are the FOSS users going to be considered pirates?

...lobby group is trying to get the US government to consider open source as the equivalent to piracy i.e. if you use open source software you are a pirate and that makes you an enemy of the state.

interesting read here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/feb/23/opensource-intellectual-property

Is it, that my life would finally get adventurous?? ... I almost start to feel like a pirate ... Yarrrrr!

I hope people with common sense will consider this irrelevant ...

 

i read about that on linuxtoday.com as well...
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com...s_users_now_were_all_communists_and_criminals

not to mention communists and criminals...LOL!

i hope this just gets pushed pass eventually..so ridiculous..irreleveant as well.

 

That's a cute article, but lost in all the verbal outrage of the author is an actual logical link from his premises to the conclusion he wishes to reach - that any country that adopts free/open-source software gets put on some nefarious enemies list.

The argument is,

(1) "Special 301" requires that countries that "deny fair and equitable market access for persons that rely on intellectual property protection" be put on this special enemies list;

(2) "There is much talk about how opting for open source creates 'trade barriers' (!). and inhibits a 'level playing field' for software based on IPR (Intellectual Property Rights)";

(3) the author's unsupported personal view that "advocating FOSS fails to build respect for for IPR and denies access to government markets for their product and thus impeded competitiveness (when, in reality, it is closed source that creates barriers)";

(4) the author's unsupported personal view that "Terms like 'anti-competitive' and 'anti-business', when used by Microsoft and their ilk, are just code words concealing demands for proprietary control and monopoly;" and therefore

(5) any country that adopts free/open-source software for its own use, or that advocates (without any compulsory activity) that others, such as private businesses, adopt free/open-source software will, ipso facto, find itself on this "Special 301" enemies list.

Unfortunately, logic does not permit the author to get from (1) to (5), as he clearly wishes to.

Premise (2) is specious - first because the author provides no facts to back up his assertions that there is "much talk" - and second because, even assuming arguendo that there is "much talk" so what? Talk is talk, and talk is cheap, but talk, no matter how loud, is not law, and does not, ipso facto, have any effect on how the provision regarding countries that "deny fair and equitable market access for persons that rely on intellectual property protection" is to be applied, in particular to countries that merely adopt for their own use free/open-source software.

Premise (3) is similarly specious - it is a form of strawman argument, wherein the author has set up what he subjectively believes to be an argument presented by his bogiemen - the so-called opponents of free/open-source software - and then simply assumes both the truth of that argument, without any analysis or factual backup, and further assumes that such an argument must, ipso facto, effect how the provision regarding countries that "deny fair and equitable market access for persons that rely on intellectual property protection" is to be applied, in particular to countries that merely adopt for their own use free/open-source software.

Premise (4) is similarly specious. Words may be code for any number of things, but, as Freud is said to have said, more often than not, words mean precisely what they mean, not what suspicious third-parties with axes to grind imagine they might mean - there are very few Humpty-Dumptys in the world for the simple reason that it is simply too hard to play that role for any length of time.

Absent premises (2) - (4) there is simply no way to get from premise (1) to the conclusion (5).

That is not to argue that big businesses like Microsoft are merely passive victims of the author's subjective political sympathies, nor that they are somehow angels clothed in white, but merely that the author's argument fails so badly that it ought not be given any credence whatsoever.

 

LOL.."cute" article indeed..
mmm..i really like your specific thoughts on that article to which i posted..
its precise and make sense..
i noticed a lot of nonsense in that article as well..which goes to show the whole entire subject is kinda goofy and has no precedence..
idk..its all opinions i spose... linux users..vs...non
Linux users unite! lol
anywho....

 

Linux users shouldn't get so bent out of shape by Microsoft - after all, linux/unix is the de-facto basis for the internet - and, to be quite honest, is getting closer and closer to equivalence for non-powerusers - I've been trying a few livecd releases on my old Sony VAIO, and I've been a little disappointed about how problem-free it's been.

 

*sigh* so I'm not gonna be pirate after all?? oh, my and i almost started googling for nearest shop with peg legs and parrots

 

rubbish..i'm sure you could find something that still suits u (OSS user or not)...LOL

 

That Andres Guadamuz guy sounds like a big.....meany

seriously, if I don't have the money for say...Photoshop and use Gimp instead, then having it taken away from me. Would I buy Photoshop? No. I can't afford it. So how does that hurt Adobe?

 

Nobody's gonna take your GIMP away from you.

 

You can still wear a patch over one eye.....LOL

 

Yep, bring on out the Gimp.....lol

 

I love the GIMP! I've gotten about half-arsed good enough that I can recognize some of the limitations in GIMP, but still, for the most part, it's an extremely impressive piece of software, and when you consider the pricing differential between that and photoshop - you'd be a fool to get photoshop unless you were doing graphics commercially and were successful enough that your income from the graphics work justified the otherwise prohibitive cost.

 

indeed
i find myself using gimp more than photoshop..plus it Is free
not to mention u can get plenty of plugins/extensions/brushes as you do in photoshop.
granted..photoshop does come in handy for a few things..but once u get used to and recognize the full power of gimp..its awesome possum!

 

This is rubbish, users who use OSS are pirates?.. Like hell they are! We/or they are simply using a Free Open Source software. Maybe they should go and chase down those people who feed off torrents for a living.

 

What the french toast... that's ridiculous and I hate how all these people are getting down on open source when in reality it's helpful, not harmful!

 

Absolutely...it'll never go anywhere anyhow.

 

Nobody's doing that - this is a subterfuge written by someone who enjoys controlling you by making you think things like that. Read the article, carefully, and you'll find the lack of a logically solid argument astounding. Don't just read the gloss, or the gloss on the gloss.

 

Crap news like this is why I don't pay attention to the news, rather I pay attention to the real things going on around me.

 

Kinda like my Cat.....lmao !!

 

Oh Yeah Zoid, what a wanderful idea of 'patched' sysadmin :
su -
cd /usr/src/helikaon/head/eye
patch -p1 <../black!_eye!_patch
make
cp pirate.ko /lib/modules/kernel
modprobe pirate

get some!!!!

 

LMAO! love that!

 

I wouldn't care too much about that article. Whoever's written it or thought of the idea doesn't know 0.1 as much how important OSS is to the IT industry. No no mention most of the higher government/military departments probably use a derivative of UNIX/Linux