Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on March 16, 2006 05:03 AM
First, boy am I happy I switched to Debian!! Not only did I get rid of RPM-hell for APT-paradise, but what is more important, I connected with a *community* centered disto. The reason why I decided to dump Mandrake after being a faithful supporter since Mdk7.2 and a Mandrake Silver Club Member was its increasingly corporate "feel". Instead of developing good code, they began an orgy of mergers and aquisitions with no clear goal in mind other than "bigger is better". The fact that Mandriva (what a stupid name change) could not install on one of my computers while Debian Sarge installed *perfectly* on the first try helped speed up my decision.
So now Mandriva provides us with more "corporate melodrama". You can bet that this will not stop here. Clearly - the 'suits' have taken over Mandriva and you can expect it to go down the tubes... RIP.
Another thought which comes to my mind is this: I wish more Americans realized what it means to be laid-off in a civilized country. You get unemployment benefits, your healthcare is assured, you can sue an employer for wrongful terminiation of contract and if you do not have the money to sue, the state provides you with an lawyer. There are, of course, unions too which can represent you (even if you are not part of a union). Last, but not least, your insurance companies cannot simply drop you nor can you be evicted from your home. Oh, and you do not need a lawyer to get disability or loss of income benefits: you simply fill a form (and have a medical vist).
I know about all this because even though I had a Master's Degree from a US Ivy League college, I found myself unemployed after 9/11 in Europe. It was hard, but never did I risk loosing all that which is considered a basic human right in all civilized countries.
Which brings me back to community vs. corporations. The USA is a "country for the corporations, by the corporations" and its citizens mistakenly assume that the rest of the developed world is very similar. They are wrong. Only the USA practices what is essentially a form of indirect slavery of the work force (a direct form of slavery also exists: More than 2 million Americans are in prisons, 500,000 more than in communist China, which has a population of 1.3 billion people).
So Gael is in a tough spot, no doubt. But not anything nearly as horrible as what would have happened to him in the "land of the brave and home of the free" (or whatever the slogan is).
So Gael - bonne chance et consideres-toi heureux de ne pas vivre aux paradis du capital!
[ps: do not bother with "hippie", "commie", "kibbutzim", "zealot" etc. as it only would make my point about being civilized or not]
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Posted by: Anonymous Coward on March 16, 2006 05:03 AMSo now Mandriva provides us with more "corporate melodrama". You can bet that this will not stop here. Clearly - the 'suits' have taken over Mandriva and you can expect it to go down the tubes... RIP.
Another thought which comes to my mind is this: I wish more Americans realized what it means to be laid-off in a civilized country. You get unemployment benefits, your healthcare is assured, you can sue an employer for wrongful terminiation of contract and if you do not have the money to sue, the state provides you with an lawyer. There are, of course, unions too which can represent you (even if you are not part of a union). Last, but not least, your insurance companies cannot simply drop you nor can you be evicted from your home. Oh, and you do not need a lawyer to get disability or loss of income benefits: you simply fill a form (and have a medical vist).
I know about all this because even though I had a Master's Degree from a US Ivy League college, I found myself unemployed after 9/11 in Europe. It was hard, but never did I risk loosing all that which is considered a basic human right in all civilized countries.
Which brings me back to community vs. corporations. The USA is a "country for the corporations, by the corporations" and its citizens mistakenly assume that the rest of the developed world is very similar. They are wrong. Only the USA practices what is essentially a form of indirect slavery of the work force (a direct form of slavery also exists: More than 2 million Americans are in prisons, 500,000 more than in communist China, which has a population of 1.3 billion people).
So Gael is in a tough spot, no doubt. But not anything nearly as horrible as what would have happened to him in the "land of the brave and home of the free" (or whatever the slogan is).
So Gael - bonne chance et consideres-toi heureux de ne pas vivre aux paradis du capital!
[ps: do not bother with "hippie", "commie", "kibbutzim", "zealot" etc. as it only would make my point about being civilized or not]
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