FW: [lug] So now we're a bunch of communists, eh?

[Franklin R. Jones]

On Mon, Jul 31, 2000 at 07:47:09AM -0600, Kevin Moore wrote:

> Steve Ballmer, at Microsoft's annual financial analysts meeting in
> Seattle (the full article is here:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/12266.html):
> 
> "Linux is a tough competitor. There's no company led Linux, there's
> barely a Linux road map. Yet Linux sort of springs organically from the
> earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that
> people love so very, very much about it. That is, it's free."
> 
> 
> I have in my lifetime been called many, many things (some good, some
> not so good) but no one until now has dared called me a
> communist. Perhaps a better term for Linux users would be
> "anarchists." Or, we since they want something for free, how about
> "misers"?
> 
> But communists? Never!
> 
> B. O'Fallon

:) well it *is* communistic, but the "pure form" as Marx envisioned,
not the dictatorship form that is the thought of when the term is
used. Russian (didn't), North Korea, and China do not practice
communism, they have dictatorial governments that use the communistic
mantra to deceive the people in to thinking it is for their own good.

I don't think that applies to Linux, at least I don't remember the
indoctrination... (anymore? maybe I've blocked it. :)

A better term would be communal, "relating to or benefiting a
community; for the common use."

peace. :) 
 
fj..
-- 
	"The days are just packed!"   Calvin & Hobbes