X-Message-Number: 17286
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 16:35:50 -0400
From: Wesley Eddy <>
Subject: Re: Cryonet #17277 Anarchy is bad?

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In Cryonet #17277, Yvan Bozzonetti wrote:
> Anarchy  is the contrary of herarchy, it is not disorder, it is an 

> organization without herarchy. Politic systems, military ones or corporations
> are example of herarchy. Religions are another. Anarchy is similar to self 
> organizing system, the Open Source/ GNU project in computing is a form of 
> anarchy. It has produced Linux for example, not an inferior product if you 
> look at its herarchy competitor: Windows.

The claim that Linux development is anarchic is a complete and utter lie.
First of all, you're comparing apples to oranges, and secondly if you
were to compare the software development process to governmental systems,
Linux kernel development would be much more monarchy as all patches go through
the man (Linus) himself for the current tree, or through Alan Cox or one
of the other leaders for the older trees.  There is a set hierarchy of
control to decide what goes into the kernel.  It is not in any way anarchic.
You're confusing the freedom to distribute/modify/profit from Linux as
freedom from control.  In any case, this isn't really a discussion that
should continue on Cryonet, but I think that any self-respecting member of
the open source movement would find your claims quite offensive.

> Napster was an anarchy song distributor at the origin, it has now been 
> converted to business/herarchy, not a good thing for liberty or distribution 
> efficiency.

This is also not true.  Napster clients connect to a central server and always
have.  That central sever has full control over what can be served, to whom it
may go, and every other aspect of the network.  A true peer-to-peer network
like gnutella for example is much more like an anarchy though.

The word 'anarchy' tends to carry with it quite a bit of negative imagery,
so it's not wise to just haphazardly toss it around and use it to label
things which are decidedly very ordered and controlled.

-Wes

-- 
"I can't see too well, what's it all about?  I don't know man, did you poke
your eyes out?"		-Angry Samoans, "Lights Out"

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