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> This very American attitude of separating "business enterprises" from "consumers", which to me sounds like separating the noble and important from peasants or

> This very American attitude of separating "business enterprises" from "consumers", which to me sounds like separating the noble and important from peasants or cattle, is utterly sickening I'm kind of on the fence about this. My counterargument to your comment is that the iPhone, Google search, global shipping, oil production, etc. could not be created by individuals. These things exist because huge groups of humans organized into things called "businesses". Protecting businesses is like protecting the economies of states. There are massive effects for lots of people if businesses are not treated well. So yes, businesses get special deals sometimes. Unfortunately, this is a slippery slope, and people often fall down it. To me, the truth in your comment is that US culture tends to give credit to CEOs for the efforts of all the other people in the organization. And this can be easily conflated with all kinds of other issues like "fines are just things that are illegal for poor people".

techntoke 7y ago
Based on your argument then, Linux is a business and not created by an open-source community.
- rayiner 7y ago
  More than 90% of contributions to Linux now are from developers sponsored by corporations: https://thenewstack.io/contributes-linux-kernel https://thenewstack.io/contributes-linux-kernel.
feanaro 7y ago
My counterargument to that is that businesses do not need protection to function, certainly not as much as they are given. In fact, the amount of "protection" given to large businesses today is nothing more but the result of a runaway process of allowing businesses to acquire too much power, which they can use to rig the system in order to acquire even more. Businesses are a good and necessary concept, but that does not mean they are above the people. Businesses are servants of the people and of society. To get back on the topic at hand, businesses should definitely not get special allowance to use some technology that "ordinary" people are outlawed from using. That is a path to disaster.

techntoke 7y ago

Based on your argument then, Linux is a business and not created by an open-source community.

rayiner 7y ago
More than 90% of contributions to Linux now are from developers sponsored by corporations: https://thenewstack.io/contributes-linux-kernel https://thenewstack.io/contributes-linux-kernel.

feanaro 7y ago

My counterargument to that is that businesses do not need protection to function, certainly not as much as they are given. In fact, the amount of "protection" given to large businesses today is nothing more but the result of a runaway process of allowing businesses to acquire too much power, which they can use to rig the system in order to acquire even more. Businesses are a good and necessary concept, but that does not mean they are above the people. Businesses are servants of the people and of society. To get back on the topic at hand, businesses should definitely not get special allowance to use some technology that "ordinary" people are outlawed from using. That is a path to disaster.