While I appreciate the similarities, I think it's a bit much to tie the Free Software Movement to Democratic movements. While the _ideals_ on paper can be similar, the success or failure of "Free and Open systems" lie more with practical issues.

For example: * America, while certainly not acting like it much the last eight years, is probably the country with the longest tradition of civil rights and citizen-government. However, it is also the land of EULAs and Microsoft.

* China and most of the developing world uses Linux extensively. Many of those countries are ruled by oppressive governments.

Therefore, just because a group of people "cherish freedom" doesn't mean that they use Free Software. In converse, people who apparently hate freedom (dem terrists hehe) often use Free Software.

The reality is that, for most people, they choose software based on practical reasons and not ideological ones. My assertion is that the ideologues (like many of us) are in the minority.

Jeffrey.

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 9:37 PM, Oren Beck [email protected] wrote:

It serves to underscore the adversarial Vs collaborative divide.

Folks who cherish freedom tend to collaborative processes and transparency. As in embracing Free and Open systems,

So this may be VERY telling about the personality of those who oppose Free and Open anything.

Nitpicks aside, your response doesn't seem to disagree with my statements as a whole.

You are correct that democracy isn't the same thing as civil rights ("freedom" in the colloquial use). However, for a democracy to survive there must be civil rights - the absence of them will eventually lead to its demise. Hence why externally propped-up democracies tend to eventually devolve and fail. For a good example of an ongoing devolution of a democracy one only needs to look at Russia.

My examples, however, were to illustrate that just because a country has civil rights (America) doesn't mean it embraces Free Software, and just because a country doesn't have those rights (China) doesn't mean it won't embrace it.

The net conclusion being that while a country's attitudes towards civil rights may be a contributing factor towards the adoption of Free Software and the like, it's certainly not the primary factor. My assertion is that pragmatism is the primary factor.

Jeffrey.

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 3:24 PM, Leo Mauler [email protected] wrote:

Strictly speaking, he said "those who cherish freedom" rather than "democratic movements." You don't have to support democracy to cherish freedom. In fact, democracy is all about trying to limit freedom in a reasonable manner (the whole "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose" argument). Anarchy is the only movement which really "cherishes freedom."

Of course, as Linux is largely supported by the GPL, another system of "limiting freedom", one could easily say that those who use Linux support limited suppression of freedom...

...

• China and most of the developing world uses Linux

extensively. Many of those countries are ruled by oppressive governments.

Therefore, just because a group of people "cherish freedom" doesn't mean that they use Free Software. In converse, people who apparently hate freedom (dem terrists hehe) often use Free Software.

Terrorists and China's government certainly cherish freedom for *themselves*.

In the end, ideologies are based largely on US vs. THEM: if you ain't US, youse THEM, and we only cherish freedom for US, not THEM.