[TriLUG] Where is Linux today?

[Jim Tuttle]

Man, I thought that book, Here Comes Everybody, was kind of lame.  Clay
Shirkey is in that talking head realm with Siva Vaidhyanathan and Corey
Doctorow.  Sooo over-rated.  I recommend books by any of them if you
have a table you need to level on the cheap.

Jim



Cristóbal Palmer wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 3:17 PM, Tanner Lovelace <clubjuggler at gmail.com> wrote:
>> In addition, you don't have to deal with kernel politics or distributions
>> making a statement by not including codecs (which I applaud their
>> stance, btw, but I just like things to work) or any of that stuff that
>> just gets tired after so long.
> 
> Here's where I get to quote from page 133 of Clay Shirky's new book,
> /Here Comes Everybody/ [0]:
> 
> ""
> There's an increasing amount of evidence, in fact, that specific parts
> of our brain are given over to making economically irrational but
> socially useful calculations. In one well-known experiment, called the
> Ultimatum game, two people divide ten dollars between them. The first
> person is given the money and can divide it between the two of them in
> any way he likes; the only freedom the second person has is to take or
> leave the deal for both of them. Pure economic rationality would
> suggest that the second person would accept any split of the money,
> down to a $9.99-to-$.01 division, because taking even a penny would
> make him better off than before. In practice, though, the recipient
> would refuse to accept a division that was seen as too unequal (less
> than a $7-to-$3 split, in practice) even though this meant that
> neither person received any cash at all.
> 
> ""
> 
> I highly recommend this book, btw.
> 
> It's more than just a stance when Fedora refuses to include codecs.
> How exactly would the Fedora Project pay for the licenses? How exactly
> would they comply with licenses that forbid redistribution? Red Hat is
> a US company and is more than kinda-sorta bound by US law. Apple is
> making money on units that they ship, and they only have to pay for
> licenses on those units. The Fedora Project doesn't get income from
> each ISO download or bittorrent seed, so how exactly would paying for
> per-user or per-download licenses scale?
> 
> Furthermore, when your commitment is to Free/Libre, how do you square
> that with distinctly non-free licenses? Respectfully, it's quite a bit
> more than a stance. It's a public commitment on licenses. It's a
> public commitment on patents. It's working for what many of us believe
> is right and not just what's easy in the short term. Yes, there's some
> cost and inconvenience tied to that commitment. I think the fight is
> worth that short-term cost. That may not be an economically rational
> stance.
> 
> What you're saying is that being okay with closed, proprietary
> software means you don't have to worry with the pesky consequences of
> a commitment to free and open source software, but you're proud of
> just how much free and open source software is part of the Macs that
> ship from apple and that is available for Macs. I guess I don't quite
> follow that mix of emotional appeal and rational calculation. Is there
> a magic percentage of a system that will make it "free enough" for
> you? 85% of the LOC? Or is there some demarcation between the kernel
> and userspace, non-free stuff being okay in userspace? Or maybe it's
> by function? Non-free stuff is okay when it has to do with sound?
> Because I don't understand. Where is closed, proprietary software okay
> under your logic?
> 
> To be fair, I do used some closed, proprietary software: flash. I
> justify this to myself on the grounds that Adobe gives the flash
> player away to end users freely and has put in the effort to make a
> player that "works" with my system. I don't like that I do this and it
> feels like cheating, but the open players that I've tried choke far
> more often than the Adobe player, and the vast majority of the video
> on the blogs I read is in a flash container. Hopefully the near future
> will bring with it more openness and a fully free flash player that
> works with all the major flash video services.
> 
> Or we could talk about game consoles. Is closed, proprietary software
> there okay? Personally, I'm not terribly worried that game consoles
> are closed platforms and that the purveyors of those platforms do a
> fair bit of work to keep them that way (with the notable, interesting
> exception of many parts of the PS3). Why am I not worried? Game
> consoles are a concern of rich kids, and I personally don't think that
> people who don't use game consoles are missing anything terribly
> important.
> 
> So, how's this for a summary of where most people on the list stand:
> "I like as much free software as I can get, and when it's reasonably
> convenient (eg. in the context of a file server), I'll go ALL FREE. If
> it's going to mean any personal investment of energy, though, I'd
> rather buy and put up with some closed software." Is that a fair
> characterization? If that's the case, then I ask you: what happens
> when big companies like Microsoft are able to change the legal
> landscape to add inconveniences that tilt your rational, economic
> calculus? You now have to pay $5 where you had to spend nothing before
> to get the same functionality. But $5 is nothing. What about $50?
> $100? What's your price? At what point does it stop being an
> inconvenience and start being a matter of principle or emotion?
> 
> I'm asking honestly and sincerely. Where do you draw the line and say
> That's Not Right?
> 
> Choosing Free Software in the context of a file server is about a
> rational cost decision. /Refusing/ closed software when no viable Free
> equivalent exists is a socially useful calculation.
> 
> Cheers,


-- 
--
---Jim Tuttle
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