[lbo-talk] Re: Purer Than Thou

bitch at pulpculture.org bitch at pulpculture.org
Wed Jan 24 06:28:40 PST 2007


At 10:55 PM 1/23/2007, Andy F wrote: Please stop trying to build arguments on the notion that this
>work is some sort of hobbyist frivolity.

I'm not. Your FOSS evangelist buddies are and they're the ones you need to correct. I know that much of FOSS was dependent on e mployers (e.g., the way people needed X tool at their job, created it, then shared with others) and government investment in R&D.) I just sent something to the list where the guy is advocating FOSS as free market communism in which he does precisely what you complain about.

As I noted, I have nothing against FOSS. But I think the arguments proponents make, trying to convince others to use it by various forms of information social control (e.g., this conversation which tries to convince socialists to use it and Spread The Good News *because it's somehow communist in principle) is where I freakin' get off the train. As I say in my next post, it especially irks me when FOSS evnagelists DO emphasize the "freeeeeeeeee wheeeeeeeeeee as in beer" factor. It devalues and ignores or erases the social condition of that labor to begin with and that cannot be a good thing for a socialist movement.

And to reiterate Matt's point, just go search around on FOSS ODF disablity Massachussetts. then read linux forums for the way these guys derided the disabled and their wimpy "fear of change". Please! This guy, Pietrosanti, basically told FOSS FolX to shove it http://www.pietrosanti.net/:


>All the heated discussions about which is better among Windows or Linux or
>Apple leave him indifferent: "Nobody, really nobody outside of a madhouse,
>would ever waste time figuring out which car model is better, when the
>nature of the streets they will be used on must still be decided". As he
>puts it, in words that should really make any FOSS advocate think,
>"Proprietary or Free (as in Freedom) software are really the same to me.
>What matters is the actual Freedom of each individual".

http://blog.pulpculture.org



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