The Software Politics Of 2004's Presidential Race 417
mjamil writes "The NYT(free registration required) has an article talking about the polarized use of OSS in the building of campaign Web sites. Specifically, it states that the sites for John Kerry (Democratic candidate for President) and the Democratic National Committee are built using OSS, while the site for President Bush's re-election campaign uses IIS. Linus and ESR are quoted. It's an interesting look at how even presidential politics are no longer immune to the free software war (free as in beer)." (David Brunton, pictured in the article, wrote to say "Now I'm going to go call my mom... won't she be proud? For all those girl geeks and gay geeks out there, I'm already taken, but it is an awful nice picture, isn't it?")
I AM NOW VIOLATING COPYRIGHT (Score:4, Informative)
The Web sites of Senator John Kerry and the Democratic National Committee run mainly on the technology of the computing counterculture: open-source software that is distributed free, and improved and debugged by far-flung networks of programmers.
In the other corner, the Web sites of President Bush and the Republican National Committee run on software supplied by the corporate embodiment of big business - Microsoft.
The two sides are defined largely by their approach to intellectual property. Fans of open-source computing regard its software as a model for the future of business, saying that its underlying principle of collaboration will eventually be used in pharmaceuticals, entertainment and other industries whose products are tightly protected by patents or copyrights.
Many of them propose rewriting intellectual property laws worldwide to limit their scope and duration. The open-source path, they insist, should accelerate the pace of innovation and promote long-term economic growth. Theirs is an argument of efficiency, but also of a reshuffling of corporate wealth.
Microsoft and other American companies, by contrast, have long argued that intellectual property is responsible for any edge the United States has in an increasingly competitive global economy. Craig Mundie, chief technical officer and a senior strategist at Microsoft, observed, "Whether copyrights, patents or trade secrets, it was this foundation in law that made it possible for companies to raise capital, take risks, focus on the long term and create sustainable business models."
The dispute can take on a political flavor at times. David Brunton, who is a founder of Plus Three, a technology and marketing consulting company that has done much of the work on the Democratic and Kerry Web sites, regards open-source software as a technological expression of his political beliefs. Mr. Brunton, 28, a Harvard graduate, describes himself as a "very left-leaning Democrat." He met his wife, Lina, through politics; she is a staff member at the Democratic National Committee.
His company's client list includes state Democratic parties in Ohio and Missouri, and union groups including the United Federation of Teachers and the parent A.F.L.-C.I.O. "The ethic of open source has pervaded progressive organizations," Mr. Brunton said.
The corporate proponents of strong intellectual property rights say, in essence, that what is good for Microsoft, Merck and Disney is good for America. But they argue as well that the laws that protect them also protect the ideas of upstart innovators. They have made their case forcefully in Washington and before international groups, notably the World Intellectual Property Organization, a United Nations specialized agency.
"This is a huge ideological debate and it goes way beyond software," said James Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, a nonprofit group affiliated with Ralph Nader that advocates less restrictive intellectual property rules.
But the politics surrounding open-source software do not always fit neatly into party categories. The people who work on software like the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server and others are an eclectic bunch of technologists. "You'll find gun nuts along with total lefties," Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, said in an e-mail message.
Still, those who find the cooperative, open-source ethos appealing tend most often to be libertarians, populists and progressives. Not surprisingly, open-source software was well represented in Howard Dean's Democratic presidential primary campaign, which so effectively used the Internet and Web logs in grass-roots organizing.
Those open-source advocates will presumably find Senator Kerry more appeal
Re:free as in beer (Score:2, Informative)
Free as in speech = Freedom. You have the right to do this.
Google Link (reg free) (Score:1, Informative)
Re:free as in beer (Score:5, Informative)
Free as in beer - costs no money
Freedom - no (or not many) restrictions on it. I.e. opensource software may be thought of as "free" because you are (usually) entitled to modify and redistribute the software to suit your purposes, so long as you follow some basic rules.
What Microsoft gives (Score:5, Informative)
no registration link (Score:1, Informative)
Re:What Microsoft gives (Score:5, Informative)
2000: 53% to the Republicans.
2002: 60% to the Republicans.
2004: 42% to the Republicans.
Hmm. General trend, downwards.
Re:even for linux fanboys and MS haters (Score:3, Informative)
It's a metaphor, son. One side in this race believes in unquestioned authority, tight control, sacrosanct wealth, and operation through secrets. Care to guess which? Hint: It runs as deep as the software they choose.
Is this the sort of thing that makes a person vote one way or another? No, but it's all part of the gestalt.
Re:free as in beer (Score:5, Informative)
The word "free" can mean more than one thing in the english language. In order to explain the meaning of the word "free" you can append a short explanaition, such as "as in beer" or "as in speech".
Free (as in beer) means that the product/service in question can be obtained/used without you having to pay money for it. This is perhaps the most common use of the word in the daily language.
Free (as in speech) is a phrase only valid when discussing information. Free (as in speech) means that the information in question doesn't have a copyright restriction appended it (or similar).
On slashdot, the most common subject of discussion is software. Just like a song, a software program can be free-as-in-beer, free-as-in-speech or both. The idea of OSS is that software should be free (as in speech), so that you are legally allowed to modify, complement, extend, etc. it.
Just because a piece of software is free (as in speech) does not mean that it has no restrictions in how it can be handled. Examples of restrictions are:
Re:It used to be the other way around (Score:5, Informative)
From the PoliTech Mailing list and comments (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE. (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:even for linux fanboys and MS haters (Score:5, Informative)
So you wouldn't mind if I stole $1000 from you, I presume. I mean, stealing $1000 doesn't really hurt the average American, does it? Go and tell those people in the third world who are trying to scratch a living on a dollar a day how someone stealing $1000 from your bank account hurts you.
ii) How can MS hold back an entire industry when your OSS people are free to innovate all they want?
The existence of a superior solution at a lower price does not automatically mean it will be adopted. In the hypothetical case that MS were using their huge cash reserves to bribe IT managers to choose Microsoft products, for example, it wouldn't matter how good Linux was - Microsoft would be chosen.
I'm not claiming that's happening for a moment - I'm just answering your question. It's a possible way.
iii) fair point. But I feel you are being a little naive if you don't believe Kerry will be *almost* as subservient to big business as Bush.
An equally fair point. But it remains the case that you should pick the lesser of two evils, even if that means you're still getting an evil.
Linux does *not* preserve my freedom. If linux disappeared tomorrow, the world would not blink. 95% of the world's population have never heard of it, and if someone told them about it, they wouldn't care. IT'S JUST A COMPUTER PROGRAM and it WILL NOT change the world.
MS-DOS was just a computer program, of which at least 90% of the world's population have still never heard, and that changed the world - by helping personal computers to become commodities.
Now Linux is changing the world, by helping people in third-world countries to gain access to cheap computers.
Just because you haven't noticed the difference, doesn't mean the world is still the same.
Re:even for linux fanboys and MS haters (Score:3, Informative)
These aren't "linux fanboy" issues, they are ones that the government will make decisions on and will effect how $billions in our economy and worldwide flow.
Re:stupid NYT registration.. (Score:2, Informative)
Roadfield extention page which includes the BugMeNot extention. [roachfiend.com]
Re:OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE. (Score:3, Informative)
Even our (turkish) anti american communist terrorist(this last one is the issue) morons sites run IIS
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It used to be the other way around (Score:3, Informative)
Here's an interesting(?) review [keynote.com] of the sites of the Presidential candidates' websites.
Here's another review and commentary [crispen.org] about the websites, including a count of the number of errors in the HTML.
Netcraft says [netcraft.com] that Bush actually was running Apache for a while before the election, but switched to IIS by October (at the latest) and has been stuck there ever since.
Re:And this is the difference. (Score:3, Informative)
and the parent:
The grandparent was referring to George H.W. Bush, who was, in fact, a war hero, having been shot down as a dive bomber pilot during the battle of Midway. George W. Bush, on the other hand, was a pilot of obsolete Air National Guard jet fighters during the last years of the Viet Nam conflict who occasionally appeared for drill.
Many of us who were on active duty at the time considered that to be the "moral equivalent" of draft-dodging.
Lands in Italy too (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe there's a little bit of populism about that too (actually, there is a lot: L'Unità has always expressed its bad feelings with the Bush family and decisions), but it's interesting seeing that:
a) Someone there often reads Slashdot (this isn't the first article appearing the same day in both places)
b) Although they can't spell "Mozilla" in the right way, they give a try to explain what are the advantages of Free Software over proprietary one (doing a little bit of confusion with OpenSource, but unfortunately we're used to that here in Italy)
Well, some conscience is far better than none.
If you're an italian speaker, here's the link. [unita.it]
Greens use open-source (Score:2, Informative)
David himself is not much of a technophile, but has the sense to use a PowerBook on the road.
Re:Greens use open-source (Score:2, Informative)
-Susan
http://greens.org/~sdridi [greens.org]