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warspeakwarspeakPosted May 23, 2003 13:12 UTC (Fri) by zonker (guest, #7867)In reply to: warspeak by fpahl Parent article: The Open Group on UNIX trademark Military references are all too common in the English language. If you read the tech trade press you will note that war metaphors are commonly used -- I'd say over-used, actually -- and have been long before the (most recent) war in Iraq. I would agree that people should try to curb this tendency, but not for the same reasons -- framing everything as a battle (for example Linux vs. Microsoft, Sun vs. IBM, Java vs. C#, vi vs. Emacs, and so on) tends to encourage a zero sum mentality -- that only one technology can exist at a time or that there has to be a "winner" and a "loser" in any area where there are two or more similar technologies or companies rather than multiple winners, which is a more realistic scenario. The poster does raise an interesting point, and I would encourage people to think about how these metaphors affect discourse and what alternatives might be used rather than ridiculing him for raising this point. He's off base in trying to tie it to the current political climate, but it isn't as if tech issues exist in a vacuum with no influence from politics. Language isn't neutral, there is a significant difference between using a military metaphor or another type of metaphor to describe something. Take the infamous "war on drugs," for example. Think about how that metaphor has framed the debate on drug usage in the U.S., and how our public policies might be different if we had a program of "ending addiction" rather than the "war on drugs."
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warspeak Posted May 23, 2003 14:44 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] zonker wrote: "I would agree that people should try to curb this tendency, but not for the same reasons -- framing everything as a battle (for example Linux vs. Microsoft, Sun vs. IBM, Java vs. C#, vi vs. Emacs, and so on) tends to encourage a zero sum mentality -- that only one technology can exist at a time or that there has to be a "winner" and a "loser" in any area where there are two or more similar technologies or companies rather than multiple winners, which is a more realistic scenario."Hear, hear. I also believe that inasmuch as the free software community adopts the war mindset, we are playing into the hands of those for whom it is a native language. They believe they can only make a living if we lose. They are wrong, but they won't be able to change their minds if we assume an adversarial mindset. We need to be more mature and reasonable than they are (which is not difficult a lot of the time... c.f. Mr. Ballmer's performances on stage...) We have a long-standing tradition of courteous, diplomatic interaction and respect for each other when it comes to development (most of the time at least); now we just need to show that to the outside world and help them to realize that sharing is better than intimidation and extortion.
warspeak Posted May 23, 2003 15:31 UTC (Fri) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] They believe they can only make a living if we lose.In the case of MSFT this is probably true. I haven't seen any compelling evidence that MSFT's business plan will be successful in anything other than a monopoly situation. If they have to play on a level field, with viable alternatives to their products and services, they just don't look that good. They'll have to scale way back to remain financially sound as a business.
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