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?")
OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE. (Score:2, Insightful)
Full Disclosure: I'm an independent/libertarian - most likely to vote for Bush (it's the war on terrosism stupid!), and wouldn't touch any software from M$ unless forced to do so to keep my job; which does happen almost daily.
Re:one is /. and the other not? (Score:1, Insightful)
Could be that /.er are not interested in Bush link... for some reason.
even for linux fanboys and MS haters (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the reasoning here? "Kerry's webserver runs teh linux, so if he wins he will destroy MS and the world will be happy and live as one with no more wars or fighting."
Re:OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE. (Score:2, Insightful)
They are working with world's best PR companies right?
Re:stupid NYT registration.. (Score:3, Insightful)
So, if you register, they will mail "make your xxx 5 inch bigger"? NY Times? What happens if they show you a damn gif file to cover costs, you will die?
Karma whoring at its best...
Re:And this is the difference. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know, I know, don't feed the trolls, but this one is too good. My bet is that you are typing this on a computer that has large chunks of the hardware manufactured in Taiwan and assembled in mainland China(China actually doesn't do much high tech manufacturing...yet). Probably on Microsoft software, Microsoft has had large development centers in India(thus foriegn) for a while.
And while linux may have originated in Finland, a very large chunk of the code was written in the US.
So I find it hard to believe that Kerry's platform is any less American than yours...
News, Timothy? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not news, Timothy.
Re:It used to be the other way around (Score:4, Insightful)
This is an important point to make. I'm neither trying to be a Bush apologist nor a conspiracy theorist, but it would seem to me that MS put its money where it thought the winner would be (when it made the donations). Certainly Bush has let MS off the hook from their previous trial, but I wouldn't read a cabal in that, rather just a "let's get the govt off of big business' back" appeal to core right-wingers.
If MS handed a campaign a bunch of software with hints of donations to go along with it, any campaign manager would quickly overrule the IT guy who wanted to use Apache "on principle". I wouldn't doubt that the Kerry people would do the same if the same carrots were held out to them (like they were to Gore in 2000).
The sad part is that Open-Source is actually closer to the heart of what used to be core rep[ublican values: openness of information, openness of commerce, libertarian leizzes-faire approach to the market.
*sigh* where are you Ike?
Re:News, Timothy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the editors of a world-class newspaper see it differently, so at least there's room for doubt. I don't understand the hostility: If you don't like it, don't read it. On the other hand, it's something I didn't know, something that has (allegorical) meaning in the race, and it relates to tech. I think that brings it under the banner of "News for Nerds".
Call me crazy... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would bet that if you were to look at political websites beyond those of the Democratic and Republican candidates the division would be far less clear (although I would bet you would still see some of the same division).
Re:even for linux fanboys and MS haters (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is
I think your Big Business rant is a bit over the hypocritical top since this site is run by another "big business"...
- Nate >>
Re:even for linux fanboys and MS haters (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but this is only true outside of the United States at the moment, and maybe not even there if the stupid European Software patents gets approved. If you haven't noticed, MS has been hosing up new and frivalous patents at an alarming rate. It's only a matter of time before they get enough of a portfolio together to slam the living shit out of the penguin.
MS is a big business, who is actively expanding their patent portifolio, but even worse, they are in a position to negotiate hostile patent actions against GNU/Linux i.e. enter an agreement with a smaller patent holding company keen to do business with the behemoth. MS is already using SCO like some sort of meat puppet to put pressure on GNU/Linux, they won't stop there.
When they have enough patents organised, they can get a court request to stop distribution of Linux until it is recoded to not use those patents. This could include simple things double clicks, access to the FAT32 file system, SMB patents, maybe some of that OpenGL stuff they got a few years back. In any case, the penguin will always be in peril; in a world with software patents there is no true freedom to innovate with software.
OR IT COULD BE JUST FINANCIAL (Score:4, Insightful)
Fire this guy! (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy obviously has his head so far up Microsoft's ass that hey's bought everything they've said about secure computing. Let's see, there's currently a worm that's infected thousands of IIS servers across the internet (who knows, it could have even infected the GOP's), and it's spreading via Javascript to millions of IE users, for which Microsoft has issued no patch, and yet this is somehow the most secure solution? The mind boggles. Even joe sixpack by now knows that MS is not secure after his Windows box sends him popups when there is no browser loaded and he has to reformat it and start over every three months after being infected with the worm du jour.
I personally find it interesting that the vast majority of the people I talk to consider this to be a "normal" computing experience. When my landlord told me the other day that they'd been infected by Bugbear and had spent a difficult few days trying to clean it off, I said "Well, that's one of the reasons I switched to Mac... No worms or viruses (yet)." He said "Oh, really? You don't have to run Norton's?"
I find it amazing that the majority of computer users out there think that spending $30 a year on subscriptions to AV software and firewalls is a normal expense that you just have to pay for, like the electric utility or water bill, if you want to use a computer. They have no clue that this software is only necessary to make up for a lack of security in the OS to begin with.
The only analogy I would compare it with is if Ford, rather than recalling all of the Explorers that rolled over, simply said, well, you'll have to buy a subscription to our special "tire tread enhancer service", and bring in your car every week to have the treads updated to the latest and greatest treads that won't separate. That way you won't roll over in a crash and explode in a ball of fire. Can you imagine the outcry if that happened? Why isn't MS held to the same standards?
Re:stupid NYT registration.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen.
Every ./ user should be using bugmenot [bugmenot.com] by now. And every person who whines about subscription required should be using and promoting bugmenot [bugmenot.com]! I don't think there's anything wrong with the NYTimes [nytimes.com] asking for registration. I think it's wrong that you slackers are complaining about it, rather than showing them the futility of trying to gather information this way.
It's similar to people who protests against copyright laws, but aren't actively distributing copyrighted material. The only way to beat the system is to BREAK it. If you aren't being civily disobediant, you are supporting the law.
Finally, as regards the article itself:
So the real point here is that support of open source has nothing to do with political ideology?
So, the article says CLEARLY that open source is not a stricly republican or democrat favorite.
And of course Libertarians [self-gov.org] are further right on the political line graph than republicans, and they are big supporters of OSS. So OSS views actually have NOTHING to do with your political party?
This story is pure and simple propoganda. The headline and opening paragraphs make it seem like republicans are against open source. It would be like saying Democrats are against gay marriage just because John Kerry is [boston.com] The reality is that politics, like OSS decisions are all about choice. In this case, one person chose their platform of choice. For example, This Repbulican [state.tx.us] introduced legislation [linuxworld.com] in Texas [guardian.co.uk] which seeks to ensure that free/open-source software is given a level playing field when competing with proprietary products in state agencies There was a /. article about it a year ago, but damned if I can find it now.
That doesn't mean all republicans are pro OSS either. It just means that
OSS is prefered by everyone who gets to know it
the NYTimes is pro-Kerry
if you must read the Times, read the whole article.
Sometimes (pun intended) [nytimes.com] the reporting is good, but the headlines are rarely written by the reporters who know the story. Editors write headlines, and they write the headline that will get the most people to buy the paper. They slant them as per their personal choice and perception as to wh
Re:even for linux fanboys and MS haters (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. The fact that the Republican party would choose to use an inferior commercial software package (IIS) when a superior free version of the same software is available (Apache) goes a long way towards showing what type of party they are. As much as they say they want "small government", when it comes down to it, they want "big government" propping up "big companies" with taxpayer subsidies. Plain and simple. This also shows why as soon as they are in power, they invent a war in order to provide more government money to their big contractor buddies (Halliburton, KBR, Enron, etc.). Sure, the webserver expenditures are only a small part of it, but it shows how completely the GOP has been bought and paid for by large corporations.
I'm not saying the Dems are completely innocent as well, but let's face it, they're much less in the pocket of large defense contractors, pharmaceutical companies, energy companies, and yes, software monopolies.
big omission (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a specific type of policy oriented towards open-ness that led to the Internet being the way it is. The software that underlies the Internet is free software, it has been and still is the dominant form of software in the infrastructure which makes up the Internet. Open source is not "counter culture" on the Internet as the article portrays. The only reason MS has any role on the Internet is they have leveraged their desktop monopoly.
I wish reporters understood these things.
Re:OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE. (Score:3, Insightful)
User friendly (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a long time linux user at home, however I use NT at work.
My friends and family use windows 2000 and XP. I can't figure it out. I spend a lot of my time asking them how to do the simplest of tasks, different applications have different default save locations. I don't know where the configuration files are.
I like knowing that when I use an application it will save in ~
The user specific configuration is in ~/.application.
When I reinstall windows I am sure to forget some details like IE bookmarks, or other preferences buried around the computer in random locations.
I know linux isn't the simplest easiest most straightforward OS. But once you learn it, it is really easy to use. Windows IMO works okay if you click around and hunt, but it has so many odd details to remember that it is a frustrating user experience if you haven't done something recently.
The odd details in linuxland tend to be command line switches, which are typically documented in the man page. Where in the windows help system is the location of my IE, netscape or opera bookmarks documented?
Re:OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE. (Score:3, Insightful)
Christ, Bush has done everything possible to say Fuck You to libertarians, more so than any Democrat ever has since LBJ, and you're still going to vote for him on the basis of his most statist position--an orwellian-style endless war? I don't think you know what libertarian means.
In any event, your choice of tools determines the level of power corportations like Microsoft have over our lives. This is inherently and unavoidably political, making them something more than tools. You are wrong. The candidates themselves may not care, but it says a lot about the culture of their campaigns that one's IT department chooses freedom and the other chooses corporate dominance.
W3C? (Score:3, Insightful)
John Kerry W3C [w3.org]
George Bush W3C [w3.org]
Re:OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE. (Score:2, Insightful)
From: A talk delivered by Israeli, Haim Harari
Date: 20 Jun 2004
Time: 19:30:39
Comments
A View from the Eye of the Storm -- An Excellent Tutorial
Talk delivered by Haim Harari at a meeting of the International Advisory Board of a large multi-national corporation, April, 2004
As you know, I usually provide the scientific and technological "entertainment" in our meetings, but, on this occasion, our Chairman suggested that I present my own personal view on events in the part of the world from which I come.
I have never been and I will never be a Government official and I have no privileged information. My perspective is entirely based on what I see, on what I read and on the fact that my family has lived in this region for almost 200 years. You may regard my views as those of the proverbial taxi driver, which you are supposed to question, when you visit a country.
I could have shared with you some fascinating facts and some personal thoughts about the Israeli-Arab conflict. However, I will touch upon it only in passing. I prefer to devote most of my remarks to the broader picture of the region and its place in world events. I refer to the entire area between Pakistan and Morocco, which is predominantly Arab, predominantly Moslem, but includes many non-Arab and also significant non-Moslem minorities.
Why do I put aside Israel and its own immediate neighborhood? Because Israel and any problems related to it, in spite of what you might read or hear in the world media, is not the central issue, and has never been the central issue in the upheaval in the region.
Yes, there is a 100 year-old Israeli-Arab conflict, but it is not where the main show is.
The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do with Israel.
The mass murder happening right now in Sudan, where the Arab Moslem regime is massacring its black Christian citizens, has nothing to do with Israel.
The frequent reports from Algeria about the murders of hundreds of civilian in one village or another by other Algerians have nothing to do with Israel.
Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait, endangered Saudi Arabia and butchered his own people because of Israel.
Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen in the 60's because of Israel.
Assad the Father did not kill tens of thousands of his own citizens in one week in El Hamma in Syria because of Israel.
The Taliban control of Afghanistan and the civil war there had nothing to do with Israel.
The Libyan blowing up of the Pan-Am flight had nothing to do with Israel,
and I could go on and on and on.
The root of the trouble is that this entire Moslem region is totally dysfunctional, by any standard of the word, and would have been so even if Israel had joined the Arab league and an independent Palestine had existed for 100 years.
The 22 member countries of the Arab league, from Mauritania to the Gulf States, have a total population of 300 millions, larger than the US and almost as large as the EU before its expansion.
They have a land area larger than either the US or all of Europe.
These 22 countries, with all their oil and natural resources, have a combined GDP smaller than that of Netherlands plus Belgium and equal to half of the GDP of California alone.
Within this meager GDP, the gaps between rich and poor are beyond belief and too many of the rich made their money not by succeeding in business, but by being corrupt rulers.
The social status of women is far below what it was in the Western World 150 years ago.
Human rights are below any reasonable standard, in spite of the grotesque fact that Libya was elected Chair of the UN Human Rights commission.
According to a report prepared by a committee of Arab intellectuals and published under the auspices of the U.N., the number of books translated by the entire Arab world is much smaller than what little Greece alone translates.
Re:OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE. (Score:2, Insightful)
Liberterian my Ass. (Score:4, Insightful)
Bush has grown the size of the govt more then any other president in recent history.
He runs up record debt.
He invades sovereign countries which are of no threat to the US.
He is the champion of the patriot act.
He wants to amend the constitution to prevent gays from marrying.
He fights states that want to legalize medicinal marijuana.
He fights states that pass right to die statutes.
Like most people who call them sleves liberterians you are simply a republican you is ashamed to say so. Please don't besmirch the liberterian party by calling yourself one while voting for the least liberterian candidate.
Re:even for linux fanboys and MS haters (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you. This is the flimsiest excuse to bash Bush and Republicans that I've seen a quite a while. Fun fact: Free Republic [freerepublic.com], home of the vast right wing conspiracy, runs 100% OSS.
Re:Liberterian my Ass. (Score:4, Insightful)
You may add to your list the following:
* He supports laws which violate the Second Amendment. [e.g. the 1994 Assualt Weapons Ban]
* He supports the arrest and incarceration of those accused of a crime without giving them a trial as required by the Constitution. [in Gitmo. Fortunately, the Supreme Court recently smacked him for doing it.]
* He has attempted to merge church and state. [particularly in schools]
* He has instituted taxes upon the consumers of particular industries so as to aid those industries in their commerce. [e.g. the steel tariffs, although thankfully, they have been reduced from their original level]
I'm sure there's others too if I sat around and thought about it long enough...
Bah, what a stupid article (Score:2, Insightful)
The Kerry website is better designed visually, it's less hectic, easier to find the critical information you want.
But the Bush website has better tools, they have a very nice database of contributors that you can search. They've put together nifty features with video, automatic creation of PDF posters and different things like that.
Whatever.
It's not the tools people, it's what you do with them that matters.
Re:Liberterian my Ass. (Score:2, Insightful)
Generally speaking, Libertarians are financially conservative and socially liberal. Last election, I voted for Harry Browne (the Libertarian candidate). If forced to choose between the Big Two, I would have voted for Bush, who was selling himself as a social moderate and a financial conservative. This election, if forced to choose between the Big Two, I would go for Kerry.
He *might* be worse, but after watching Bush and company expand the war on drugs (hey, the USA PATRIOT act chimes in: manufacture certain drugs and now you are a terrorist with a CHEMICAL WEAPONS FACILITY!), while ballooning the federal government and waging a war in Iraq that didn't seem to be justified in the eyes of many (for instance, Europe), I couldn't really imagine how.
Of course, I'll actually be voting for Badnarik.
On the bright side, Bush just might let the "assault weapons" ban sunset.