U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit 490
StoneLion writes "The United Nations World Summit on Information Society was established to 'harness the potential of knowledge and technology' and to 'find effective and innovative ways to put this potential at the service of development for all.' You'd think open source software would be a natural for many UN member countries. But NewsForge's Joe Barr discovered that the US is driving policy for the organization, and its official position is that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'; in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism." We've mentioned WSIS before. Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
Unnecessary violence (Score:5, Funny)
That sounds oftly violent. Why didn't they just try to screw up all the meetings using their influence?
Re:Unnecessary violence (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand I'm not sure that UN has the position or moral authority free software want's to be associate with. Take for example that only last year Jan Kavan (former Czech foreign minister) used to be the chairman of UN. Mr Kavan was convinced of lying by a British court of justice. He also work for STB (Czech equiv. of KGB) and spied on people who fled to the UK from the communist Czechoslovakia.
My point is that just the fact that US has a misguided policy does not mean that what UN is doing would be in the best interest of everyone. Dodgy people who are mainly intrested in driving their agenda are involved in the UN. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.
Re:Unnecessary violence (Score:2, Insightful)
Watch out for your implicit double standards: The US is every bit as dodgy as the rest of the world.
Re:Unnecessary violence (Score:3, Insightful)
farce (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Unnecessary violence (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a dangerous and blatantly wrong statemnet. It shows that you probably have never seen the darker side of a totalitarian regime. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that the US are any good (read the parent post, first paragraph). I'm just saying that there are much worse and less humane governments around (North Korea anybody? Cuba?).
Comparing CIA to Czech STB is laughable. Has CIA ever run concentration camps? Where people worked in uran
Re:Unnecessary violence (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember: the last president, son of the former head of the secret police, was appointed by judges appointed by his father, after an election whose results and (mis)management was widely contested. Saying "it can't happen here" doesn't make it not happen.
Re:Unnecessary violence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unnecessary violence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unnecessary violence (Score:3, Insightful)
But to take your point a step further, don't forget that the UN really is just an extensin of US foreign policy. The US has ( and uses regularly ) its right to veto any motion that doesn't suit their 'national interests'. Of course a select few other countries also have a right to veto motions, but:
a) it only takes one veto-happy country to ruin it
b) all countries with veto rights are right behind US foreign policy.
Do a google search on the number of resolutions calling for the Israelis to back o
Re:Unnecessary violence (Score:3, Funny)
What is that?
Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:5, Insightful)
"The U.S. view is that we don't want to see government, or in this case, the World Summit, advocate one type of software over another." -Sally Shipman
When you get down to the nut and bolts all software is just 1s and 0s: there aren't different "types" at that level.
I think what Sally Shipman really means is "We want our large US software firms to continue to reap Huge profits: Open Source threatens that."
That's fine, after all it's a US delegation and they're supposed to look out for their countrymen. Now, why can't they word it that bluntly? Simple: because Open Source doesn't contribute millions to election campaigns.
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sure those of us work for those corporations reaping huge profits would appreciate this position. For a lot of people, free as in freedom/free as in free trade are great ideas as long as it's not their ox that's being gored.
Disclaimer: I don't work for the aforementioned corporations.
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:5, Interesting)
Shouldn't Open Source just be considered competition? After all, it's just code. The automakers in Detroit seem to be doing fairly well, even with cheap foreign competition.
The software companies have gotten fat and lazy. Open Source came at them from left field and they still can't figure out how to honestly fight it. That's why they go crying to the politicians after contributing money to their campaigns.
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:5, Insightful)
and an abiding insistence that the WSIS not say or do anything that might prevent profiteering on the needs of the disadvantaged, now or in the future. Nowhere in the WSIS documents was it deemed permissible to state the obvious: that free/open source software is the logical choice in achieving affordable solutions.
English isn't my first language, but this is how i read it: The US position is that WSIS shouldn't do anything to prevent profiteering and the solution that delivers the most bang for the buck should be used. i.e. non-Open source software shouldn't be excluded. The author thinks open source software is the logical choice for the most affordable solution but that's just his opinion.
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:3, Interesting)
These restrictions do effectively prevent any suggestion of free software, as it may prevent an
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely.
FOSS only commoditises what really ought to be commoditised.
Software companies can still make money by creating true value added onto that base of cheap hardware and cheap software.
We're talking about new software, or support, tuning, customization of software systems that users might not want to manage themselves.
What might really be going on.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a good point. I think it reflects the general laziness on the part of behemoth corporations with establish streams of revenue. Take Disney for instance. Every time the Mouse's copyright (Steam Boat Willy for goodness sakes!) almost comes up for expiry, another copyright extention gets past. Disney knows it's in hot water, especially lately because it hasn't had a mega-hit since the Lion King.
But it's not just Disney. If Linux really, and I mean really became a threat to Microsoft it would come down to either Microsoft ceasing to exist as it does now or Linux being made illegal (or tied up in the courts 'till forever). My guess is on the latter. Few people seem to point out (that I see, anyhow) that all this talk about innovation is total crap. Established corporations don't really want to innovate, because that costs money! Why innovate when you can just throw lawyers at threats to your revenue stream? This has been going on since (at least) Edison when he forced all the movie producers to move out to California to evade patents on motion picture equipment.
Linux will just have to do what it does best and no one else really wants to do -- innovate. Innovate damn well, too. Microsoft's $250-something billion market cap. is one heck of a freight train to derail.
Disney and copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
What confuses me is the seeming inability for administrations to resort to more rational compromises instead of steamrolling everything.
In the Disney/copyright case, it would have made much more sense to tinker with the copyright renewal process than to extend all copyrights accross the board, including the ones that nobody cares about anymore. There used to be a perfectly good copyright renewal process, described here [gutenberg.net], that was amended to provide "automatic renewal", probably to cut down on administration costs as much as everything else.
For whatever reason everyone's now decided to focus on simply extending the copyright term for everything instead of requiring those who actually still want to enforce their copyright to actively say so. This means that lots of derelict and abandoned work is simply disappearing because projects such as Project Gutenberg aren't allowed to save them.
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:4, Insightful)
And if you work for a closed-source vendor, you'd better be looking out for your "ox", because if you don't work in Redmond, chances are US Representitives didn't have your employer in mind.
They've already eliminated the open source option. That's a pretty good sign that they've already got a policy of exclusion in place.
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:5, Insightful)
On the contrary, it's great example of capitalism in action. The purpose of capitalism isn't to produce great, working, innovative products. The purpose of capitalism is to generate (suprise!) capital. Coincidentally sometimes this also means producing great, working, innovative products, but that's just a byproduct.
Most of the time on stagnant market w/o any scientific/technological breakthroughs on the horizon, entrenched monopolies/oligopolies extort huge money for crappy products, paying politicians/rulers/kings/whatever to mandate their products and seeking other ways to change their business model to de facto or de jure taxes. Why work to get the money when you can pay someone to order people to pay you for nothing.
Robert
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:3, Insightful)
But see, that's the problem - as soon as you allow that kind of thing to happen, you no longer have a free market. It starts to sound a lot less like capitalism, and a lot more like central planning. So you can't really blame the social and economic ills that result on capitalism.
I bring this up because the first step in solving a problem is correctly understanding what the problem is. Capitalism and the free market unquetionably ha
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:3, Troll)
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the going theory, but we'll never know until we try.
Besides, copyrights have been around for a while but the world didn't blow up due to it.
That's because IP was never so easy to "violate". It seems that some are willing to "blow up" the world(go to war) in order to protect their IP. It is sickening to think that we might actually kill people for this.(If we haven't already)
What we need is a good protected IP rights such as GPL to keep certai
Yes! MAKE the world sage for capitalism... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like another goon who isn't good enough to get a job.
Re:Yes! MAKE the world sage for capitalism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source is not inherently communistic, nor is it a threat to capitalism. It's simply a threat to particular companies, just as new innovations are always a threat to older companies. Even if particular companies die, the market itself will hum along just fine.
Funny World... (Score:2, Flamebait)
In the Soviet Russian point of view, USA is the baddie! Well I guess we're living in a joke now.
Re:Funny World... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, the war in Iraq may have a positive outcome, but that doesn't mean anyone's intentions were honest.
Re:Funny World... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nukes? None... WMDs? None... Terrorism? Well, there wasn't terrorism until we wiped Iraq clean of any and all army or police. Now the infamous Al Queda is flooding into the country killing scores of Iraqis almost daily. And those 'small skirmishes' have killed more American soldiers than the pre-"Mission Accomplished" war. We'll end up spending a few hundred billion by the time we're done. The rest of the world hates us to the point where the UN is going to ask us to get the hell out. And two weeks before we started dropping bombs on this wanker who we swore up and down had WMDs and was desperately trying to kill Americans, he offered to let our own FBI come in and perform inspections... unfortunately, he had no proof of having weapons he really didn't have so that was obviously insufficient.
What the fuck you ask? The administration lied to Americans playing off their fears and sympathies to fight a war of preemption drastically changing America's position in the world and squandering any good-will towards us. Hundreds of Americans have died. Thousands of Iraqi civilians have died. Iraq is now a hotbed for terrorism so bad in fact the UN is having meetings behind our back looking for ways to get us the hell out. And our federal coffers are draining to the tune of 500b a year. Oh yeah, and Osama... a real threat to national security, no idea where he's at. What the FUCK?
Re:Funny World... (Score:5, Insightful)
The US never learned how to do diplomacy. There's just too much of the schoolyard bully inherent in the attitude.
I laugh at your silly karma.
Re:Yes, he said Dictators (Score:4, Insightful)
The international community isn't about being benevolent. It's about stopping (well, trying to stop) bullies from kicking about outside of their borders. The US (among others) is *really* bad at staying out of other countries' affairs.
Re:Yes, he said Dictators (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah right, because at the time the US had such a great alternative! You forget the threat that Iran posed to the US at that time. The Iranian government had just been overthrown by radical extremists and they had taken several American citizens hostage, or don't you remember that little hostage crisis that arguably cost your man Carter the presidency. T
Re:Funny World... (Score:5, Informative)
Does this [nwu.edu] count??
Re:Funny World... (Score:5, Informative)
It makes me sad how ignorant Americans are of the most basic history of their government. There is no shortage of evidence that the U.S. has caused untold misery around the world for decades.
The U.S. has installed a non stop cavalcade of ruthless dictators since the end of World War II. The standard criteria is any government that "isn't with us is against us" so we arrange to topple democraticly elected leaders, who are usually nationalists or socialists and replace them with right wing dictators who are willing to do what we tell them, who are friendly to big American corporations and wealthy landowners, and are willing to ruthlessly kill anyone in their country who doesn't see things that way. Sometimes our puppets go bad, as in they stop doing what we tell them, for example Noriega in Panama and Sadam in Iraq and we even have to topple them:
Here are just a few examples, its a much longer list than this:
The Shah of Iran was installed in to power by a CIA sponsored coup in 1953 when they helped topple a democraticly elected nationalist leader,Mohammed Mossadegh . The Shah rivaled or surpassed Sadam in torture and oppression of the Iranian people and was a key reason why they seized they U.S. embassy when he was toppled and why the hate the U.S. with a passion to this day:
http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/htdtisirancoup.ht ml
In 1973 a CIA sponsored coup in Chile removed a democraticly elected, very popular, socialist and nationalist leader, Salvadore Allende and replaced him with General Pinochet, another ruthless military dictator and a 17 year reign of terror:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,13755,10 38 615,00.html
In 1954 a CIA coup overthrew the democraticly elected leftist Jacobo Arbenz, once again to be replaced by a string of ruthless military dictators in to the 90's:
http://www.nsulaw.nova.edu/iachr/background.cfm
The CIA was also involved in the 1963 coup in which the Bathists took control of Iraq. The CIA apparently gave the Bathists a list of people, mostly left leaning, who were to be exterminated when they took power. Control of the Bathist party was eventually seized by Saddam Hussein:
http://www.bnfp.org/neighborhood/jmoore.htm
Lest you think this is all ancient history all indications are that the unrest in Venezuala a couple years ago which once again nearly toppled a popularly elected socialist leader was being stirred by the Bush administation through the CIA and the U.S. military which was meeting with the opposition leaders trying to overthrow Hugo Chavez who is very critical of the U.S. on all fronts:
http://www.icl-fi.org/ENGLISH/Ven787.htm
We are also on pretty reasonable terms with the dictator of Turkmenistan who surpasses Saddam in cult of personality:
http://archive.tol.cz/transitions/thedict1.html
It should also be pointed out President Mushareef of Pakistan, out close ally in the war on terror is also a military dictator who seized power in a coupe. So much for our advocacy of democracy and freedom. Its ironic that we took down Iraq for an imagined WMD threat while Pakistan has been actually selling critical nuclear technology to North Korea and Iran. Did we do anything about it, no. Mushareef just pardoned the man responsible and we look the other way.
Bottomline is if your government protects the wealthy 1% in your country that own all the land and industry, and you open your country to exploitation by American corporations and you do what the U.S. government tells you, you will have no problems with the U.S. Otherwise you are headed for a world of hurt.
All of this was well documented by the Church commission in 1975:
http://history-matters.com/store/store
Re:Funny World... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with this statement a 100%. what Pakistan was doing was a hundred times more dangerous than what was going on in Iraq. Pakistan 's Khan was shopping working nuclear bomb designs and manufacturing centrifuges in Malaysia for sale to the highest bidder, which could easily have included terrorists. North Korea presumably has nukes now thanks to Pakistan so we have a really dangerous unstable regime with nukes thanks to Pakistan. Is there any evidence anyone has WMD's thanks to Iraq?
Iraq doesn't seem to have had any nuclear program since it was dismantled in the mid 90's. They certainly weren't real cooperative with the U.N. over time but as Bush was rushing to war they were cooperating with all the U.N inspections. Iraq offered to let CIA agents come in and find all the weapons the Bush administration claimed were there and claimed to know where they were. If this was really about WMD's the CIA would have just gone in, found the WMD's and proved their case. They didn't. This was about taking down Saddam and the fact he was trying to fully comply with inspections was an inconvenience as Bush/Cheney rushed to war. There is NOTHING Saddam could have done to comply with the U.N. to stop the invasion.
As Wolfowitz has said since, WMD's were just a convenient pretext for invading. It was one everyone could agree on.
Laying WMD charges against a country is a delightful rationalization for aggressive warfare. Its a charge you can lay against ANYONE. All you do is say "WE KNOW" they have chemical or biological weapons. Its impossible for the accused country to prove they do not no matter how much you inspect them. If you don't find any you just say, "They must have hid them really well". After all little vials of Anthrax can be hidden anywhere.
Making the world safe for capitalism = oxymoron (Score:5, Insightful)
All about capitalism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All about capitalism... (Score:5, Insightful)
oss is the product of democtratic freedoms of expression, publishing and association, not capitalism. while liberal democracies and capitalism tend to co-exist in the western world, they are not dependent on one another - lots of brutal dictatorships are capitalist by nature.
i, for one, find the reference to the billy bragg song "making the world safe for capitalism" quite apt:
We help the multi-nationals
When they cry out protect us
The locals scream and shout a bit
But we don't let that affect us
We're here to lend a helping hand
In case they don't elect us
How dare they buy our products
Yet still they don't respect us
We're making the world safe for capitalism
Re:All about capitalism... (Score:2)
That is true. You're not seeing the whole relation IMHO. Can you name one liberal democracy, that has other than capitalist system to run trade and production?
(capitalism in the vague sense, e.g. France, China count, but not, say North Korea).
(as for the term liberal democracy I assume we take that in a weak sense, so that say US and UK
Re:All about capitalism... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sweden is a democracy, no doubt about that. They also have a huge welfare state and lot of state owned enterprises. To further support your point I have to admit that in Sweden it's the government that is spending 57% of GDP (source: Federal dep. of finance; OECD). That's still some 43% left to spend by the private sector, not to mention that the government is also getting the benefits of the fre
Re:All about capitalism... (Score:3, Interesting)
Capitalism is a vauge term, and as such it really does not mean much, unless in context. Are you talking about free markets? or are you talking about private ownership of capital goods?(things you need to produce stuff). The wage system definition does not seem to fit your use here, so that is probably not it.
The sense that the US UN rep is using the term is catital goods ownership, or in other words keeping a certai
ugh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ugh (Score:5, Funny)
Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
When will the US gov't realize that open source is capitalistic - it reduces your costs allowing you to make greater profits.
Re:Capitalism (Score:2)
They will 'learn' this about the same time you 'learn' that a Slashdot summary of an article that is already itself quite biased is not exactly the best way to obtain an accurate viewpoint of any subject.
Re:Capitalism (Score:2, Insightful)
All the more reason it must be stopped at all costs. If unfettered capitalism were allowed in the USA, government-funded bailouts and taxpayer-subsidized salaries for the CEO would be a thing of the past. This cannot be allowed to happen.
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Informative)
The United States position, formed at the behest of the Business Software Alliance, CompTIA, and other organizations dedicated to maintaining the status quo and curtailing the growth of free software, is that no software development methodology -- closed and proprietary versus open source -- be recommended over any other.
Choice is capitalistic. Excluding non-OS software is limiting choice.
Re:Capitalism (Score:3, Interesting)
That has nothing to do with capitalism, which has to do with ownership of capital - in the case of software, source code. The GPL socializes software, and could possibly be described as capitalistic in any sense. Profits don't really have anything to do with capitalism per se.
I would just like to say (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you Captain Obvious! Using free software keeps companies that sell software from making a profit on software they don't get to sell. This guy's got to be an economics major...
consensus? (Score:2, Insightful)
With all the nations on the glode, with so many widely different opinions, why it god's name would they even try to operate by consensus?
The motivation behind this decision is either a) Extreme optimism or b) Extreme Stupidity. Likely, it is both.
Although, I suppose we could consider a third if you felt like breaking out the tin foil hates.
how many people read that as: (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism Bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, when it's democracy that's for sale. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sweet, sweet confusion (Score:5, Funny)
making a profit highest priority? (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, I don't think that open-source software is really going to stand in the way of making a profit. By some estimates, software licenses account for only 8% of revenues in the software industry.
Second -- why is profit at the top of the list of priorities for this particular initiative? I believe that an open democracy is possible.
I don't believe in forced sharing, but I do believe that we should be allowed to share if we so desire. The wording here seems to suggest that sharing is a significant threat to selling, and that as such, it should be disallowed entirely. I realize that hasn't been said, but it's not a big stretch from his current position... I don't want to see the world start down that slippery slope.
Re:making a profit highest priority? (Score:2)
I think Linus had something to say on that (Score:2, Funny)
WSIS? We Sieze! (Score:2)
There was some counter-summit stuff done in Geneva last December at the same time as the WSIS conference, the two sites that were used were the Hub Project [hubproject.org] open publishing site and the Geneva03.net [geneva03.net] wiki.
The level of police repression was fairly unbelievable -- the planned polymedia lab (like a hack meet thing) was shut down by riot police... Following this it got another venue and worked out OK in the end. I helped a few people get their laptops booting into Linux :-)
There were some cool things done lik
Slight Omission: (Score:5, Insightful)
should have read:
The first is the United States' position that profit -- or even the potential for profit -- by major corporate donors to the current administration is more important than anything else.
Re:Slight Omission: (Score:3, Interesting)
The official view, from the mouth of a senior policy advisor, is quoted several paragraphs down in the story: "The U.S. view is that we don't want to see government, or in this case, the World Summit, advocate one type of software over another."
Isn't it better to have more choices than less?
Only michael would cry for another buearacracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only michael would cry for another buearacracy (Score:3, Informative)
Looking out for who's interest? (Score:4, Insightful)
You might be threatening your burgeouning software industry/IP industry by promoting open source. Thats great if your goal for information technology is to make your companies money.
But how many countries are in the same position as the US? And how many more would actually like to leverage cheap costs of open source for immediate tangible benefit?
If the US was a third world nation, it would change its tune. IN the mean time, its business as usual.
Me first then you. (Score:4, Insightful)
Others are of no consequence.
Oh, so monopolies are good now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Using proprietary software might also get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit, i.e. another company. That's what happens when you make a choice between one product or another. So what are they saying, that they should only buy software if there were no competing products? That they should only buy from monopolies? Please tell us, oh wise and corrupt US representatives...
U.S. Policy (Score:4, Funny)
-chill
is everyone still sleepy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Safe for capitalism? (Score:4, Insightful)
Capitalism is an economy in which sources of production are controlled by private entities(instead of by the public/government). This shouldn't be confused with things like intellectual property rights, which isn't even a source of production, and really has little to do with wether you have a capitalist economy.
Re:Safe for capitalism? (Score:4, Insightful)
This correct. 'Intellectual Property Rights' are government sanctioned monopolies. The exact opposite of capitalism.
This is what the UN is for (Score:3, Insightful)
The U.S. government is entitled to think commercialware should be the only ware out there.
Fine. Other countries, if so inclined, can argue otherwise.
On the other hand, it is up to any interested U.S. citizen to disabuse his government of this lunatic option, if the citizen is so inclined. If the citizen does not care, the government will go with the easiest thing to do, which is to follow lobbyst advice.
Even the author admits he misses the point.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is merely a continuation of the point that the USA's representatives do not want to turn control of the base portions of the Internet over to another closed international organization. As the process stands right now, the current controllers happen to be capitalist, but they also happen to exist in a free enough society that we can bitch about their behaviors and impose change through democratic processes (or semi-democratic, if you include getting a congress-person to impose some new regulation that dictates how things should be). There is no such guarantee once control leaves our borders.
Furthermore, there are a handful of governments who are turning from the IBM AIX/Microsoft Windows proprietary software systems to the open source models that Sourceforge and Slashdot staff seem to champion. But, that in no way implies once the WSIS takes over, the open-source methods would be adopted either. The danger expressed by the representatives is that a 3rd party such as the UN will be in control to dictate connectivity, and that the majority of members of that UN body are not interested in the free flow of information in the form that the USA embrases it. We see nations like China filtering content into their space, nations in the Mid-East who would be even more harsh on content flow, and would these nations be in the majority on the WSIS board, it would spell an end for the freedom of content that we have enjoyed this last decade.
It doesn't matter if the firewall is closed source or open source, I don't want a firewall blocking a nation from my content.
No surprises here... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would even go so far as to say this isn't about maintaining capitalist dominance or corporate dominance per se, so much as it is derailing something that could potentially be highly disruptive to the US position as a technological leader and controlling force on third-world technological innovation. Open Source would drastically lower the barrier to entry for pretty much any country looking to develop an information technology regime, which puts countries on a much more even footing to do things the US doesn't like (organize, provide information to people, utilize cryptography, and heavens! even provide a means for impoverished people to have true democracy), let alone making governments more effective. Strict politics-of-power thinking would suggest that other countries having strong, independent governments is not in the US' interests, because such governments and countries (and ultimately, populations) are much harder to manipulate...
Although many know, I'll go over it... (Score:2)
It is the best economic system SO FAR, but that doesn't mean it will keep us alive and thriving in the coming decades. We should do all we can to make sure that Capitalists don't put a stranglehold onto developing countries, and force them to become the developed world's slaves.
Excluding OSS discriminates against OSS IP holders (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism 101 (Score:2)
+ve:
====
People forget differences in the race for money. Good thing. I'd rather have people try to cheat others out of money, rather than kill others over race/religion.
-ve:
====
Loss of belief in basic human "goodness" and willingness to donate time for the common good. I can't believe the amount of scorn/opposition that Open Source is getting in the US, while the goodness behind
USA land of the rich, but not free (Score:5, Insightful)
If I pointed a gun to your head, took 10K, invested it, made 20K, and then gave it back to all your friends and took the credit for it - then technically speaking the group would better off financially, but they wouldn't be better off overall because they would have lost controll over their own destinies in the process. IMHO, this is what is happening to the USA. We have lost our financial freedom even though technically speaking we are wealthier than ever.
Re:USA land of the rich, but not free (Score:5, Insightful)
Important Point the Submitter Omitted (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of SCO defense ... (Score:3, Funny)
I know this assertion is attributed to the US Govt, but sounds like Darl from good ole' SCO could have said the exact same thing too!
Capitalism vs Profit (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead, projects are developed and funded by people to USE those projects to create profits as a SIDE benifit, and those profits are not tied directly to the developement or use of those products.
Let us take a big corporation that spends $$ on an "Office" product. They do so, not because "Office" makes them money directly, but because it helps them make money. Big Corporation realizes that it can take a percentage of $$ money spend on licenses, and apply it to an "Open source" project and even direct the project to include features not found in "Office" and end up with a product that is immeasurably better than the original "Office".
Big Company #2, #3 etc all start to realize the same thing, it becomes CHEAPER and BETTER than the original "Office", and each contribute. It actually because Cheaper in the long run to fund Open Source than it does to pay licenses for each new version of "Office".
The company who originally created "Office" (copied actually) complains about "Anti competitive behaviour" and "profits" are only trying to protect that which is not rightfully theirs (the right to profit).
To me, protectionism doesn't work. It is trying to protect the buggy and whip industries as cars start becoming ubiquitous.
I am all for monopolies, as they create other opportunities for innovation. Microsoft is a monopoly and I don't have a problem with it, because THAT is exactly what fostered Open Source.
If STANDARD OIL wasn't broken up, we might actually have ALTERNATIVES to hydrocarbon fuels today. In a free and open society, Monopolies are short lived, because people find OTHER WAYS of doing the same thing.
Capitalism and government do not mix! (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, Open Source is free market driven as well. The customer may pay nothing, but they also may want to pay for closed software so they receive some sort of guaranteed support or whatever it is they want. Just because software is free doesn't mean that there is no cost to run it.
Government picking closed source over open source really doesn't help capitalism any. In a truly capitalist society (The US is NOT capitalist in any way), open source can compete freely with closed source. Indian programmers can compete with American ones.
Safe for capitalism? Remove IP. (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares? (Score:3)
If in the worst case this committee secures funding for enforcement and UN troops start showing up with BSA agents to perform audits then that will most likely just accelerate a shift to open-source.
Free Markets vs. Monopolies (Score:5, Interesting)
Quotes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where does it say that it's the offical position of the US that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'? It's Joe Barr's interpretation, and the second half of that is the posters interpretation of Joe Barr's quote. I would like to see more quotes and references. The article is a lot like
Hey, do you mind (Score:3, Insightful)
That is not what the official position of the organization is. It is the article writer interpretation of the position. The quotes do not surround anything the official said but are part of a sentence in the article where the writer gives his interpretation of the official position.
Ann Coulter would be proud of your effort. But I'm going to hold /. to a slightly better standard than that.
I agree with the article but don't see the value in bad arguments.
Well I read the WSIS docs, did Joe Barr? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that looks to me like oss/free software is in there. and personally I guess I'm inclined to be pleased that it's there at all, rather than bitching that it's not how 'we' might like it.
And then declaring the entire ting to be a failure.
Which is why I don't rely on 'pundits' such as Barr, Perens or FSF to do my thinking for me.
Anyone who's expecting oss/free to be some major plank in a guidance document under the auspices of the UN is either dreaming or stupid.
As for what the US position might or might not be frankly I don't care. Foreign policy is an arcane art at best, and if the US doesn't often fairly represent *my* views in FP, well I don't think many nations' FP's come much closer.
So for my $0.02 (yes, US) I'm glad to call this a (limited) win and go back to doing what I do which is software and engineering and occasionally bitching out / voting out the pols who can't figure out their ass from a hole in the ground. but ultimately they don't matter I do, I do stuff I make stuff, I write stuff and I'm happy enough to leave the politicing to others.
Effects of Sugar Need "More Study" (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should software be any different from sugar?
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson wants more time for conclusive scientific study as the United States recommendations [thestar.com] to the World Health Organization, which has the temerity to come out with outlandish and controversal dietary recommendations such as eating less sugar and more fruits and vegetables.
Other sugar-producing nations in the Americas are falling into line with this policy view. (Although I can't understand that they're very happy with the US subsidies to its domestic sugar producers.)
For those old enough to remember, this "needs more scientific study of direct causal relationship" was trotted out by the tobacco industry for a long time to combat U.S. governmental efforts to label cigarette packs.
Reminds me of an old Italian proverb: (Score:5, Interesting)
There are three ways to get wealth: inherit it, marry it, or steal it.
Given that most of the wealthy nations of the world got that way through theft of some kind or another: colonial resources, natural (many would say aboriginal) resources, intellectual property (North America in the 19th century, witness China doing the same today) or labour (slavery or equivalents). I suspect the third world may take note of the precedent in their drive to get out of poverty.
We in the west are a little too comfy, I think, with the idea that our priveleges are entirely a product of our own innocently industrious natures. I think we are in for a painful readjustment. Even now countries like China are gathering the capability to put our currencies in the toilet. I am personally hoping it only takes stolen "intellectual" property to get the third world out of poverty.
Capitalism & OSS (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously, Capitalism is the economic system which works the best i.e. it provides the best chance for a given nation to operate on it's production possibilities curve (yeah...econ101) and therefore provide the highest standard of living for the people.
I, like most
I do not however like the negative spin that you are putting on Capitalism. Achieving a decent standard of living with plentiful food, medical care, and economic and political stability cannot be achieved as well with any other system; Capitalism has emerged as the clear winner. Degrading this most efficient system because it's not always associated with your views on software licensing is just foolish.
Re:Capitalism & OSS (Score:3, Informative)
The 2002 per capita murder rate of New York City is 200 times that of Vienna. Plenty of other systems work very well at achieving a different balance of priorities in their civil societies.
It just the USians that say 'Our way is best' and run all over the world forcing capitalist democracies on various unfortunate countries. This in light of their own inability to conduct free, fair and accurate elections is quite ironic. (No disrespect to Jimmy Carter, he's a
Most of comments here are WRONG (Score:3, Insightful)
In a government, where it is everyone's money, these money must not be wasted, and many times buying closed source software could become a waste.
So, get with the program, you, proprietary corporations, if you want to sell to governments - sell open source software.
This is not about communism vs capitalism, this is about your money.
The UN are talking to the wrong people (Score:3, Insightful)
Vik
Article Misrepresents Declaration (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_multi-en-
I think the article by Barr misrepresents what the WSIS declaration says. At best, he's confusing what the declaration actually says with what the US representatives may have wanted it to say (or at least what *he* thinks they wanted it to say!). The declaration includes plain language about
1. The importance of public domain: "A rich public domain is an essential element for the growth of the Information Society, creating multiple benefits such as an educated public, new jobs, innovation, business opportunities, and the advancement of sciences. Information in the public domain should be easily accessible to support the Information Society, and protected from misappropriation."
2. The role of open source: "Access to information and knowledge can be promoted by increasing awareness among all stakeholders of the possibilities offered by different software models, including proprietary, opensource and free software, in order to increase competition, access by users, diversity of choice, and to enable all users to develop solutions which best meet their requirements."
3. The only mention of Intellectual Property in the declaration is followed by noting the importance of knowledge dissemination: "Intellectual Property protection is important to encourage innovation and creativity in the Information Society; similarly, the wide dissemination, diffusion, and sharing of knowledge is important to encourage innovation and creativity."
But who am I to spoil the fun of everyone straw-manning the declaration?
Re:capitalism (Score:2)
Re:IP Thieft Good For Capatalisim (Score:3, Insightful)
Pharmaceutical company A spends 10 billion dollars in R&D to create a cure for cancer and does not patent it for the good of the world...
Idealistic world: Other pharmaceutical companies allow company A to recover it's cost and even let it make some profit for the hard work before copying the drug.
Real world: Other companies copy the new cancer drug and sells it a hundred times cheaper then the com
Re:IP Thieft Good For Capatalisim (Score:3, Insightful)
Take cancer for example. Have you hear of Immunogen? It's developed by British Biotech, not University of So and SO. H