Re: OT: stop the excessive whining!

[Gregory G Carter <gcarter aesgi com>]

Whining you say?

I do not think it is whining so much as the general decline of American 
based technology offerrings due to patent and copyright issues.

After all, Linux is the future.  That future will be shared in most part 
by the rest of the world and not the United States or probably 
Europe/Australia it would seem.

What sort of impact that will have on the political and military power 
of my country, the USA remains to be seen.

But when 1/3rd of humanity obviously doesn't want your software, 
computer microprocessor technology or even cell phones due to your trade 
and patent/copyright policies it is bound to have a major impact.

If that isn't bad enough, you have leaders in business and industry in 
the USA proclaiming that it is actually good policy to use the draconian 
patent laws to prevent advances in technology, lock down markets and 
drive technology over seas through outsourcing.

So now, in my country, you make money by preventing production and 
research of software, audio, and video by using the court system and use 
other countries to research and develop audio/video software and 
technology to be sold in the USA and in Western Europe.

Within the next 10 years, all of the major software and technology 
advances in the computer industry will come from the Far East and the 
United States will be a country where software is learned as a simple 
academic excercise, that no one would actually seriously consider making 
a product from unless you want to go to jail.

I suspect a major economic meltdown is going to happen in the USA as all 
of the production/research manufacturing leaves the country for China.  
This doesn't simply stop at the computer industry, it is increasingly 
the case in ALL industries in my country.  Computers, Biotech etc.

As it gets worse, I suspect patent and copyright laws will increase over 
here because business leaders in the US actually believe a patent is 
more important than a product.

Quite simply it means there will be fewer people actually able to buy 
cell phones and high tech goods in this country because unless you are a 
lawyer or doctor you won't be able to afford them.  This is already 
happening as most of my fellow Americans can't buy these things now.  
They simply use credit cards to boost their income.  This has worked for 
a while, but won't for very much longer.

The Fedora project I think is an attempt by RedHat to do the best it can 
given the current patent and copyright climate in the USA.  But, don't 
expect it to become better.  More and more kinds of software and other 
technology will become illegal as the markets dry up over here and move 
over seas.

I don't mind if you whine, AT LEAST your not like 1/3rd of humanity that 
decided to chuck any form of USA computer software technology and do not 
actually USE Fedora for something useful such as China for example.  
China and the rest of the Far East it would seem are busily making their 
own distros and microprocessors to run them on.

Ironically the best way to address your issues with Fedora may be the 
silent and ever growing non use of Microsoft products in general I see 
happening very gradually in IT departments in this country.  Since most 
of the best parts of a linux distro are not written in the USA anyways, 
software patents may have a very finite lifetime, if the US lawyers have 
to go to China to kill the GPL like they have been trying to do here.

If you really want to listen to MP3's and make copies of your personal 
data without going to jail, you need to ask and speak up about your work 
places policies on Microsoft products. 

Namely, start pilot programs and see if you can get rid of them!  Start 
with open office, or KOffice or Gnome Office!

Microsoft is becomming the largest patentor of software there is in this 
country and has new plans on the table to destroy Linux, at least in the 
US.  Microsoft knows it cannot compete now against the vast army of 
Linux developers.  It is out gunned and outmanned.  Microsoft's only 
hope is patents and through patents make it illegal to use Linux in the 
US to protect its core market. 

That way they do not have to compete on technology, they can use money 
to buy any law they need to prevent competition with Office/Longhorn 
when it is released.

Even Europe is resisting, or at the very least sees a problem in 
adopting the USA style of business.  Europe with its vast social welfare 
programs can't afford to shut itself out of the Far East like the US has 
already done, in the most part thanks to Microsoft.  They desperately 
need the tax money.

But the real issue here is the patent and copyright issues in the USA, 
and nothing to do with the quality of the distro.

I for one am praying RedHat can hold on through the comming melt down 
and emerge as a cornerstone to restore some part of the software 
industry in this country when this is all over 10 years from now.

-gc










Mark Fonnemann wrote:

> Hello-
>
> is it just me or has there been an excessive amount of whining on the list
> lately? i've kept quiet trying to ignore it but enough is enough. if people put
> the time they spend whining abouut how Fedora inconveniences them etc. into
> time building packages, fixing bugs, writing code, filing bugzilla reports,
> etc. then there would be a lot less problems in Fedora. i don't mean to start a
> flame war but i thought the list was supposed to be fedora-test-list and not
> fedora-bitch-about-whatever-is-bothering-them-on-this-particular-day-even-if-it-
> is-only-remotely-related-to-Fedora-bugs-found-during-testing.
>
> i admit the MP3, video player, and firewire are slightly incoveniencing but
> there are well-known work arounds that exist... and i think everyone has beat
> the issue to death. we all know where redhat stands on this and if people
> aren't happy, then thanks to the freedom of open-source people can migrate
> elsewhere.
>
> anyways, sorry for wasting everyone's time and bandwidth but after the recent
> messages i felt the need to speak up.
>
> mark. :-)
>
>
> 	
> 		
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