← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Quantrill
Thread ID: 13201 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2004-04-16
2004-04-16 19:12 | User Profile
[font=Verdana][size=2]I know many (most?) of you are not geeks, but I think traditionalists of all stripes should support Linux and the Open Source Movement. Allow me to explain.[/size][/font] [font=Verdana][size=2] For anyone unfamiliar with Linux, it is a completely open-source operating system first developed by Linus Torvalds in 1993, and it more or less began the open source movement. Open source means that the software is free -- free to use, free to distribute, and free to modify. The caveat (and benefit) is that any improvements one makes must be released back into the public domain. Linux is thus completely transparent and communal. It is also at least as stable and powerful as Microsoft's operating systems. [/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=2]In my opinion, whether one uses it personally or not, all traditionalists should strongly support the open source movement for a number of reasons: [/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=2]1. Open source is as close to the Distributist or Guild economic model as one is likely to find in the modern era. Each person is a user and an owner in equal measure, so all have an incentive to improve the pool of knowledge for everyone. When one owns something, be it a car or a parcel of land, one takes responsibility for its maintenance and improvement. Because of the somewhat unique nature of software, one's personal improvements to open source software benefit everyone. [/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=2]2. Open source is inherently anti-monopoly. Microsoft is at least as much of a monopoly as Wal-Mart, and its business tactics have been at least as unsavory. When one supports open source, one is opting out of Microsoft's monopolistic system. Using open source is the digital equivalent of shopping at the corner grocery instead of the Super Wal-Mart, or of eating tomatoes from onesââ¬â¢s own garden. [/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=2]3. Open source brings the principle of subsidiarity to the digital age. Changes, improvements, and choices are made by the people who use the software. Instead of having one interface, one look-and-feel, and one way of doing things set by the home office, the user can decide what best meets his needs. At this point in time, Linux is not for everyone. Although it has gotten much simpler, it would still be daunting for the casual computer user to set up. OS X is a much better choice for multimedia and publishing, since Apple has long been a leader in those areas. [/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=2]My point in writing this is not so much to convince you to use something other than what you are using now, but rather to disseminate information about the open source movement. Too often, I think, the choice is painted as Microsoft vs. Apple, when it is really much broader than that. [/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=2]This may be a technical issue, but open source, as a political movement and an economic model, transcends technology. As I tried to explain above, it is truly about the future. Shall we allow the Digital Age to be controlled by a few exploitive robber barons, as was the Industrial Age? If not, the time to act is now, before the social framework for these technologies has been decided. If you support localism, particularism, local control, and distributed ownership, open source is a worthy cause. [/size][/font]
2004-04-18 07:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]If you support localism, particularism, local control, and distributed ownership, open source is a worthy cause. [/QUOTE]
I think Luther with his "theology of vocation" would wholeheartedly endorse those principles. At the very least they would be the fruit of said vocations if enacted on a large scale.
As to Linux, I dual-boot between Windows 98 and Mandrake. I have no problems whatsoever with Mandrake 8.3, in fact it runs like a charm. But for some reason whenever I try to upgrade to any of the 9.X versions, the whole operating system locks up and crashes and I have to reinstall 8.3 again. The only gripe I have with Mandrake (Linux?) is the fonts. The various browsers one can run from Mozilla to Opera to Konqueror all render text that varies wildly and is quite often unreadable. I don't know why this is.
2004-04-18 13:52 | User Profile
Good post, Quantrill. I agree with your views on this.
I've been using Red Hat Linux 9 for most of the last half-year or so, though I keep Win XP on another hard drive. I think Linux crushes Windows in terms of stability, reliability, and speed, although it's not very user-friendly (except for the initial installation, which was all menu-driven and pretty straightforward for Red Hat 9). On my system, I had to install RealPlayer8 and Acrobat Reader 5.0.8 manually, and that was intimidating for a newbie like me. It took some trial-and-error and a bit of reading to get the hang of it. The Internet was an enormous help.
Tex,
That problem with your fonts sounds odd. It certainly isn't representative of Linux in general, as my fonts look far better than anything on Windows. I wish I could be of more help, but I'm no expert in this stuff (though I hope to become one at some point :)). My only problem with crappy-looking text was when I used xpdf to read Acrobat files; installing Acrobat Reader 5.0.8 for Linux took care of that (it has a "smooth text" option that makes fonts look MUCH better -- I don't know if any such option exists with xpdf). Come to think of it, there might be some system-wide setting available for the smoothing of text that you don't have enabled. If so, hunting that down might help.
As for upgrading a Linux distribution, I haven't tried that yet. I am currently in the process of learning to upgrade the kernel, and it's a bit tricky for me. I can get the thing to boot and run smoothly, but it isn't recognizing some of my hardware (e.g., the network connection), and there are probably some other bugs in there. Oh well...at least I'll probably learn something useful by hacking through problems like these.
2004-04-18 14:09 | User Profile
There is a basic misunderstanding about copyright that prevails nowadays - a position advanced by the big IP companies like Disney and Microsoft.
That is that an author has a natural right to property in his writings. This isn't the case - copyright is exclusively a creature of state policy (it's in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8). Copyright consists of a monopoly limited in time granted by the state for the sole purpose of facilitating creative activity - but only for that purpose. Thus, to the extent creative activity is facilitated by the grant of this artificial monopoly, the state policy and the commonweal is served and the copyright law comports with the Constitution.
I know that this sounds a bit strange coming from a natural rights guy like me, but I'm convinced this is correct.
[URL=http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/ml/readings/siva_jefferson.pdf]Here's[/URL] an interesting take on the Founders and their thinking on this. Basically, neither Jefferson nor Madison found much of a "property" right in any idea, and found the "public domain" to be the "natural" state of ideas.
Look at it in evolutionary terms - when we lived in small tribal groups, it wouldn't have occurred to a shaman to charge fees from other shamans to use some new story he invented. As Brandeis put it (I know, I know), ideas are in nature as free as the air in nature; i.e. when we were living naturally and in the small societies we evolved in. Ideas of the best and brightest were important community resources, and it benefited the group and its gene pool to keep them free flowing. There is no "natural property right" to an idea for any man - ideas were always group property.
However, this changed as society became more complex. Suddenly the benefits of ideas weren't limited to the small tribal groups that gave rise to them, but rather (by means of print and other media) capable of benefiting out-groups, even inuring to the benefit of the group's enemies. Thus, there was a natural tendency to hide ideas and keep them secret, so as to prevent free ridership by parasitic out-groups. The copyright and patent laws are to my mind an attempt to overcome this potential "parasite" problem by granting a limited monopoly in exchange for publication, and upon passing of the appointed time would be open for all to use, like the air we breath. It's a state thing aimed at facilitiating creatiion of new ideas and their publication for the benefit of society that was existing in an unnaturally complex state. That's my take on it, anyway.
Remember that the Founders had deep suspicion of any monopoly (they fought the monoplies of the great British chartered trading companies) and it's clear that the copyright monopoly was indeed grudingly granted. We've really gotten away from that basic understanding of copyright as a monopoly [B]reluctantly[/B] granted by the state in order to facilitate an important state policy, and not the protection of a natural property right. The policy should always be FOR the free exchange of ideas and their entry into the public domain, and not for the creation of new property. The monopoly should be understood as a necessary evil - as evil as it is necessary, and so strictly limited to the minimum necessary to secure the policy ends.
The most obvious example is the [URL=http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf]Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998 [/URL] extended by many years copyrights that had already been issued. How in Heaven's name could giving Disney another 20 years or so rights to Mickey Mouse encourage new artistic works - after all, they've already been made. There is also a great argument that the current 80(?) years is waaaay far beyond anything the Founders foresaw, but SCOTUS rejected both of those arguments.
The problem is that the "public domain" advocates lack the resources of Microsoft and Disney, and these big corporations through their gigantic monopolies on everyday things like DOS and Mickey Mouse really have a choke hold on the public conversation. This defeats the whole idea of an open society with ideas freely flowing without hindrance from the state.
We need to educate people to the fact that Microsoft doesn't have a natural property right to its source code, but that this monopoly is a necessary evil that the people grant Microsoft to encourage investment in development, but that must end as soon as possible.
The open source movement is a response to that, and I applaud their efforts. The fact that it works - and people make money on it - is good news for all of us.
Walter
2004-04-18 21:19 | User Profile
Tex, Angler, I don't want this to turn into a tech support thread, but I am reasonably knowledgeable about Linux, so if you need some help, feel free to PM me.
Quantrill