>>>>> "k" == kenziem <Mike> writes:
>> ... Better then nothing, I say.
It's much too easy and risk-free and policy makers know this. Anyone
can bitch, and it's never been known to evoke change. Never. I may be
wrong (since it's a very busy site with lots of topics I don't follow)
but so far as I know, even SlashDot has never evoked any real
political change.
What a weblog /can/ do is education, which is very different from
bitching and moaning about how marginalized your O/S might be or how
priviledged another might be. Honest reports of deployments, recipies
for SOHO solutions, testaments from people who are using Linux in real
world situations (ie, not hobby, OSS developer shop or school-project
deployments). These are useful, as is evidenced by the widely cited
documents such as the Kirsh Report and the Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Compelling argument stated clearly /does/ carry some weight, but even
here, only in so far as being the fodder for those who do the real
changework, the lobbiests.
As we are rapidly discovering with the RIAA usurping of western
culture in the name of corporate greed, successful lobbying does not
depend on logic, on ethics, moral superiority, costs, profits,
benefits or security. It only depends on well-funded rhetoric.
Although the computer industry is actually almost twice the size of
the entertainment biz, it contributes less than 1/10th in political
(ahem) contributions, and on top of that, the 90% player (Microsoft)
is actually very much in favour of the same sorts of goals as RIAA,
Disney, Sony et al.
Thus, with barely a fifth the resources of the entertainment industry,
the anti-RIAA camp must increase their political lobby expenditures by
5000% (10x5 = five thousand percent) just to /match/ Hollywood's
lobby. The Advogatoids can moan and wail all they like on how this
ain't fair, how "how it is" should not preclude "how it should be" but
that, my friends, is the truth of the situation.
The other truth is more positive: 10 years ago no one in the non-dev
mainstream had even heard of the GPL. We have gained all this
(considerable) ground not from funding a mega-billion-dollar PR
machine, but by viral marketing of a technically sound product.
Double this good news, there is no way to rush this process because it
is a natural aspect of any new technology; /if/ we concentrate on
producing the best software, if we set ourselves to maximally serve
the maximum number of people for the least cost, our day will
come.
I'm far more encouraged by the efforts of OEOne (who seek to abolish
the O/S question completely) than by any efforts of any of the
so-called advocacy groups. I'm open to contradiction, but please
don't cite any bs about Peru at me because that "law" is not a law,
it's a sketch of an idea for a law with no chance in hades of becoming
the rule of the land. The only "advocates" worth their salt in my
book are the FSF for their actual expenditure of time and effort to
legally enforce the GPL.
k> I don't think many politicians surf for information online.
I don't know _any_ who do. I know the RCMP is eons behind, and I will
be you even CSIS is decades behind in their Internet awareness.
--
Gary Lawrence Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> TeleDynamics Communications Inc
Business Innovations Through Open Source Systems: http://www.teledyn.com
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."(Pablo Picasso)
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