>
>
>The benefits extend far beyond just other programmers. Some examples:
>
> * The Internet, used by millions of non-programmers, is largely
> powered by free software;
>
> * the new Mac operating system is built out of free
> software;
>
> * some embedded consumer electronic devices, like the TiVO and
> at least one popular game console, include or use free software;
>
> * some new operating systems are nearly all free software.
>
>Totaling these cases up, they may represent as many as 150,000,000
>people worldwide who get benefits from free software without knowing
>"what the hell code is." That's not insignificant.
i don't disagree that all of this is of great benefit. i do however disagree that this is liberation or potential liberation for these folks simply b/c the technology exists.
as chris pointed out, most people are 'fuser lusers. at any rate. they would freak out whether they were trying to type commands at a dos prompt and getting "abort, retry, ignore fail" or figure out how the hell to get the flamin clippy thingy off my fuser screen and getting "you have performed an illegal operation...."
to me, the relationship between people who would refer to others as "lusers" is exactly another place we should look. it is one of the reasons why i think that we should take care here and attend to what peter identified as condescension which, as jordy pointed out, came out crystal clear in posts. each of you responded in some way in which you demonstrated your 1. street cred by detailing which projects you'd worked on (which was probably more for other "insiders" than for me, yes?) 2. insisted that i couldn't know anything b/c i wasn't a "geek" (to which i pointed out, "oh but we can crown dougdaddy for his analysis of wall st, even tho he's no stock broker. ohhhhhhhhkaaaaaaaaaay) (caveat: there is no easy epistemological answer here) 3. and in each post, each of you posited some group as the "posers" and others as the "real" geeks/hackers/etc.
>Now, does that make hackers radically different than any other kind of
>professional? No, but it may make them relatively distinctive w/in the
>information technology sector.
could be. to answer another question, i mostly hang out at dc stuff and at one time cypherpunks. DC stuff is the list for folks interested in DefCon, the underground hackers convention held in LA. I am subscribed because I work for Winn Schwartau, he regularly speaks at defcon and runs Defcon's Hacker jeopardy. He's famous for writing _Information Warfare_ and just came out with a controversial book, _Cybershock_. We are working on a couple more. We are security consultants for firms in the banking and finance industry, performing penetration tests, audits, reviews, help firms author security policies and, our niche in the market is "security awareness" since the "fuser luser is the most important and weakest link in the security chain. Winn is, basically, famous anyway for arguing that there is no technological security fix.
oh ferfucksake, i'm starting to reel out the sales spiel. anyway, my job is varied and i do a little bit of everything from social engineering when we do penetration tests to editing to designing surveys. most important, i keep with every nook and cranny of the infosec and infotech world . so i'm subscribed to and scan and analyze ever friggin list, publication, report, web site in the world associated with infosec and infotech. it's my job to scan through all this crap and sort the cream of it and transform into isomething my clients can use, depending on the level of technical expertise.
at any rate, at the more political lists like dcstuff, cypherpunks, etc, i see no indication that this ethos has affected their politics. i really ought to gather up choice quotes and send them here for y'all to ponder.
>Kelley asks why geeks keept touting themselves in these overblown
>terms. I think there are two main reasons:
>
> 1. ignorance (of the kind you highlight)
i'm not sure i'd call it ignorance. but i'm not sure what you're saying since you've characterized me as highlighting 'ignorance'.
> 2. given the fabulous sums of wealth getting created
> these days by the computer industry, geeks may
> (rightly or wrongly) think they deserve a bit of
> *relative* praise given what Bill Gates and his
> ilk tend to do with technology.
yes, i do see the resentment surfacing time and time again. although, otoh, some folks at dc-stuff were just also talking about the resentment felt by folks who see "tech workers" as comparatively fabulously wealthy when you consider their 40kplus salaries compared to those of nontech (and non prof and non managerial) workers which are usually quite a bit less than 40k.
>In other words, it may be that geeks go on and on about their
>giveaways because, by comparison to monopolizing tendencies in the IT
>world, they do seem a refreshing change of pace. Compared to the kind
>of giveaways that are standard in academia and and other professionals
>(for example, pro bono legal work), their claims *are* overblown.
the point poorly stated originally was that all professions have 1. claimed that they are a change of pace from the capitalist values of the day in so far as they have maintained in some fashion that they are not in it for the money but for the greater good. 2. in some cases this has manifested itself in ritual-like ethical norms and claims about the uniqueness of the profession and instance of which is the tradition of pro-bono. in other professions, they tout other things. academics like to talk of how they make far less money by being in academia but they chose that path be/c it was the noble path to take. in the medical field there are exermplary stories of the great charity and generosity of various historical and contemporary figures. etc.
>Gee, I agree with that. I even went on Canadian public television last
>year during the spate of 'open source IPOs' and criticized companies
>like Red Hat and VA Linux precisely for being naively coopted by
>capital. Of course, it's a sad fact that I was one of a very few
>people from the free software world CBC could find to do this. That's
>not good.
>
>But I would rather have to put up with the incessant crowing from
>geeks, which Kelley rightly describes, than have Microsoft and other
>multinationals dominate computing technology utterly.
i'd like to know more about the above.
you'll forgive, but while i understand and can agree with you, i'm simply being contrarian b/c i doubt it's wise to be complacent and, while i don't agree with carrol in all respects, i think it's wise to, as lefties, be seduced by these claims about the transformative potentials of a once marginalized increasingly professionalizing work culture. we are watching the conditions under which it is becoming mainstream (and poor chris can't get a date anyway damn it!). always pessimistic about these things anyway, i'm exploring it all in a rather marcusean way.
>Best,
>Kendall Clark