[linux-audio-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] RME is no more

[Robert Persson]

> A truism is something too obviously true, cliched or which repeats itself
> in the making. Five years ago I'd have stared at you open mouthed if you'd
> told me any of those things were possible. You misunderstood my point
> completely.
>
> nevermind
>
> tim hall


Look.  I know this thread is like so last week, but I've just been catching up 
with it and some of my buttons have been pushed here.

Tim's has correctly defined a truism here, and I am guessing that he would 
probably agree with me if I said that a prime example of a truism is "They 
tried Marxism in Russia and it didn't work."  Marx denounced the growing 
"public" sector in Napoleon III's France as "state capitalism" and so there 
is no reason to believe he would not have denounced the Soviet Union for 
exactly the same thing.  We only think of the Soviet system as Marxist 
because Lenin said so.  That's really not fair on Marx.

I could say quite a lot more about this, so if you don't want me then please 
don't set me off again by posting such ill-informed nonsense.

Let me put this a bit more strongly.  Marx was not primarily concerned about 
how "fair" or not it was that certain people got more of the pie than others.  
He was concerned most of all about the spiritual state of people who were 
coming more and more  to see their life's work as being no more than 
commodities.  In this sense he understood that those who identified 
themselves with the capitalist class were no less spiritually oppressed than 
the working class families whose labour they exploited (think stock options).

This is a very important point in favour of open-source.  For instance if I 
want to do audio work the stuff that will give me the quickest and easiest 
results is proprietary.  Unfortunately, because many of the copyrights and 
patents are concentrated in very few hands, I will find that by paying the 
license fee I am transferring even more wealth from the poor (yes I am, 
relatively speaking) to the rich.  However if I try to avoid this problem by 
using software without paying for it I find that I am still in a bind.  This 
is because I am still in a position of psychological dependence on the big 
software house to produce the magic thing that will make me creative.  Of 
course there is no creativity unless you make things for yourself, and there 
is no humanity unless you collaborate with others and recognise that they are 
creative and human just as much as you are.  That is Marxism, and it is also 
my number two reason why I choose to go through agonies trying to get Linux 
to do sound stuff.  (The number one reason is of course that Windows is 
suicidally useless.  I know that's not particularly Marxist, but I do think 
that Bill Gates would stop being such a miserable tyrant if he actually 
decided to create something for himself (i.e. something he could share with 6 
billion equals) rather than just hoarding money acquired through intimidating 
and exploiting other people and stealing their work).

As you may now see there is a lengthy tract to be bursting to be written here, 
so if you don't want me to write it then +please please please+ read some 
good books (e.g. Erich Fromm's "Marx's View of Man") and don't set me off by 
posting some "I'm asking them to go and live in Russia"-type nonsense you 
heard off the television or at primary school.

Robert

PS I posted something a couple of weeks ago about something else to which a 
number of people replied.  I just want to say thank you to all those people 
and to say that the reason I didn't follow up was because kmail ate my Linux 
Audio mailbox and I lost track of where I was.  Sorry.  Some of the 
suggestions you made were very useful.

-- 
Robert Persson is powered by Linux. No he's not. He's just tired.