Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Feb 1, 2007, at 7:28 PM, Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
>
> > Note that movies, books, music, etc, are quite similar in this
> > respect. Hence the "Free Culture" movement.
>
> Also small sectors. And if you give it all away, then programmers,
> filmmakers, writers, and musicians will never get paid for their
> work. Shouldn't they?
The serious quarrel between anarchists and socialists does not touch on the issues raised in this thread, because that quarrel concerns not the society we want but the _process_ by means of which we will get there. No one denies that there are innumerable features of the present social order which help envisage a future cooperative society, and the mere proliferation of such examples is banal.
To get there we must organize huge masses of people, first for immediate social/political changes within the present society, then at some point for a more total transformation. Hence we measure present activity and thought by its contribution to those immediate movements. How many people at the Washington Demo were there because of the activity of the free software proponents? I am uninterested in whether or not in principle people should get excited about Linux; I want to know how Linux boosters are contributing to the anti-war movement or the single-payer movement or the defense of 'illegal' immigrants. If they are not so contributing, then we are back to the fact that choice between Windows and Linux can only be based on the mere whim of the consumer.
I hate Windows, and I loved DOS -- but unless someone agrees for a reasonable price to come into my house, install Linux, AND all the programs I am now using, and guarantees that I won't have to learn anything about the system, I'll stick to my present OS.
Carrol