" without regard for who will pay to
>have it done, indeed, you will probably become poor. Sometimes, the way to
>do what needs to be done is find a market niche and fill it, and use this as a
>basis from which to do what needs to be done.
Yes, I'm trying. This is however the "narrow way uphill", as opposed to the
"broad way downhill". You are likely to make much more money more quickly
if you focus your efforts on "getting things done that needn't be done",
such as providing all kinds of de-enlightenment services to businesses that
need to turn citiziens into consuming junkies.
If you nevertheless choose the "narrow way uphill", I think you must be
driven by some boy-scout, religious or ethical motivation, not by the
market.
>If, instead of starting RedHat, the same people had started devoting their
>free time, or even their full working time, to just trying to do "what needs
>to be done", it's quite likely that a lot less would have gotten done.
>It may be necessary to look ahead a little to get better results.
Yes, positive thinking is important. Complaining about how narrow the
path uphill is won't help.
-phm
Ed Avis
>That said, a friend of mine is running *NT*, for crying out loud, on a P166.
>It works fine.
I'm running NT on an IBM PS/2 Model 80-111. The Model 80 (AFAIK) was
introduced in 1987, although this is a later model. It has 12MB of
160ns RAM, two 115MB ESDI hard disks, and an upgraded CPU (Evergreen
486 running at 20MHz).
Okay, so it is NT 3.51 :-P
--
Ed Avis
Advertise here! ep...@doc.ic.ac.uk
Prins Olivier
> brian moore wrote in message ...
> >On Sat, 01 May 1999 22:04:26 GMT,
> > Peter Seebach <se...@plethora.net> wrote:
> >> In article <slrn7imki...@thorin.cmc.net>,
> >> brian moore <b...@news.cmc.net> wrote:
> >> >On Sat, 01 May 1999 18:13:47 GMT,
> >> > Peter Seebach <se...@plethora.net> wrote:
>
> >There isn't a zero-cost word processor for Windows (unless you count
> >"NotePad") -- but Linux has many, including WP8 if your not in a
> >commercial setting, or LyX and AbiWord if you're at work. Add in
> >StarOffice and Applixware that are included with some distributions and
> >you've got a healthy choice of software that comes with the OS.
> >
> Not exactly, Write was included since Win 3.1 and Word pad is included since
> Win95's outset. Both will make letters and memo's etc fairly effiecently
> and save them in RTF. WordPad will open Word Doc's too.
>
Just a small comment here..i dont think you've ever tried to open a Word .doc
document with Wordpad, because you wouldn't have said it works if you had
tried....If you would have tried it you would have seen that it shows you a nice
big lot of garbage..
Matthias Warkus
..and PILCH Hartmut <p...@wtao97.oas.a2e.de> wrote:
> Don Bashford <bash...@gage.scripps.edu> writes (in an excellent long
> article that makes some often muddled points clear):
>
> >But there are
> >other communists who reject the involvement of the State in
> >production, and even want to abolish the state altogether. They
> >believe the the workers are capable of spontaneously organizing
> >themselves and taking charge of production. These are the "anarchist
> >communists". As you might guess by now, GNU is anarchist communist.
>
> Do you really mean that the GNU people have an agenda of trying to
> "abolish the state altogether"?
>
> Is there any evidence for this?
>
> Actually the FSF is also an organisation that tries to centrally coordinate
> some tasks, and RMS is very keen on having people think in terms of a
> whole system, which is called GNU, even GNU/Linux, rather than just each
> work for himself and produce a lot of disparate pieces that will somehow
> grow together automatically.
>
> So, I think, RMS is not quite an anarchist communist, even in the software
> sense.
He's neither anarchist nor communist as far as I can see. ESR is
anarchist.
mawa
--
Face it, Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being
a villain in a James Bond movie."
--Dennis Miller
Stefaan A Eeckels
Ed Avis <ep...@doc.ic.ac.uk> writes:
> Peter Seebach wrote:
>
>>That said, a friend of mine is running *NT*, for crying out loud, on a P166.
>>It works fine.
>
> I'm running NT on an IBM PS/2 Model 80-111. The Model 80 (AFAIK) was
> introduced in 1987, although this is a later model. It has 12MB of
> 160ns RAM, two 115MB ESDI hard disks, and an upgraded CPU (Evergreen
> 486 running at 20MHz).
>
> Okay, so it is NT 3.51 :-P
One major problem was the speed of the console window - it reminded
me of a 1200 bps terminal. I upgraded to NT4 because "the video
subsystem performance has been dramatically increased", but had to
replace the 486 by a pentium 200; the overall system felt *much*
slower than 3.51, and was a lot less reliable. Maybe it was the
VESA local bus SCSI controller, maybe the video card, maybe the
lack of RAM - I don't know -- a new motherboard, 64Mb RAM, a PCI
video card and a P200 made it into a very usable and stable system.
--
Stefaan
--
PGP key available from PGP key servers (http://www.pgp.net/pgpnet/)
___________________________________________________________________
Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add,
but when there is no longer anything to take away. -- Saint-Exupéry
Stefaan A Eeckels
b...@news.cmc.net (brian moore) writes:
>
> Microsoft has a higher per-unit profit on sub-$1000 machines than the
> manufacturers, and they have far less risk and capital on the line.
>
> Pretty neat trick, eh?
for any Windows support. That basically makes Windows a system
component, and the *only* one for which there is no second
source.
Pretty neat trick indeed.
Stefaan A Eeckels
Prins Olivier <pri...@xs4all.nl> writes:
>
> Well i'm sorry about that mix-up with "putatively communist states", but you see
> English isn't my native language so i didn't quite understand, so my bad....
follow the accepted English spelling, and mind your capitals and your
punctuation. We should leave experiments to poets :-)
> And i too think that there's something wrong with the methdology to get a
> communist state, it's very vurnerable to a single dictator, in the so called
> dictatorship of the working class...but leaving out the practical implementation
> of communism ( of course that is important because the make a system work you've
> got to implement it)....i think communism is the system to go for ( of course
> most ppl dont agree on what communism really means), maybe Che guevara had good
> practical ideas but also they had flaws, mainly about having a strong leader at
> first.....
The moment you "go for" any form of ideology (or ideologically
defined/constrained system), be it communism, libertarianism,
or the sharia, you are prepared to force people who don't
agree with the ideology to accept it. Unless specific measures
(such as a constitution) exist to limit the extend to which
"leaders" can force others to follow them, such approaches
are doomed.
To succeed, a social order must be built on the consent of
a very large majority of the people. The impact of this on
those who feel morally and intellectually superior to their
fellow human beings can safely be ignored.
Ed Avis
>NT 3.51 ran quite smoothly on a 486/66 with 32Mb and SCSI disks.
>One major problem was the speed of the console window - it reminded
>me of a 1200 bps terminal.
It's reasonable on my PS/2. But then, I do use 640x480x16 graphics,
and an 8x7 console font.
>I upgraded to NT4 because "the video
>subsystem performance has been dramatically increased",
Ie, the video drivers and windowing stuff now run in kernel mode.
>but had to
>replace the 486 by a pentium 200; the overall system felt *much*
>slower than 3.51, and was a lot less reliable.
See above.