LUG Pres Resigns Over Military Linux Use 1361
Joe Barr writes "NewsForge is carrying the news that the founder and president of Linux Users Los Angeles (LULA) has resigned because of his opposition to the war in Iraq and the U.S. Armed Forces' use of Linux."
What? (Score:2, Interesting)
Restrictions on who can use GPL'd software? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what the GPL tries to combat! (Score:5, Interesting)
He is grandstanding. (Score:1, Interesting)
The internet, that the same DoD uses, is ok because it lets him IM people to get his message out.
He is job hunting for a job amoung the antiwar groups in his area.
GPL & the Military (Score:3, Interesting)
Am I correct in assuming that if the military takes Linux & changes it, they don't need to publish anything if they keep it internal?
What an idiot. (Score:3, Interesting)
What does GPL software have to do with the war in Iraq? What does the military's use of Linux have to do with anything related to Iraq?
Nothing.
Sorry, but if you really want to protest something, and involve Linux, then protest China. Sorry, but China has one of the worst human rights records of modern history, and is also, on a national level, one of the largest proponenets of Linux development and use in the world.
But no, Heaven forbid someone he doesnt like uses Linux. Those damned military guys! they should all use SCO UnixWare instead! (evil grin)
Get a grip... there are far more important things to protest/worry about, and do you really think that ANYONE outside a very small group (compared to the rest of the populace of the US) will care that the president of LULA resigned because the Military likes Linux?
Sorry, but while I do have great respect for people with convictions, I liave little respect for people who do the wrong things for attention.
Reminds me of Public Domain Amiga Software (Score:3, Interesting)
e.g. one of the popular terminal-emulaters had this, it was called just "term" iirc.
Personally I like this - I wouldn't like it if my software was used for non pacifist usages.
Re:Huh (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm amazed at the negitive responces... (Score:2, Interesting)
Furthermore, it seems to be that his primary reson for quiting is not the war-related aspect, but rather how the focus of many linux-users has shifted away from trying to improve humanity via things such as more secure and affordable computing, and shifted to a more "Hey, let's find a way to make us geeks look cool to the public." And as a whole, I tend to agree with this, or at least see where he's coming from.
Also, on the war side of the issue, what's wrong with saying 'I don't want a tool that I've spent years of my life helping develop to be used to kill people in a war I don't even support.' He's not trying to sue the government or anything like that, or even calling for other people to protest with him, he's simply removing himself from a position which forces him to go against his own principles.
Ah well, there's my two yen worth.
Someone's a Little Confused (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:2, Interesting)
A) Invade Iraq and kill 8-10 thousand civilians.
B) Not invade Iraq and let 40-50 thousand civilians die because sanctions couldn't be lifted.
There were several other options, which you might want to think about:
C) Invade Iraq and not kill so many civilians by being much more careful
D) Oust Saddam without invading Iraq (we do it all the time in other countries)
E) Lift Sanctions. Before we decided to impose sanctions after the Kuwait invasion, Iraq was one of the more prosperous nations. People were fed.
F) Find a relatively peacable solution to ousting the current regime. They do exist. For reference, see 1989: Germany, Poland, Soviet Union, Romania, Czechoslovakia and 2002 (?): Serbia.
Psych 101 (Score:1, Interesting)
- I once had high hopes for Linux. I felt sure it could make a real contribution to the success of humanity, now more and more I have my doubts. I have a real and growing fear that if the Mr. Smith's of Linux have their way, in the future they will look back and say: "Wasn't it nice that so many smart people worked to hard for free to forge their own chains."
And here we see a great example of cognitive dissonance [psychology.org]. Claiborne previously thought that everybody working on open source projects is, as stated in the GNU Manifesto, done for the betterment of humanity. What's happening now is that he sees the current trend towards outsourcing. He sees how many people used to have high-paying jobs writing many different kinds of software. He understands that people can't pay the bills by giving away software for nothing. Most of the once profitable software packages are now being eclipsed by open source software. Even the MySQL guys admit that having "support contracts has been shown to be insufficient to fund software development" [oreillynet.com]. The only way they can put food on the table is by selling licenses.Faced with the internal conflict between the belief that open source will make a positive impact on humanity vs. the knowledge that open source has resulted in much unemployment, has been taking advantage of by corporations to downsize IT staffing and further increase profits, and results in a whole lot of intelligent people working for free -- he has offset the dissonance this created by distancing himself from Linux. In effect, the Linux honeymoon is over and the economic realities have set in.
For all the Eric Raymonds out there who, at one point, were worth millions on paper [earthweb.com], how many unrecognized geeks work hard writing code or otherwise contributing to a project and get nothing back for it? It's always the guy at the top of the pyramid who rakes in the big bucks. This is like the ultimate MLM scheme. Get a bunch of people to work for free, and the high-profile guy on the top makes all the money because of the hard work of the guys below.
More and more people are going to experience this same cognitive dissonance eventually. Open source is great and I use it myself in my company because I fully support the right of others to work for free so that I can resell the efforts of their labor for a profit. But let's disabuse ourselves of the notion that it'll somehow free the world.
Re:Being consequential (Score:2, Interesting)
Drama queen (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it sounds like he guy is just a drama queen. I mean, really, look at this quote. The group is a bunch of dorks who get together to drink soda and talk about computers on Friday nights instead of getting laid, and he's talking about "new leadership coming to the fore". Oh puh-lease. Imagine the lead fry cook at the local McDonald's quitting saying this.
pretty much is about oil.... but there's more (Score:2, Interesting)
taker yer pick, google page for Project For a New American Century, the neocon battleplan website. [google.com] Their plans were published, still there, you can find extracts and anlysis at the other links here from google, or you can go to that website and read all the extensive documentation yourself. they don't hide it, it's just TV doesn't cover it, so that makes it "invisible" I guess.
Honestly, to think that sea of oil under Iraq had nothing to do with it......it's silly. They have been planning this strike for years, well before 9-11. Personally I think if we had used the OPEC embargo fiasco wake up call way back in the 70s and had done a manhattan project level crash national program to significantly reduce our dependence on oil, it would have been a good thing. As to this LUG guy stepping down, seems just as silly to me as being naieve about the oil, or over the WMD that the US and other western nations helped saddam develop and deploy. Saddam had big quantities of them, vast majority were destroyed during the fiirst gulf war, they were blown up inside the bunkers they were stored in then by US troops, and the main reason they don't make a big deal out of it in the controlled press was potential national embarassment over violating of various treaties we have signed, and to help limit the governments exposure to the vet's from that war claims of sickness that were denied, the ones who breathed that stuff.
All despotic regimes follow a similar formula. they use both an external threat and an internal threat for the excuse to completely take over and become..well, more despotic over their people. If the threats don't exist, they MANUFACTURE the threats. It's a formula that works. Problem -reaction -solution.
The full quote... (Score:3, Interesting)
Other pertinent, although slightly dryer points on the topic:
It's hard to see how the point could have been made by the people at the very foundation of free/open source software.
However, I'm sure the president of the LUG understands all that, and was just conducting a publicity stunt for his cause. I think it was unwise, because it'll do bugger-all for the antiwar cause (a cause which I support - that 200-odd billion dollars could have made the world a lot safer spent in a myriad other ways) and it reinforces the image of Linux enthusiasts as long-haired hippies, which still remains an impediment to wider adoption sometimes.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:2, Interesting)
Your assertion...
which is true.
Not proven. Probably not provable. So all we have is your unsupported assertion. Repeatedly asserting an unproven assertion doesn't constitute proof.
And seeing that a very large portion of the US economy runs on oil, having access to Oil is a good thing from a stratigic point of view.
As an isolated statement, possibly true, but fails to take into account the costs of that access. Both short-term (lives, property, political standing of current administration) and longer-term (strained international relations, future loss of life to terrorism or war subsequent to those strained international relations, the judgement of history).
I'm not arguing that you're wrong. I'm arguing that you don't really know whether you're right, not in any fashion meaningful to anyone else but yourself.
The impression you give with your stance is that you're positive about these beliefs. "Positive" is "wrong" at the top of your lungs.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:1, Interesting)
now that you mention it, there is no doubt a small spattering of developers who, after considering the possibility that their GPL'ed code could be used to kill, would be unable or unwilling to release that code of religious or political reasons. It makes sense that there should be a license available that addresses this, even if the FSF people dont deem it "officially" compatible with the GPL. A lawyer would certainly have to be consulted, but it seems that an MIT/BSD-style license could be drawn up fairly quickly, with a "free-er" GPL-style license was in the works. An antiwar clause would be beneficial, even if Pentagon-types didn't pay attention to it. Though, IMO a clause against a specific war, or a specific type of war, would cause more problems than it solved, but a strict anti-violence/anti-war clause would be greatly beneficial.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:5, Interesting)
One party strives for power, the other lusts after it, near I can tell.
Both are meatpuppets for rich interests, while feigning populism.
Gimme Jesse the Body in '08.
Quitting the military (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:4, Interesting)
Two years ago, I visited London. Outside of the parliament were huge signs demanding an end to the sanctions against Iraq. Why? Appx. 1,000 Iraqi children were dying each week, and that's only children age 2 or younger. The overall numbers of actual humans dying were a fair bit higher. Since the war started, www.IraqBodyCount.com (Full disclosure: An anti-war site which produced a rather inflated count, at least for a while) claims that, as of April 21, 2004, a min of 8897 and max of 10747 civilians have died. Seeing as the war started over a year ago, I'll round the number of weeks down to 52 weeks. Taking a likely inflated number, dividing by a known deflated number, and I get 207ish people dead a week. Yes, this is a horrid number. Look at it. Realize that each of those 207 people had a family, friends, and a life. Now look back up. Sanctions were killing five times as many people.
What seems to be advocated is a preference for death by inaction, rather than death by action. I'd honestly like to know, why is letting 1000 some odd children die because some asshat tyrant can't be trusted better than having a fifth as many die, while granting freedom and independance?
You make a good point. But like the anti-war freaks you forget that best estimates are that Saddam murdered between 1 million and 2 million Iraqis during his ~20 years in power. That works out to between 50,000 and 100,000 per year, or about 1,000 to 2,000 per week.
It's interesting to note how the press has constantly minimized this. Before the war there were varying estimates, but now the numbers I see quoted in the press as Saddam's murder tool are just the numbers of bodies already found in mass graves (~300,000 I believe), as if that's really it and there are no more anywhere. I remember the shock I felt while reading an editorial by an anti-war columnist, when the writer, in the course of admitting that Saddam was a pretty bad guy after all, referred to "thousands of Iraquis killed and hundreds of thousands repressed". NO, jackass, it's millions killed and 10s of millions repressed.
Typical... (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of the opponents of this war, who, I suspect, are otherwise capable of reason, tend to lose their reasoning abilities rapidly and go into a passionate rage, when talking about it.
Just listen to this guy:
(My bodyguards carry weapons, but everyone else, who does, should be locked up, says Rosie O'Donnel -- the passionate lighting rod of the pro-gun lobby.)
Their laboratories, that are in that business and do distribute modifications, distribute the source too -- the already mentioned SELinux, TrustedBSD [trustedbsd.org]...
Nothing wrong with passion per se. It is great in art, in bed (the very special art), etc. But the less of it in politics and computers (what a weird pairing of fields!) the better.
Good riddance, LULA!
Wow, what a dumb way to protest the war (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Does anyone really think the United States Army gives a rats ass if this guy is the head of the LA LUG? Will they even notice?
3. There is no three.
4. Would we rather them run something more crash prone? "Here come the bad guys!" "Wait, I have to reboot the tank!"
Linux is, and needs to be, A-Political, because I am pretty sure Windows is. There are better, and more effective ways to protest a war, maybe starting with writing your congressman?
Just my opinion.
This guy will never be employeed again... (Score:3, Interesting)
Computers they use windows, linux, and IBM stuff. So he can't use computers. They use office supplies, chairs and desks. He can't do any white collar work. They have kitchens so he can't work in food service. They have trash cans and cleaning supplies. He can't be a janitor. Let's see they use shovels. So he can't dig ditches. Lets see what is left? Farmer? Maybe he could become a monk if all else failed.
Just because the "military" uses something doesn't mean that the "something" is good or evil. The "good or evil" is the usage that the something is put to. People can do good or evil. Things just exist.
Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think he achieved his aim very well indeed.
Maine and Nebraska do proportional delegations (Score:5, Interesting)
However, Maine only has 2 districts (4 electoral votes) and Nebraska 3 districts (5 evs), so in practice it doesn't really matter much, but I wish more states followed this system. Unfortunately, states that tend one way or another wouldn't want to switch to this system, since it'd hurt the candidate that's more popular in that state (California wouldn't want to take 20 or so of its 55 and hand them to Bush, e.g.), and states that are battlegrounds would be less of a battleground under this system, and thus would get less political attention. Nice idea, nevertheless.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:4, Interesting)
I love this quote (Score:3, Interesting)
That statement right there ought to put a chill down the spine of any IT worker because it applies to far more than just Linux. If you work on building transatlantic/pacific communications for example then you are lowering the costs for outsourcing and long distance communications. This is the enabler for foreigners to take jobs from Americans. Add to this all the work engineers are doing on the automation of all kinds of jobs and careers and the average IT worker really IS "working hard to forge his own chains".
Re:You can't understand this... (Score:0, Interesting)
We killed the army of sadam. The people around my house is not apart of the Army of Sadam... ok.. that out of the way.
2, yes civilians may have been killed, but as a weekly total... it was far less then the childres and iraqi civilians being slaughtered, raped, and starved to death by their own leader.
Why is everyone OK with it when people die by the thousands and would continue to do so if we did nothing...
or we lost a portion of them to free iraq so the others that WOULD have died are now given a chance.
Time to get your priorities straight.... i.e., take a gun and shoot yourself and do the world a favor.
It's not an equal rights issue (Score:1, Interesting)
The issue is not really about equal rights, the issue is about the legal (under state laws) definition of marraige. Currently the vast majority of laws on the issue define marraige as between members of the opposite sex. This is the same whether the people getting married are straight or not.
Now, the issue of whether or not marraige SHOULD be defined this way up for reasonable discussion; but it is NOT an issue of equal rights. That is just a hot-button phrase used to gin-up outrage.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:2, Interesting)
Could you cite evidence that anyone agreed with the U.S. intelligence assessment other than its coalition partners, in particular Britain and Australia, some evidence other than the U.S. and British government's claiming everyone agreed with them.
If you followed Bob Woodward's book controversy this week, he indicates the CIA brought all of the evidence they had on Iraq's WMD's to a White House briefing. After seeing it Bush's response was something like, "is that all you've got" or "is that the best you can do".
I don't think any country outside the coalition bought Collin Powell's presentation to the U.N. Showing a truck parked next to an old bunker and claiming it was evidence of a chemical weapons program was farcical. I really can't believe Powell even believed it. I think he'd put on his war uniform like Bush had told him to and was being a good soldier even though he knew it was a sham.
I really doubt Iraq had much of a WMD program left after his son defected in the mid 90's and laid it all out for the West. The UN inspection teams really had done a pretty good job of eliminating what was left after that.
Why everyone who believed Iraq had WMD's did believe is pretty easy to explain. A large group of Iraqi exiles, led by Amad Chalibi in particular, decided to con the U.S. and friends in to toppling Saddam so they could take control of Iraq. To achieve this they sent fake defecters to Cheney and Wolfowitz's "Special Projects" office in the Pentagon and lied about non existent WMD programs to give the U.S. a case for war. Cheney and Wolfowitz were either extremely naive to believe these extremely unreliable defectors with no corroboration or more likely they just wanted to build a case, and since they had no real evidence they were willing to look the other way and use really bad intelligence. The supposed documents showing Saddam was trying to buy Uranium in Niger were really badly forged and no self respecting intelligence agency would have fallen for them. Apparently the CIA didn't but the Wolfowitz's special projects office pumped them in to the oval office anyway.
I really doubt Cheney and Wolfowitz are naive enough to believe this bad intelligence so I'm more inclined to think they cynically used flawed intelligence to fabricate a case for war, a war they fought for other reasons. What their real reasons were in Iraq is still anyone's guess:
- Maybe it was to institute democracy in the middle east. That is hard to believe though since a real Democracy most likely means the Shia's will vote in an Iran friendly Islamic republic which is about the last thing the U.S. could want. This is no doubt why George H.W. Bush didn't topple Saddam the first time around. One thing Saddam was good for in eyes of the U.S. is he kept the Shia majority in Iraq repressed.
- Maybe it was for oil, though if Iraq does ever manage to wrest its independence from the coalition they can easily give the oil contracts back to France and Russia or anyone but the U.S. since the U.S. has alienated nearly every Iraqi. The oil is gone from U.S. control unless the U.S. manages to keep a puppet government in Iraq, like Chalibi's would be, or any Iraqi government will be with 100,000 U.S. troops next door point guns at them.
- Maybe it was to fight the war on terror, if it was it was a really bad choice. The only known AL Queada presence in Iraq under Saddam was in regions of Iraq he didn't control. Saddam simply wasn't an Islamic fundamentalist, he was Islamic only when convenient and Iraq was one of the most secular states in the region under the Baathists. Al Queada must have despised Saddam as a result. The U.S. invasion of Iraq, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians, and Bush kissing Sharon's ass last week are recruiting posters for new waves of Islamic fundementalists who hate America.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:2, Interesting)
I would like to point out that the electorial college system was developed to compensate for the poor transportation and poor communications during the founding of our country.
Now that we have excellent communications and transportation, we should definitely rethink the electorial college system.
Bad things the electorial college does include:
1. Enable a person to be elected president even though he didn't win the majority of the votes.
2. Allow super-electorial states to have more political say despite voter turnout in those states.
3. Super-Electorial states tend to get disproportionally more pork-barrel money than any other state. (This has the effect of attracting more population to the super-electorial state to take advantage of the increased federal jobs, thus ensuring that the state will maintain its super-electorial status).
4. Electorial college makes it easy to commit voter fraud. It is harder to fake the large amounts of votes to make a difference in a national total, but Florida demonstrated that the potential to manipulate a vote of a super-electorial state is much easier and can have the same effect.
5. Super-Electorial states tend to get preferential treatment from federal services. I remember a town that was alongside the Mississippi river that had to move in order to receive the reconstruction money from Federal Flood Insurance when the Mississippi River overflowed (I can see the reason, because they were in a flood plain). However, Californians are allowed to rebuild their homes next to cliffs and the federal disaster relief fund keeps bailing them out after repeated mudslides.
Re:Don't blame the military. (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting stuff. While a far cry from desertion, it's an interesting inconsistency. Thanks for the substantive reply. I consider this a serious charge.
Well, AWOL is a very serious charge. If we rather claim the President was knowingly lying about what he did while serving, we have to prove something about the thoughts of GW at the time that he said it. In the end, that particular charge remains a judgement call for the voters. I'm very inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt (perhaps, obviously).
Regarding Hannity, most folks I've heard, when speaking extemperaneously, draw some erroneous conclusions or claim something totally fictitious. I can't recall the specific incidents but I do rememeber thinking "you made that up" while listening to Hannity, Franken, O'Reilly and others or "you really can't draw that conclusion for sure." If you have something valid I'de be interested. All I ever see in the form of "he lies" is hyperbole, out-of-context quotes, pedantic word critique, over criticism of a joke, or harping on a factual error that the host was conviced of.
Incidentally, this is why most hosts (even Laura Ingraham) don't typically attack and knock down arguments without having a positive counter argument. You can't say, "X didn't happen" unless you also say, "Y did happen to preclude X." Well... you can, but the credibility of the argument wanes.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bush for President! -- Of Iraq. (Score:2, Interesting)
As for Iraq being a "tough war", as you said yourself, less tahn 1000 americans dead. A lot less I believe. How can it be a tough war when you can wipe out your enemy (along with every woman and child within a 100 meter radius of him) from literally miles away and/or from inside an armour plated vehicle?
If it weren't for the media presence the war would be over and there'd be no more "terrorists" in Iraq. No more "potential terrorists" either mind you.
Iraq (like Afghanistan) is an easy war, complicated only slightly by the need to keep pretending its for the benefit of the victims.
Idiotic (Score:1, Interesting)
Makes about as much sense as the rest of the lefty drivel (i.e. rottin propaganda). Why guys like him want Saddam to be in power is beyond me. Yes, let dictators out there do whatever they want.... unless it is their idea like in Bosnia. For some reason even though Iraq had the same exact stuff and more of it going on, Bosnia was ok and Iraq isn't. Wonder if he is going to use Windows only to discover that is used in warfare too. Crawl into that spider hole with Saddam.
BTW we are STILL in bosnia/kosovo. How come? Where is the outrage? They are still silent on it because their boy (Bill C) did it. Rabid fanatical attack on Bush. I understand that the Book campaign is the latest George Soros attack plan. Pay a bunch of people to publish damaging books. Nevermind that they are all lies. Bush should go after them for liable.
We also have a bunch of supposed "documentaries" to look forward to this summer. Michael Moore has a whole boatload of BS for us again. Nobody go see his movie. You only encourage bullshit when you do.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course we know what the aims were- they were to create or perpetuate unfairness! It was to reassure slaveholders that their property wouldn't be liberated just because a nationwide popular vote went for emancipation.
Chief among them that states with large populations would not be able to use those large populations to unduly influence elections and legislation to the deteriment of sparsely populated states.
That's a circular argument. It begs the question "What is undue influence?". If you claim that "1 adult = 1 vote" is "undue", then the burden is on you to prove otherwise. But you haven't shown any reason why 2 small states should be more influential than one large one.
Re:Freeing the mind, not the body (Score:1, Interesting)
Yea, we get the point. In your world, only two colors exist: black and white.
If you don't go to church every Sunday, then you're obviously Satan's right hand man.
If you don't support the Iraq invasion, then you're Saddam's love child.
If you're pro-choice, then on your weekends you go around looking for babies to kill.
Sounds like a very small, one-dimensional world you live in that doesn't resemble my own.
Re:Maine and Nebraska do proportional delegations (Score:3, Interesting)
This helps us illustrate why the situation can never be changed by the states. (This is obvious, but I'll type it out anyhow)
Theoretically, any individual state could declare that it won't give all its electoral votes to the majority winner, and instead assign them proportionally. Making that change would increase the national influence of any state which is strongly biased towards one party.
For example, Utah and Massachusetts are firmly Red/Blue states, so no canditate bothers to campaign there, because the outcome is predetermined. But if they used proportional electoral votes, then the difference between winning Utah by 1% and 30% could become significant. Thus canditates would be attracted to pay attention to the state, make promises for regional support, etc.
(Some states, which are more evenly split between the parties, would see their influence reduced. A 3% difference would be enormously important in New York, because it'll shift the entire state's electoral votes. But I'm only considering the nonbalanced states here)
So, it would be in the best interest of non-balanced states to use proportional assignment of electoral votes, as this will increase their importance to national elections. However, no state will make this change. Why? For the same reason jerrymandering will never be outlawed: because making the change will result in a near-term weakness for the dominant party.
So long as the Democrats run a state's legislature, they will never switch to proportionality, because the change would hurt their party's candidate in the next presidential contest.
The argument isn't just bad, but illogical (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue isn't that Linux or any GPL'd software is merely a tool (or at least it shouldn't be). That isn't what makes his argument so asinine, though it is part of it.
No, the real thing that makes this statement and subsequent "stepping down" asinine and, well, stupid, is that no one decided to go to war because they were running GPL'd software.
Think about it for a second. A lot of people have made posts, both serious and humurous, about tools and not using things the military uses, but what it all boils down to is that whether or not the military was using GPL'd software, they still would have gone into Iraq.
Example: Say you have an epiphany and come up with an AI algorithm for image recognition that is centuries before it's time. You create the base objects or code to let other packages use it for whatever they want, GPL it, and release.
Now the military sees this image recognition software and decides they will use it to replace current portions of their target acquisition software to make more exact hits with missiles, etc.
Is it your personal fault each time one of these missiles hits a target? Think about it. Yes you software was directly responsible for that missile hitting a target BUT your softare is also responsible for it being that much more exact and reducing civilian casualties.
In the end, the military exists to fight. The military (as a conceptual group) was fighting wars before gun powder, before computers, before flight, etc. Some inventions have brought greater bloodhsed, larger wars, more frequent wars, etc.
But in creating a better version of a tool used in minimizing casualties why would you get upset at the military using it?
Obviously the previous example could be used to argue that with greater accuracy more people would be targeted by missiles than current technologies allow, etc. But the software itself does not choose to start a war.
Instead of complaining about the software being used during the war, and then also complaining about the casualties that are a result of the war, perhaps your time would be beter spent developing even more stable, reliable, and EXACT systems for the military. reduce friendly fire, reduce civilian casualties, etc.
Frankly I see this as a cheap way to get publicity and if I were the next leader of the group I was ask for him to leave as he obviouly doesn't have the groups interests in mind (GPL and the fact that he would use them to gain self-publicity) and can't string together a logical argument.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:2, Interesting)
That isn't his point. He has his panties all in a wad over the war that he felt he would abuse his relatively public platform to voice his displeasure. That makes him less than genuine in his complaint, and I say good riddance. the LALUG will be better off without the sniveling weasel.
Be against the war. Fine. That is your prerogative as an American. However, if you plan to make a public statement about it, be sure you have sound reasoning to back it up. Otherwise you look like a fool.
Doesn't get it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux is released to ANYONE, ANYWHERE to use for ANY PURPOSE. That is the GPL [gnu.org]
From the Preamble - "the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its user". Note that is does not say "for SOME of its users..." or "unless you are the United States Military in a mid-East foreign country while G.W.Bush is in Commander in Chief and the month has an 'A' in it..."
From the Terms and conditions for Copying, Distribution, and Modification: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
How does this person reconcile their current actions with their past actions and beliefs? You don't (or, in my opinion, shouldn't) get to the position they were in without some idea of the nature and dedication to the OpenSource community. How can they say now that they didn't know that "Free as in Speech" meant everyone, not just those they agreed with?
Has this person taken the position of CFO for The SCO Group? Their stated position seemd to coincide with TSGs quite well. (ObSCO_Ref)
Reminds me of the Voltaire quote "I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", except this person seems to be saying "I don't agree with what you say - so shut up." This person seems to be a firm believer in President Bush's stated belief that "there ought to be limits to freedom!" [gwbush.com] which is a moron oxymoron in my opinion.
Amazing the people that CAN think but DON'T, and the ones that CAN'T think that get elected...
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nitpicking, but that in itself is not bad. Nor is it enabled by the Electoral College.
Direct voting would still allow a non-majority to win, in a scenario like: Bush 49%, Gore 48%, Nader 1%, others 2%)
4. Electorial college makes it easy to commit voter fraud.
Not really. Even if it was direct voting, there'd still probably be hierarchical counting at the level of each state. In some ways, EC might actually make it easier to detect cheaters.
You have skipped the single largest problem of EC: the disenfranchisement of voters in non-swing states [typepad.com]. Voters in FL or NH are most powerful, one vote has around an 0.05% chance of tipping the statewide result. MA and UT are the least powerful states, since they have strong biases towards Dem or Repub. But other states are biased too- overall, 30 states vote in predictable ways, leaving only 20 that are truely in play during a campaign.
The additional power CA gets from Super-Electorial status is largely cancelled because it's non-swing. In a very real way, Bush voters in California don't matter: because no matter if he wins 5% or 45%, he'll still get 0 of the 55 electoral votes.
Democrats in TX and UT and Republicans in CA and MA are both harmed by the swing-state pheomenon of the Electoral College. The only result their votes can possibly achieve is bragging rights about winning "the popular vote", not change who actually gets the White House.
Re:Blaming the tool again... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well;
The two candidates instead put their time, energy and money into major battleground states this year, and South Dakota was not among them. After all, the state has only three electoral votes. [usatoday.com]
Bush had no paid campaign workers in South Dakota, but Republican politicians such as Gov. Bill Janklow and U.S. Rep. John Thune carried the torch on his behalf.
The Gore campaign had one paid worker in South Dakota, Democratic officials said.
Whatever.
SB