Re: [h2o-discuss] low profile

["Stefan Keel" <sak@pop.nwlink.com>]

> i have no objection to esr restricting himself to code.
> but then he should specifically say that his statements
> apply only to code and not to other digital media.  and
> he should explain how we can tell the difference.

Eric E. brings up some very valid points in regards to 'open.'  But is the
objective to focus on digital media, code, or other?

Raymond unwittingly ended up as the evangelist for a movement in a
particular genre.  What's become interesting to my personal studies of that
genre, and those involved, is that they continuously refer to themselves as
a movement, or even a revolution.

When faced with the fear of being over run by the proprietary nature of the
software giants, those who wanted to move one step farther without the
hindrance of ownership either had to figure out some new method to the
madness, or give in.  Richard Stallman is a good example of this, when he
was faced with the decision to leave MIT and get a Job writing proprietary
code for some Owner, or sticking with his personal ethics and creating some
other alternative.

So is the coding community some faction of a greater idea - OpenEverything?
Is it something like attempting to convince the mass-populous, overnight,
that Anarchy is better than the system of government that they are currently
operating under?  In that, that it may only work for smaller factions or
groups to exist in something of an Anarchistic state of being - hence the
OpenSource movement?

> i ran into this problem when the evangelists for the
> debian program refused to back my campaign against strong
> intellectual property protections for online books and
> other digital media.  they claimed that it was a bad
> idea to place things in the public domain, and that
> instead they should be copylefted.
>
> i have no objection to copyleft, but you have to read
> their licenses to understand that they are groping toward
> some analogy with software but don't understand the domain
> of other digital media.  in discussions with rms, i found
> that he has different ideas about licenses for things like
> online books.  and in reading statements from tim o'reilly
> i find that he too has been attacked for heterodox views
> on copyright of books, when he is truly struggling to find
> a way to make the open software movement gibe with the need
> to bring book publishing into the internet age.  none of
> us has come up with a good way to generalize from open
> software to Open anything else.  this needs a lot more
> discussion and work.

Excellent!  But what marketable product do we have to work with?

When the OpenSource movement kicked off, it was backed by a somewhat
tangible object - Linux and the GPL.  The Idea had a vessel, and was
saleable to those who might not quite understand the Idea that has been
commonplace among smaller communities for some time.  It was easier, then,
for someone like Raymond to fall into the position of evangelist and offer
other factions the Idea with successful examples.

If, then, one were to take the example of the entire OpenSource community as
a whole, and use it as a successful example of OpenEverything, then would
that Idea actually come to light in the minds of many.  Perhaps not, because
it needs to be time-tested in order to be proven, and there is too much at
stake.  We know that there are better, cheaper ways to do things - that are
fundamentally free anyway, and that could even make steps toward saving some
of the natural resources of our planet.  But the industries that have rooted
themselves in the positions they currently hold may not give.

The software industry is just young enough to be swayed.  The people who are
buying software are still looking for something that is better - and looking
for some better way to understand it all.  The passion that goes behind the
creation of new media, operating systems, or scientific discoveries is
quelled by the power of Ownership.  Or perhaps bureaucracy?

Is the real bottleneck coming from a new Idea or an older one?

Some of the technology is here, but where is the imagination?

Is it locked up under someone's Ownership?

What's confusing to me, is the actual difference between what should have
started a long time ago, and what is just starting now.  If the issue was
really about power, and control, then maybe we humans weren't ready to
understand it until now.  Isn't language just code for communication in a
native tongue.  The paradox that comes to mind is baffling.  What would have
happened if the Romans had claimed some ownership of their lettering system?
Where would we be today?

So, to me, it's something we've thought of before.  Then, in Eric Eldred's
defense, why didn't the companies who published Joyce, do so for free?  Is
it really that confusing?  Are we really that afraid of sharing what we
never really 'owned' in the first place?

> unfortunately, somewhat sectarian battles between open
> software advocates have obscured the need to bring all of
> us in the Open movement together and work out common ways
> of dealing with our common problems and issues.  coming
> at it from not software but rather the international law
> perspective, for example, james boyle has eloquently
> posed the crying need to bring these advocates for a better
> intellectual law theory together, and work out something
> positive.  and we saw the beginnings of that last may
> with the openlaw and opencode people coming together too.
> and jpb has been advocating many of the same ideas in the
> forums for freer digital music.
>
> i feel strongly that there is a great need to do something
> more to bring together these Open advocates and thinkers,
> and to work out some better program for moving forward
> together.  we are facing some time pressures, because
> events are moving forward rapidly now:  private companies
> are patenting parts of the human genome, the agrichemical
> businesses are rapidly rethinking their ideas about
> intellectual property protection, the poorest nations are
> considering how they must respond to the strong IPR laws
> of the richest nations, and the judges are having to rule
> with very inadequate IPR theory, just weak analogies with
> obsolete technologies.  if bcis doesn't do something
> positive, more concrete than in may, then somebody else
> should.  who?

My confusion here comes from wondering if these 'Open advocates and
thinkers' are some kind of elite, or just pawns peddling the greater idea.
Linux was created by a community.  The masses working together were, and
are, capable of creating better than what is held behind closed doors.

It took someone to come along, naturally in their own course of things, to
develop an idea that we all knew was true from the beginning anyway.  That
person just explained it to the rest of us, in the language in which we were
already operating under - through some of the assumptions that we chose to
live by.  Once that conveyance sprouted, it took hold of some other
carriers.  Fear forced motivation.  Whomever first explained such an Idea,
in a language that was easier understood given the limitations of the
populous as a whole, did so not as a result of someone's cry for help, but
because of everyone's cry for help.

When writing is taught in a scholastic setting, the budding writer is told
to focus on the audience - the target of the work.  This makes for
successful Fantasy writers, Horror writers, and Non-Fiction writers.  But
what if the audience was the entire world?  Is it possible for one person to
understand enough about everything on this planet to convey a message, or
develop a method that would work for everybody?  From my limited mind, I
think not.  But then who?  What about everybody?

It's surely not easy to bring a few people together to make discussion about
an issue that is important.  This list is a good example, as the writers
grapple for topics of discussion - ranging from OpenCode, OpenBooks,
OpenMedicine, OpenLaw, to OpenEverything.  Consider bringing an even larger
audience to such a venue.  I think that Raymond fell into such a position
because he was motivated by the Idea at one point in time, and had an
example with which to explain it to others.  I know of such a feeling when I
attempt to explain the Idea to someone.  I get the deer in headlights effect
- which I'm sure Richard Stallman encountered quite frequently when he first
started attempting to explain the Idea to others.  But where he may have
experienced that bewildered look at the outset, someone else came along and
offered another analogy that others were more capable of grasping.

Raymond may have taken on the position of an elite, but only from the
perspective of OpenSoftware.  He could, conceivably share his perspectives
with other major nodes like Eric Eldred, and the BCIS, thus pooling their
resources toward the common Idea.  It's what he did in the first place, as
he explains in his essay, 'The Revenge of the Hackers,' published in 'Open
Sources, Voices of the Open Source Revolution.'  Here's the URL...

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/raymond2.html

I don't believe that there is any 'one' who will come along and be able to
explain everything to everyone and watch them get it.  There may be a few
who explain things better, but they continue to act as conduits, or nodes to
a portion of the audience.  Will bringing together those nodes, with the
intent to develop some manner or method really help?  Or, would it be a
better idea to bring those nodes together in order to share their resources
with one another - thus expanding the whole?

Thanks,

Sak.