Holy Crusade continues – now with information warfare!

What the fsck did I just read?

I, too, fscked.

Nobody’s picked me up on this, but clearly this is not a Ubuntu distro the guy is talking about.

The only reason for titling it Wahabibuntu(FUD) is, well, it’s a bloody good title and very evocative.

I’m waiting for Joe Monco to weigh in on the totalinarian aspect of this. I find I can’t think for myself without Joe weighing in.

He’s totally weighing in any moment now.

I am weighting in!

Now, where are the fireworks?

Eh? What’s so weird about this? I see a fairly regular article on a Linux website talking about a LUG (Linux User Group) in some country. Just what exactly is your point?

If anything is weird, it’s your stereotypical attitude.

JoeMonco has weighted in!

You may now begin to form your own opinions.

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Please, enjoy your stay here at TM Repository.

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Bzzzt, #%#zz&#

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fireworks-fail-error-msg-874639

It’s certainly my attitude. What “stereotypical” is intended to convey under these circumstances is beyond me. Anti-LUG? Anti-Linux? Anti-Saudi? Anti-Wahabi? Anti-Jedi Knight Costumes? At least “weird” conveys something.

You don’t think “It’s the same the whole world over: There is a crowd that has glommed onto the idea of free software and feels obliged to promote it” is weird, in the context of Saudi?

You don’t think “What else is there to do here but become a great Linux hacker?” is weird?

It’s the standard throat-clearing about liberty in the first para, followed by the usual ludicrous homilies. Not weird or even surprising in itself. Just … breath-taking … when applied to the situation at hand.

And I assume that “Roblimo” was well-paid for his activities. Not that it matters.

Mr Monco had a FUD or a TM on the general subject of oppresive regimes and FOSS (in his case it was China), but as usual I can’t find it.

Weigh in once more, Blondie.

@DrLoser

It’s in my profile:

http://tmrepository.com/fudtracker/monty-wants-to-save-freedom-with-a-column-of-chine/

@RC

“fireworks-fail-error-msg-874639”

That’s not good enough. I want something like this next time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN2Bx_LK2io

Make sure you’ve got that ready.

In your profile? Damn fine thought, oh Unforgiven one.

TMR: Can we have this as a feature? It would brighten Adam King’s profile up no end. Just type “calculus” or “integrals” or who knows what else, and you’re in for a world of fun …

(Ooh! Fergat Fourier Transforms!)

Well Joe, you’ll have to ask TMR for the “Fireworks” button.

LongPHPcodez tend to fail, miserably, even.

@DrLoser

Ah, I see your point now.

I think the problem is not that the Saudis¹ don’t value freedom, period. They just have a different definition of it, and “political freedom” isn’t part of it. To prove my point further, you don’t include “software freedom” in your definition of freedom, which the FSF finds as objectionable as Saudis’ point of view regarding political freedom. (not that I agree with the FSF, I’m just stating their opinion)

[1] not just the government, many Saudis are happy with their government.

I don’t include “software freedom” in my definition of “freedom” for two reasons. Possibly the more important one is that I do not have a definition of “freedom:” I leave that for philosophers. The less important one is that any “software freedom” that is not a subset of a more general “freedom” is not a freedom, it is a doctrine.

To put it another way, you can argue pro and con the “freedom” to commit suicide. This is a worth-while debate, and yet it stirs up irrational passion.

You can’t really argue for “software freedom” without throwing in at least one and probably two extra axioms to the basis of “freedom.” The first is that software is, somehow, entirely different from everything else, which is clearly spurious. And the second is that some external body (be it RMS and Gnu, be it whatever) lays down the — clearly arbitrary — boundaries to this freedom.

I would like the freedom to carry the software I write from job to job … which I don’t have. Multiplied by several million programmers, I think this would be a worthwhile freedom.

I also appreciate the freedom inherent in either the BSD licence or in the Do What The Fsck You Want licence. If (unlikely, but if) I come up with a smart algorithm, then one of those — probably the latter — is the one I will use. Even if it potentially loses me money.

In general, however, FOSS is a steaming pile of sith.

Many Saudis are happy with their government?

Would this be the women in the car protest? Or the Filipina maids? Or the male alcoholics who routinely head over the bridge to Bahrain to get pissed? Or the Shi’ites who inconveniently constitute the majority in the provinces that actually produce oil?

Have I missed some seminal popular election, or possibly UN-mandated Gallup Poll, that substantiates this absurd proposition?

I’m not disagreeing with you, I completely disagree with the FSF about their “software freedom”.

“I do not have a definition of “freedom”“
““software freedom” [...] is not a subset of a more general “freedom”“

That’s exactly what I meant. And I do mean “exactly”.

“In general, however, FOSS is a steaming pile of sith.”

Maybe just the F part. The OS part is good, as you just said about the BSD license.

I don’t really know about the OS part, either. Some aspects of software (generic algorithms, frameworks, etc) are tailor-made for Open Source. Some specific applications (like Cassini) are a good fit. I’m glad the concept is there, but I don’t see it being applied to more than a small sub-set of programming tasks.

90% of programs (including the ones I write myself) are junk. This seems to rise to 99% in the case of OS. At that point it becomes a tiresome matter of evaluation and discrimination, and you know what? I’d rather just pay for the damned stuff. I’m not about to doink around with the internals in any case.

It’s not so much a “freedom;” it’s just one course of action available amongst many.

And I’d still like to carry my old code around with me. It would make simple things, like getting the event model right in a .Net program, that much less of a hassle. And I think, extended to the “community” as a whole, it would bring very real efficiency benefits — to companies as well as to individuals.

Still, it’ll never happen.

Certainly. I wasn’t talking about open source software, I was talking about the concepts (or, dare I say it, philosophy) behind it.

“At that point it becomes a tiresome matter of evaluation and discrimination, and you know what? I’d rather just pay for the damned stuff.”

You just go and buy some software without evaluating it first? You might buy some of the 90% junk if you do that. (Unless you mean that it’s easier to find non-junk proprietary software than open source software)

“And I’d still like to carry my old code around with me. It would make simple things, like getting the event model right in a .Net program, that much less of a hassle. And I think, extended to the “community” as a whole, it would bring very real efficiency benefits — to companies as well as to individuals.”

Yeah, that’s how many open source web frameworks were born.

No, I just buy it instead of going through the painstaking process of discrimination and comparison and whatnot that used to be required back in 1995 or so.

Otherwise, I just build it for myself. Perl and Python and Ruby and Scala and so on are good for that.

What I don’t need is to pick through the outmoded bran-tub of FOSS.

And yes, it is in fact easier to find non-FOSS non-junk programs these days. Don’t ask me why. Just Google or Bing or whatever.