Miscellaneous > The Lounge
If you need a good laugh, read this!
Kintaro:
You fucking pack of morons, how can you not tell this has to be a joke.
God lay mersy on your soul, or at least lay braincells in your brains.
Halfwits.
Xeen:
quote:Originally posted by flap:
Actually that's quite correct, if you substitute "Free Software" for "OSS" (which is what they really meant). Free Software is socialism/communism (which has nothing to do with Soviet "Communism") in essence - the point though is that whoever wrote that statement believes that this is a condemning statement, rather than a complimenting one. Whether Free Software (and socialism in general) is contrary to "the American way" is debatable. Personally I'd agree with that as well, seeing as how The American Way seems to be all about promoting and legitimising the most vulgar and degenerate form of free-market capitalism.
RMS is very left-wing, but I think he's careful about not referring to Free Software in explicitly socialist terms so as to avoid upsetting the hysterically anti-left US. Though what he's actually done over the past 20 years is to engineer a very successful and quietly socialist revolution, at least on the software front.
--- End quote ---
What the fuck are babbling about? The true American way is that of real competition. Open Source brings plenty of competition for the commercial software vendors. If they in the end cannot provide a better product (one so good that people will WANT to pay for) then Open Source will win the competition.
Socialism: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
Damn I wish I had looked at that definition before. THe author of the original article is truly an idiot if he was not joking. The way he put it, he wants Microsoft to produce ("innovate") all software. Microsoft then can be called a centralized software vendor that often plans and controls the economy.
News Flash: Microsoft **DOES** often plan and try to control the software/techonology economy. So MICROSOFT, the RIAA and the MPAA are actually the ones who are socialistic.
flap:
quote:The true American way is that of real competition.
--- End quote ---
Whether or not you think the US is an inherently ultra-capitalistic country (most conservative Americans would probably proudly say that it is) Free Software is socialistic and thus contrary to its values. The capitalist ideal is about ensuring the freedom of individuals and corporations to make money. Thus it's a capitalist/producer oriented philosophy, not a society/consumer-centric one. Competition doesn't really figure in it. Competition is what's good for society, and what's best for the consumers is rarely what's best for the producers.
Free Software, quite simply, is not good for business, but very good for consumers/society, which is why it's intrinsically anti-capitalistic. The companies who are making money out of GNU/Linux are making a fraction of what they would if it were proprietary software and they could licence it like Microsoft do with Windows. As it is, they can't do that so they're not making so much money. Which is the way it should be.
quote:Socialism: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy
--- End quote ---
That definition should really have "...for the good of society" bolted on the end. In a socialist system the idea is that all production is purely for the good of society as a whole - obviously Microsoft's monopoly of the software industry can't be claimed to be for that purpose. You can't just read that definition and then say that anyone who controls any part of the economy is socialistic. To call the RIAA/Microsoft etc. socialistic is ridiculous. Read a politics text book.
Canadian Lover:
quote:
So, my proposal is that anti terrorism laws should be applied against hackers, and linsux treated as terrorism support tool.
--- End quote ---
:D :D :D :D :D
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