Disingenuous? I don't quite see that. At the end of the day, what I said stands or falls on its merits (or lack thereof)... who submitted it to /. is actually pretty irrelevant. Anyway, I'm not going to stop and take the time to create a whole new Slashdot account just to post something today, when I have one I've been using for years.

I suppose you could quibble that I could have used the word "we" in the article description, and that would be something of a fair point. But I just have a habit of writing in a detached, 3rd party voice like that. I don't remember where it came from, but it's the way I've tended to write when referring to organizations in general.

OP here...

AND abandoning OpenSocial, not implementing any relevant open standards in G+, not developing Android in an open fashion, and probably a few dozen other examples that I can't remember offhand.

Yeah, nobody is saying that Google haven't done some amazing things in the past. Or even that they don't still do *some* good things. That's what makes this whole situation even more disturbing! When an organization that you have trusted and looked up to for a very long time begins displaying behavior which suggest that it can no longer be trusted, it is very troubling. And ever since the big re-org at the top and since the advent of G+, Google have definitely been displaying markedly different behavior.

In the end, this is less about Google per-se, than it is about being a warning and a "call to action". As many posters on this thread have said, and as I said in the blog post... at the end of the day, the ultimate defender of the Open Web is US. All of us. A motley collection of individuals, small companies, big companies, medium companies, standards bodies, non-profits, etc. But WE, as in grassroots activists, solo hackers, startup founders, etc., need to pull our heads out of our collective bums and start making a lot more noise and taking action, or we'll wind up with a Web which is good for nothing but shoveling ads and government propaganda down our throats and spying on us.

MS aren't seriously listed as "good guys" they are only on the list because it was initially written in something of a "stream of consciousness" fashion, listing companies that jumped to mind, pro or con and then sometimes (as in the case of Microsoft and Facebook) immediately disqualifying them from the "good guys" list.

Anybody who reads the news and is paying attention to what has been going on lately realizes that Google has changed. Are they completely "evil" now? No, but it's quite clear that openness is less important to them than in the past. They've all but declared war on RSS, they never implemented OpenSocial in Google+, G+ doesn't support any of a whole raft of standards that you'd use when building a social network if you cared about openness, Android has *never* really be developed in the open... it's "open source" but Google do everything and then throw code over the wall to the world. Now, don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all, and I'd rather have an Android code dump than no Android code at all. But the point is that there is a pattern present, where Google are showing less and less interest in Open Web principles.

I do, along with my cofounders.

We do? If so, that's a mistake, if you'll point out where you saw that, I'll fix it. You're right "Open Source 2.0" is a meaningless term. OTOH, we DO mention producing "Open Source Enterprise 2.0" products, where "Enterprise 2.0" is a widely used term (I happen to HATE it, but it's out there and we don't have much choice but to go with the flow on this one) that sort-of means something to people in the Enterprise space.

Yes, we're a startup. Most companies were at one time. :-) I however, as an individual, have been doing this stuff a long time. Go through my /. comment history if you don't believe me.

> Seriously, though, it seems to me that infrastructure spending is one of those no-brainer things that shouldn't even be a question.

Of course it's a question; why should it be any different just because it's "infrastructure?" If there is demand for it, let the free-market provide it... nothing dictates that "infrastructure" be provided by some entity that maintains a monopoly on the use of force. Note too that "free market" includes voluntarily assembled co-operatives and communes. Communal activity for common good is one thing... forced participation in some initiative, at the point of a gun barrel, is something quite different.

Nobody wants to use some proprietary shit anyway. F/OSS continues to displace Microsoft's shitty, inferior proprietary garbage with every passing day, and that's a trend they won't be stopping anytime soon.

I just switched to KDE about 3 weeks ago. My old laptop had finally decayed to the point that I felt justified in buying a new one, and
so I bought a new Toshiba, and slapped Fedora 16 on it. After about 15 minutes of Gnome 3, I had had enough, and switched my default environment
to KDE. It took me less than a day to feel pretty comfortable with KDE, and I couldn't be happier with it as things stand.

Sadly, the only *real* reason I stuck with Gnome as long as I did, was because it had always been the default on RH based distros, and I was just too lazy
to invest the energy to switch and learn a different environment. Well, that and at one time there was sort of a perception that KDE was less "mainstream" somehow because their libraries were GPL licensed. But since KDE went LGPL and as the new versions have improved since the 4.0 release (as I understand it), I don't see any reason to favor Gnome any more.

Label me a convert. KDE all the way.

I'm running OS/2 Warp on mine!

Dear government:

Don't waste your time. We will crack your codes, root your servers, publish your secret documents, and ensure the transparency that is prerequisite to a free and open society.

No matter what steps you take to attempt to hide the corruption and cronyism that dominate this country, we will defeat you. We, the cyberpunks, cypherpunks, crypto-anarchists, techno-libertarians and hackers, will not only evade and defeat any technological measure that you attempt to use against us, but we will actively subvert any such mechanism and use it to further the cause of freedom and liberty.

If you listen to us, we will listen to you. if you track our whereabouts, we will track yours. If you attempt to destroy our systems, we will destroy yours. We will not allow you to control the free flow of information and use secrecy and fear as tools to oppress the people.

#cryptoanarchism #technolibertarian #cyberpunk #cypherpunk #fuckthepolice

That begs of the question of whether or not somebody else has the authority to make that decision for the patient. I contend that the answer is no, and that the original question is moot. An individual can choose whatever treatment they want, and if they die, well... they die. As long as no force or coercion is involved, it's fine.