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FOSS: The Savior of Democracy
This rant was inspired by this article http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/18947/ and the subsequent discussion thread. It has always amused and bothered me when people say "Forget the philosophy. Pay no attention to that crazy Stallman dood. Just choose the best software for the job." Now it mostly just bothers me, because it is a short-sighted and wrongheaded perspective. Everything flows from some sort of philosophy. You don't get good stuff from bad philosophy. Of course you know my favorite poster boys to use as an example- Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Microsoft. Everything they do flows from a simple philosophy: their way or the highway, everyone who is not a friend is an enemy, enemies must be destroyed (notice how their friends often suffer the same fate as their enemies), and there is no such thing as making too much money. The results of this philosophy we already know. I have always resisted the notion that the FOSS world is at war with Microsoft. It sounds so dramatic, like a silly fantasy of lonely geeks still living in their mom's basements, trying to make coding into a macho activity. How wrong I was. It is a war, and it is a much larger war than unseating the most successful, most rapacious monopoly of all time. War takes many forms. I divide humanity into two segments: people like me who just want to live our lives, build useful things, hang out with cool friends, and not be bothered, and people who live to mess with other folks and try to control and exploit them. You don't get good stuff from bad philosophy. Look at what Adobe did to Dmitri Sklyarov. (Short memories, eh? Try the Wikipedia for starters.) Dmitri Sklyarov spent about two months in jail for exercising his free speech rights. I suppose we could argue that as a non-citizen he did not have the same rights. Still, Adobe had the choice to be moral, and not do what they did. I think it was criminal what they did, and the top suits at Adobe should be in jail for wrongful imprisonment and prosecution. And then the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies should also be punished. At the very least no one with a conscience should ever purchase another Adobe product. You don't get good stuff from bad philosophy. Look at all the different companies who have no qualms about collecting, buying, and selling your personal data; it's a multi-billion dollar industry. Or installing all manner of spyware and adware on your computer. These companies have zero respect for us and our private property- to me, it is appalling and inconceivable that anyone could possibly think these sorts of activities are OK. How can anyone with a shred of respect for his or her fellow citizen think that "opt-out" is OK? This sort of invasion flows from the philosophy that our personal privacy is merely a feeble obstacle, and our personal consent is unnecessary, and indeed a silly conceit. After all, we've had decades of telemarketers to soften us up for spammers. So what's the problem? I'm afraid I do not have an optimistic view of the future. People throw away their rights as heedlessly as pieces of litter. The one ray of hope just may be the FOSS world, because it puts powerful tools into the hands of anyone who wants them. Television, radio, and print media are lost to us, and that is deliberate, because the most powerful tool of all for liberty is free speech. The first act of any tyrant is to control broadcast and print media. "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one." But "nature abhors a vacuum", and the truth will out. Since the Internet became widely accessible we've had access to information like never before. I doubt I'm the only here who has long relied on newsgroups, user forums, and email lists to get the real story on commercial products. We don't have to rely on professional "reviewers" anymore, who can be bought. And cheaply- sheesh, a T-shirt, coffee mug, or backpack is all it takes. The new kid on the free speech block is blogging. Many blogs have become famous, especially from people in various trouble spots around the world. The contrast between those and the traditional news outlets is so great they might as well be from different solar systems. In the olden days of the American Revolution they did paper blogging, - they used pamplets. Thousands of them printed and distributed anonymously. (Pampleteering is still in use in various countries today, made easier than ever by computers.) The royalists made it a priority to hunt down and destroy printing presses, because it was very effective. Without pamphleting we might today be British subjects, eating bad boiled food, drinking good beer, and having police surveillance cameras every ten feet. You don't get good stuff from bad philosophy. All these big powerful technology companies- Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, Adobe, Intel, HP, Dell, Apple, and so forth could have made a choice way back at the beginning. They could have said "We have a chance to make a real difference. We can develop products that help individuals to control and protect their own personal data. We can help them find, store, and retrieve all kinds of valuable information that will arm them against the bullies, thieves, and scammers of the world. We can develop new means of distribution that will help the planet by not stinking it up with truck exhaust and cluttering it with packaging litter. We can help people reach out to each other like never before." Ok, laugh at me all you want. Silly idealist. The funny part is all of these things did happen- but none of them came from the proprietary, commercial world. Not so much as one single molecule. It all came from the FOSS world. What all of these companies have in common is they have devoted considerable resources to acquiring political power and eroding our rights, both as customers and as citizens. My crystal ball is cloudy, but one thing is clear- we cannot depend on people in power to look out for us. Which is too bad, but that's the way it is. They're too busy looking out for each other. So it just may be them crazy, unwashed, idealistic Free Software hippie freaks who have given us the means to save ourselves. |
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Comments (21)
Amen, Tuxchick!
Not a believer, Tuxchick?
By now, I should think that you would understand the power of freedom a little bit better.
Freedom works, and it doesn't need that crazy Stallman dude to do it.
I worry about this Stallmania. Your references seem, but may not be, a swipe at people like Eric Raymond, Linus Torvalds, and Brian Behlendorf, people who have contributed mightily to the cause of free software.
The truth is that freedom and free software are not the sole province of Richard Stallman. Freedom, like democracy, is an ugly thing that beats all the alternatives. They only time you know you're free is when you're arguing about it or fighting for it. There can be no freedom dictator, benevolent or otherwise.
I've managed to miss where people like Raymond have diverged from the free software philosophy, whatever you may take that to be. At most, they've encouraged selling business-friendly aspects of free software. I haven't seen them say that freedom doesn't matter.
Stallman has been an important agitator. The GPL remains a marvelous gift to everybody who cares about free software. He is not alone and he is not infallible.
For me, the end of free software will come when all its adherents feel the need to lay lotus blossoms at the feet of an idol.
If you balance Stallman's idealism with MSFT's demand to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.
You get the path that we are now begining to walk.
As an ex-colonial from Australia, I have to say that all the grovelling at the feet of radicals like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and company gives me pause at times ;-) ;-)
BTW Good luck in the World Series!
Quoting:BTW Good luck in the World Series!
richo123 - Sorry, dino just doesn't sound like a South Sider to me. He is probably a Cubbie. You know the type: " ... well not this year, but wait until the next ... !!!".
Cubbie!!!
Sorry, but no. Born in Tallahassee, Daddy from Pontotoc, Mississippi. Couldn't go for North Side of anything!!!!
Besides, the Cubbies are a bit effete for my taste.
I'll take Ozzie and the boys any day.
Thanx.
Quoting: I'll take Ozzie and the boys any day.
I always thought you were into drugged-out head-banger music. Now I have proof! --FeriCyde
You don't need the crazy Stallman-dude for it (freedom), you need the absence of companies like Microsoft.
To add something (from a EU perspective) to that: for freedom, you also need: -Political parties which aren't paid by big companies; -Elections not organized by political parties payed by big companies; (-More than two 'big' political parties, because the democrats and republicans are covering each others backs very much: "I don't tell you screwed up something if you don't mention I screwed up". Why doesn't anybody mention Cheney is still paid 1million/year by Haliburton? Why doesn't anybody mention Rumsfeld was in Iraq with Saddam in 1984, but didn't mention weapons of mass destruction, when he knew Saddam posessed these? Why doesn't anybody mention about the terrorist arrested by the FBI in the 90's telling the FBI they had plans for letting the world trade centre-towers collapse, one over the other, and there were plans to crash 18 plains in the ocean? Simple, they doesn't mention it because the democrats screwed up too.)
In my humble opinion, this is the biggest issue with freedom in America. Politicians (like Bush for examle) are representatives of big companies, and those big companies are owned by shareholders, so you could say America is a aristocracy, it is ruled by the rich stockholders. The most clear property of stockholders is, they just want more money on the short term, they don't give a damn about the long term. You can see this the best when looking at the US budget deficit. Instead of spending less money, they go to war in Iraq, and borrow more money from countries like China.
When you look at the history of the stock-market, you'll see, only thinking about short-term profits can be disastrous.
So, my conclusion: as long as the US-political parties are paid by big companies, democracy is just a joke.
Disclaimer: The situation in the EU is also pretty f*cked up, and my own government (NL) is trying to be the biggest friend of the US in whole Europe (buying Tomahawks and JSFs), so don't think it's much better over here, we have also plenty of DMCA-like laws, and surveying-cameras everywhere, and all network-traffic will be logged in the near future. Most of this because of terrorism. But the difference is: elections are organized by the government, and political parties aren't allowed to take money from companies, and also very important: the government decides who may vote and who not, and not a company like in Florida.
Quoting: ... the government decides who may vote and who not, and not a company like in Florida.
You got it wrong, that company is just correcting the vote count as needed to make sure that every right thinking voter has cast their vote properly. Just think of it as a public service. I would not doubt that the same vote counting technique is being employed in Iraq along the same lines, albeit with more manual labor. It's the process that counts along with the right results and photo ops.
Quoting:Iraq result delay over fraud fear
And
Quoting: ... Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said it needed several more days to complete the count "after finding that the figures from most provinces were too high".
Those slops Brinks again hard coding in the variable values in V.B., damn!
Hmmm....
Does it mean anything at all that possible election fraud is considered to be a problem instead of the plan?
For all of the Bush-bashing, for really foul pieces of "journalism" by the New York Times that have the gall to compare foreign-led insurgents blowing innocent Iraqi men, women, and children to smithereens to free software developers who manage to make their points without killing anybody, etc, etc,
Ain't it grand that 2/3 of the people show up and vote?
A knee-jerk reaction on my part, perhaps.
If I done you wrong, I apologize.
I'm just so used to "it's the philosophy, stupid" pieces aimed at friends of free software just because they call it "Open Source" and include a program or 2 that the Friars of Freedom consider insufficiently unencumbered due to the unfortunate placement of a comma, or, worse, the grant of freedoms that RMS considers, er, unfree, that I may read more into a piece like yours than is intended.
OTOH, given the current state of the legal system in the US, it's almost required to indulge in that level of nitpicking. :(
Hit the nail on the head.
I'd love to live my life in peace, knowing that Microsoft will never control my computing existance. I'd love to think that if we all just sit around and wish for our freedom it will just be there.
Bunk.
Fact is, we got here by struggle, and we're only going to hold the ground we have by force, IMHO. Write your congressman (I have, btw) and tell him you want to keep your rights. Do it as often as you can.
Interestingly enough is I typed some notes for an article on control of the press over the weekend -- have to go back to work. Maybe I can get it in the queue for tomorrow.
Tuxxy: good work. --FeriCyde
"The War"
--FeriCyde
Listen, I take issue with the pooper part -- I was trying to add, not subtract!
Wait, "old" ... "grumpy"! Sheesh, what did I do to deserve these insults to my character?!?
You categorizing hackers are all alike. You crouch in the dust from your laptops, nothing but the glow of lcd screens and the smell of stale old CD rom jackets to guide your way. You thought I didn't see you making a snap judgement call of my character from some slight reference -- but I'm on to you now!
Soon (SOON!) some loud obnoxious type like yourself will reply to your talkback, doing *exactly* the same kind of crap to you that you were doing to me. Then -- THEN -- we'll see who's the jerk in this equation.
You need to get a mirror -- maybe you could see how uncool (DARE I say "grumpy") this kind of behavior is.
Until that time, I'll have to wait for vindication. --FeriCyde
I remember showing it to my boss at wankerdesk, and he was completely uninterested, because he couldn't score swag from Linux. The man was the all-time swagmaster, even though he was earning a six-figure salary and bonuses. I guess you're never too wealthy to not need more t-shirts, backpacks, and software you'll never use.
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It's what's happening right now with the so-called War on Terror (notice how each time people's rights get limited things seem to get even unsafer? Do Americans really think they are safer since the Patriot Act? Do they even *feel* safer?), and it's what happened with Microsoft. People, knowingly or unknowingly, traded their freedom of choice for the safety of not having to bother about what's inside this black box of a computer. The result is well-known: the IT industry is a mess where most SMEs survive only because they have escaped the attention of the megacorps or pay them big hostage money, there is a *huge* industry of making programs that invade one's privacy and make Internet one of the most hostile place to be, a single company thinks it can decide what every customer on the planet is entitled to receive as software, and the customers themselves have no say about anything happening there, are treated by companies like a bothersome necessity rather than the center of the market, end up believing that it's the whole IT industry that is like that and that it can't be changed, and eventually deal with it by ignoring the problem, even when their data has been lost and/or stolen over and over again due to the lack of safety of the monoculture they ended up in.
Freedom (and in particular Freedom of the user) *is* the issue. It is the issue in software like it is in any other industry, because what forces companies to enhance the quality of their products isn't the stakeholders or their own employees: it's the consumers themselves. In that way, the FOSS community is extremely consumer-oriented: developers write themselves the software they want to use, the "consumers" take their rights back and develop themselves what companies have been unable and/or unwilling to provide them.
And because it is a grass-root movement organised by people themselves, rather than by companies, FOSS cannot be stopped, unless the countries become so undemocratic that the freedom of choice, association and speech are taken away from people (in which case it will carry on, just in an underground way, but people won't see its benefits and will suffer for years).