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If You Pirate, It's Yours For Life @ 2008-10-18 15:45:00
Filed under: Philosophy  Politics  Tech 

From here.

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Suits of POWER @ 2007-12-15 22:34:42
Filed under: Philosophy  Politics 
I was reading a paper about sociopathic behavior I remembered reading the terrible "The 48 Laws of Power" (disgusting). The similarities are pretty obvious and scary when you think about it: Business people are purposely turning themselves into sociopaths.
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Garry Kasparov charged over rally @ 2007-11-24 15:05:30
Filed under: Politics 
WTF is going on over in Russia?
The Russian authorities have charged opposition leader and former chess 
champion Garry Kasparov following clashes with police in Moscow.

He and other opposition figures were detained during a rally organised by Mr 
Kasparov's Other Russia coalition.

Mr Kasparov was forced to the ground and beaten before being detained, 
his assistant told AP news agency.

He was later charged with organising an illegal protest and resisting arrest.

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I Will Not Respect Microsoft @ 2007-08-11 20:04:16
Filed under: Media  Microsoft  Personal  Philosophy  Politics  Tech 
Apparently Zemlin wants those of us in the FLOSS world to respect Microsoft. Here are my thoughts

Open source vendors have to recognise[sic] that Windows is here to stay [...]

So is AIDS but it doesn't make it a good thing nor should I 'respect' it.

"There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. 
Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, 
and has a good track record in fending off competition.

I totally agree. They can sell ice to an Eskimo. They have a very strong marketing group. That doesn't make me respect them though. Marketing has nothing to do with code nor freedom.

"This is a matter of leadership - for us to recognise that the world some 
times does see open source or open source licences as risky," said Zemlin. 
He also pointed out that many firms shy away from participating on open 
source mailing lists because discussions there tend to explode into flame wars.

The open source world is bright and scary to folks who have been living in the technological dark ages. It's understandable. When it comes to mailing lists avoidance because of possible flame wars .... welcome to the internet. It happens. Again it's understandable to think it's a bit weird at first but, unlike product XYZ where you are only a consumer and have very little to no control as to how projects move, you get at least a bit and that can mean being at odds with someone else.

Zemlin also called for a better synchronisation between projects. As software 
projects are increasingly bundling several projects, they would benefit from 
synchronised released scheduled.


That's not really a good thing. Another one of FLOSS's strong points is that the software is ready when the software is ready. It makes it stable and do what is expected. If projects start trying to hit deadlines to meet other projects deadlines we are going to end up in PM hell (which is pretty normal in most closed source shops). If project A is ready, project B is ready, project C is not, and project D is mainly ready we could see C and D release to not hold up A and B causing bad releases. Let's not copy Microsoft in that respect!

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Another US Right Slipping @ 2007-07-19 19:29:55
Filed under: Frustration  Politics 
From Slashdot:
"Tuesday, there wasn't even a fuss. Wednesday, the world was a little different. 
By executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury may now seize the property of any 
person who undermines efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political 
reform in Iraq. The Secretary may make his determination in secret and after the 
fact."


Why does this weird stuff keep happening?

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