There’s been much written on this site, and across the Web, as well as being broadcast on radio and television, and published in newspapers and magazines, about the recent coup in Haiti. But for many, none of what has been written or broadcast has much “value”, because there is no “human face” to put on the changes that the coup has wrought.
Jay Currie comments on this site and chides me for seeming to defend the deposed Haiti President, Jean Bertrand Aristide, when such is not the argument that has consistently been put forward on VanRamblings. Rather, my concern is for the people of Haiti, and of what the recent actions of the U.S. (and, by extension, Canada) in fomenting insurrectionary change, means for the people of Haiti (not much good, I would suggest).
Tonight, the human face of the coup, the story of an 18-year-old boy. Tell me, after reading Johnny’s story that Aristide being deposed is, in itself and wholly, a good thing, and that the world community could not have found a more workable and humane solution to the problems in Haiti, and engaged in a process which would have preserved the dignity of the Haitian people.
Microsoft pulling SCO strings? It’s business as usual
Much has been written about the MyDoom Trojan which, over the course of the past couple of months, has managed to shut down entire computer networks, destroy tens of thousands of personal computers, and just generally wreak unprecedented digital age havoc.
The SCO Group, a multi-national software developer, was the first putative target of the hackers who created and released the MyDoom Trojan in early January of this year. SCO currently has a suit before the courts seeking royalties from users of the Linux operating system. To date, Linux has been considered an open source (which is to say, freely available) operating system, and as such has been designated by many in the IT field as the operating system of the (near) future, the OS which will replace Microsoft’s Windows, and the OS which we will all come to use.
If SCO’s suit is successful and the company prevails in the courts, the availability of ALL open source software will, to say the least, be very much compromised. Hackers, programmers and anyone with an interest in allowing more ready access to the new digital democracy, are livid over SCOs efforts. Maintaining a capitalist model for the new digital democracy, limiting access only to users who can afford expensive computers loaded with an expensive operating system, not only effectively destroys the open source (operating system, browser, productive software) movement, it proclaims that control of the Internet will remain in the hands of profit-oriented multi-national corporations long into the future.
In a report on ZDNet, editor-in-chief Dan Farber publishes information confirming that Microsoft is the key player behind the SCO suit.
“Over the last several years, Microsoft has made known its fear and loathing of Linux and other open source initiatives. Why wouldn’t Microsoft find ways directly and indirectly to deter the open source movement? It’s in Microsoft’s nature to use whatever means necessary to maintain its market position.”
Update, March 24: At the Open Source Business Conference held on March 16th in San Francisco, Novell Vice-Chairman Chris Stone scoffs at the SCO Group’s legal battle against Novell and other Linux users over Unix copyright claims. He also discusses why companies are embracing open source and moving away from a business model with strictly proprietary software.
And the struggle continues.
Analog Music, Analog Life
In response to the birth — at least in part, we are given to understand — of VanRamblings.com, this administrator’s tech mentor, M. David Exman, has created a too long delayed but finally here and much welcome Vancouver-based weblog, which goes by the name of David Exman’s Mouth — all about analog music and the analog life examined, and so much more.
If your interests tend toward bluegrass and / or banjo music, dance (particularly the kind where you get off your duff, with an orientation towards the finer points of the tango), the digital age or … life in the big city, do yourself a favour and take a look inside David Exman’s Mouth.
The Lonely Life of the Independent MLA
“I’ve gotten used to eating alone”
What can MLA Elayne Brenzinger expect after her bolt from the provincial Liberal party? The Tyee’s Chris Tenove asks the last guy to do it, Paul Nettleton.
Allan Warnke, a former Liberal MLA who messily split with the party in 1996, says that Liberal leader Gordon Campbell has demanded absolute loyalty from MLAs since becoming leader in 1993. “If you showed any independent thought or critiqued a policy,” Warnke says, “you got into trouble right away.”