OT: stop the excessive whining!
Gregory G Carter
gcarter at aesgi.com
Sat May 15 14:36:16 UTC 2004
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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