kelley> giving away code, as far as i can tell, is all about
kelley> showing everyone how big your dick is. it is a
kelley> competition, one upmanship. not much about sharing and
kelley> caring in that practice, if you ask me. it's about how
kelley> big a MAN you are for sharing. with the emphasis on
kelley> "voluntary giving" and being in position to be able to do
kelley> so w/o much reflexivity on how one got there. who's the
kelley> 3133+ H4x0R d00d???!! :)
Well, sure, there's some of that. But this is a point about intentions and motivations, and so, as is usually the case with messy entities like us humans, things are all over the map.
(And, yes, one of the points I make in my essay, and one of my personal projects, is to challenge the horribly unreflective and quite stupid libertarianism that characterizes far too many technical Internet people and communities. I don't dispute, then, your point about people not thinking about how they got into situations to do what they do.)
But my point wasn't about intentions, rather, about consequences. The contrast with Microsoft still stands, I think. MS doesn't mean to be condescending, but I think they are, and quite regularly. Likewise I imagine the publisher of the X for Dummies book series probably doesn't mean to condescend to ordinary people either, but I think it does nonetheless.
In the same way, however, even though here is rather a lot of nonsense in the free software world, the consequences of what those people have been able to achieve should not be judged too lightly.
I don't think it's unimportant to people in "developing" countries that there exists a very sophisticated and completely free information technology infra- structure waiting for them when they get to the point of being able to use it.
Do I think that such free software serves the most pressing needs of such countries (or communities here in the US)? Of course not. Potable water, safe and abundant foodstuffs, vitally democratic structures of governance are what many "developing" countries need most. (To say nothing of just being left the **** alone by the US and transnational corps.)
But other countries and communities can benefit from the same technical infrastructure that daily powers the Internet. And they can do so for free, without having to sell the farm to MS or Sun or Cisco, etc.
I think that's pretty cool, and not something to be dismissed too quickly.
kelley> what else explains the why open source isn't really open
kelley> source? eh?
Hmm, maybe it's me, or I'm more tired than I think, but I have no idea what this means. :>
Best, Kendall Clark -- When all you have is capitalism, everyone looks like a wage slave.