Clark Campaign Going Open Source (Wired) [LWN.net]

Clark Campaign Going Open Source (Wired)

Posted Dec 24, 2003 16:49 UTC (Wed) by xach (guest, #2349) [Link]

Dave Winer of Scripting News had some really strange commentary on this:

I find myself hoping they get their asses kicked, hard. I don't expect much of Bush, but I doubt seriously that he would undermine the mostly American software industry by competing with it with free software. Makes the Dems' pitch about exporting American high-tech jobs to India fairly hollow (NH is a high-tech state, so it has been an issue).
One of the reasons American programmers aren't competing here (in America) is that users expect to get software for free, and in that environment little new stuff gets created, and we have to keep creating to justify the greater amount of money we make (over Indians). But if all we make are commodities, then Indians working for low pay beat Americans working for free. (People who work for free have no incentive to please users, or even create usable software.)
How sad to see two leading Democrats fall for, even feed the lie that they can create user-oriented software for free. Shame on both Dean and Clark. They went after the little guy. Who wants a president who does that. Not me. Still looking for someone worth supporting.

So you can donate money, time, letter-writing ability, organizational skills, but not your programming ability? Because you're hurting the indie developers toiling away making commercial campaign management software? Bizarro-world...

Clark Campaign Going Open Source (Wired)

Posted Dec 24, 2003 17:19 UTC (Wed) by cpm (subscriber, #3554) [Link]

Yes, that is really bizarre. I couldn't even follow his logic.

Dave Winer

Posted Dec 24, 2003 17:44 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Mr. Winer has been fairly consistent with this sort of stuff. Consider:

Believe it or not, I'd like to thank the music industry for bringing money into the discussion again. Open source hype destroyed the economy of software. Now perhaps we can rebuild it, based on reality. There really is a joy to spending money on things you love. It's simple, and fair, and realistic.

That's from July, 2000. Mr. Winer sees his business threatened in the same way SCO does. The interesting thing is that his field (scripting, weblogging) has always been an area with a lot of free software, but it still somehow surprises him.

Dave Winer

Posted Dec 24, 2003 17:55 UTC (Wed) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

There really is a joy to spending money on things you love.

I guess maybe Dave doesn't know this, but there's a lot more joy in giving stuff away.

Death threats

Posted Dec 24, 2003 18:18 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

Tell that to the Gaim coders. They get death threats for not implementing features, or for implementing them "wrong". :-)

I guess Winer would rather compete with people working under contract to write code to manager-written specs, than with people paid to get useful work done, and writing code to help themselves do it.

The great mystery is why anybody pays attention to what this Winer person says.

Whiner

Posted Dec 24, 2003 18:49 UTC (Wed) by ordonnateur (guest, #6652) [Link]

Who is this Winer person? Some USAian who thinks virtue inheres in money I suppose.

Whiner

Posted Dec 25, 2003 2:11 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

I don't know who he is, but, as you noted in your subject line, he was named
aptly :)

Dave Winer

Posted Dec 29, 2003 20:52 UTC (Mon) by GreenBoy (guest, #18295) [Link]

"There really is a joy to spending money on things you love."

Yes, and someday I hope to spend money on sunsets. This guy seems to have a few screws loose.

D.Winer's code didn't cut it for Groklaw...

Posted Dec 25, 2003 7:53 UTC (Thu) by chalsall (guest, #400) [Link]

I find it hugely relevant that GrokLaw.net starting by using his software, but had to migrate because the software couldn't handle the comment/reader load. Some interested parties stepped forward and created a better system than what he offered, for free, because they felt the site was worth it (frankly, just about any half-assed programmer could do better than Winer in a day or so with Perl).

Imagine -- actually having to keep creating (read: keep having to actually work) to be paid. This seems to be the problem with the current North American world-view -- they expect they can do a little bit of work early in their lives, create a bit of the holy IP, and then lay back and get carried through the good life.

Sorry -- that doesn't scale. And those who would be paying for same are just saying "you've got to be kidding! Tell you what, how about we try something different..." And you know what? The Law is on their side!

D.Winer's code didn't cut it for Groklaw...

Posted Dec 26, 2003 4:32 UTC (Fri) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]

Oh, *really*?

It suddenly becomes relevant that, back in about 97 or so, I got into an email conversation
with Dave (for which I *wish* I still had the archives) wherein I asked him when he was going
to do the Linux version of Frontier, and he called me every kind of motherfucker over about 4
messages... and a few kinds I think he made up.

Very amusing to know Grok tried Manila.

Shame; Frontier is such a nicely framed architecture I was planning to steal it...

Clark Campaign Going Open Source (Wired)

Posted Dec 26, 2003 17:00 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

Geee..., pehaps someone should arrange some kind of repeater to the press to keep repeating the possible business models arround "Open-Source"...

Are IBM, NOVELL, SUN, HP, positioned to lose money on their Open-Source iniciatives or is Mr. Dave Winer not much clever than a arse back (or worst... well payed to spray lies) ??

And if big corporations are happly coding in Open-Source it means that jobs are still there,..., but if someone subcontracts into India or other country, more in the like of "Proprietary" software, that has nothing to do with Linux or Open- Source.