Re: [backstage] Broadcasters to launch joint VoD service

[Dave Crossland]

On 29/12/2007, Martin Belam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  An excellent quote which I will endeavour to use in 2008 every time
  the zealots start drowning out the conversation.

 though I suspect you will be met with similar content to almost the
 first reaction to that article:

 It's sad to see that Linus Torvalds, one of the leading figures in
 the Free Software movement, doesn't really care for freedom.

Here's the full comment:

It's sad to see that Linus Torvalds, one of the leading figures in
the Free Software movement, doesn't really care for freedom. And it's
even sadder that he resorts to insults, saying that those who *do*
care about freedom are frothing-at-the-mouth.

I think it's also dishonest for Linus to see only the people who like
to have control over their computers as ideological. Linus' own view
that users should *not* have control over their computers is just as
ideological, and Linus is actively pushing his own ideology on other
people.

Personally I disagree with Linus. I find that freedom means control
over your own computer and I believe that all computer users have a
right to be free and in control.

I think the point about proprietary restrictions are conscionable if
the software has some convenient feature being an ideology that
Torvalds pushes is interesting.

  it's also applicable, with a few word changes, to religion too

Are you confusing an ethical position with a religious one?

-- 
Regards,
Dave
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Re: [backstage] Broadcasters to launch joint VoD service

[Stuart Ward]

 
 I dislike the frothing-at-the-mouth ideology (to me, ideology should
 be something personal, not something you push on other people) and I
 think it's much more interesting to see how Open Source actually
 generates a better process for doing complex technology, than push the
 freedom angle and push an ideology.
 
The way I read this in the context of others things that Linus has said
is that the freedoms come out of the open source way of workings as
almost a side effect so we don't need to worry about freedoms as the
best software will be the software with the least restrictions on it,
and thus enhancing freedoms.

I agree that the best software is usually the freedom software, but I
don't believe that we don't need to care about this. The insidious ways
that freedom can be eroded are a constant threat and without someone
making a noise about these issues we will wake up one day and find them
all gone.

So it matters that the BBC is still using encumbered formats for its
listen again service, it matters that they are doing the same with the
iPlayer.

There is progress in that the real media formats have been reverse
engineered, and the flash formats are slowly being reversed. So soon we
will have open software to play these formats.

--
Stuart

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