ESR Dismisses PRC "Official Linux" Announcement 369
webmaven writes "Eric S. Raymond reacts in this LinuxToday story to the recent press regarding the Chinese government oficially adopting Linux. He dismisses the story as untrue, and furthermore states that the principles of the PRC are incompatible with the voluntary cooperation that is the spirit of the Open Source movement." But it's not just China. Apparently Cubans like Linux too. So read Eric's essay and decide for yourself whether this is good, bad or all just hot air. Comments?
Pointless logical acrobatics . . . (Score:1)
That would blow away his rabid victimization -- he claims that Christians are evil and wicked because we persecuted his "spiritual forbears".
If so, that's really annoying and depressing. Yeah, some Christians did exactly that, and other Christians are trying to do it now. Then again, I doubt that very many Quakers have any hand in that stuff, and the last time I checked, they were Christians too.
It's fine -- in fact, admirable -- to object to objectionable acts by members of a given group, but Raymond generally seems to go a step farther and claim that the objectionable acts are characteristic of the entire group, and are furthermore necessitated by membership in that group. With a self-selected group like Christians or communists or Nazis, that's not nearly as scary as it would be with an "ethnic" or "racial" group, but it's still unjust and goofy. We've had a rash of very public violence in the news these past few months, and the balance of the perpetrators were people with strong anti-government and pro-2nd-Amendment views. Would Raymond care to be lumped in with those characters? I doubt it very much -- after all, he hasn't shot up any JCC's and I can't imagine that he would condone such a thing, much less do it himself. Similary, the fact that Hitler may have been a pagan tells us absolutely nothing about the racial or political views of other pagans, Eric Raymond included. If he's gonna generalize unreasonably, I guess it's good to be consistent and do it to himself, too, but he's really getting worked up about nothing.
Incidentally, my devoutly Catholic friend Tom would never condone any persecution of Raymond for his beliefs. Tom has pagan friends and he considers their beliefs as silly as they consider his -- but since they're all nice people, they don't hassle each other about it. I don't crawl up his ass with my atheism, either, and we get along just fine.
Kind of sad.
That strikes me as unfair. I don't know about Raymond, but speaking for myself (unlike Raymond, I'm unable to speak for anybody else
specifically communist ideas (Score:2)
In the late 19th century, there were a whole bunch of political movements that we would call "left-wing". Several of these movements, not just Marx's, called themselves "Communist". Sometimes they took one another's theories and techniques, and sometimes they bickered (sounds familiar, eh?). A big chunk of the Communist Manifesto is devoted to flaming other movements, such as utopian socialism and anarchism, that were popular at the time.
Over the past century, some of the ideas that circulated through these movements, such as the legalization of trade unions, became pretty much mainstream. Some, such as the inevitable immiseration of the working class, became pretty much discredited. Some, such as full employment, are still being argued about (this particular issue is big in France, as I recall). Newer movements, such as environmentalism and gay rights, have added ideas and issues to the mix that Marx and his buddies never considered.
Free Speach vs. Free Software (Score:1)
In general, whenever a free speach issue appears on /., we all react in the most liberal manner. We don't want our rights taken away; we don't want anyone's rights taken away. We agree that people have the right to say just about whatever they want as long as it is not slanderous or libellous. We also all seemed to feel that the moderation system here on /. was a good way of keeping offensive comments from being to much a part of the community without violating the rights of induviduals to make those comments.
Yet now, the /. community has turned around. Many people are taking offence at the idea that China may (or may not) adopt Linux as the "official" OS. We're getting mad because they have perpetrated numerous human rights violations. We think that licences should forbid countries like the People's Republic from using Linux.
By endorsing such ideas, we are just as much in violation of the ideas of free speach.
I agree that China has done many things that are evil and wrong. I don't support their corrupt idea of "comunism." But it is wrong to tell the Chinese government that it can't use Linux because the government is evil.
Making it impossible for the Chinese to use Linux because of human rights violations would be like telling a member of the KKK that they can't buy rope because they will use that rope to kill some one. It would be like telling a satanist that they can't get up on a soap box in a park and rant because some one might take offense.
Here in the US, we have a Bill of Rights. This bill protects our citizens from many things. But why is it that as soon as an idea is not covered by the Bill of Rights (i.e. China, because they are not memebers of our union and, therefore, don't have to abide by the Bill of Rights), we feel that the Bill of Rights no longer applies?
If China wishes to use Linux, it is their right, not because they are a large, oppressive superpower and can take what they want; not because they adhear to the Bill of Rights; not because we like them. It is their right because it is the fundamental right of all people, and through the people, the countries in which the people live, to improve themselves and speak their minds.
I am sorry to rant on like this, but I feel that there is something of a double standard here and I felt the need to point it out.
I agree, in theory, that China using Linux looks bad for the Linux community, but if we deny them the right to use Linux (via licensing etc.) are we not just as bad? Aren't we then supporting the very thing we wish to stop?
I read Slashdot for facts, not rumours (Score:2)
GraphOn Corporation, (Nasdaq: GOJO) (www.graphon.com), a Silicon Valley web-enabling software company, today announced it has established alliances that it believes will afford millions of users throughout China Internet and network access to powerful server-based applications and speed adoption of Linux® as China's operating system of choice.
Presumeably somebody from Yahoo called the guy and got this quote:
"Enthusiasm for Linux is coming from the very highest level of the Government in China," says Robin Ford executive vice president of GraphOn.
Which was miraculously transformed on Slashdot into this:
YAHOO UK is reporting that the People's Republic of China will be naming Linux as its "Official Operating System"
Anyone can see how rediculous this whole chain of events was. I read Slashdot for facts, not for unsubstantiated rumours that generate threads containing articles consisting mostly of groundless speculation that get moderated up. This whole affair should be embarrassing to all of us - if it isn't, there is something wrong. What are we going to do to try to make it not happen again? The last thing we need is for Slashdot to gain a reputation as primarily a rumour mill - that's not what it is, I know that and you know that. But one fiasco like this can undo the good effects of dozens of informative, useful threads, as far as the clueless industry press is concerned.
That was my rant about truth and the need to pursue it. Now another short rant. ESR was completely wrong to have used this opportunity for publicizing his own political views. But, thanks a lot for debunking this thing for us.
This in no way means that I don't think China or any other country shouldn't enthusiastically adopt Linux, or the product of any other open-source effort, politics be dammed.
Re:Some People Not Paying Attention (Score:1)
I am stuck to open source.
This is getting too much similar to:
Arms are just a tool, drugs instead are BAD.
For the great american people (and maybe some poor european) encription and technology is good and it must be widespread, so we can defend ourselves from the government.
Chinese instead are to be considered unable to use the same tecnology for the same reasons...
When I'll see (I won't: its a hoax) the chinese gov. make other osses illegal or using this os for bad things I will flame them. In the mean time they can do with linux anything as can everybody else. And I'm quite happy with it.
Just as long as the chinese people have free access to source code, all of this is good.
Please just don't be afraid if someone who has done LOTS of bad mistakes gets one right.
Paranoia must be a tool, not a master.
About free-is-everything argument:
The fact that the chinese people (not some chinese, one billion chinese) are adopting any technology is just another naive illusion.
You must have bucks to do choices in the technology arena.
Or have institutions back choices for you instead.
Surely the first is better. In this case it simply isn't an option because software can be free as in speech, seldom as in beer (and seldom*1'000'000'000 is a BIG number) but knowledge of IT (even at consumer level) COSTS REAL BUCKS. (just imagine TCO*1'000'000'000).
Should any significant increase in tech knowledge occur for that 1'000'000'000 as a mass THIS WOULD BE GOOD no matter who does it.
How it is done is an ethical problem not a tech or outcome problem.
Or do you think that backing a fascist coup as in Chile is ethical or acceptable? (but obviously you can discuss if it has been good) I guess (and hope) we have same ideas on the morality of bombing the Casa Rosada and desaparecidos.
Linux in Mexico (Score:1)
Re: Bleh (Score:1)
Re:RMS bashing (Score:2)
Uh, or millions of people will say "Oh, Free software is written by a load of Commie Red Hippies.", and go off and buy Windows 2000.
One or the other.
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Re:ok let's have more fun (Score:1)
All officially atheist countries are oppresive:
Therefore all atheists are oppressors?
Therefore no non-atheists are oppressors?
Therefore no non-officially atheist country is oppresive?
I think you are trying to make a point but you haven't got the guts to come out and say it. Even as an AC... Sad really.
There are no religions (or non-religions) that have acheived official national status that *haven't* commited an atrocity or two, but I'm sure you'll point out why your religion's were *special* or *justified* somehow.
I am an atheist and I couldn't give a s***t about the professed religion or lack of it of any regime, unless they use it as an excuse to beat the crap out of people.
Tom
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:1)
-russ
Re:A couple of observations... (Score:1)
2. The Chinese government has absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese people (unless it, say, forces Linux on the people as the only permissible OS). No one, not even ESR, has objected to the growth of Linux in private hands in China. He, and I, and others, object to a totalitarian regime endorsing and adopting an OS we like. As I mentioned in another post, that's partly (for me) because it can only make the PRC government more efficient at oppressing its people.
3. Actually sorta true. As long as you keep your head down and don't challenge, criticize, or disagree with the government, there is increasing liberty, of a sort. I like to think of it as the first sign of the end for the PRC. If the PRC started using Linux as the information infrastructure for its administration, that might be stalled or reversed, though.
4. Pinochet sure as Hell ain't my friend. Nor is the current leftist regime in Haiti that our president re-established and propped up, or any of a few dozen other despicable folks/groups you and I could get together and brainstorm a list of. Just as the Chinese government != the Chinese people, the US government != US citizens. Hell, I don't even consider the US government my friend. There's "where the fuck" I find the moral standing.
EXCELLENT ARTICLE (Score:1)
extremely well written.
clearly shows why the GON FE Chinese government shouldn't be trusted and should never be trusted
ANY GON Fe's reading this? comon u gon fe shit? yea.
You cannot force freedom (Score:1)
-russ
Re:ESR doesn't understand communism (Score:1)
OTOH, I agree with your point about bad-apples not making much of a point about the religious system to which they belong. But the point was that ESR didn't think so -- he (based on private emails) feels privileged to judge other faith systems on some very spurious bases. Sorry, the man's a jerk.
Re:It's the language (Score:1)
ehehheh... nnot CHINA.. China IS GON FE AND CAN go Gan TA DE NIA
TAIWAN is BESTEST
China is not a communist nation (Score:2)
For example, the Communist Manifesto explicitly states that industrial workers are the true proletariat, while peasants are rather useless from a revolutionary standpoint. Mao turned that on its nose. Furthermore, the entire proletariat is global, and independent of nationality, while the Chinese government promotes intense xenophobia when it suits its needs. Finally, the people have little to no say in government -- the People's Congress being little more than a "yes organization" for the Politburo and senoir officials like Li Peng and Jiang Zemin. It is a "People's Republic" in the minds of very few. I think my friends that I work with here in the US who hail from mainland China would all agree (some of them having grown up in prison camps thanks to the Cultural Revolution).
Re:Fuck you, ESR! (Score:1)
-russ
Re:Where Marx was right (Score:2)
In a feudal economy, the lower class consists of peasants. Feudal systems place all sorts of restrictions on peasants (they can't just pick up and move, for example), but the feudal lord's power over the peasants is also constrained (he can't just evict them, either).
In a capitalist economy, the lower class is the proletariat (a.k.a. "the working class"), who own their own labor power, but can only sell it to members of the bourgeoisie (a.k.a. "the bosses"). If you're in the proletariat and you can't find anyone to buy your labor, you're SOL.
The bourgeoisie buys the proletariat's labor for as little as it can pay, and sells the products of the labor for as much as it can charge, to whoever is willing to pay. (There's the alienation of labor -- once the widget leaves the worker's hands, he or she has no special relationship with it.)
The bourgeoisie can then plow the profits into exploiting the workers further: for example, skilled craftsmen, who own their own tools, get replaced by unskilled (therefore easy-to-replace, therefore low-paid) factory workers whose tools (the factory machines) belong to the bourgeoisie.
Marx and Engels predicted that economic forces would (a) drive businesses in every field to either merge with or bankrupt competitors, creating monopolies protected or controlled by business-friendly governments; (b) drive the bourgeoisie to tighten the screws further and further on the proletariat, until everyone in that class was paid no more than enough to survive. Then, they thought, the proletariat would get sick of it all, seize control of all these centralized industries, and manage them for the benefit of all of society rather than for profit.
We all know it didn't work out that way, but in the 1880s, this was not an unreasonable theory.
Re:PRC != communism (Score:2)
At least in the UK, rapid industrialization significantly depressed median incomes (or at least our estimates of median incomes) due to the mechanization of agriculture. These people flowed into the large cities to work in the factories; the surplus of unskilled labour pushed rates to the very bottom.
Unfortunately, rather than taking up the slack and improving production, rates stayed there. There was simply no upward pressure on wages. Life in the cities was crowded and disease-ridden, resulting in a drop in estimated life expectancy.
This doesn't mean that agrarian feudalism was a walk in the park, though. It was nasty and brutish. Nor am I rejecting my own cushy existence which is made possible by industrialism. I merely make the observation that for several generations the industrial revolution, although inevitable, resulted in a significant downturn in standards of living.
The same trend occurred to a lesser extent in the US's new england states and in Canada, merely time-shifted.
I hope that when you take all this into account, the increased poverty, the disease, the overall wretchedness, you'll come to the conclusion that capitalism, despite where it has brought us, was a poor alternative to agrarian feudalism for the great majority of people. It is a characteristic of any major social-economic revolution; look at post-Communist Russia.
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Re:China == Communisim (Score:2)
Because in a pseudo-Communist state that never had a well-developed economy, there's not that much to steal unless, say, you loot the wealth for formerly succesful countries.
Re:Where Marx was right (Score:1)
Except that in many feudal societies, the lord had the power of life-or-death over his vassals in the very real sense of using various sharp pointy things to kill (unarmed) peasants who resisted him in any way.
Unless you start your own business, with or without capital. Even in an industrial economy, there are lots of niches for people to start their own businesses. That's how those big businesses started in the first place.
True, but incomplete. The proletariat also sells its labor for as much as it can get, and the consumers of the products pay as little as they can get. That's what happens with a economic system based on free association and free choice.
This really has little to do with a free market and everything to do with the circumstances of the industrial revolution (nor is universal, since unionization - another great free-market activity, mostly - resists the replaceability). Now, in the information age, the situation is turning around, and people decry capitalism because unskilled workers have trouble keeping and getting jobs and skilled workers become more important.
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:1)
Before you are so hasty to bash the Chinese, remember that they didn't elect their own government. I think that it's good ( for the Chinese people ) that the government there are adopting linux, even though I don't like their government
Too amusing for words (Score:2)
There seem to be a few coherent views coming out here:
1) China = communist = bad, ergo if the Chinese government likes Linux, this must be a bad thing.
2) China = communist = bad, but that has nothing to do with Linux.
3) China = big, ergo if Linux use is encouraged in China this must be a good thing.
Now, some responses to those arguments:
1) China != stupid. China contains its fair share of competent, capable people who make decisions based on the conditions as they see them. China is under pressure to reduce software piracy, at least in those sectors of the economy that they genuinely have control over. Linux comes without expensive licensing and can be copied freely. I doubt that any Linux user in China uses it for ideological reasons - the economic reasons are strong enough.
2) China's political system and economic philosophy has little to do with anything. It isn't hard to find so-called capitalist nations that have controlled about as much of their economy and repressed just as many freedoms. This doesn't excuse China for anything, but it does make the communist vs. capitalist thing an old, tired joke that we would all be best off forgetting about. What reaction would see after a similar announcement by, say, the government of Saudi Arabia, a country at least as oppressive as China and far less considerate of its working class.
3) Chinese market for computers != big. Maybe in the future the Chinese market will be so wealthy and large that its OS preferences make a major difference in the world. At the current growth rate, perhaps another 25 years will do it. In 25 years, God only knows what the computer industry will look like. I would be surprised if anything that much resembles Linux is still in use then. Until then, what OS China uses is of diminishingly little importance.
As far as I can tell, this announcement of Linux as "offical OS of the PRC" is overblown far beyond any real significance. I still can't figure out exactly what it means - I suspect it means nothing. Calling it a lie strikes me as a knee-jerk response of someone too wrapped up in his own politics to look rationally at anything. People in China aren't going to stop stealing MS Office anytime soon, I assure you.
Perhaps free software has an appeal to traditional Marxists for ideological reasons. It does to me. (I might call myself a Marxist, but only to people who I know will get pissed off because of it - few Marxists will actually have me.) "From each according to his ability, to each accroding to his need" strikes me as a better description of free software than any of the neolibertarian prattling I've heard. Certainly Marxism can be more easily twisted to explain free software than anarcho-capitalism can - as demonstrated by the logical somersaults of the open source libertarian right. But, it's probably pointless to debate the relative Marxism of Linux - Marx didn't write much about computers, so don't expect to find too much genuine insight in software development in Das Kapital.
No, watching the reaction of
It's hard not to laugh. A word to the conservatives from an old-fashioned leftist: you are falling into the same trap that your hippie parents found. When you judge something for its ideological merits before you judge its utility, you will quickly find you've made fools of yourselves.
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
So you support the mass murder of chinese citizens by their own government?
He said that plenty of people approved of the ideals of marxist communism. But even those people don't see communist China as anything other than a rapacious, oppressive, and violent regime.
Kintanon
Kneejerkin' fun (Score:3)
My only problem is the bit about the "repressive ideals of Communism".
It's worth noting that there *are* *no* communist states in the world today, whatever they choose to call themselves. Every country which has tried to become communist, has ended up being something else. If you want to know why, read Animal Farm.
... and yeah, the Chinese Government sucks, and it'd do Linux a whole lot of harm if people in general thought that the average Linux hacker had any sympathies with them.
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Re:Linux and Politics? (Score:2)
Who gave the orders?
I believe it's pretty well documented that the KS incident involved panicking (poorly-trained, perhaps?) Nat'l Guardsmen under continual harrassment by the students -- that they were NOT earlier ordered to butcher anybody who stood in their way.
The PRC can hardly claim that it's armored columns were panicking, or that they were moving on the Square at nighttime on a simple mission of containment.
It looks to me like (Score:3)
His problem with China adopting Linux is purely political (which after reading the LinuxToday article is what I came away with). And though I don't disagree with his sentiment, I don't see that there's a way he can stop it from happening. There's no control group watchdogging Linux that can actually keep a specific customer (let alone an entire country) from using it.
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Just because the PRC likes it... (Score:4)
ESR (Score:3)
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A couple of observations... (Score:3)
2) Just because the PRC government is bad doesn't mean that the Chinese people are bad. Don't forget that.
3) Things have changed a bit, i hear, since the bubble bu...sort of deflated, but from what i've heard, most of the people in the PRC don't currently give a crap about the government one way or the other. They will, I'd bet money on it, but right now they don't.
4) General Pinochet was our friend. The guy(s) in Guatemala were our friends. Suharto was our friend. With friends like that, where the fuck do you find the moral standing to say who is your enemy?
One Unfortunate Part of Eric's Message (Score:4)
In order to deflect talk of Linux being a "communist enterprise", we need to be clear about the relationship of Free Software (Open Source) to communism. Free software does create a "commons": a sort of publicly-owned property, collectively maintained for the good of all. Karl Marx didn't invent that either, it's a critical aspect of every community, and most capitalistic enterprises would wither without a publicly-owned infrastructure to support them. Consider, for example, that money is part of that infrastructure. That's the message I'd like to carry to the press: having a commons, helping our neighbors, and protecting our freedoms should not be equated to communism.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
PRC != communism (Score:3)
If you look at history, you'll see that communism turned out to be a particularly bad idea. But if you looked at the 19th century, you'd come to the same conclusion about capitalism. Don't forget that communism was a reaction to the horrors of the industrial-capitalist state. No doubt libertarianism, especially the objectivist strains, is a reaction to the horrors of the communist state. I don't hold any great hopes for libertarian utopias, however.
I think that you misunderstand the central concepts of communism. The ruling class is supposed to govern for the benefit of the working class (the workers are presumably the bulk of the population). The benefit or ill of individual citizens is secondary to the "big picture" and the good of the masses. Dissolving and collectively owning property is the means to the end, which is a government for the people; a state without individual property is presumably a state of peers (this is demonstrably false, but is rarely pointed out) with interests in common.
Chinese and Russian communism started out on what Marx would consider the absolute wrong foot - agrarian economies, where they had to appeal to small landholders and tenant farmers, and had to go through the process of accumulating capital to industrialize - and it goes without saying that communism is probably the worst system for accumulating capital. With ongoing industrialization, they created further class distinctions. Perhaps they did it better than the nineteenth-century western economies, and perhaps not, but it certainly wasn't pretty and the result isn't pretty.
As for ESR, I think that he should get his knee looked at. It's perfectly possible to indulge in volunteerism in a communist society; it's perfectly possible to indulge in volunteerism in a capitalist society, too. (Of course, in Eric's libertarian-anarchist political ramblings, there's nothing but volunteerism). Still, volunteerism is whollly tangential to developing in an open-source environment; the point is, and always was, to promote further and faster development for the sake of development and developers rather than venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.
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Re:My Problem with Communism (Score:2)
So, I'm not sure if these communist nations should be called true communism, or thought of in conjunction to Marxian communism.
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
Nowhere in my statement was any derogetory remark about the chinese people. My statement referred specifically to the actions of the chinese government. Elected or not makes no difference. The US government is elected yet we still disapprove of things they do to the citizens.
Kintanon
Re:Wake Up and Smell the Globalization (Score:2)
So did the US, until 1976.
Many books were copied in the US and the author lost all rights to them, simply because of the US's strange pre-Berne copyright laws.
Re:Who's really principled, here? (Score:2)
Propaganda? Or supporting a statement. The world may never know...
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux [gnu.org] to you mister!
China and Linux (Score:2)
Re:Just because the PRC likes it... (Score:2)
if random manager A is trying to look for a platform to use for his big departmental rollout, and he is considering Linux and Windows w/o really understanding Linux that well (can we all believe that a manager might misunderstand?
No, not because he will go "ewww Commie folk bad, die die!" but for a variety of more complicated reasons:
The credibility of Linux is not enhanced by the PRC's alleged decision; rather than taking comfort that a country of 1+ billion's government is adopting linux, the manager may recall that the chinese government has a penchant for making these sorts of decisions not based on the merits of the issue, but based on ideological concerns. He may then recall the various ideological movements surrounding linux and could very well decide that linux is largely being touted for its philosophical purity, and as that is not a priority of his, discard it in favor of windows.
There are enough Linux users who ARE akin to the PRC government in terms of their fervor, and the entire FSF _does_ tout Linux primarily for ideological concerns. Indeed the merits-based approach ESR and the OSI have used have garnered them ridicule from RMS for precisely that reason. (that there was little to no mention of the ideological reasons for adopting Linux...)
-RS
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
China's human rights aren't that bad (Score:2)
Read the amnesty international reports for China and compare them with other developing countries in Asia (or better, the arab nations ), and decide for yourself whether they are substantially different from the others.
Look! Its the Linux PR machine. (Score:2)
Is Joey Mcarthy back?! Is Eric afraid of being called a red. Hmm, one of those might be true.
Who cares if it becomes the choice OS for serial killers or haibitual shoplifers. Its software. The worst press is can receive is people like ESR who turn computers into politcal pawns. Eric makes it sound like Pol Pot himself came over and killed a few people with a Linux floppy.
You may dislike the PRC for x amount of reasons, but their OS shouldn't be one of them.
Re:RMS bashing (Score:2)
Thanks
Bruce
Re:Free is free, and that means NO restrictions (Score:2)
Then, since he's been accepted by someone as a major figure in the open source community (where as he can only, if at all, speak for the GPL community), he incorperates his views of society in with this stuff. I don't want his politics, especially when so many believe it represents me. He's a member of the Libertarian party, which on its goals sounds good, but in its implentations, i.e. no income tax, is bent on improving the situation of the wealthy. It wishes to fix things through the private business and not government programs. Look at American history, those programs came about because private business either refused to provide them or used them soley for exploitation.
His remarks on social structures are generally absurd and disgusting. I tried asking him once why he states, in a manner of under all extremes socialism is evil and equal to facism, whereas if you read on the material (i.e., Marx for understanding, John Stuart Mill for comparisions, ideas, structures, etc), that's a misleading statement its sickening. Yet, this is thrusted onto me because he supposedly represents me. His views of freedom are only those that make him more successful, not those that make mankind better.
If the choice was for ESR to continue to support the open source (correction, the GPL) movement, while forcing his politics to be known and thereby be thought to trickle down to me, and in doing so demean and degrade anyone who opposes his views, or nothing at all - I'd choose nothing. I'm free to have my own opinions, my own beliefs and causes, and so is Raymond. I merely don't believe he accepts my freedom if it collides with his political goals.
Re:Who's really principled, here? (Score:2)
But you take it too far!
You're saying that ESR is a money-grubbing phony trying to spread Linux
money-grubbing? I never said that. I never implied that (it could possibly be interpreted by my "big business buddies" comment; that was my mistake).
(and no, I don't preface it with GNU, GNU stuff can be used on any OS and isn't unique to Linux)
No no no. You don't get it. GNU IS the operating system. Linux is not an operating system, it is a kernal. But Linux is not GNU software so we call the system GNU/Linux, that is the GNU operating system plus the Linux kernal.
Think of what we use that are part of the GNU system:
The FSF has been coding the GNU OS for 15 years now. Without GNU there would be no Linux, no KDE, no 'Open Source' movement, no Red Hat, Debian, or Mandrake. Without GNU, you would be using Windows right now. Linux is a great kernal. But Linux is smaller part of the whole system. We call this operating system GNU.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux [gnu.org] to you mister!
ESR doesn't understand communism (Score:3)
ESR certainly doesn't speak for me. He has no right to claim that he speaks for me. I was all for the idea of China adopting Linux as an official OS, and it also makes sense, considering that GNU/Linux is the current choice of Richard Stalin^H^Hlman. (I don't mean that as a slur, either. I'm a pinko leftie communist at heart. :)
ESR needs to realize that not everyone in the free software movement is an opensource libertarian.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
RMS bashing (Score:2)
pieces divagating about "open-source communism"; the clumsy rhetoric of some of our
past ambassadors may have made that outcome inevitable."
... so he couldn't resist getting some RMS-bashing in. And he complains about snideness in others !?!
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This is a non-issue (Score:4)
Linux is not about politics. It's not about communism, democracy, monarchism, or even libertarianism. Yes, many Linux developers and users have strong views on these subjects. I have strong views myself. But that's not what Linux is about.
Linux is about technology. It's about the freedom to use the best technology available, and if what's available is not the best, improve it until it is the best. If China chooses to use Linux, so be it! I think it's great: a billion+ people who use Linux as their default OS? Are you kidding me? This is great!
We don't need to get involved in the politics. Using an OS is not a political statement. And I think the best thing for us to do is to totally ignore this. Why waste our time, energy, and ideology arguing about something that doesn't really matter and we couldn't change even if we wanted to?
Worse, to the extent that you get involved in the politics you will lose focus on the technology. Don't you think there's a good reason why Linus tries to remain aloof from all this kind of stuff?
Re:Repressive Ideals (Score:2)
True, there are no true communist states in the world today. Nonetheless, we can look to Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao for examples of "repressive ideals". There is one, big, huge repressive ideal that makes me reject the whole of communism and socialism.
Subordination of the individual. Under communism/socialism, the group is more important than the individual. Put another way for those that don't see anything wrong with this, communism supports the majority over the minority. Incidentally, I don't like pure democracy for exactly the same reason.
If communism/socialism is done voluntarily, as demonstrated by certain US communal societies (Amana, Oneida, Kaweah, Shakers, etc), then there is no problem with it because it's still individuals making choices. But when a government steps in and tries to mandates communism/socialism, then things start getting screwed up big time. (There are governments today that call themselves "socialist", but this is a different socialism than advocated by Marx)
Free Software and Politics (Score:2)
I find this statement outrageous, esp. from ESR who coined the term OpenSource as a non-political substitute for "free software" and now abuses his (btw. well earned) authority to air his personal political views as those of us all.
I for one have no problem if one quarter of the planet's population embraces Linux instead of using a non-free OS (and readily exported commercial US product, I might add) and that ESR blatantly denies them their right to do so is an insult, not only for the Chinese people, but for every programmer who wrote free software as a gift to all people under the premise that it shall be used, distributed and improved in a free manner by everyone who wishes to do so.
Don't get me wrong, I also feel pity for all the victims of the Chinese dictatorship, but I also think that free software is a better means of spreading the idea of freedom than dogmatic cold-war reflexes and in the (IMHO very unlikely) case that this is not a hoax, at least for one time, the Chinese government had showed more mental flexibilty than ESR's anti-communist rant.
I fully respect ESR, (Score:4)
There's far more potential for clashes between capitalist America, with it's ideals of profit, personal gain and personal success, yet America has no issue with Open Source at all. Indeed, many companies (IBM, Hewlett Packard, Netscape, Intel, Creative Labs, Corel, etc) have dived whole-heartedly into the entire Open Source movement.
In the end, you can ALWAYS interpret Open Source principles in such a way as to agree with your own personal political and/or theological viewpoint, and you can ALWAYS make use of Open Source to advance yourself, no matter what you believe or where you are.
To argue that China "can't" adopt Open Source is as ludicrous as claiming IBM would never release the code to it's Java compiler. Sorry, but if IBM can see past it's prejudices, to take advantage of an emerging philosophy, so can anyone else.
IMHO, it's more important and more useful to debate -whether- something is happening, than to argue blindly that it can't be.
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
So it is annoying that ESR has to highlight his opinions about gun control, or communism, or whatever non-Linux, and oft times, Linux views.
Of course, many people do not like the political scene in China. But, we do not want ESRs views on it, especially linking politics and software for no real reason.
Political posturing (Score:2)
The incompatibility with voluntary cooperation would mean that Open Source software shouldn't be used by or in corporations as most definately are not about voluntary cooperation. So if he's going to condemn the PRC's use of Open Source software for being contrary to voluntary cooperation then he should also condemn IBM, SGI, Dell and anybody else who has recently jumped on the Open Source bandwagon. Sure, the mentioned companies haven't run over students with tanks, but thats not even what he seems to have referred to in his rant.
I'd also state that he has to openly rebuke a lot of the more vocal members of the Open Source community. Voluntary cooperation? A lot of people support piracy or leaked code as a means to an ends. That isn't voluntary cooperation.
Re: Jerkin' your chain (Score:2)
Gee, I bet you learned that in a government-owned school
Seriously, though. If you get to the root of it, corporations cannot exist without official government approval. A corporation is a legal entity recognized by governments, that have distinct rights from individuals. This legal fiction allows the owners to avoid personal and individual responsibility for their actions.
Microsoft is a corporation. It could not exist without the official approval of the Washington State and US Federal Governments. If Bill Gates had to compete on his own without the extra legal protections that incorporating gave him, it is extremely doubtful that he could have done it. And if he had done exactly the same actions as an individual that gave MS Corporation a 90% market share, he would have been thrown in jail or sued up the wazoo years ago.
Let Billy Boy play by the exact same rules as you or I, and there's no way he can create a monopoly off of a shoddy product.
Re:America has a far-bloodier history! (Score:2)
Of course, that's just on top of all the American Indians who will killed by more traditional means.
None of which is meant to excuse any actions of the Chinese government, which currently has a much worse human rights record than the USA. But the USA can and should be doing much better - for starters, our foreign policy is often abysmal on human rights issues, we have the largest prison population (real number and per capita) in the world, and we are just about the only developed nation where the government claims the right to murder its own citizens.
Re:Who's really principled, here? (Score:2)
You have a good point though. I'll cut it out. I just had to get something out of my system.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux [gnu.org] to you mister!
Communism = Mass Murder (Score:2)
term National Socialist.
Thus the full name was the National Socialist German Workers' Party
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP)
called for short, Nazi.
By the end of 1920 it had about three thousand members.
While the victims of the Nazi Holocaust are continuing to receive
their just place in history, it is important to note that they are
not the only victims of mass murder. A far greater holocaust was
committed by those supposedly working in the name of all humanity,
rather than those working in the name of the "master race." This is
the Red Holocaust, committed by socialist dictators from Stalin to Mao
to Pol Pot. Their victims have not yet received their full measure of
remembrance, those who supported these dictators have not yet received
their full measure of disgust.
The crimes are immense in scale and in magnitude. The USSR was founded
on a basis of mass murder and deliberate starvation: the Russian Civil
War, the Red Terror and the Reds' forced confiscation of food from the
peasants, lead to millions of deaths. This was prior to Stalin: upon his
succession, he began to use the security apparatus in order to arrest
and kill people on a virtually random basis. Much like the factories
under central planning, the security organs had quotas to fulfill:
one of the artifacts to have survived the era shows that Stalin drew
up lists of each region, with two categories. One category would
indicate imprisonment, going to the slave labour camps. The other
category would indicate immediate death. Stalin often would put notations
on the list, such as "A further 6,000 for the Krasondar region,"
with a stroke of the pen, wiping out a further 6,000 lives.
It was believed among top communists that there was a certain percentage
of the population that opposed the regime and had to be done away with.
But in typical communist fashion, this was not something that could be
left to the discretion of low level cadre. After all, iron, steel, pigs,
wheat production, and virtually everything else economically had to be
defined by a quota to assure that lower level cadre were guided in their
work.
It may be utterly incomprehensible to those outside such a totalitarian
system that such cadre were also given quotas of people to murder, but
it was consistent with the idea of central planning and control.
From Moscow NKVD (a predecessor to the KGB) headquarters an order would go
out to some small towns or villages to kill so many "enemies of the people,"
and soon enough the local henchmen would report back that the task was
completed.
That such orders would be given is incredible enough. That the local
official would obey them is unbelievable. Why did "quite ordinary decent
human beings, with a normal hatred of injustice and cruelty" carry out
these merciless purges and executions? Simple: through sweating, trembling,
fear. Consider what Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov, in their book appropriately
titled Empire of Fear, wrote about what a friend, who is called M-, said of
his experience,
as an N.K.V.D. official in a country town in the Novo-Sibirsk region. The
number of victims demanded by Moscow from this town was five hundred.
M-went through all the local dossiers, and found nothing but trivial
offenses recorded. But Moscow?s requirements were implacable; he was
driven to desperate measures. He listed priests and their relatives;
he put down anyone who was reported to have spoken critically about
conditions in the Soviet Union; it was more than M-'s life was worth
not to fulfill his quota. He made up his list of five hundred enemies
of the people, had them quickly charged and executed and reported to
Moscow: "Task accomplished in accordance with your instructions."
M-...detested what he had to do. He was by nature a decent, honest,
kindly man. He told me the story with savage resentment. Years
afterwards its horror and injustice lay heavy on his conscience.
But M- did what he was ordered. Apart from a man's ordinary desire
to remain alive, M- had a mother, a father, a wife and two children.
Throughout this period Stalin was particularly concerned about Ukrainian
nationalism and their opposition to collectivization. This was a major
reason for Ukrainian opposition to Moscow and a source of support for
Ukrainian exiles abroad planning for an independent Ukraine, and being
given aid to that end by Nazi Germany. One strong base for this opposition
was the peasant. In the early 1930s Stalin created a famine. He blockaded
the Ukraine and would not let food in, and he sent cadre on systematic
forays against the peasants to uncover any food they might be hiding.
Even warm bread was taken off peasants tables and seed grain for the
next planting was expropriated; dogs and cats were shot.
About 5,000,000 Ukrainians died from hunger and disease as a result.
But, there was another source of nationalism, its culture-carriers.
The communists therefore shot Ukrainian writers, historians and composers,
Ukrainian officials too considerate of the Ukraine; and even itinerant,
blind folk singers. Those with "bourgeoisie sensitivities" might find the
following from the memoirs of composer Dmitri Shostakovich to have its own
chilling horror.
Since time immemorial, folk singers have wandered along the roads of the
Ukraine....they were always blind and defenseless people, but no one ever
touched or hurt them. Hurting a blind man-what could be lower?
And then in the mid thirties the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Lirniki
and Banduristy [folk singers] was announced, and all the folk singers had
to gather and discuss what to do in the future. "Life is better, life is
merrier." Stalin had said. The blind men believed it. They came to the
congress from all over the Ukraine, from tiny, forgotten villages. It was
a living museum, the country's living history. All its songs, all its music
and poetry. And they were shot, all those pathetic blind men killed.
Why was done?...here were these blind men, walking around singing songs
of dubious content. The songs weren't passed by the censors. And what
kind of censorship can you have with blind men? You can't hand a blind
man a corrected and approved text and you can't write him an order either.
You have to tell everything to a blind man. That takes too long. And you
can't file away a piece of paper, and there's no time anyway.
Collectivization. Mechanization. It was easier to shoot them.
And so they did.
Turning now to communist China, its Cultural Revolution during the 1960s
was a tumultuous period. The communist party was split between those who
supported Mao?s desire to continue the glorious communist revolution
and those who were more pragmatic, the so called "capitalist roaders."
No one could be neutral in the bloody conflict for power between these
two groups. Military units fought each other, even with cannon and tanks;
students waged pitched battles with machine guns and grenades given them
by military sympathizers. The victors in one battle or another would then
systematically purge the opposition, subjecting them to torture and mass
execution. How many died in this internal conflagration cannot be counted.
In this struggle, Mao and his supporters could trust no intellectual or
scientist of any sort, especially in the governing of any organization.
For this reason it was customary in these years to put fanatical communist
radicals, regardless of their lack of experience or knowledge of their job,
in charge of universities, schools, scientific institutes, hospitals,
and intellectual associations of one sort or another. Consider the following
experience related by a Chinese scientist when Shan Guizhang, a fanatic and
ignorant radical, was appointed to head one of China's most prestigious of
institutes, the Institute of Optics and Precision Instruments in Changchun.
Now Shan had read Tales of the Plum Flower Society, a spy thriller about an
entirely fictional effort to break a Kuomintang espionage network in the
Academy of Sciences. The chief Kuomintang agent was named Peng Jiamu,
also a name, unfortunately, of a real scientist working at the institute.
Incredibly, Shan believed that scientist Peng was in fact the real life
spy in the book. So, fully understandable in the context of the "Cultural
Revolution," Shan had 166 scientists at the institute arrested as spies,
along with local accountants, policemen, workers, and even nursery
attendants. Some were beaten to death; some others committed suicide.
Sufficient proof of spying was the existence of a radio or camera at
home or the ability of a person to speak a foreign language. After thus
purging the institute of these "spies," Shan was promoted to a provincial
Party committee.
In China, millions suffered and died because of Mao Tse-Tung's ideas.
Like the Great Leap Forward of 1958: totally unrealistic food production
quotas were created. Production figures were thus falsified. Under the
delusion that the country had plenty of food, Mao demanded that the people
make steel. They did, often using homemade furnaces. The steel, of course,
was worthless, the country had not been growing food while producing steel,
and the result was a massive famine.
It was the same as the total suppression of the agricultural free market
by the Soviets, an identical gigantic human experiment with productivity
by command. Unwilling to learn from these disastrous results, blinded by
their love of Marxism, the Chinese communists did the same thing once they
had gained complete control over mainland China and had prepared their
peasants. Within a few years all land and farms were taken over by the
government, collectives called communes were built, and all farmers
became, in effect, not only factory workers, but forced conscripts
in a national agricultural army. In many communes they lived in
dormitories, woke to bugles, ate their food in mess halls, and lined up
after breakfast to be marched off with flags flying to carry out their
group tasks and meet the communes quota.
This was true communism. It was the dream of those who believed that
government could build a society to improve the lot of the poor and
feed the needy. Here was total reconstruction, the revolution for
which Mao tse-tung had worked and fought. Of course, what this meant
was that those communist officials put in charge of a commune or
agricultural region, could not afford to underfill their quotas.
All, thus, exceeded them and food production soared. China was
becoming an agriculturally rich country. The experiment had worked,
or so it seemed to the government and to well wishers abroad. But all
these statistics were a sham. They were only on paper.
The actual results were absolutely disastrous. Catastrophic.
Men, women, and children starved to death in the communes and fields,
in the villages and towns, and cities. While food production records
were being broken the emaciated bodies began to pile up and soon their
numbers, even to top party rulers, became undeniable. By 1962 the worst
famine in world history was underway.
How many died in this is much in dispute. There are figures as high as
40,000,000 dead. A well documented estimate is 27,000,000. If we take
this figure as close to the actual number, it is as though the total
population of Canada had starved to death in two or three years.
Beyond that, the Cultural Revolution, which took off during 1966 and finally
screeched to a halt with the death of Mao in 1976, involved young people
continuing to beat, threaten, terrorise those in positions in power --
specifically, those in positions of power who stood opposed to Mao's radical
ideas. Red Guards, students who had mobilised in the name of Mao, killed
those they considered "capitalists" and when doctrinaire disputes burst
out, each other.
Pol Pot created the setting for the "Killing Fields." It was the "year Zero"
and random murder was part of creating the new society. Cambodia is still
coming to terms with the Khmer Rouge and their crimes, though Pol Pot
himself is thankfully dead.
This is but a sample of the crimes committed in the name of socialism.
We must not forget those imprisoned or killed in Eastern Europe. There
are the martyrs of East Germany and Poland in 1953, the freedom fighters
who fought for Hungary's freedom in 1956, the Czech protesters squashed
by Soviet power in 1968, the brave members of Solidarity suppressed in
1980-1981, and we should not allow ourselves to forget those shot trying
to cross the Berlin Wall.
Socialism in other parts of the world has been just as murderous. There was
the Red Terror in Ethiopia, under Halie Mariam Mengistu. Angola and
Mozambique were torn to shreds by Communist movements, often with the
help of the Soviet Union and satellite states. There has been murderous
Red repression in Nicaragua and Cuba.
In short, wherever communism was tried, it meant murder, terror,
repression and the subjugation of the individual by the state. Yet
this world wide holocaust, whose estimated dead range from 100 million
to upwards of 150 million, is barely remembered.
The primary reason for this lack of remembrance is the connivance of
Western socialists. The ideas which they advocate: that the state can be
the primary agent for change and ensuring equality in society, their
contempt for the individual and their total unwillingness to allow
individuals freedom are strikingly similar in form, if not in content
to what the Red murderers wished. As sympathy for socialism exists in
all important institutions in the West, from government to academia,
it has been difficult to clear the air about the crimes from the Left,
certainly a far more difficult struggle than detailing the crimes of Nazi
Germany.
However this struggle should not be abandoned. It is necessary that the
millions who have died are remembered; what happened was a warning.
If we forget it, it will only open the door for the nightmare happening
again in the new millennium.
That ESR would not want to be in any way associated with these Butchers
is well taken.
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
I actually have to commend him in that he didn't take this obvious oportunity to start spouting insulting nonsense about the evils of communism/socialism.
--GnrcMan--
Cease divagating ! (Score:2)
I sickens me, but I digress.
can't hurt (Score:2)
Re:America has a far-bloodier history! (Score:2)
Oh, and remember to smile when the WoD "cops" break down your door in their hunt for drug users.
As oppressive as feudal china was I must adjust my statement somewhat. China is just as oppresive as anytime in the last 200 years, while the US has made decent strides towards less oppression.
And when the Cops break down my door they better damn well have knocked politely and shown me a search warrant first, or they'll be facing the business end of a large arsenal of weapons.
Kintanon
There is a tangential similarity (Score:2)
When I heard Communist China wanted to make Linux their official distro on "ideological grounds" I laughed out loud. The thought of _anything_ being freely distributable in that country is ludicrous. They would immediately restrict the distribution of any distro they settled on, and would probably be scanning the comments in the code to weed out anything that would be considered detrimental to their sovereign state.
Free Software is a concept wherein individuals contribute code to a community of programmers and users. In the world of free software, while it is not impossible for a single individual or group to profit from such a contribution, the overall effect is that the entire body of programmers and users within the software community benefit overall from individual contributions, and is a bit harder for an individual to profit singly from such a contribution.
This is, in fact, _very_ close to _some_ of the ideals behind Marx's communism, and by extension Communist China. The main difference is that Communist China, while professing these ideals, is ruled by a dictatorial body that comes down ruthlessly and fatally on _anyone_ who opposes them. They are, in effect, not a "communist" government at all -- they are state socialism to the core, and in their grim pursuit of whatever it is they think they're upholding, they murder without remorse.
On the other hand, I could post on Slashdot and say "I think ESR/RMS/CmdrTaco/Whoever is a single-celled idiot" and while I might get moderated down and find a lot of flames crowding my in-box, I doubt very much that the jack-booted thugs would come a-pounding on my door.
Free Software is not communism, because communism is an ideology rooted the historical develeopment of _government_ and _economics_. However, Free Software has a lot in common with _anarchism_, which shares _some_ of communism's ideology and terminology (since many of their more formal concepts were formed at the same time, and Marx and Bakunin -- an anarchist "leader" -- were contemporaries).
I don't know that I really consider ESR's response to be "authoritive" -- it sounds much to knee-jerk for that -- but I also feel that Communism and Open Source/Free Software have little, very little, to do with each other.
I'm deeply relieved... (Score:2)
I also hope that Eric continues, in the midst of offering to speak for all of us, to make his gratuitous swipes at "past ambassadors" and their comsymp ways. We're much better represented by someone who keeps on top of this stuff for us and makes sure that, above all, everyone knows that we ain't no steenkin' commies.
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Sounds to me... (Score:2)
"Any "identification" between the values of the open-source community and the repressive practices of Communism is nothing but a vicious and cynical fraud..."
"I am certain that even that minority would
not care to be associated with the totalitarian and murderous government of Communist China..."
"But the prospect of being "identified" with the bloody-handed gerontocrats behind the Tianamen Squaremassacre would be, I believe, genuinely revolting and insulting to all of us."
Apparently, he's not blowing steam at all at Linux here, but rather, as he put it, "Open-Source Communism." Truth be told, he looks like just another Communist hater, caught "Red Handed."
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
I agree.
This is the darkside of having noted spokespeople for "the movement" like ESR. On the one hand, it gives the lazy media a direction to push a microphone, but the problem is that these people tend to start to believe that they actually represent someone other than themselves.
If a commercial concern pays someone to work on Linux is this "incompatible with the voluntary cooperation that is the spirit of the Open Source movement"?
I think RMS has it right. It's all about freedom. Freedom to do with the code what you want and be certain that any derivitives are available so that nobody can close off a branch of development based on your work. This freedom extends even to the rulers of China.
Bleh (Score:3)
Re:Just because the PRC likes it... (Score:2)
Care to show us some correct ones?
Communists just don't understand the free market, and generally don't understand democracy, but that doesn't make everything they do eeeevil.
Think about it for a bit. Not understanding the free market basically means that all companies belong to the government and everybody is an employee of the government, plus the government tells each company what to produce, how, and when. This has been shown to be a very bad idea. Not understanding democracy means that there are some guys in power who don't really care what the population thinks and are quite willing to use force (from tanks to jail terms) to suppress those who disagree with them.
Yes, communists are not intrinsically evil in that joining the Communist Party does not make horns grow out of your head. But if you look at history, you'll see that communism turned out to be a particularly bad idea.
Kaa
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
Kintanon's comments are naive.
Nobody is saying they approve mass murder.
Every super-power does it (AFAIK The US hasn't done mass murder on it's citizens, ignoring the Branch Davidians as debatable, since they almost wiped out the Native Americans). Oh yes They were not citizens.
But, the fact that your victims are your citizens or someone elses should not matter.
So:
We should have nothing to do with the U$A because of:
The millions of Vietnamese they massacred.
The hundreds of thousands of Iraqis they massacred.
The violations of sovereignty in Grenada and Panama.
The dirty wars against Nicaragua (a democracy at the time!) Cuba, New Zealand (not well known but I live in Aotearoa, so I know about that).
The American complicity in the invasion of and genocide in East Timor.
Ok. Lets boycott China (Tibet is as good an excuse as any) or Russia (Chechnya) or (insert world powers name here) but lets also boycott the U$A.
Kintanon, get off the grass! Once you start saying one state is so awful that you do not want to deal with it, it is just a matter of degree for *all* states.
Since you are apparently so feeble minded as to understand simple english I will attempt to explain this ONE MORE TIME in small words.
ESR is saying:
We do not endorse (condone, back up, support) the actions of the Chinese Communist Government (They call themselves communist so in order to be clear as to which government is referred to here it must have communist in the title) or any other government which oppresses its citizens. This statement deals specifically with the chinese government because of the article recently posted concerning their adoption of Linux as an operating system.
He WAS NOT advocating a Boycott of China, nor was he saying we should disallow the use of Linux in any country. He was saying that the principles of the linux community were not neccesarily those of the Chinese government. This was in the hopes that he would cut off the dozens of Microsurfs who would point at the deal and proclaim Linux the OS of Communist Dictators and hence 'Un-American'.
If you wish to discuss the atrocities of the US government we can do so, but that would be offtopic in this thread.
Kintanon
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
Most governments are bad, the US has committed 'atrocitys' just as china has, mostly out of its borders, but Kent state and Waco come to mind.
Though the US government may not be as bad as the Chinese, its still pretty bad, esp when talking about things like the NSA and bulding wiretaping into TCP ip. The tienanmin square riot was over 9 years ago, and china has gone through 3 leaders since then. They are actively trying to change to a more capitalist economic system. China under Jhang Zamin, or whoever, is not the same as Russia under Stalin
You are absolutely correct. I believe that the linux community should in no way endorse the actions of the US government in its present form. In fact, it would be nice if someone issued a statement to that effect. Can you please point me to any portion of any post which implies that we SHOULD be endorsing the US government? I am very much against the policies and practices of most governments on earth. In my opinion even the concept of a political government is an obscenity and they should not exist. Community government is a far better and more effective entity.
Kintanon
Usage of Linux in China (Score:2)
All of these people have registered independently. Which means that they communicated to the outside world.
I can't help thinking this is a Good Thing.
(BTW, Cuba has 36 registered users.)
A big idea space for linux (Score:2)
We all get better software out of it.
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
Absolutely not. Entering into an agreement to do something Linux-related (or anything for that matter) at the request of a commercial entity, and getting payed to do so, is an entirely voluntary action. No one is being coerced here.
"Voluntary" action is defined as retaining the option to say "no".
Hmmm... I have to agree with this. OK, delete that paragraph from my original post and then re-read it.
I wish you would have posted your cogent comment while logged in. It deserves more than a 0 score.
I'll republish it with my Karmicly boosted 2.
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
I never said that criticizing socialism was nonsense. I said that ESR did not spout nonsense in his essay. I said that I thought this was a good thing. The only specific mention I made of my political bent was in my
I had my fill of debating politics on Slashdot a while ago. I view messages like his as somewhat akin to religious people trying to convert me uninvited. If I had said, "What ESR said about socialism is nonsense", I would view that as an open invitation to argue with me. However, when someone responds to my message with an unrelated message criticizing my (apparent) views, well, I view that as a troll.
OTOH, I probably shouldn't have flamed him. It was a nice vent but unproductive. Sorry.
--GnrcMan--
The "the spirit of the Open Source movement" (Score:2)
. . . Is incompatible with mindless ideological orthodoxy -- which happens to be the root cause of the abuses in China, as well as a favorite passtime of the annoying Libertarian comissar who we call "Eric Raymond".
Will he next inveigh against users who advocate gun control? Those who remain neutral on the issue? Will he declare that Linux may not be used by those whose religion he doesn't approve of? By Democrats? Microsoft employees? ATF/FBI employees? It's not like anybody will give a rat's ass if he does, but it's still ridiculous.
A heap of complex issues... (Score:2)
Firstly, I rather like living in a culturally diverse world. I don't want to see western north atlantic culture domainte the world. I like the fact that France wants to remain French, China wants to remain Chinese, and Australia wants to strengthen its own self-identity by getting rid of the monarchy (although I'd rather we keep them for now in the UK).
And MS, both through its profit-centric worldview, and through it attempts to create a computational monoculture, does tend to be a vehicle for US culture.
So I approve of China adopting Linux, and Chinese-izing it.
On the other hand, I dont like the fact that China maintains its identity through such oppressive means. So a government (rather than grass roots) endorsement is a bit of an embarassment.
If Linux makes computing and information more accessible to the Chinese people, that would be good. It would be wrong to punish the people for the sins of the government (contrast Iraq, where UN estimates say 250,000 to 500,000 children have died due to medical supplies stopped by sanctions). At the same time, just as some medical supplies can also be used by the military, computing technology can also be used by the government to monitor the people.
So I don't see the issue as black and white as ESR does. I would rather our reactions to China were built up cooperatively from a grass roots level, just as our development has been, rather than being spoken for when I for one haven't yet reached a conclusion on the issue.
Having said that, ESR is spot on when he says that this will be used as ammunition against Linux for those who use 'communist' as an obscenity. The links between open source and anarchism, libertarianism, or scientific-collaboration are all stronger than the parallels with communism.
However open source rests uneasy with capitalism, and there are many who believe that everything which is not capitalism is communism.
Re:Just because the PRC likes it... (Score:2)
do eeeevil.
Communists are a lot worse than that, believe me, I've had first-hand experience. But the idea of adopting Linux as an "official governement OS" is certainly nice, even if the whole PRC story really is untrue. Governments must use open-source; wasting taxpayers' money on commercial software is outrageous, I think.
Anyway, it's quite a contrast with what's happening over in Russia. If the DoJ makes life too hard for Bill Gates, he can always come to Moscow and take over the Kremlin. They'll let him have it, gladly. MS Kremlin? Do you know that Word 97 is the official format of the Russian tax police [rambler.ru]? You can download the income tax forms from their page, but only in Word 97 format... Now that really makes me mad. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "Microsoft tax", doesn't it?
ESR and Communism (Score:2)
"In the past, I have avoided presuming to speak for the whole Linux community. This time, however, I think I may safely say that this news will come as a vast relief to all of us."
Has he ever avoided speaking for the community? I hadn't noticed. In fact, when he wrote all that rot about "Take my job please" didn't he mention how hard it was being "the spokesperson for the community"?
The People's Republic of China is of course just a hollow dictatorial government, trying to further its own agenda by adopting linux as the official OS. (That is if it even happened - read the article) But why does ESR feel he has to speak up and in some cases speak for the linux community on every issue? He presents himself as the face that we show people that are not in the linux community. I hope that isn't truel
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
I base it on this statement. I didn't say it had anything to do with linux. But apparently you believe that his views on Chinese Communism are naive. So do you think that the Chinese government is not killing its own people? I refer you back to the portion of the article in which he stated that the Ideals of marxist communism were supported by many in the free software movement, but that the actions of the Chinese government were not condoned by the linux community at large. I don't see how you can possibly disagree with this unless you do in fact support the actions of the chinese government.
Kintanon
China Adopts Apple Pie? Not so, apparently... (Score:2)
This story appears to be untrue. The only GraphOn press release I can find that mentions China is http://www.graphon.com/News/pr-china991102.html from 2 Nov. This is a routine announcement of a partnership with a private firm in Hainan. There is no mention of any Chinese government sponsorship or action to make Apple Pie "official".
In the past, I have avoided presuming to speak for the whole Apple Pie community. This time, however, I think I may safely say that this news will come as a vast relief to all of us. Insofar as it has politics at all, the pie-sharing movement promotes freedom, increased choice, and *voluntary* cooperation. Any "identification" between the values of the pie-sharing community and the repressive practices of Communism is nothing but a a vicious and cynical fraud.
There are a few of us who have a soft spot for the theoretical Communist ideal of "from each according to his ability, to his each according to his need"; but I am certain that even that minority would not care to be associated with the totalitarian and murderous government of Communist China -- unrepentant perpetrators of numerous atrocities against its own people.
It may be too much to hope that this statement will head off a flurry of snide opinion pieces divagating about "pie-sharing communism"; the clumsy rhetoric of some of our past ambassadors may have made that outcome inevitable. But the prospect of being "identified" with the bloody-handed gerontocrats behind the Tianamen Square massacre would be, I believe, genuinely revolting and insulting to all of us.
No matter that such official Chinese government sponsorship might add a quarter of the planet's population to our taster base; if this is "world domination", we'll want none of it.
............
What's with the knee jerk reaction? So communists like Linux. It's a good OS. Why shouldn't they like it?
Re:It looks to me like (Score:4)
If we're going to argue the moral issues, things get even more complex. How many people who buy a gun consider that they're giving money to a company which WILL spend it on making devices which are even more efficient killing machines. If they consider it at all, they accept that as the consequence of their choice, and that how those machines are used are not part of the deal. Your choice doesn't affect anyone else's choice. Their decisions are their own. Yes, you fund the means, but the choices of others are theirs and theirs alone.
(I use that example, which is likely to be explosive, precicely because ESR is an avid pro-gun person. That's his choice, and nobody has any right to say it's good or bad, but choice is two-edged. If we can expect the freedom to choose, then so can everyone else. Including China.)
As for "public retractions", "de-politicising", etc, stop and think for a moment. Is Open Source about manipulating and spin-doctoring? Or about coding for the love of coding, to scratch an itch?
If we resort to spin-doctoring to "fix" someone else's decision, to control or manipulate someone else's reaction, we're no better than the worst excesses of politicians or corporations. That is one hell of a slippery slope, and woe betide all who choose to go that route.
Keep your eye on the ball, NOT your opponents, NOT the grandstands, and DEFINITELY NOT the people you are hoping to impress. Focus on them, and you'll fall flat on your face, and that's no way to impress anyone. Go out and focus on what you're trying to achieve. Leave other people to react as they will. Do that, and their reaction won't matter. And THAT gives them the freedom to react well, in a way that matters and will last.
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
I think it's fair to say that "The Linux Community" (If such a thing exists) doesn't condone the actions of the US government, such as crypto export restrictions, the CDA, S795 etc.
This however does not translate to an automatic condemnation of capitalism.
Nor did anyone automatically condemn communism. The actions of the chinese government which claims to be communist were condemned. Stop reading things into the article that weren't there people.
Kintanon
Re:I fully respect ESR, (Score:2)
From this standpoint, the principles of socialism (which China does NOT advocate) and communism (which China does NOT advocate either) would seem to be very much supported, and the idea of isolationism and individualism are not.
No individual could ever hope to match the success of Linux, because an individual means closed-source. If it's open, then it is no longer the work of an individual, but rather the co-operation of the community as a whole.
China, however, is Communist, which is a specific branch of communism, which blends a whole spectrum of political beliefs which are actually very anti-socialism. (You can't advocate decentralised power -AND- total government control, at the same time.)
Kleptocratic? (Score:2)
I'll assume that you are going from greek, which would mean:
So kleptocracy would be rule of the thieves?
Shalom.
Re:Just because the PRC likes it... (Score:2)
Re:America has a far-bloodier history! (Score:2)
I'd say the US has come a long way in 200 years, while China is still just as oppresive as it ever was, maybe more so. At least the US government is trying to improve the quality of life for its people, and USUALLY doesn't go around slaughtering people who disagree with its policies.
Kintanon
Re:It looks to me like (Score:2)
My Problem with Communism (Score:2)
I think the problem is design vs implementation. Marx had a noble idea, a classless society where everyone is equal. But the implementations sucks. It could be simply that the form of government that works well on paper goes to hell in practice.
I think the problem is that the government distributes the wealth. In a capitalism, virtually all of the weatlth is distributed by the people in our Free Enterprise system. This system secures against corruption because people have a choice to do business with these people or not (unless there is a monopoly which our government keeps a close eye on). This unlike communism that is an Aristocracy (power of the few) where have no choice about whether you want to do business with the government. If this government becomes corrupt, you still have to deal with them because they own all the businesses and all the wealth. By greed and selfishness, this government degrades to oppression.
Well this is my theory in any case.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux [gnu.org] to you mister!
Re:Bleh (Score:2)
The important difference between our systems is that we have freedom of expression and the power of the ballot. We have the benefit of freedom of expression, so the governent must limit its most odious activities to far away places where they hope people at home won't notice, and even then can very well be called to responsibility.
Free software necessarily promotes free expression; so if the Chinese were to choose free software I'd say its a good thing.
As for people who are afraid this will somehow taint the free software movement -- you have your priorities backward. Far better to promote the freedom of a quarter of the world's population!
Re:RMS bashing (Score:4)
I hadn't picked up on that one, but obviously you're right.
At first, I was turned off by RMS's abrasiveness, his aggressive and judgemental polemics. ESR is completely correct when he calls RMS's rhetoric clumsy. RMS is totally lacking in tact, diplomacy, flattery or any other useful skill of self promotion, despite this our industry, and possibly soon all of society is going to be transformed by his ideas.
You've got to respect that.
RMS's style is not politic, but it is candid, rigorous and bracing. It cuts right to the point without flourish or elaborately constructed and analogies. It's only radical because it's simply not media-credible to care about freedom for freedom's sake rather than for efficiency's sake.
When did caring about freedom go out of style in our culture?
oss may also be of service to china (Score:2)
Perhaps it is a good thing to realize that if you are giving your software away under GPL like licenses, you enable governments of countries like Iran, China and Iraque to use your software in any way they want to. If you don't want that, don't release it under GPL. After all any software you write can be used against you or somebody else.
Things like encryption are considered to be weapons by the US government. While this on it self is rediculous, it is good to realize that your software may be used in ways you don't appreciate. An OSS database for instance can be used to create and maintain a database of enemies of the public republic of china.
I'm not a license expert but wouldn't it be possible to exclude certain parties of using your software in a license. I.e. would it be possible to state in the license that you don't want government institutions of the republic of china to use this software? I'm sure many people don't like the idea of supporting certain regimes.
Wake Up and Smell the Globalization (Score:2)
The real story here, though, is market niches.
Microsoft and the other commercial OS companies have had trouble selling their wares in up-and-coming countries like China because their stuff is too darned expensive. Consumers in the industrialized world can drop $100 on an operating system without blinking, but that's prohibitively high in the third world. That's one of the reasons software piracy is so widespread in certain foreign lands. This is a market opportunity for free software.
Linux has advanced by seizing market niches which Windows couldn't handle. Here are a bunch more: Russia, India, China, Indonesia, etc. In fact, a team of Indonesian academics recently volunteered for one open source project I keep tabs on. Seems they're thinking along these same lines. If we can get half the world's population using Linux, how long will the U.S. and Europe hold out?
I'm impressed by ESR's self-restraint (Score:3)
The mainstream media now see ESR as a spokesman for Open Source in general and for Linux in particular, and it seems like most geeks are hard-core libertarians. ESR could use his media visibility to argue for libertarian political goals, instead of arguing that Open Source software is good for people of all political stripes.
As one of the people who has a soft spot for "from each according to his ability...", I am glad that he passed up his most recent opportunity to do this.
(Note that in his article, ESR does not criticize the Chinese government's control over the economy; the only specific Chinese atrocity he mentions is the Tiannamen Square massacre.)
Re:And such a post got moderated up??? (Score:2)
Thay have a culture now. It is different from the one they had before the cultural revolution. I'm not suggesting they, or we, or anyone else go back to feudalism.
To some extent politics and culture are inextricably intertwined. I would like to see what China could become under a more liberal government. But I can guess what it will become if all the international corporations are allowed to pour in and create a culture by marketting. Of course, if the Chinese people chose that sort of society, more power to them.
India seems to strike a happy balence, with democracy and yet a distinct culture. Of course, India has its own share of poverty and ethnic factionalism.
The big question all of this revolves around is why the rich first world cultures are culturally less diverse in most respects than the rest of the world. If it is a historical accident, then maybe we will see better societies built from different foundations if we don't straightjacket them with out own ideas.
On the other hand, if all societies in which there is a good deal of freedom and wealth must gravitate towards a particular set of cultral values, then monoculturalism offers relief for poor and opressed people everywhere.
As it may be clear from my first post, I suspect and hope that the former is the case.
Re:Presumes to speak for the majority (Score:2)
ESR talks about "Communism" in the above referenced article. The vast majority of the article is in the abstract, only one sentence is specific to China. Epeeist starts this thread by saying "He can keep his libertarian politics and naive statements about communism to himself.". You then start talking about the actions of the Chinese government.
The two are not equvilant, one can be a supporter of a system practiced by a government without being a supporter of the government. If you wish to criticise Epeeist's views on communism then you should do it purely upon the qualities of communism.
Ok, to clarify, Epeeist was referring to ESR's statement, ESR was referring specifically to the actions of the communist chinese government. In the same paragraph ESR stated that the ideals of communism were supported by many in the linux community, but that those people did not support the actions of the chinese government. This entire conversation is ONLY in relation to the Chinese government which calls itself a communist government. ESR made no statements about communism in general, only that of the chinese government in specific. Epeeist apparently feels that ESR's view of the communist chinese goverment is 'naive'. By following this statement to its logical conclusion I would say that Epeeist must believe that the communist chinese government does not commit atrocities, is not oppressive, and should be widely associated with and endorsed by the linux community.
Epeeist read ESR's statement as being a comment on communist ideals in general, the only statement about general communist ideals was the statement that many in the community agree with them. The rest of the paragraph was directed at communist china and the atrocities performed by that government. NOW do you understand what I was talking about?
Kintanon
Re:RMS bashing (Score:2)
Free software is about freedom. The only thing that can happen by China's adoption of GNU/Linux is more freedom.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux [gnu.org] to you mister!
Re:There is a tangential similarity (Score:2)
I see it this way. Open Source thinks you can separate the pragmatic from the principle. Open Source is also a tribe of marketers selling GNU/Linux to big businesses.
I personally want as little to do with Open Source as possible. Open Source is hyped too much in the media. Heck, the only reason he uses the word Open Source because he is so concerned that his big business buddies would think they couldn't sell the software.
Anyone want to start the Open Men (instead of Free Men) movement to tell the big business that they can sell people, oh wait, they can't. Oh! I see! People can distinguish free as in freedom when written before the word 'Men' but not for software, huh?
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux [gnu.org] to you mister!
Re:Wake Up and Smell the Globalization (Score:2)
Actually countries like China have a nasty reputation for disregarding all copyright laws for intellectual property, thus piracy and bootlegging run rampant.
Re:oss may also be of service to china (Score:2)
Re:Bleh (offtopic?) (Score:2)
How about WWII, which was started by a capitalist country, and resulted in fifteen million deaths, including six million Jews and countless Gypsies and other groups killed for no reason other than sheer cussedness?
OK, so the Nazis were our enemies, but what about our friends? We were allies with Stalin, after all. How about our friends in South America who "dissappeared" dissidents and gave their children to government officials who couldn't have babies? How about our friends in the Phillipines who robbed their own country bankrupt?
Of course Tiananmen was wrong; annexing Tibet and stamping out Buddhism there was wrong. And I'm not a US basher. As a US citizen I think our country has been as benevolent an empire/superpower as any country ever in that position has ever been, which while not saying much, is something.
It's just time to grow up and stop pretending some kind of ideological force field protects your country from doing wrong just as bad as any other country. It's like the management at my wife's company, who when presented with a budget for computer security, wrote a memo back that it wasn't a problem because the "integrity of the software" would prevent any problems from occuring. Systems are only secure because somebody secures them, and goverments are only decent when people hold them to account.
Where Marx was right (Score:4)
Oh, I think Marx hit the nail on the head with his "alienation of labor" idea -- that is, industrial labor is qualitatively different from agrarian/craft labor, because (1) the laboror is no longer in control of the "means of production", so he is working for somebody else, not himself, and (2) industrial labor treats the worker as an automaton, not as a real human. Based on my experience in factory work, I think he was 100% correct there. And he was justifiably outraged at the horrific abuses going on in the factory sweatshops of the early 1800's.
Now, Marx was completely wrong about the nature of the human problem (Marxian thought holds that people are fine, generous, and unselfish by nature, and if we can only get the social structures right we can create utopia), about "historical inevitability" and the natural progressions of societies (so wrong, that Lenin had to drastically revise Marx to explain Russian Bolshevism, as KM taught that it would be impossible for a society to move directly from a peasent/agrarian state to a Communist state without industrialization first -- precisely what did happen in Russia). And, of course, so awfully wrong about the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the "withering away" of the State that it would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
Also, keep in mind that there are in fact many options besides Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" and Smith's "invisible hand" of laissez-faire capitalism. In fact, both stand for the concentration of working capital and the means of production in the hands of a few -- the difference being who those few are (Communists choose goverenment officials, Capitalists choose captitalists). For one alternative, try a search for "Distributism" [google.com], or simply read some of the political works of G. K. Chesterton [chesterton.org], such as What's Wrong With The World [ccel.org]
Re:oss may also be of service to china (Score:2)
Not that I want to start a discussion on that, I just wanted to show that there is no real freedom. I personally would have no objections in excluding certain people or groups of people in this world from using my software. I see that as a form of freedom (free to choose who may and may not use the software). By doing so you can make a political statement with your creations. To confuse you even more, limiting the freedom of use may increase the level of freedom other individuals experience.
I don't like dogmatic discussions. Which is one of the reasons I'm not a Richard Stallman fan.
Atheism (Score:2)
Communism fails, because it ignores (perfectly natural and acceptable) aspects of human nature which bugger up the machinery.
Have a care for a simple-minded atheist, and reword that so that your point is clearer.
I'm trying to understand what you're getting at.
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