On Mon, 18 Sep 2000 04:15:33 -0400, kelley <kwalker2 at gte.net> wrote:
>
> btw, i suppose that the reason why esr isn't taken seriously
> ac is the reason why that faction, the "other" open source,
> won in the duke out over the name, yes?
you know, sinster is a much better person to ask about that than i. he remembers those battles. personally, i don't think the "name" is as important as you or eric. there are several forms of "official" open source licenses, to which matt already referred. eric wanted linux called gnu linux, iirc, and you notice that it's not...
> 1. they claim to empower people but also claim they "see" or "do"
> something ordinary people can't or won't see or do. physicians, with the
> help of the state and wealthy sponsors, managed to make midwives and
> quacks illegal.
but see, this (again) is the difference. the *computer* is what empowers people. it puts the knowledge-base, the tools for production, etc, in the people's hands. maybe not everyone could have trained to be a physician back in those days, but the computer makes it possible for *everyone* to gain the knowledge essential for creating wealth in today's society...
this is a false analogy. (i feel like i am banging my head against the wall.)
> what is going on re geeks and the true v poseur geek rhetoric
> is precisely the same boundary marking: some geeks are like
> the midwives of over a century ago, while the "script
> kiddies" are like the quacks.
another false analogy. people do progress from "script kiddie" to hacker/coder; how many midwifes progressed to physician?
the boundary that you are asserting simply does not exist. yes, there are people out there that simply fire up the tools and use them. you may call them script kiddies, but they might be better termed as lusers. because firing up trinoo is about as difficult as using word.
there *is* an elite status to using command line tools and to being able to code a tool. but the difference between elite hacker/coder and script kiddie is far more akin to the difference between first on the moon and 12th. the elite clear the path. the script kiddie is merely a luser...
> it is all informal now, but the song of Hacker Agonistes will,
> no doubt, play a part in the development of formalizing,
> credentializing processes that will mark official boundaries
> of who doesn't and doesn't belong in a similar way.
belong to what? are you suggesting some formal credentialing process to belonging to the "scene?" the more that you put this discussion in terms in which you are familiar, the farther you get away from the reality of which i thought we were discussing.
> 2. they claim to provide something for people that no one else
> has provided, or special insight into a new technology, or
> that the older elite roots of the profession provided only to
> the well-to-do.
definition time. i should have done this before. hacker: a.) someone who writes elegant code; b.) proficient explorer of the computing environment, including the role of archivist; c.) tinkerer, breaker, door-rattler, and fixer. all these roles are interconnected.
the fact that we know something no one else has provided is because we were first; the fact that we have special insight into a new technology is because we were first. there are no barriers to entry, there is little more than verbal abuse to be had for trying to enter "the elite."
> part of that process was an attack on the established elites,
i don't think you find that hacker/coders and open source supporters are spending much time attacking the established elites. we bring a new definition to laissez faire: who cares?
> a tearing down of the aristocratic roots of the profession,
> claiming that they were self-serving and helping only the
> elite, not all of humanity. (the parallel: the attack on
> microsoft and closed code)
but, see, there you go again. it wasn't the elite hackers that attacked microsoft but bill gates who attacked us! you see, *before* there was a microsoft or an open source movement, the tradition existed that *code* was free. well, you couldn't build a company on *that,* so gates famously argued in 1976 that altair users who traded his code were wrong. the altair was *not* a networked computer. microsoft's precedence-setting agreement with ed roberts gave way to the anolomous environment of software creators actually selling their code! microsoft sought to change the pre-existing environment. the open-source movement is merely reclaiming what the free software movement had done before microsoft.
as an aside, microsoft is not really a digital company, anyway, but merely a code factory pretending to be post-industrial.
gates and microsoft tried to overturn the existing tradition, *not* the open source movement. code has always been seen as something to be shared and perfected. do you see why your analogies are so off?
> 3. in order to do 2. they had to claim that they weren't self-
> serving, that their mission was to serve the greater good and
> that the income/benefits they derived from it were only
> secondary.
bullshit. code wants to be free. code is nothing more than information, *speech.* *we* realize that you can't charge for that. no altruism involved. (it must take an aweful big hammer to pound that square peg into the digital whole...)
> 4. they have to strike a balance especially wrt 1. if they
> do not, their failure is the source for a common lament on
> this list: 'why can't these fools use a language ordinary
> people can understand? how can they "help" people if no one
> but insiders "gets it"?' (the common lament about
> geek/hacker hostility to the luser, the obfuscating
> specialized language. i mean come on. UNIX lore about the
> man anyone? sheesh!)
yeah, yeah. everyone has their inside speak. so what?
> so, they can't get too obscurantist; but they cannot be too
> accessible and nor can they be practiced by just anyone
> because were that the case, then they couldn't command the
> respect, status and incomes they command.
i see *you* were able to gain command of this "secret" language. hmmm. didn't take you too long either. apparently, geeks have failed to keep the uninitiated out. (or could it be NO ONE CARES?)
> 5. what is going on with geeks/etc is that they are and will
> continue to be for various reasons under pressure to
> professionalize and establish formalized gatekeeping methods
> to demarcate who can and cannot do that work.
actually, just the opposite. hackerdom will spread down to the lowest person, down even to the ghettos. everyone will become a hacker, because everyone will need to know how to navigate the digital environment. for *this* purpose, schooling will be irrelevant, you will learn these skills outside of a formal setting. gatekeeping? nope. hackers tore down the fucking gates, don't you know. interesting to me that you keep looking for the secrets when hackers keep exposing the world's secrets for what they are -- open! people will fail, so i guess not everyone will be a hacker, but most people will...
> it isn't going to happen easily because the labor market is
> too tight right now.
not an even close to relevant point...
> 5.a. the whole "should you hire a hacker" debate and the
> demonization of hackers is, i say, going to play a crucial role,
> particularly as more and more firms start to engage in
> e-commerce and security people keeping harping on the theme: the
> real source of you threat is "insider jobs".
sorta. i agree with this, far more than you may realize. but you reach the correct conclusion without taking the path of knowledge!!!
the demonization of hackers stems from corporations and governments wanting to maintain their secrecy. if you want to keep something a secret, then don't put it on the net. oh, but governments and corporations want to be online. hence secrecy through obscurity. and central to that policy is the demonization of hackers.
bullshit. the digital environment makes secrecy more difficult. and either governments and corporations change or they get off- line. creating the hacker/terrorist concept is not going to solve the problems created by trying to maintain a vast secrecy complex on the network...
> your bosses are going to want seeing some proof that he's got
> a "real" hacker and one who follows a formal code of ethics.
heh.
On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 15:17:21 +0200 (SAST), Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com>
wrote:
>
>> *spit* You mean esr sounds like Matt. :-)
>>
>> esr does echo good points (although he fits as "ankle biter" quite well),
>> but he certainly didn't originate them. Neither did I, but then I'm not
>> pimping myself to the media.
>
> ESR's 'job' wasn't to originate anything....
eric is already rich, he doesn't have a job. (ask him.) he has a "vocation."
>> I hadn't realised esr had affected the outsiders' perceptions of open
>> source to the degree you indicate. I had considered him inconsequential.
>
>Eric S. Raymond inconsequential? I'm sorry, Matt, but where have you been
>over the last few years? 5 years ago no one had ever heard of 'open
>source' software
hmmm, you need to learn a wee bit of history before you throw something around like that. yes, "open source" is a new *brand* but not a new concept. code has always been free, it was only the irrational agreement between microsoft and altair that led to this anomolous condition where people expect to pay for code. code produces nothing -- users do. it is *your* work product that adds value, not the code base upon which it was built...
> Also, if ESR is so inconsequential, then how did he get his
> manifesto published by Tim O'Reilly?
i suggest you read one of the histories of o'reilly. this was not nearly as coincidental or legitimizing (for eric) as you presume. rather, tim was hoping for a little of eric's legitimacy to rub off on him...
On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 09:23:42 -0500 (CDT), jf noonan <jfn1 at msc.com> wrote:
>
>> by himself (and apparently by people like kelley), quite
>> seriously. raymond has really become a fsm pimp, trying to
>> lord himself over it and control how it is seen. but are
>> you asking how the people who code apache or linux or samba,
>> et al, view him? they don't. they don't consider him at
>> all. you can't pimp what you can't sell...
>
> This is crap. This is the guy that got Netscape to do the
> Open Source thang. This guy is greatly in demand as a
> speaker to all sorts of geek/ open source/ linux what-have-
> you things. 'His' cyberlibertarianism is all over the place
> and I don't mean just political places like cypherpunks or
> politech either.
sorry, i misplaced my altar to eric last night...
i didn't see him in pittsburgh, did you? funny, his speaking engagements seem to prohibit him from actually participating in building the digital environment...
>> you thoroughly glossed over one of the most important points
>> in yesterday's posts -- geekdom is still so new, still so
>> unchartered, that it is still a verbal, not a literate,
>> tradition. your mo, to conquer all the literature and then
>> parse it thoroughly, won't work here. the docs that exist
>> aren't that authoritative.
>
> Rubbish. Do you have any idea how old the Jargon File is?
i am not quite sure what your point was here? are you suggesting that the digital environment is documented through the jargon file? are you thinking that one can learn how to hack/code/think using the jargon file? are you thinking that we can be credentialled based on the jargon file? or are you assuming that one can learn all about geekdom from the jargon file? i just don't see it myself.
if you think that the computer underground is authoritatively documented -- and i am sure you don't mean the jargon file -- please tell me where. both kel and i would be interested in *that* source...
> Geekdom has been writing things down since there was a network
> to send them through.
writing things down is a wee bit different than moving beyond the verbal tradition i see.
On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 11:54:12 -0400, kelley <kwalker2 at gte.net> wrote:
>
>> your weary ole credentialing process worked in the industrial
>> age, because all that labor required was basically rote (sp?).
>> the knowledge base could be measured. it *could* be
>> credentialed. and while there are rote tools available for
>> coding and hacking, they are basically meaningless.
>> information is free. it is knowledge that we value. (love to
>> hear how you could credential that!)
>
> absolutely utterly WRONG. as carrol pointed out, the medical
> profession became extremely powerful without one lick of
> evidence that their services were preferable to that of
> midwives or even what they called "quacks".
because "doctors" brought the spector of *science* to bear. the culture already had a cult of science, physicians merely used it to their advantage. midwives were part of an older tradition, something that "scientists" [sic] everywhere were fighting...
you are looking at the future through the past. this is a wonderfully linear extrapolation, but it doesn't mean squat in a period of transition. the past offers no clues as to the future here.
> it has ALWAYS been the case that the credential one receives
> (a degree) has been meaningless as an indicator of skill.
no, i disagree. the degree showed that you were properly conditioned. you thought rote. given whatever skillset was required, you could learn it and then dispense it. you are asserting a one-to-one relationship that i did not suggest. (i know, it's that non-linear thing that is getting to you!)
>> Compare "our" world to that of "she-who-cannot-be-named"
>> (Reese will tell you who I mean if you don't recall).
>
> wolverina? i recall her. heh.
lisa is a college student, *not* the person matt was referring to...
>> Who does the valorizing?
>
> Stallman for one. some posts to this list for another. they
> aren't journalists or outsiders are they?
but the vision of the future (or utopia) that stallman sees is no different than the vision of the technology-based future from the 1930s world fairs -- or the jetsons. computers or robots will do all the drudge work, people will be free to explore other pursuits. bullshit. computers did not throw labor out of work, they took out the middle management layer. and hackers *aren't* gonna led the revolution, they aren't leaving their bedrooms/laboratories for that...
> i'm telling them that they are the adam smiths of a new form
> or new modality (hack hack c ough spit) of capitalism and not
> esp left in their analysis.
again, your conclusions are correct, your path to them are dubious!
ac
'''
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----oOO----(_)----------
| the geek shall |
| inherit the earth |
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|__|__|
|| ||
ooO Ooo
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