What does 'Free' mean, again?
Pascal
Klein notes the mixed reception to Linux from a bystander. I think you're
right, Pascal, on the various reasons why 'free software' sounds like 'free phone'
or 'free dinner' to most people. Indeed, 'free software' does still mean that
there are some hidden terms and conditions: you have to be moderately competent at
knowing about computer hardware and software, you have to know how to get help, and
you have to be prepared to find out the hard way sometimes. I like to compare it
to riding a bike: it may require a bit of training and you need a bit more safety
equipment than before, but you can do a lot more and things that were long and
tedious are now quick and fun.
(As an aside, I tend to play on people's paranoia at the point where they say "but can it save in Word format?" and so forth. I ask them if they trust Microsoft to always allow you to open your documents, and if they think it's possible that they would do something that means that you'd have to pay them more money to continue working. Or ask them if they like DVD Region encoding. This segues nicely into the freedom to access your stuff, when you want, how you want, which is what people want more than the flashy interface or noble principles or buzzwords.)
Pascal's comment on political parties delivering on their promises is also great food for thought. One thing that is determinedly ignored by the USA, Australia and Great Britain (und so weiter) is that the 'terrorists' are not doing their terrible deeds because they hate Democracy. They're doing it because they think that this is their way of highlighting their cause: in Osama bin Laden's case, it's the cause of a people that have been continually bashed to and fro by the USA and Israel. In my opinion, it's like fucking for virginity (to use the phrase), but I can understand the sentiment.
A long time ago, a guy who I would no longer call a friend was criticising the Aboriginal people in a community he'd heard of. They'd trashed the cars they'd been given, their houses were pigsties, and their children were badly clothed, underfed and uneducated. "They don't deserve any help at all!", this redneck declaimed. I tried to point out that all these 'gifts' may have been useless to them, or (worse) been tied to doing what the Government wanted; their rejection was the only form of social protest these people had, since they were in the middle of nowhere. This idea didn't get through, as you can imagine.
The Government, aided and abetted by the media, is happy portraying all Muslims as raving fanatics who want to convert everyone to Islam or death. It does so for the same reason that it calls people 'intellectuals'; 'the cafe latte set'; 'the chattering classes': to make us call us 'us' and them 'them'. The fact that there are raving fanatics who want the above dichotomy doesn't help set the balance straight. I'd say that any Government that tells you 'x' is 'evil' is as evil as they claim 'x' to be.
I promise not to rant on Politics so much any more...
(How appropriate: "Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina And The Waves just
started playing on XMMS...)
posted at: 23:41 | path: /society/tech | permanent link to this entry
Parliament finally gone mad
I just read about the "Legislative and Regularly Reform Bill" proposed in the
British Parliament. This is being called the "Abolition of Parliament Bill" or
the "Doomsday Bill", because it basically means that Ministers can add, amend
and delete legislation as they see fit, as long as it passes a few minor
requirements (e.g. a new crime can't be punished by more than two years
imprisonment - less than that is OK) and, basically, the Minister proposing it
says that they think it's a good idea. Very little of the requirements apply to
amendments, and the fact that the Bill applies to itself means that they can
immediately alter it to suit as soon as it's passed. About the only assurance
the British population has that Ministers won't be abolishing speeding fines if
they get caught speeding, or punishing calling them names with eighteen months
in jail, is that Jim Murphy, the Minister proposing the Bill, says that they
reckon they won't do anything wrong.
It's just so freaking wrong in so many ways I'm at a loss to choose which one to rant over. It's so amazingly scary that anyone could even think of proposing this, let alone actually get it into Parliament, that I literally tremble in the core of my being. They're only allowing one hour of debate on it, too - it's being raced through Parliament. They're justifying it in terms of trying to deregulate business, which is not only transparent but is nonsensical - when business is unregulated, it's the people that suffer. The fact that most Ministers are not trained in law and have little idea of how to actually construct a good law, so that it sits neatly with the other laws and doesn't make things more difficult for everyone, is just the icing on the cake.
All I can think of is that there are lobby groups in big business in Britain that
are laughing their heads off... And, if it gets passed, the British population
won't know what hit them...
posted at: 22:49 | path: /society/politics | permanent link to this entry
Infuriated In Cook
I got a letter back from DEST today from an address known only as
'palsbox@dest.gov.au'. I can only assume they think they're being chummy and
helpful by calling it 'palsbox' and not 'replies' or 'useless-bureaucrats' or
'corporate-mouthpiece'. Because I certainly can't tell the difference between
any one of those from this letter.
It answers none of my questions. It instead starts with a pallid and meaningless platitude about how they're already looking at some kind of strategy for using the internet in education. It's apparently called "Learning in an online 2003-06", which indicates even more bureaucratic mindlessness: not only can't they copy and paste titles correctly, but they don't even get it proofread. It then goes on to try to quote chapter and verse, before finishing abruptly to say that they're working on complying with Copyright Agency Limited's wishes. No signature, no information as to who sent it, no nothing. A stamped date - amazingly enough it's today's. I'm lucky it's a compressed black and white TIFF file, at 87 K, because at 2480x3507 pixels it could have been so much worse.
Part of me can accept that this is a busy ministerial office dealing with hundreds or thousands of letters, emails, faxes and phone calls all asking for individual attention. It's impossible to give them individual attention without spending far more time and money answering all the questions than actually doing something.
But that bit is overwhelmed by the feeling that the response is no response at all; that my question has not only been not responded to correctly but its actual import (that Copyright Agency Limited's request is not valid) has been completely ignored. That the form letter lacks so many hallmarks of a realistic response - signature and attribution, timeliness, layout, relevance - seems to me to indicate that this is not just bad work, it's active nastiness. To go any further along the road of the justifications in the previous paragraph is to invite the ridiculous: "They didn't even have the time to make it look like a personalised letter, or name who wrote it. They're obviously so busy that they weren't able to actually address anything I said at all but instead had to parrot the party line."
So my response is going to be a letter to the Prime Minister's department (which seems more ironic than anything) telling them that I am not happy with the standard of work from Minister Bishop's office. I'll probably try to find a nice way of pulling out the flamethrower, planting it firmly against the coccyx of the respondent, and lighting 'er up with a combination of napalm, nitrous oxide, acetylene and iron filings - a way of responding directly to the letter I received that says I was not happy with their service and to actually try to get a sensible, to-the-point response. There's a temptation to also claim that they've appropriated government stationary, since the complete lack of attribution makes it impossible to prove that the Copyright Agency Limited hasn't written this out holus-bolus.
It would help if I felt that any of this would actually change anything.
posted at: 15:20 | path: /society/politics | permanent link to this entry
All posts licensed under the CC-BY-NC license. Author Paul Wayper.