* Travers Buda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2006-10-05 14:56]:
> It sure seems that OpenBSD and a few others with the FSF are
> the last bastions of freedom. I guess no one else understands how it
> serves their interests to demand openness. Was it always this way or
> have we somehow lost the picture?
>
No, it's real simple.
Red Hat (and a number of other linux distros) are morally bankrupt.
By that I mean the sit under the linux banner touting the GPL, and
yet this is not how they act. They act in a way that helps to ensure that
GPL'ed software can not continue to be written.
I am not a GPL fan, but I'll defend someone's ability to write
such software agressively. I consider it the same thing as defending freedom
of speech - it's defending your ability to buy something and use it in the
way you see fit, as opposed to buy something and use it only where and
when the manufacturer tells you you can.
The only reason you see only OpenBSD doing this is because the mass
market and media out there is too busy being a linux fanboys to notice
and ask the questions they should. All the media is seeing is "we can
use this cool new thing in linux" and they are missing the point of
"you have just been sold out". That's not a diss of Linux in general,
it's a diss of a number of short sigheted developers who support that,
and a diss of the techincal media who ignores the fact that your
freedoms go down the tank by making these compromises. The attitude
that the end (hardware support) justifies the means (complete
sacrifice of the principles the thing was written under in the first
place) has to stop. The fact that Theo can end up being a
professional shit-disturber and find these things so easily is a huge
inditement of the community and the media reporting on it that we
read.
Allowing developers to sign NDA's with companies to add support to an
OS that purports to be free is letting them have a Munich conference
with your freedoms. You aren't invited - and they're carving you up
while doing a Chamberlain and saying "look - device support in our
time - they'll be much better behaved now." We all know how well that
worked out, and this is no different.
-Bob
--
#!/usr/bin/perl
if ((not 0 && not 1) != (! 0 && ! 1)) {
print "Larry and Tom must smoke some really primo stuff...\n";
}
