[ale] FSF launches anti-Windows 7 assault

[Mike Harrison]

On Thu, 3 Sep 2009, Josh Wells wrote:

> Went to the website. Looks like a bunch of bunk to me. Is all 
> proprietary software and other technology under assault here or is 
> Microsoft the only bad guy?

That's the problem with the extreme view that such groups have.
Microsoft is NOT the only bad guy.

Heck, I am writing software for a living with a hardware based encryption 
module that locks down a customer in ways that'd give Balmer and Jobs
a priapism. And use Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP to do it. Gotta make a living, 
etc.. I AM evil - with some very happy paying customers. :)

But my point is, it's an extreme view, and doesn't relate well
to even most technically aware people. It makes us sound like PETA.

(apologies to PETA supporters in advance,
please don't spray me with ketchup, I may not realize
it's ketchup and think it's my blood or a biological agent..
and may defend myself).

Zealots are dismissed. We need rational representation that relates to the 
real world. Or we get the pirate party/ libertarians on an acid trip, and 
no-one listens to them as they wind into hyperdrive about subtle (yet 
important) points of intellectual property rights.

Let's make it simple:

__________________ is screwing you for insane profit margins and 
stock options, because you let them.

You can insert Microsoft, Philip Morris, Apple, AT&T..
Just about anyone on that blank.

But I have a solution: the Ludditeville Commune.

Let's all move there and have 100% freedom in everything
we create, by hand, with the natural materials available to us,
and we share freeley everything. A place where Linus's Kernel,
is a seed from Linus's tree. The 'net will the net we
all wove to go fishing with.

Somewhere in between the two extremes should be
for-profit entities that play well with others.

--I gotta get to work.. gotta pay them bills. --Mike--