Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on February 24, 2007 10:32 PM
As I have said many times before, if the HTML file format is open, and Microsoft hasn't complained, why not open all Microsoft file formats? If the POP3, SMTP, FTP, and IMAP protocols are open, and Microsoft hasn't complained, why not open all Microsoft protocols? You'll find that the answer is the same as in the Novell deal. Money.
The good name of the FOSS community isn't the only potential casualty, here.
The predatory behaviour of Microsoft and a number of other contemporary corporations are causing many people within said community to forget that hybrid capitalist societies have genuinely enabled a very large number of the people living within them to create positive living conditions for themselves. People need to recognise that it is current *abuses* of the system which are causing problems. Microsoft should have been successfully convicted under the Sherman Act, and appropriate remedies applied. They were not due to the corruption and fascist aspirations of the Bush government.
As seductive as it may be to believe, it is imperative to remember that equally extreme Marxism on its' own provides no answers. The suffering which was caused in the USSR under Stalin, and the suffering still experienced by the people of North Korea, should serve as ample demonstration of this.
I believe myself that the answer is a careful blending of the two; a strong social welfare apparatus on the one hand, with a vigorous capitalist economy to support it on the other. However, said capitalist economy cannot exist if the very concept of earning money becomes demonised entirely.
Money in and of itself is not evil, and I continue to see evidence that the only people who truly believe that it is are people who have none of it themselves. What is truly evil is the tremendously distorted and harmful attitude held by some individuals that says that money is more important than life itself. If you want to demonise anything, demonise that attitude itself...because it *is* distorted, it *is* unspeakably bad, and it *is* a threat to all life. Money itself however is not.
Goerge W Bush can sign for billions of dollars to be used towards manufacturing arms which will kill people in Iraq and other places. Or you can sign for $20-$30 a month to be sent to a child in Ethiopia, to allow said child to be innoculated and fed, or to help have irrigation systems and buildings developed so that that child can drink clean water and go to school, and so that the child's parents can water crops so that they can eventually feed themselves.
Both of the above examples involve the use of money. In one example the money is used to give life, and in the other, to take it away. Money by itself is value neutral.
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Re:Hopefully you now understand.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 24, 2007 10:32 PMThe good name of the FOSS community isn't the only potential casualty, here.
The predatory behaviour of Microsoft and a number of other contemporary corporations are causing many people within said community to forget that hybrid capitalist societies have genuinely enabled a very large number of the people living within them to create positive living conditions for themselves. People need to recognise that it is current *abuses* of the system which are causing problems. Microsoft should have been successfully convicted under the Sherman Act, and appropriate remedies applied. They were not due to the corruption and fascist aspirations of the Bush government.
As seductive as it may be to believe, it is imperative to remember that equally extreme Marxism on its' own provides no answers. The suffering which was caused in the USSR under Stalin, and the suffering still experienced by the people of North Korea, should serve as ample demonstration of this.
I believe myself that the answer is a careful blending of the two; a strong social welfare apparatus on the one hand, with a vigorous capitalist economy to support it on the other. However, said capitalist economy cannot exist if the very concept of earning money becomes demonised entirely.
Money in and of itself is not evil, and I continue to see evidence that the only people who truly believe that it is are people who have none of it themselves. What is truly evil is the tremendously distorted and harmful attitude held by some individuals that says that money is more important than life itself. If you want to demonise anything, demonise that attitude itself...because it *is* distorted, it *is* unspeakably bad, and it *is* a threat to all life. Money itself however is not.
Goerge W Bush can sign for billions of dollars to be used towards manufacturing arms which will kill people in Iraq and other places. Or you can sign for $20-$30 a month to be sent to a child in Ethiopia, to allow said child to be innoculated and fed, or to help have irrigation systems and buildings developed so that that child can drink clean water and go to school, and so that the child's parents can water crops so that they can eventually feed themselves.
Both of the above examples involve the use of money. In one example the money is used to give life, and in the other, to take it away. Money by itself is value neutral.
Think about it.
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