If this film were instead about how proprietary software people, who are never, ever going to disappear, and free software people, who really want them to, could get along and work together for the betterment of computing over ideals, I'd donate 1% of the funding goal right now. I'm 100% serious and have the $1,500 ready to draw a check upon to put my money where my mouth is.
As it stands, it's instead about digging in to the trenches and going to war against proprietary, making proprietary evil, brushing aside the genuine problems with free software to laud it as the one true path; because of that, I hope the funding fails and it goes nowhere. It's just more of the same rhetoric that hasn't worked, and that free software cried foul about when it was turned upon them ("Linux is communism", "Gmail can suspend you and you disappear", different FUD, same tactic).
Watching proprietary/free slug back and forth at each other for most of my adult life has been just as tiring as watching red/blue snipe back and forth in U.S. politics at the expense of progress. Just look at the fiscal cliff drama and the numerous partisan battlegrounds before that. There is no progress in a war[1]. Period. Full stop. You make this fight, you impede the very progress you seek to suddenly enable. It's just a contradictory position. You get one or the other. You get progress or a battle. Pick one. Spoiler: if you pick the battle, it's never going to be won by either side.
It's why I voted for Obama, because he promised to bring each side together -- naturally, he hit Washington politics and couldn't do diddly-squat of what he promised, but I still had hope. I think working together between these two camps is much more realizable, and the time for "it's us or them" is long since past. The book makes the claim that free software will pave the way of progress, but to get there it has to defeat proprietary software first, which is also capable of its own progress in a way.
I already hear you slamming "reply" to tell me why moderate is not an acceptable position in this fight, and I fully expect the talking points from either side on why. Just know that I realize them to be talking points even before you've typed them.
I want my computer to be my own personal property and not the private property of a corporate tyranny like Microsoft or Apple. I will never take away control over my personal computer by installing a proprietary program and there are many others like me that will never go away.
I watched the mentioned 'Revolution OS' film on Netflix recently and it was extremely painful for exactly this reason. The icing on the cake was an excessively dramatic voice reading a fairly innocent letter from Bill Gates to a background of excessively dramatic music, it was enough to make me want to stop watching.
That's why I'm very happy about Steam running in Ubuntu.
I also run Skype and Opera in the Ubuntu box. I would probably install Chromium, but Firefox is gone and not welcome in my box.
Proprietary and quality software running in an open OS is to me the best of both worlds, and I'm sure the über-pragmatic Linus Torvalds would agree with me.
[+] [-] BUGHUNTER|13 years ago|reply
http://www.indiegogo.com/SoftwareWars/
For $1000 Dollar they are offering product placement.
Independent journalism != advertising.
Very disappointing.
[+] [-] jack57|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jspthrowaway2|13 years ago|reply
As it stands, it's instead about digging in to the trenches and going to war against proprietary, making proprietary evil, brushing aside the genuine problems with free software to laud it as the one true path; because of that, I hope the funding fails and it goes nowhere. It's just more of the same rhetoric that hasn't worked, and that free software cried foul about when it was turned upon them ("Linux is communism", "Gmail can suspend you and you disappear", different FUD, same tactic).
Watching proprietary/free slug back and forth at each other for most of my adult life has been just as tiring as watching red/blue snipe back and forth in U.S. politics at the expense of progress. Just look at the fiscal cliff drama and the numerous partisan battlegrounds before that. There is no progress in a war[1]. Period. Full stop. You make this fight, you impede the very progress you seek to suddenly enable. It's just a contradictory position. You get one or the other. You get progress or a battle. Pick one. Spoiler: if you pick the battle, it's never going to be won by either side.
It's why I voted for Obama, because he promised to bring each side together -- naturally, he hit Washington politics and couldn't do diddly-squat of what he promised, but I still had hope. I think working together between these two camps is much more realizable, and the time for "it's us or them" is long since past. The book makes the claim that free software will pave the way of progress, but to get there it has to defeat proprietary software first, which is also capable of its own progress in a way.
I already hear you slamming "reply" to tell me why moderate is not an acceptable position in this fight, and I fully expect the talking points from either side on why. Just know that I realize them to be talking points even before you've typed them.
[1]: Except for those making guns.
[+] [-] jhuni|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lewispollard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shorel|13 years ago|reply
I also run Skype and Opera in the Ubuntu box. I would probably install Chromium, but Firefox is gone and not welcome in my box.
Proprietary and quality software running in an open OS is to me the best of both worlds, and I'm sure the über-pragmatic Linus Torvalds would agree with me.