News from the Linux-adoption front

Well, now. This is interesting: A study of corporate Linux adoption polling 1,275 IT professionals says: Linux desktop roll out is easier than expected for properly targeted end-user groups Those with experience are much more likely to regard non-technical users as primary targets for Linux. The message here is that in practice, Linux is easier… Continue reading News from the Linux-adoption front

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California Dreamin’

If it is impossible for something to continue indefinitely, it will eventually stop. The politics of the modern redistributionist state is founded on the assumption that politicians can buy votes by promising voters ever more munificent entitlements – from federal deposit insurance against bank failures to government-subsidized medical care – with the money for these… Continue reading California Dreamin’

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Categorized as Politics

Is Danish Dying?

Some years ago I did a speaking tour in Scandinavia that involved staying in Denmark for a couple of days. Denmark, like the other Scandinavian nations I’ve visited, is a tidy little country full of intelligent, civilized, and agreeable people. As long as you can get along with gray sub-arctic weather and gray, characterless food… Continue reading Is Danish Dying?

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The Trek Movie: TOS rides again

I saw the new Star Trek movie last night, and it answers a question I wasn’t sure anyone would ever ask (or want to) – namely, could they find a young actor who could effectively clone William Shatner’s performance in TOS (The Original Series) as the alpha asshole of the future galaxy. The answer is… Continue reading The Trek Movie: TOS rides again

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IntenseDebate is deactivated

I have deactivated IntenseDebate. Its maintainers tell me there is no way to disable pagination of comments, a feature several of my regulars justifiably complained about and I loathed. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

I may have to disable IntenseDebate

I may have to disable IntenseDebate. The interface for approving/deleting/spam-flagging posts seems broken since sometime yesterday; I suspect some sort of database problem at intensedebate.com, as my local Javascript hasn’t changed. If you have left a comment which has not appeared, have patience. I will try untangling the mess from my home machine Sunday night… Continue reading I may have to disable IntenseDebate

Irrational Expectations

The reactions to my posting on the economic case against the GPL reminded me yet again why failure to understand basic economics often becomes more toxic in people who think they understand a bit about the subject. In this mini-essay, I’ll take a look at the most important (and misleading) of the superficially clever arguments… Continue reading Irrational Expectations

IntenseDebate plugin is being installed

I’m installing the WordPress IntenseDebate plugin. Commenting may have glitches for an hour or two, after which will have plenty of new features including comment threading and reply by email..

RMS issues ukase against Software as a Service – and I agree it’s an iffy idea

In a recent O’Reilly interview, Richard Stallman utters an anathema against software-as-a-service arrangements, calling them “non-free” and saying “you must not use it!” It would be easy to parody RMS’s style of uttering grave moralistic sonorities as though he were the Pope speaking ex-cathedra, but I’m going to resist the temptation because I think in… Continue reading RMS issues ukase against Software as a Service – and I agree it’s an iffy idea

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The Economic Case Against the GPL

Is open-source development a more efficient system of software production than the closed-source system? I think the answer is probably “yes”, and that it follows the GNU GPL is probably doing us more harm than good.

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How to get banned from my blog

It is quite difficult to get banned from commenting on my blog, but some – I think a grand total of about four out of a number of commenters well into the thousands over the last seven years – have managed it. With sufficient hard work and dedication, you too can join this select group.

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Hyperpower and high finance

In a 2002 blog entry, Imperialists by necessity?, I wrote: There is precedent [for civilizing barbarians by force]; the British did a pretty good job of civilizing India and we did a spectacularly effective one on Japan. And the U.S. would be well equipped to do it again; our economy is now so large that… Continue reading Hyperpower and high finance

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Categorized as Politics

Beyond the rhetorical fictions about “free software”

A friend directed me to a comment thread over at the Volokh Conspiracy, a blog I occasionally read and considerably respect. The response I ended up writing is substantial enough that I think it’s worth posting here.

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Freeing technical standards

I grew up on Internet RFCs, so technical standards issued under licenses that forbid free redistribution offend me. Every such document, whether intentionally or not, is a device for hindering open-source software projects and privileging closed-source developers with big budgets and lawyers to hand. They offend me even more when (as, for example, when the… Continue reading Freeing technical standards

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Please forget to FLOSS

In email to a third party, copied to me, Linux activist and long-time friend Rick Moen comments on the acronym FLOSS (usually explanded “Free, Libré, and Open Source”. I continue to find it difficult to take seriously anyone who adopts an excruciatingly bad, haplessly obscure acronym associated with dental hygiene aids. We learned in the… Continue reading Please forget to FLOSS

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Doug McIlroy makes my day

Yeah, that’d be the Doug McIlroy. Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie’s boss when they were inventing Unix, himself one of its early co-designers, and the inventor of the Unix pipe. He was very helpful when I was doing The Art of Unix Programming in 2003. Hadn’t heard from him since then until he emailed me… Continue reading Doug McIlroy makes my day

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Sugar and the Bathroom Demon

I am now going to blog about my cat. No, I have not succumbed to the form of endemic Internet illness in which someone believes the cuteness of his or her feline surpasses all bounds and must therefore be shared with the entire universe. But my cat’s behavior raises some interesting questions about animal (and… Continue reading Sugar and the Bathroom Demon