Subject: Free Software compared to Terrorism - looks like the ultimate in FUD

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:41:24 +0200

http://www.theobjectiveobserver.com/articles/technology03.shtml
1. I do not see as much hate-filled rhetoric among Free Software
developers as the author sees.
2. The author claims that mentioning security vulnerabilities of
commercial software is an attempt to use Fear to persuade people to
switch to Free Software.  He ignores the other side of the coin - that
commercial software developers, who do not design their products for
security, are as guilty as pharmeutical manufacturers, who sell
defective medications.
3. Disregard of law by Free Software proponents - he ignores the
official position of respecting others' intellectual properties.  Those
who violate copyrights by file sharing are ones who would violate those
copyrights even if there were no Free Software.  The other example of
"theft" cited - Bruce Peren’s admission of “stealing time from Pixar to
work on Linux” - does not include evidence that Pixar considered this as
a theft, or that it was harmful to their business (which relied upon
Linux clusters).

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From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:33:32 +0200

> developers as the author sees.

I also see a lot of inaccuracies, over-generalisations, wrong facts, and lack 
of credit in the article (which I did not finish reading because I found out 
to be completely ridiculus). In the entire article, not a single link or 
reference is given. There are some quotations, but they are un-sourced and 
probably taken out of context.

> security, are as guilty as pharmeutical manufacturers, who sell

One should also note that security vulnerabilities in open-source products are 
publicised, and often quickly fixed. If a project exercises poor security 
practices, one is free to fork it, which cannot be said on most proprietary 
software.

> copyrights even if there were no Free Software.  

"Intellectual property" is a wrong and misleading term - http://xrl.us/bhuyk . 
In the same link I argue why copyrights in the digital age, despite being 
valid, should not extend to trying to control the non-commercial distribution 
of copyrighted works, and why copying copyrighted files is fully objectively 
ethical.

But you are right that it is orthogonal to the free software/open-source 
issues.

He does mention violating patents in the article, but this is an issue that is 
not specific to free software. Recently Microsoft lost a case where someone 
sued them for patents covering the mp3 technology (despite the fact that it 
licensed it.). And there were many other cases mentioned on Slashdot.

> The other example of 

Actually, back at the time Pixar used a Solaris-based cluster, or at least 
that is what they set up for Toy Story. They switched to Linux and 
Intel-based clusters later on.

----------------

In any case, I think this guy is lying to himself if he calls himself "The 
Objective Observer". If you're interested in a really objective analysis of 
open-source see my own:

http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/obj-oss/

BTW, he has a "Valid XHTML 1.0" button at the end. The code running the 
validator is fully open-source and can be downloaded and installed (as I 
did).

Also see:

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.theobjectiveobserver.com

It is running Apache on Linux, both open-source.

Saying that open-source is equivalent to terrorism is a bit absurd. Terrorists 
harm the lives and (tangible) property of innocent people. Open-source 
hackers don't do anything besides generating code, which by itself is 
harmless at worst and very useful at best. See my essay for more information.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      [email-masked]
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

I'm not an actor - I just play one on T.V.

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From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:36:42 -0700

> http://www.theobjectiveobserver.com/articles/technology03.shtml

Just FYI, theobjectiveobserver.com is a personal web site, registered to:

   Greg Deckler
   155 Jackson Blvd
   Plain City, Ohio 43046
   United States

It's just one person writing all that, and he's far from being
objective or logical. Let me use the good old ad hominem attack and
bring just a few quotes from other articles:

"Pi is the unsolvable equation for life because pi represents a
perfect circle. Life is a perfect cycle in a world of imperfection."

"The Maxwell's demon thought problem forms the basis of a scientific
hypothesis for God."

"So then, here's the kicker. Despite all of these brains, despite all
of this history and despite the fact that the general effects and
properties of all of these forces are well known and understood,
physicists STILL don't actually know WHAT a force really is. No,
really, I'm serious. Now, think about this for a minute. This is like
coming home to your 12-year-old son standing in the front yard with a
baseball bat, a broken window and a baseball inside your house and not
being able to explain what happened. What passes for an explanation is
that "fermions" exchange "virtual particles" which mediate the
"interaction". I seriously and truly do NOT make this stuff up folks.
Somebody else does. "It's not my fault dad, the fermions did it!".
Damn you fermions, you'll pay for my window. I mean, at least they
could have come up with a term that doesn't sound like an alien race
from Babylon 5."

"OK, so the Jews were slaves thousands of years ago, we're talking
B.C. here folks, in the Middle East. Moses led his people (the Jews)
out of slavery, parted the Red Sea, yadda, yadda. Now, first of all,
it is not like the Jews left the Middle East under the best of terms.
People hated them thousands of years ago because they were the slave
underclass. People thought of them as property, not people. Second, if
the Biblical text is to be believed, it is not like the Jews worked
real hard to endear themselves, spreading plagues, raining toads,
killing people's first born and the like. No wonder they were driven
away into the desert! I mean...come on."

and the clincher:

"The Internet, the great time waster. People waste their time to
provide content and other people waste their time consuming that
content. It is a sick, twisted little circle that feeds inexorably
upon itself. It's a nauseous, corrupt version of the six degrees of
Kevin Bacon where with each link the information becomes less useful
and finally just plain weird."

Take care,

-- Arik