The debian-private mailing list leak, part 1. Volunteers have complained about Blackmail. Lynchings. Character assassination. Defamation. Cyberbullying. Volunteers who gave many years of their lives are picked out at random for cruel social experiments. The former DPL's girlfriend Molly de Blanc is given volunteers to experiment on for her crazy talks. These volunteers never consented to be used like lab rats. We don't either. debian-private can no longer be a safe space for the cabal. Let these monsters have nowhere to hide. Volunteers are not disposable. We stand with the victims.
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Re: The "free software community" does not include Linus

In article <19971104175701.52868@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au> you wrote:

: I'd be interested to know how the free software idea came about.

Read Levy's "Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution."  It's a bit dated,
but it's the closest thing I've seen in print to an explaination of the forces
that led to the current situation.  My father enjoyed the copy I lent him...

Or, if you have tons of time, you could ask RMS in person what got him started
on the GNU idea... he gave a good talk at the first (only?) FSF Free Software
Conference about this, and it brought together various tidbits that I'd heard
at different times.  But he's sufficiently passionate on the subject that
he's a lot like a solid rocket booster...  :-)  Once you get him lit up, you
basically have to wait for him to burn out and the smoke to clear...  :-)

: For example, why software? Why are people willing to spend hours
: writing software and just give it away? Why only software?

There are actually a fair number of examples of things people have done and 
distributed for free that are not software.  If your notion of "a search of
the literature" is to snoop around the web, then of course you're going to get
a software-heavy view of the world...  Then again, as Phil Karn keeps saying
at amateur radio gatherings, "hey, anyone can write software."  :-)  PC's
are essentially everywhere, surface-mount PCB assembly tools aren't.

: (in ham stuff especially) people
: are all too willing to sell you a kit, but not to give away
: the design.

Yep.  Isn't it annoying.  Even the ARRL Handbook, of all things, is now
publishing designs for which you can't have the source to what's in the 
microcontroller or its EPROM.  What a lousy state of affairs.  And the worst
part of it is that they honestly think, most of the time, that they're doing
the masses a favor.

: So why are we willing to give our software away?

Dunno.  It's a fun topic for Usenix panel discussions and late-night chats
over a beer or three.  There are almost as many answers as there are free
software authors.  

It's the one place I've found where some of the ideas behind socialism 
actually work.  I think it's mostly because the cost of distribution of 
software is essentially zero.  As a result, it doesn't have to cost you
anything to share what you've done, and to borrow what others have done.  
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

Bdale, N3EUA


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