Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 13217
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2025/07/09 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/9     

2004/4/15-16 [Politics/Domestic/Gay, Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:13217 Activity:nil
4/15    Why are conservatives so hostile to Open Source software?
        \_ You mean conservatives like this?
           http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns
           \_ But Eric Raymond is an idiot.  He doesn't count.
              \_ "From age twelve I always wanted to be a Heinlein
                  character when I grew up."
           \_ Isn't ESR a libertarian?
        \_ Because they hate freedom.
        \_ Why do liberals have to make up lies about conservitives to make
           themselves seem reasonable by comparison?
           \_ Why do conservatives have to impugn the patriotism of those who
              disagree with them?  (See "Why do you hate America")
           \_ Why can't conservatives spell "conservative?"
           \_ http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/05/1081017093699.html
              Both the IPI and the Alexis de Toqueville institute have
                                             \_ Tocqueville
                                                \_ jackass   <----------\
                                                   \_ You seem torqued. |
                                                      \-----------------/
              now denounced open source.
              \_ Why? Because there's no money in it? Because it's "communist"?
                 \_ Open source == (UNIX) rw-rw-rw- == 666 == numba da beast!
                    \_ But open-source binaries are code 555
                       \_ Open source software starts as code. Like marijuana,
                          it soon leads to voting Democratic, gay marriage,
                          and betraying America to communis...Islamic fanatics.
                          \_ Not to mention commie mutant tratiors.  They
                             endanger the future of Alpha Complex.
                             \_ If the comuputer really is your friend, you'd
                                use MicroSoft. It's what the computer ask for
                                by name!
        \_ Because Jesus hates it.
        \_ Because it's unpatriotic.
2025/07/09 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/9     

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www.catb.org/~esr/guns -> www.catb.org/%7Eesr/guns/
Erics Gun Nut Page Erics Gun Nut Page. Home Page Whats New Site Map Software Projects HOWTOs Essays Personal Weblog Freedom! Firearms! Yes, I cheerfully refer to myself as a gun nut. Because after Ive done that myself, idiots cant bash me with the phrase. Since it doesnt take most people very long to notice that I am not in fact crazy, this maneuver has the effect of discrediting the idiots. Ive taken some public flak in the hacker community for vocally supporting firearms rights and received a lot of private support. Its all about freedom. Its all about keeping the power to defend yourself, the power to revolt, the power to say no in the hands of individuals. No hacker should have any trouble understanding this. You can read my personal story of how I got involved with guns here. Or you can read about my first IPSCC match. Or about my shooting rig. Or, read the entertaining Parable of the Sheep for an explanation of how gun owners feel about their guns so simple that even a child can understand it. Finally, and most importantly, my essay Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun: What Bearing Weapons Teaches About the Good Life Scholarly Studies Many well-intentioned Americans have been propagandized into believing a collection of myths that paint guns as intrinsically evil and demonize gun owners. Fortunately, sociological and criminological research of very high quality is now available to refute these myths. Here are some of my favorite items: The Heartland Institute paper Taking Aim At Gun Control does an excellent job of debunking the myths everybody knows about guns and gun control. Gun Control: A Realistic Assessment is a thoroughly scholarly but devastating critique of partisanship and methodological errors in many commonly-cited anti-gun sources. Renowned criminologist Gary Kleck is a card-carrying ACLU member and liberal Democrat. Unfortunately for liberal orthodoxy, he is also willing to follow the facts wherever they lead. His book Point Blank: Guns and Violence In America became the starting point for all serious scholarly discussion of its topic soon after it came out in 1991. You can read Klecks summary of the book here. The direction of recent research on this topic is well represented by a 1996 paper from the University of Chicago; Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns. Only an early draft is available here ; Lott has since expanded this study into an even more compelling book, More Guns,Less Crime: University of Chicago Press, 1998, ISBN 0-226-49363-6. Some articles by Lott are available on the web; Gun Control Advocates Purvey Deadly Myths is particularly telling. These three papers should convince anyone with a respect for genuine scientific inquiry that most of what politicians and the media tell us to believe about gun control is wrong. This should be hardly surprising given both groups well-earned reputations for sloppiness and mendacity in other areas. Many more good pointers to high-quality research are available at the CDN-Firearms research page. Legal Scholarship Many good resources are collected at GunCite. I recommend the article A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment , an excellent introduction to the topic. Advocacy and Politics The founders of the United States among others had some pointed things to say about civilian arms. You can read some of my favorite quotes on this topic here. For an excellent discussion of the ethics of gun defense, see A Nation Of Cowards. The author contends that is not only the right but the duty of free people to be armed and willing to use lethal force in defense of life and liberty. Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln would have agreed. So do I My own favorite argument is here.
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www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/05/1081017093699.html
How independent is independent? Note: You are reading this message either because you can not see our css files, or because you do not have a standards-compliant browser. Read our browser standards page for details. Storage management ITIL & IT Service Management Network Security CRM Tech News Email Get the latest IT News delivered to your inbox every day. Job Title/Skills: optional All locations Sydney NSW Country Melbourne VIC Country Canberra Brisbane QLD Country Adelaide SA Country Perth WA Country Darwin NT Country Hobart TAS Country USA UK Europe Asia NZ IT JOBS RESOURCES REVIEWS OPINION How independent is independent? Print this article Email to a friend By Leon Brooks Comment April 6, 2004 Following an increasingly common trend in what has been cynically dubbed pay per view, the Institute for Policy Innovation IPI has joined a long string of self-titled independent think tanks such as the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute in releasing a study strongly critical of Open Source outside of strictly limited fields within research and academia. IPI and its principles The IPI website claims that IPIs focus is on approaches to governing that harness the strengths of individual liberty, limited government, and free markets: but their report sides with business practices guaranteeing individual liberty only to a very few, and what amounts to economic slavery for the very many. The idea of a free market presupposes that the participants in the market follow a few de facto rules the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. If those rules arent followed, the free part completely breaks down as market participants became dominant and willing to sacrifice principle for profit as they evidently have in the computer software industry. IPI is failing its constituency as it in turn inadequately assesses the situation and blindly, dogmatically pursues the one remaining plausible goal of limited government at the expense of all else. Stacking irony upon irony, IPI has pursued too narrow a view of the term government and this has led it in fact, if not in intent, to rally behind private control of computer software markets at the same time as it vocally espouses uncontrolled markets. Private governance of such a market is an economic and political tragedy because the powers involved are not even as accountable for their acts and principles as a public government would be. Open Source and deregulation Open Source is the one light on the horizon in terms of true deregulation in the computer software industry. It decentralises control to the point where unreasonable dominance of the market becomes effectively impossible. Even cheating by leveraging a dominant position to control factors such as network protocols or hardware manufacturing policy becomes less effective as more market participants adopt technology which would be harmed by such distortions, and so refuse to accept them. This manner of intrinsic regulation benefits not only the Open Source community but anyone who would enter and compete in a truly free market. All we need to do to ensure this deregulation is provide the burgeoning Open Source industry with an incubation period similar to the original intent of short patent protection periods and other startup incentives in which to build up a critical mass of users on otherwise fair terms and unmolested by powerful incumbents, including convicted lawbreakers. In the absence of a totally fair way of achieving this, the best that can be hoped for is some kind of counterweight to the immense political and marketing clout of the incumbents. Open Source and individual liberty In this world, a small minority of the population owns as much as a second pair of shoes. Open Source represents the single supportable mechanism for bootstrapping a very poor individuals capabilities to a point where he or she can realistically expect to participate in the information economy at all. The cost of legally acquiring sufficient tools from closed-source suppliers is prohibitive, and the Open Source development model has been the only one which has broken the market stranglehold of merchants of software basics whose first concern is their pound of flesh and not the welfare of their customers. The thumb on the scales The power of the incumbents was graphically demonstrated when South American nations like Peru and Argentina moved to protect their economies against them: the US government promptly threatened trade sanctions should those plans go ahead. Blatant protectionism at its very worst! And did IPI speak out against this protectionism? Did The Heritage Organisation ? Did The Independent Institute ? Not a chirp, nary a whisper. So why would IPI speak so strongly and at such length against Open Source, but not against international protectionism? In AdTIs case, as in TIIs, the direct financial support of Microsoft was a fairly obvious clue. Microsoft has since become more subtle, as demonstrated by its inducing Baystar to temporarily bail out The SCO Group in a plausibly deniable fashion. This hints that though the links may be more tenuous than before, but they will still be there. The unofficial rallying cry of a weblog devoted to making all sides of these issues public is follow the money, and that principle seems to work reliably. A call to self-honesty Independent is just a claim, and non-profit doesnt mean non-greedy. I call on IPI and other independent think-tanks to set their own moral houses in order before thinking about undermining others. If you truly support free markets markets not governed by any one power then step aside and let us free them. If on the other hand youve already taken sides, be honest about it. Youll be caught out sooner or later anyway, we respect honesty, and were getting sick to death of pretenders. Leon Brooks is director of the open source software firm CyberKnights. This is an edited version of an article published on his website; Copyright rests with the author. Search all Fairfax archives Fee for full article Print this article Email to a friend React to this article Submit a news tip Top National World Opinion Business Technology Sport Entertainment Multimedia membership conditions privacy Copyright 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald.