Richard Stallman Was Right All Along
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 2nd Jan 2012 19:12 UTC
GNU, GPL, Open Source Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty years ago, when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project, and during the three decades that followed, his sometimes extreme views and peculiar antics were ridiculed and disregarded as paranoia - but here we are, 2012, and his once paranoid what-ifs have become reality.
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RE[5]: Way missed the mark
by lucas_maximus on Tue 3rd Jan 2012 13:35 UTC in reply to "RE[4]: Way missed the mark"
lucas_maximus
Member since:
2009-08-18

No I just don't think that opensource is some magic fairy dust that suddenly fixes everything.

As someone else pointed out that whether the system is open or closed means that it will still have to connect to network that can likely monitor them.

Unless they make something like a mesh network like they did when the Egypt rioted.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/02/01/egypt-protests-hac...

http://www.openmeshproject.org/

The software enabling people to do this was not necessarily running on open source software. I think it ran on quite a range of devices.

I see no mention of this in your article. I do see a lot of hysteria about two completely unrelated bills.

Also Open source software due to it nature does not make innovative products.

http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Gadget-Manifesto/dp/0307269647 from the Q&A

Web 2.0 adherents might respond to these objections by claiming that I have confused individual expression with intellectual achievement. This is where we find our greatest point of disagreement. I am amazed by the power of the collective to enthrall people to the point of blindness. Collectivists adore a computer operating system called LINUX, for instance, but it is really only one example of a descendant of a 1970s technology called UNIX. If it weren’t produced by a collective, there would be nothing remarkable about it at all.

Meanwhile, the truly remarkable designs that couldn’t have existed 30 years ago, like the iPhone, all come out of "closed" shops where individuals create something and polish it before it is released to the public. Collectivists confuse ideology with achievement.


You speak to the collectivists, I am not one of them. You have a "Post Comment" section on the site but become upset when people question your logic ... maybe you shouldn't allow them?

Edited 2012-01-03 13:35 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[6]: Way missed the mark
by r_a_trip on Tue 3rd Jan 2012 15:18 in reply to "RE[5]: Way missed the mark"
r_a_trip Member since:
2005-07-06

Meanwhile, the truly remarkable designs that couldn’t have existed 30 years ago, like the iPhone, all come out of "closed" shops where individuals create something and polish it before it is released to the public.

Yet that same iPhone is powered by a toned down OS X, which was created with and only possible due to the availability of the collectivised Mach and FreeBSD, which both lead directly back to that same old 1970s technology called UNIX.

It's funny how the naysayers can always claim straightfaced that Linux is just a copy of Unix and ignore 20 years of developments and then turn around and point to Apple's OS as the pinnacle of innovation and completely ignore the same OS heritage.

Reply Parent Score: 6

RE[7]: Way missed the mark
by lucas_maximus on Tue 3rd Jan 2012 15:50 in reply to "RE[6]: Way missed the mark"
lucas_maximus Member since:
2009-08-18

You missed the point.

Linux distros are a copy of Unix as much as it matters and community is good at doing that.

However the iPhone is a product, it could have Windows Embedded or be running on magic unicorn blood under all the polish and you may never know the difference.

Much like Android could have been built on top of FreeBSD and you wouldn't know.

Edited 2012-01-03 15:55 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

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