[sclug] Cheap'n'nasty Tesco Linux machines

[Phillip Chandler]

"I'd also put it to you that enforced freedom is no freedom at all."

Im firmly in the belief that we currently have enforced freedom (as I
see it). Every counties government dictates what rights a person has,
they decide the goal posts and we have to live within those goal posts,
and our freedom is within those same goal posts. And we apparently live
in a free capitalise society in the UK !!!!! Id love to see any of us
standing outside Reading Train Station on a monday morning, between 7am
and 8am, slagging off the government, saying that they are all a bunch
of lying, deceitful bunch of two faced old gits, and that you want to
question the legitimacy of their parentage, and see how long you last
before getting arrested.
We dont live in a democracy, else there would have been a referendum on
the EU constitution, we would be able to tell dear Mr Brown what we do
and dont like, without resorting to the poll tax riots.
Theres an old expression "Im always in the S**T only the depth varies",
and what does this have to do with this email, well the same applies to
to our rights and the rights of other countries peoples. We probably may
be better off than some countries, but at the end of the day, its all
the same sort of government, just by a different name.
Plus Communism in its purest sense would work perfect, to start a
village going. But what kills communism is capitalism. 

On Sun, 2008-03-16 at 20:17 +0000, Dickon Hood wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 18:45:14 +0000, Pete wrote:
> : --- Dickon Hood <sclug at splurge.fluff.org> wrote:
> : > Is it not morally and ethically right to allow the
> : > entity which spent
> : > those resources some mechanism to recover those
> : > costs?  Surely it isn't
> : > ethical to deny a writer or a filmmaker the fruits
> : > of their labour?
> 
> : That's the way the old system worked, yes. But that's
> : no guarantee that things will always be that way.
> 
> True.
> 
> : > There wouldn't be much left of the entertainment
> : > industries left if not.
> 
> : Industries change. To quote a popular example, the
> : blacksmithing industry changed a lot once people
> : stopped using horses as a primary means of
> : transportation.
> 
> That was less a change, and more an overnight total destruction.
> 
> : The entertainment industry is overcrowded. The reason
> : why people don't feel obliged to compensate the
> : directors of the music and film companies (oh, and
> : don't forget that the artists and filmmakers get their
> : 1% too) is that the supply is copious. There are so
> : many films and albums coming out, people consider them
> : to be worthless. If you were in a room with ten
> : million chocolate bars, you'd be much more likely to
> : steal one than if you were in a room with two
> : chocolate bars.
> 
> People are willing to pay for entertainment that they see value in: I
> present the cinema as a good example of a portion of the industry that has
> been slated for destruction many, many times, and yet still seems to be
> thriving.
> 
> I maintain: it does all need to be paid for.  Television is (barring the
> BBC) prescription and / or ad-funded, but even that involves a cost: you
> are worth 20p/hour to ITV, and for that, you have to endure up to 12
> minutes of adverts per hour of programming.  That's a cost a lot of people
> are willing to bear; personally I hate it.
> 
> Excepting the usual communist arguments -- and I agree with Alex here:
> Eric Raymond would be *most* put out, being a run-for-the-hills
> survivalist gun-nut... -- people need paying.  Free software can only do
> that via services (or where the software is a byproduct of the (usually)
> company's main activity).
> 
> I'd also put it to you that enforced freedom is no freedom at all.  I
> should be free to charge for my software should I so want.
>