Linux is Communism!

[Douglas Pollard]

On 12/28/2010 10:46 AM, Samuel Thurston wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 8:28 AM, Douglas Pollard<dougpol1 at verizon.net>  wrote:
>> On 12/28/2010 07:23 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>>> Sorry, forgot Russia's capitalist now:
>>>
>>> http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2010/12/putin-orders-russian-move-to-gnulinux.html
>>>
>>>
>>> - d.
>>>
>> I heard that he might do that. I hate to see that happen. I don't think
>> it's a good thing for OSS.  A better thing is for OSS to be better where
>> people would rather use it and go to the powers that be and say we want
>> to use Linux because it is more efficient or in some way better. A
>> decree by a dictator does not help Linux.             Doug
> For a long time there have been concerns by foreign governments that
> MS has permitted "backdoors" for the various US intelligence agencies.
>   While I do not believe there is any legitimate evidence to
> corroborate this theory, it is nonetheless a concern-- and
> unfortunately there's no way to be sure in a sealed system like
> windows.  Oftentimes governments require that MS pony up at least part
> of their source as part of their licensing agreements. With Linux
> however, systemwide audits are possible and therefore in this sense it
> is in fact "better than the competition" and that is more or less the
> reason for decrees like this.  Governmental procurement processes
> rarely allow individual users within the structure to choose their OS
> and so it's unlikely you can get even a small fraction of migration in
> the absence of such a decree.
>
> It could be argued that Putin who is the appointed Prime Minister of
> the democratically elected head of the Russian Federation (Medvedev),
> is no more of a dictator than the Vice President of the United States
> or any other official of the US's executive branch, and I find it
> unlikely Doug that you would bemoan such a declaration if made by one
> of them.
>
> What this means in practical terms is thousands more global Linux
> users, improved Russian language support and hundreds more eyes likely
> contributing to the codebase.  I find it hard to see the downside for
> the community.
>
Samuel, I had not considered that Windows could contain spyware  in the 
traditional sense of one country spying on another.   It is a pretty 
sure thing that Linux can't, or at least can't hide it.  That is a good 
point.     Doug