[lbo-talk] JDK runs on FreeBSD!!

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Thu Oct 28 09:53:37 PDT 2004


No one is disputing any of that. Fact remains that as the organic composition of capital changes in the manufacting sector and margins shrink, profit margins in the "soft" information sector is where the future lies. For many, many years Apple (and a lot of software vendors) were toting up 40% profit margins. Forty fucking pecent!!! What's Coke getting these days? 1%? This is why capital does not, in principle, like open source. They'll use it as a carrot, vis IBM, but it sets a bad example. It sets a bad example economically and it sets a bad example politically.

Joanna

Carrol Cox wrote:


>Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>
>>Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Doug:
>>>
>>>Who else could emulate it?
>>>
>>>================
>>>
>>>Anyone, if you expand the definition beyond software creation in
>>>general and operating systems specifically.
>>>
>>>For example, Creative Commons attempts to fashion an alternative
>>>copyright universe, inspired, I think, by Open Source ideals.
>>>
>>>
>>That's ok if writers have day jobs and don't expect to be paid for
>>their writing, and publishers don't have to pay any rent. Even so,
>>that only expands the model slightly. It's not applicable to about
>>95% of what's produced in a modern economy - not computer hardware,
>>not food, not transportation, not clothing, etc.
>>
>>
>
>I'm completely with Doug on this topic. If "free software" were
>perfected and usable without manual or training, one would still have to
>buy the hardware; one would have to buy or rent a house with enough room
>in it to hold a computer. One would have to have enough free time to use
>the computer. One would have to know how to read and be able to read the
>material (copyrighted or free is irrelevant) that appeared on the
>computer. As the Panthers noted in the '60s, one can't learn much if one
>is hungry, so one would still have to somehow have enough food to give
>one the energy to peck away at the keyboard. If one's eyesight were
>damaged as mine as been one would need enough money (plus insurance) to
>afford the $32 per month for eyedrops for glaucoma, the hundreds of
>dollars for glasses that will enable one to see the screen as well as
>the location of the garage (different glasses for each function). Also,
>it wouldn't be very much fun using freeBSD if the temperature outside
>were 5 below and one had no money to pay the gas bill or 105 in the
>shade and one had not had the money to install air conditioning and pay
>the electric bill that month.
>
>This attempt to give political significance to open-source software
>seems to me simply bizarre; in fact, I think it shows the same sort of
>political despair that in other periods has been expressed, for example,
>in individual acts of terroism (like throwing bombs at presidents). It
>is grounded in the despairing hope that individual gestures will make a
>difference.
>
>Carrol
>
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>
>.
>
>
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