FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License 344
Stian Engen writes "Bradley Kuhn of the FSF does not recommend the release of new software using the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0 despite its
newly accuired Free Software License."
And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
not so orwellian anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting Indeed.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Sounds like Apple really likes its customers
Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:5, Insightful)
We can hope that they are cool about being open (I think they have been, for the most part). But who really expects them to be Free?
Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet another duplicate story (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, I can't really imagine the FSF recommending any license other than their very own GPL, now the darling of IBM and the open source movement in general. Not that it isn't deserving of this adoration, as it may have saved Linux from SCO.
Re:And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, I'm pretty sure that if you find out flaws in the GPL, or devise a new license including ideas that the FSF didn't think of, the FSF will certainly consider these ideas, and eventually include them in the GPL if they are valid.
ugh.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Have to wonder (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS and the FSF. Then again, the GNU/Hippy crowd often reminds me of a greedy, petulent child. When MacOS was completely proprietary, Apple was evil for not letting the code roam free in wild fields as it is apparently entitled to. When Apple opened up some code, they were chastisted for not opening it in the manner that the FSF demands... err, politely asks. Now Apple has changed its license to appease the FSF, but the first thing the FSF does is spout off about how the changes aren't good enough, and even if they were Apple would still be condemned for not opening up all of OS X.
Frankly, I think Steve should tell RMS to shove it. Apple has already given back a lot of code (ZeroConf, KHTML updates, etc.), but the FSF is never going to be happy. Apple should just continue to make jobs for lots of developers and make quality products, be they proprietary or open source.
Re:A couple of points (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And?!? (Score:1, Insightful)
Your argument may be right, but the fact that the GPL has actually done something good for the computing world -- makes it valuable. You can change the GPL to make money AND control customers, but that'd be a one-way traffic. You can change cows to hamburgers, but not the other way round.
It's not about "free" anything. It's about Socialism, to use one of the kinder labels available.
Considering some of the fruits of capitalism -- Enron, Microsoft, SCO, R*AA, etc..; and some of 'Socialism' - GNU, Linux, FreeBSD, Dragon CPU , Socialism could actually be a Good Thing.
In fact the APSL sounds as if Apple is trying to ride the Free Software wave and make profits, with a pseudo-open-source license. Thay shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.
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Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know who expects them to give their users freedom. I haven't really expected. Hoped, for about five seconds when the announcements of Apple "going open source" first came in.
But I've noticed several that do continuously tout how Mac OS X is everything GNU/Linux was ever supposed to. That may well be, I've not used it enough to say (and am skeptical) but there is one major thing that GNU/Linux is and it obviously is not: *free*, in any meaning of the word.
Now at least the small parts of it that they've chosen to release under an "open source license" are actually free software. The vast majority of it still isn't and no-one should think of MacOS X as anything even close to a free operating system.
Could it be if Apple wanted to let it be? Sure, this is the company that tells us to "Think different" and sells much more than just your average PCs and a Windows-workalike to go with them. I don't see why anyone would use OS X on anything else than Apple hardware anyway.
This is still progress (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, it is an improvement over the more restrictive license earlier, and much, much better than the days before Jobs' return from NeXT. At that time, none of the source code was available.
Furthermore, I think this is a Good Thing. A commercial vendor releasing the source code to any central part of their operating system was unheard of years ago. Sun and Microsoft have yet to do this; complaints about Apple's specific license are paltry in comparison to the strict use of binaries in place in other operating systems.
Re:And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what?
Maybe it's just me, but I really don't get the problem here. If you don't agree with their license, then you have a very simple option:
Don't Give Them Your Code
You're not being forced at gunpoint to write software for them under the APSL -- nobody is. It's the developer's personal choice. Your opinions frankly don't come into it at all.
Apple don't have to release any of their software as Open Source. They chose to do so. That's not good enough for you? I take it you'd prefer that they give away everything for free? Including the hardware? Or do you only view intellectual property as being worthless?
Re:not so orwellian anymore (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Since I'm already getting railed on about Sun.. (Score:4, Insightful)
So maybe we have a new category: free as in, you're free to help Apple.
Funny... I don't see it that way.
The way I see it is this:
Apple wanted to use a mature kernel for their OS. So they used it. As a mark of respect and good faith to the Open Source community whose work they used, they decided to release the changes they made (which they were not obliged to) back to the community. The caveats they added ensure that they can use any derivatives of the work which they did, and that their true intellectual property (the Mac GUI and libraries) which they've spent 20 years developing remains theirs. (Otherwise, if the license was true GPL, they'd have to release all of their other work under the GPL as well).
So their license limits their involvement to the changes to the kernel. They don't want to release their GUI under a 'free'* license? Good for them. They don't have to. They were acting in good faith, and that should be the end of it.
Simon
* I use 'free' in quotes, lowercase, because I highly disagree with the FSF's definition of 'free'. Particularly because the only license which meets that description is not a license at all - it's called Public Domain.
Circular reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
So, basically, it's incompatible with the GPL because it's incompatible with the GPL. But it gets better:First of all, who said anything about judging a company? The issue here is whether a particular license is useful for the free software community, not whether Apple will go to corporate heaven. You can't say the APSL is flawed because Apple doesn't use the APSL for all its software. Obviously Apple is being strategic about what license it chooses for which products (and Apple stockholders probably prefer it that way). It doesn't mean the free software community can't acknowledge positive developments about Apple licensing, even if it's not ideal for everyone.
FSF bashing , yet again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember Ogg Vorbis? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FSF needs a dose of reality (Score:5, Insightful)
If all you see on their page is criticism, you need to get a grip, or you're clearly biased. They call the APSL Free. That is very, very positive. Anything that's free is not evil, from the FSF's point of view. It is, however, not smart to use it. That is TRUE. It grants Apple some important rights that you don't get. I wouldn't want to use that kind of license if I didn't have to, and I'm sure many people think the same. You should THANK the FSF for being objective like this, instead of convering it up just to please Apple.
Thirdly, the FSF is the one institute that CAN lead the free software movement (note: I said FS, not OSS). Why? Because they ARE idealistic and they do NOT make compromises to kiss megacorp ass. If you start out with a compromise, you'll end up with nothing. Cheers to the FSF for remaining completely true to their goals.
free market (Score:0, Insightful)
Repeat after me: "there is nothing sinful about making money" - it's the principal of labor exchange, but instead of accepting TV dinners to distribute to their programmers, Apple takes money, distributes that, and then the programmers go off and choose which TV dinners they want. Or they could even choose something else entirely!
Actually, the reality is that capitalists would usually just outsource jobs to those 3rd world shitholes that you speak of, and the programmers you're talking about would usually be unemployed, and not able to buy TV dinners or anything else except if they happen to be receiving unemployment pay (a socialist-type concept, hmmm... ironic, isn't it?). But hey, the free market is a good thing, right?Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And?!? (Score:1, Insightful)
Hahaha... christ, this is such a troll that I can feel the hook biting at my lip. You want want a fair comparison?
Capitalism:
Enron, Microsoft, SCO, **AA
Socialism:
Gulag [ibiblio.org], Concentration Camps (then [us-israel.org] and now [nkhumanrights.or.kr]), etc
Don't so fast to dismiss capitalism, it's not a perfect system, but it beats socialism by a head. Why? Socialism goes against human nature and evolution. It supports the weakest while hurting the strongest, it assumes what everyone wants to work the same by giving them the same rewards.
The problem with capitalism isn't when it's capitalism, it's when it starts to resemble socialism. Enron happened because people lied, cheated and had their asses covered by friends in government. The **AAs function so well because they pass anticompetition laws through the house.
Microsoft functions well because it makes (and has made) a decent product. This'll probably get me modded down to the basement, but it's the truth. Why was Windows 95 so successful? It had no real competition, now it has competition and it's getting better and better.
Linux isn't about socialism, it's capitalism in it's finest form. It's people doing what they consider best for them to get ahead. For a lot of companies it's about lowering costs, for most of the home grown developers it's about working with others to advance their skills, get themselves a better tool and get bragging rights. What's socialist about that?
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:1, Insightful)
OK, I'm going to clearly and unquestionably point out the flaw in your thinking (at least, as I see it
Actually, your original argument has an interesting resonance with that of SCO... they're contesting that works IBM built atop Unix are derivative thereof, and therefore should be licensed under the same terms (i.e. so SCO can make money). You're contesting that Apple's work on top of the open-source Darwin kernel should be licensed as a derivative work, under the same terms as the original. With regard to Red Hat: their business model involves selling support to enterprise-class users for a significant fee. Apple could never do this, a) because they manufacture consumer desktops, where things are less misson-critical and it's far easier to simply find what you're looking for on the Internet, and b) because they've never really had an enterprise-class OS offering until recently, and have no market presence.
As far as the reason Apple elects to keep Quartz proprietary, I think I can say I understand it. The reason people are willing to pay for Apple's overpriced hardware is the whole user experience that goes with it, from the elegant functionality of the the UI to it's many powerful multimedia apps. But that entire aspect of the system is due to the Quartz WM and Apple's home-built apps and administration tools. If they were to open-source it, that would essentially eliminate the competitive advantage of the Apple platform (since you know some folks would have an x86 native port running within a month). This would force Apple to cut their prices to the point of compatibility with PC clone hardware manufacturers, which would kill their business model.
Furthermore, since Quartz and all of it's associated tools were created by Apple developers on Apple time, as far as I'm concerned, if they want to keep the source closed and sell the system atop an open OS kernel and try to charge more for the integrated system, good for them. I consider the effectiveness of the closed-source software layer worth paying a premium for.
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Free Foftware is as communist as church! (Score:5, Insightful)
When a congregation collectively works together to feed the poor by cooking and delivering large amounts of free food, is that communism too? The restaurant owner next door might lose some business. How about when the congregation runs a car wash to collect money toward housing renovations for the poor? Is that communism? The car wash owner down the street might think so. Is it communism when individuals donate a few bucks after Sunday service? Isn't that -- by your line of logic -- communism too?
It's not though. Communism is -- by definition -- ideology enforced by governmental institution and bears no relationship to individuals, acting on principals of free association, freedom of speech, and freedom of commerce (in this case the freedom to donate one's time and effort) toward a collective goal. You're simply red baiting free software authors for committing acts of FREEDOM in a free society. It is my right to donate money to church, the ACLU, EFF, or - *gasp* - even the FSF. Just as it's my right to donate code under whatever license I might choose. A very different proposition from the government forcing me to give my code away under communism, or for that matter, a government which prevents me from giving my code away. In both cases, we're talking about government restricting individual freedom and rights to enforce a certain ideology.
Communism my ass.
--Maynard
realize who your friends are (Score:4, Insightful)
I think GNU-Linux and the open source and free software movmement is an incredible thing that should be encouraged and nurtured. I cheer at their successes. I use Linux both at work and at home. Yay for them. For us all. But I think this community can clearly go too far in what it expects/demands of proprietary software development companies who try to adopt open source principles.
Apparently releasing half your software under an open source license isn't any better than releasing none of it. It's all seen as some sort of subterfugue, an attempt to "dupe" the open source community into thinking the company is "cool." You people need to chill the hell out and realize who your friends and allies are.
Re:And?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't Give Them Your Code
To which one might add, in order not to support them:
Don't Use Their Code
And, you know what,
That's all RMS is saying.
Apple don't have to release any of their software as Open Source.
No, they don't. But just because they do doesn't mean anybody owes them anything. Furthermore, just because some company throws out some piece of software "for free" doesn't mean they are above criticism or analysis. And if their software comes with too many strings attached, then that is certainly worth pointing out.
Or do you only view intellectual property as being worthless?
Well, I don't. Companies like Apple are free to do with their intellectual property what they like, and people like RMS are free to point out the problems with their licenses. OK?
Re:Eric Hughes said it very well. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. This is true. So why does the FSF do this?
From their site "copyleft (very simply stated) is the rule that when redistributing the program, you cannot add restrictions to deny other people the central freedoms. This rule does not conflict with the central freedoms; rather it protects them."
In other words, the GPL puts this restriction in place in order to protect greater freedoms, these being:
# The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
# The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
# The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
# The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Re:And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a historian, I must point out here that people's idea of socialism (as in my parent post) are often very wrong. We were all brought up to believe (those of us currently older than 12) that Russia is the devil, and that socialism and communism and marxism and stalinism are all equivilant, and all bad.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Merriam-Webster defines socialism as: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
Between Winston Churchill and Margret Thatcher (30 years), the UK was essentially a socialist system. The labour party, voted into office at the end of the war (in '45), recognized themselves as socailists, and their immediate goal was to set up a welfare state.
Did socialist Britain involve concentration camps, millions of civillians dead at the hands of their government, and widespread poverty? No. In fact, their goal (guided by the beverage report) was to establish the abolition of want.
The '45 government implemented the nationalization of the Bank of England (like our federal reserve), the Coal industry, the electric and gas industry, and various other industries, including steel and air transport (British Airways). They also passed the Insurance Act which provided unilaterial insurance for unemployment, sickness, and maternity leave, and they also passed the Health Services Act, which guaranteed free health care at the doctor of choice, including dental and eyecare.
Sounds good for me, I'm all about equality. If you can afford better, that's cool, but every one should enjoy a base-line equality that's above any sub-standard conditions.
And they did it without significantly raising the taxes above what people were already paying under Churchill in '44 to suppliment the war effort.
Socialism can go awry, just like capitalism can. The reason socialism sometimes gets a bad rap is because 1.) anti-russian upbringing in the US, 2.) when socialist governments go bad, people get screwed hard, because socialist ideology places *gasp* trust in human nature.
Linux isn't about socialism, it's capitalism in it's finest form.
How so? I don't think that linux is a political entity. However, it's CERTAINLY not capitalist. The very definition of capitalism involves free market enterprise, and giving away your product for free when you've worked long hard hours on it is a very anti-capitalist thing to do. Merriam Webster again: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market. In a capitalist sense, linux should not exist, because price is indicitive of relative worth. Since linux is worthless (monitarily), it therefore follows that it should be worthless (as a product). If it had worth, as it's competition does, it would also cost a comparable amount to it's competition. In theory, if the product were not worthless (as a product), then people would be willing to pay for it, and therefore someone would sell it. Yet, no one sells linux. People sell proprietary drivers, support, and custom applications, but no one sells a kernel called "Linux".
And yet, despite the competition being, according to capitalist theory, "better" (by virtue of costing more), 63% of websites that netcraft tracks are running Apache.
This'll probably get me modded down to the basement...
I hope so. Not for your pro-microsoft statements (which most intelligent users of slashdot will agree with: in general, office is an excellent business productivit
For an organization... (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore - a company such as apple is in the business of making money. In many ways operating a software business "is incompatible with the GPL." [kuhn]. It's nice to see - for a change - an organization that is at least making an effort to give back some of their innovations to the development community. The only other method of protecting their IP is through patent law, and we know how GNU feels about that [petitiononline.com] (link on GNU's home page)
Instead of taking such a cynical and negative stance on an effort to change the way the software industry works - why don't we support it?
Re:And?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
In which case socialism is capitalism in its finest form.
Try not to get brainwashed by the legacy of McCarthy. Socialism is to communism what republicanism is to fascism. Tony Blair, Bush's great aly (heck, his only aly that hasn't been bought) heads a socialist party. If as you claim Blair is planning to errect gulags across the UK then maybe people in the US should be a bit more worried about the intentions of his aly Bush and KKKomandant Ashcroft.
Socialism isn't evil, it is obsolete. Like any hundred plus year old ideology the assumptions it rests on are no longer operative. Capital is no longer scarce. At the time that Robert Owen took over the New Lanarkshire Mills practically the entire population of the UK lived in poverty by modern standards. Owen was by far the most successful capitalist of his day, he appears in US textbooks as 'the father of the factory system'. In UK textbooks he is also mentioned as the father of socialism.
The problems we face today are completely different to those of Owen's day. Today 'common ownership' has been achieved, its called your 401K or your pension plan, not 100% of the country participate but its close enough. The problem today is corporate looters who pay themselves vast salaries with our money and do business in corrupt ways (Enron, Harken, Haliburton)
Oh and lying about the reasons for going to war.
Re:Free Foftware is as communist as church! (Score:4, Insightful)
What a crock. Communism "evolves" through freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of commerce? Take a "concept" and then "enforce" it? How? RMS et all picking up arms and forcing free software upon us all at the point of a barrel? Are you kidding me? You're spewing bullshit and don't even take the trouble to form a coherent argument linking point A to B to C in a chain. It's net.kook ramblings rather than any kind of meaningful exchange.
Here, instead I'll ask you: What policy change would you enact to stop this dangerous spread of free software "communism", while at the same time maintaining our basic constitutional rights and freedoms? Just how do you call society "free" if individuals are prevented from giving away (or selling, both are commerce) that which they create?
Somehow I doubt I'll receive a rational answer.
--Maynard
Re:And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
What it seems to me that Apple sees some benefits to open source, and some disadvantages. For different products, the pros and cons of each lead to a determination of what sort of license to use.
Using open source packages like Apache, Python, Perl, OpenSSL, OpenSSH, OpenLDAP, KHTML, and FreeBSD's userland tools decreases their development time. Making systems like NetInfo, Rendezvous, Quicktime Streaming Server Open Source adds to potential wider adoption of their technologies. Using Open Source in these is a benefit to them
Keeping large portions of the OS X and OS X Server systems closed source allows them to collect significant financial rewards from their sale.
Apple seems to be viewing the complete financial picture when deciding a license for a product. The sales point of view: How many units can they sell? The engineering point of view: How long will it take to build. The marketing point of view:Are there enough products out there that work with ours that would make someone buy it. These points are weighed and a course of action chosen.
They aren't the only company with a dual closed source/open source strategy. The Zope company comes to mind. They fund Python development with their PythonLabs subsidiary. (That has always sort of reminded me of the way that SGI bought MIPS to ensure that the CPU their products were built on had continued development.) They create open source packages like ZODB, Zope, and CMF. They also sell packages built off these technologies like ZRS (Zope Replication Server, for replicated ZODBs) Zope4Media (A content management a publishing system) Again, Zope seems to carefully weigh the benefits of community development and wider adoption against the benefits of direct financial remuneration.
Re:Remember Ogg Vorbis? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to correct myself a bit here. The Ogg Vorbis toolkit was originally licensed under the GPL, from what I remember, and they later shifted to a BSD-style license, which move was not begrudgingly accepted by RMS and the rest of the Free Software Foundation. They actively encouraged the move, IIRC, as Ogg Vorbis is a technologically superior format unencumbered by patents, unlike the dominant MP3 format, for which a legal codec would be impossible for Free Software (LAME and Bladeenc are legally a gray area, and that isn't a good thing). Think GIF vs. PNG. RMS and the FSF have always understood that software patents pose an even greater threat to the cause of Free Software than proprietary software does. The GPL is designed to protect against software from going proprietary, but is of no help at all when dealing with patents (for which there can be no effective legal defense, short of having your own cross-licensable patent pool or having software patents abolished totally, which the FSF and the LPF [mit.edu] are actively working to do).
Care to give a link that shows that RMS and the Free Software Foundation did not fully endorse Xiph's decision to move the licensing from GPL to BSD-style? Another link [lwn.net] I've found, again RMS's own words, shows more pragmatism than anything. For reference, here's the original link [xiph.org] from which i got the first RMS quote.
You are right of course that yes, rare are the cases where another license would serve the cause of Free Software better than the GPL would, but these cases are not unknown. For another example, someone else points out that the FSF actually discourages people from GPLing components at the core of the X Window System. The FSF as a whole and even Stallman in particular are not as inflexible and unpragmatic as many here seem to think.
quick reply on education (Score:2, Insightful)
Wish I had decided to include this in my previous reply, but it didn't have direct bearing on the issue of free software as an expression of "communism". I have to make this quick as I'm heading out to meet a friend.
Regarding public education, you seem to imply that the only way you can "enjoy" private education is by denying everyone else a public education. But I'll be charitable and assume you mean that if one purchases a private education, why must one also pay taxes for everyone else's public education?
Because it benefits the society as a whole, and in so doing it benefits you as well. If you're an employer you need an educated workforce. If you're a member of society you want educated peers. Widespread hunger and desperation from an unemployable citizenry leads to rampant crime and dissolution of the fabric of society. The society you seem to desire would tear apart the basic compact between citizen and government, leading to total anarchy and violent chaos. Frankly, this is not the kind of society I choose. Further, I don't think voters would choose this kind of society, so to implement you'll need some mechanism to enact the policy outside of our democratic framework. JMO. Now, it's coffee time!
--Maynard
Re:And?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
That notwithstanding, there are a few things wrong with your post, or so they strike me.
First, the GPL is the FSF's license, to do with as they please, just as much as Apple's code is Apples, to do with what they please. They have the right to change the GPL anyway they like. Others can have opinions about it, just as they can have opinions about Apple's PSL, but just as they can't make Apple change the APSL, neither should anyone be able to make the FSF change the GPL. Fair is fair, whether anyone likes the FSF or not.
Also, changes to the GPL are *not* retroactive. Any code released under GPL 1.0 is still covered by GPL 1.0, unless the author later re-releases it under a later version of the GPL. The FSF has no power to change that, except with respect to code they have themselves produced. Even then, they must explicitly re-license it under the later version of the GPL.
With regard to the FSF's power, well, they have none, really. No one who writes code is forced to release it under the GPL, unless that code is a derivative work of GPLed code. Even then, they aren't really forced, because no one forced them to write that derivative work. They could have not written it, or done a clean-room implementation of the same functionality. Code is licensed under the GPL only by people who wish to so license their code, and doing so gives no particular power to the FSF. The FSF has power over its own code, that's it. Even then, their power is limited compared to what any proprietary vendor has over its code. It's not unusual these days to see a EULA that along with the normal restrictions on redistribution (covered by copyright law) to also find restrictions on what you may do with the software. Now *that's* power. If someone - even the FSF - licenses code to me under the GPL, I can put that code to any use I wish, foreseen or unforeseen, intended or unintended, and they cannot stop me. The GPL says so.
Finally, with respect to the FSF and socialism, I see that comparison made all the time, but those who make it understand neither the FSF nor socialism. If they did, they wouldn't make the comparison. Read Marx and Lenin, and you'll find out. In the meantime, I'll give a little thumbnail sketch to help out:
Socialism: the software you produce belongs to the state, not you. The state sells it under a proprietary license and keeps the money. They pay you a salary, provide you with the necessities of life, etc. In theory, anyway. In practice, history has shown that it generally doesn't quite work out that way.
FSF: The software you produce is yours, and you are free to make money off of it in any way you can think of, with the exception of making it proprietary. The source must be freely shared with everyone, and they in turn are bound by the same rule of sharing their modifications with everyone.
Socialism: they will enforce this ideology at the point of a gun. If you don't agree, you can take a nice long trip to the gulag.
FSF: If you think they can take their ideology and stick it where the sun doesn't shine, there's nothing they can do except complain and whine about it in public. OK, they can do a clean-room implementation of your functionality if they feel like it, but so can any number of proprietary software vendors. So what?
In this respect, the FSF more nearly resembles anarchy than socialism, but it isn't a terribly good fit there, either. A much better fit is what social anthropologists call "gift cultures." ESR wrote something about this in one of his essays. Gift cultures are uncommon (probably unknown) in Europe, but were common among Polynesian tribes. In a nutshell, social standing comes from what you give away,
Re:And?!? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, let us all share in the 'humanitiarian' christian dominated beliefs of America & their SuperFriends.
Features of Christian governments include:
* Nuclear Weapons (only deployed by America)
* Firebombing (only deployed by NATO)
* Kiloton Plus "Conventional Weapons"
* Incendiaries
* Caustic and Nerve gas
* Largest stockpiles of biological agents
* Clandestine Sponsorship of Terrorism
* Carpet Bombing
* Carcinogenic Defoliants
* Indefinite detention without trial
* Illegal Regime Change
* Drug Distribution (to blacks and immigrants)
* Evangelical Missionaries
* Free Trade (to supporters of illegal war)
If you want to find governments "guilty of crimes against humanity" you need look no further than your own government.
If you want to find a bigot, you need look no further than a mirror.