LinuxCon: Keeping open source open

Posted Sep 25, 2009 0:03 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
In reply to: LinuxCon: Keeping open source open by felixfix
Parent article: LinuxCon: Keeping open source open

I believe government officials usually pass laws for social good, following their honest opinion of what is best for society. Narrow minded people who have a different opinion like to ascribe the difference to evilness on the other guy's part.

I also believe that what the highest bidder wants is usually for the social good. That's because the highest bidder got the money for the bid from society, which gave it to the bidder voluntarily in exchange for what the bidder gives them.

Lobbyists do write legislation, which is then signed by legislators, and there's nothing suspicious about that. It doesn't imply the legislator sponsored the legislation for any reason other than that he personally believes every word of it is best for society. It does mean that the cost of creating legislation is being borne by the segments of society that benefit from it the most.

LinuxCon: Keeping open source open

Posted Sep 25, 2009 6:29 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

Ah, the innocence. It's so sweet.

(Hint: sometimes -- often -- lobbyists like to write laws so that they can
get special advantages or privileges from those laws. That's pretty much
where the word privilege originated.)

LinuxCon: Keeping open source open

Posted Sep 25, 2009 8:33 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

sometimes -- often -- lobbyists like to write laws so that they can get special advantages or privileges from those laws.

You have to go further than that, because a lobbyist can only draft the law. For it to take effect, he has not only to get someone else to sponsor it, but often hundreds of other people to vote for it. So you have to be way more cynical and propose that all the legislators somehow get special benefits -- bribes, I guess -- at the expense of society. And assuming you don't believe you and your friends are so immoral, you have to believe that legislators are cut from a different cloth from the rest of us, and if legislators are elected, that requires even more cynicism because it means the evil bastards somehow fool millions of people, generation after generation, into not recognizing them for the thieves that they are.

LinuxCon: Keeping open source open

Posted Sep 25, 2009 13:41 UTC (Fri) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]

Your sarcasm is a welcome relief. I am glad someone here injected some levity into this way off-topic thread.