On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 15:17:21 +0200 (SAST), Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com>
wrote:
>
>> 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 - we all called it 'free software' and the model was
>essentially the GNU GPL license. Eric Raymond's work in getting the idea
>of 'open source' adopted - and remember, this was an effort which
>explicitely linked to getting 'free software' a toehold in industry - made
>a huge impact.
i know i answered this previously, but i gave it some more thought. perhaps matt's and my dismissal is because we are looking at this from the perspective of people writing code and not the end-user. if eric has been useful as a marketing tool, then there is nothing wrong with that. i *don't* see his influence on geekdom, though. the corporate (and political) structure is another matter...
On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 12:18:56 -0400, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> asked:
>
>So why are geeks such market-besotted libertarians? Because they're
>poorly socialized loners? What's the reason?
not all "geeks" are. i don't particularly find geeks to be political at all. and i get the impression that jf noonan isn't.
however, there are whole host of political attitudes represented in geekdom. it is commonly said that the hippie tradition split into two directions: one which experimented with communal living and the other which experimented with bytes. the latter blended perfectly into the pre-existing hacker ethos. kelley may have gotten into this before, but the hacker ethos has been explained as something basicly antibureaucratic and democratic in spirit, believing that:
* Access to computers should be unlimited and total. * All information should be free. * Mistrust authority - promote decentralization. * Hackers should be judged by their hacking not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position. * You create art and beauty on a computer, * Computers can change your life for the better. (Steven Levy. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. 1984.)
the jargon file is a bit more expansive: "hacker ethic n.
1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing open-source and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible. 2. The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is ethically OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality.
Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no means universally, accepted among hackers. Most hackers subscribe to the hacker ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by writing and giving away open-source software. A few go further and assert that all information should be free and any proprietary control of it is bad; this is the philosophy behind the GNU project.
Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of cracking itself to be unethical, like breaking and entering. But the belief that `ethical' cracking excludes destruction at least moderates the behavior of people who see themselves as `benign' crackers (see also samurai). On this view, it may be one of the highest forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by email from a superuser account, exactly how it was done and how the hole can be plugged -- acting as an unpaid (and unsolicited) tiger team.
The most reliable manifestation of either version of the hacker ethic is that almost all hackers are actively willing to share technical tricks, software, and (where possible) computing resources with other hackers. Huge cooperative networks such as Usenet, FidoNet and Internet can function without central control because of this trait; they both rely on and reinforce a sense of community that may be hackerdom's most valuable intangible asset." <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/hacker-ethic.html>
then you find the hactivists, who aren't exactly shy about the political nature of their activities.
On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 17:49:23 +0100 (BST), Daniel Davies <d_squared_2002 at yahoo.co.uk>
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!)
>
> Credentialisation has nothing to do with whether
> "knowledge" can be measured, as Carroll and Kelley
> have pointed out. Nish, clish, nada.
i think i have already explained this in detail, so i will only make short reference of it here. kelley asserted that hacking will move towards credentialization because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the beast. instead of moving towards isolation (and specialization), "hacking" will undoubtedly move towards generalization. everyone will become a hacker, because everyone will need those skills to survive.
>> no time, dear. you already know that. and if you can't argue
>> the point, then there is no point. i would prolly take it apart,
>> as well...
>
>Errrrr, yeah, calling women "dear" is another good way
>to intimidate outsiders and keep the clique together.
i don't think kelley is intimidated by me. nope. not one bit. and i don't tend to call people dear, in general, just as i don't tend to call people girlie girl. we were trading condescensions, iirc. you would have to ask her. (i don't know squat about sociology, as she quickly pointed out!)
>> since you heaped so much contempt on this, do you view workers
>> as capitalists? or are you willing to admit that the capitalism
>> examined and explained by marx is archaic? (capital and the
>> tools of production are mere resources in today's world; it is
>> the *thinker* who adds value, creates profit, who makes the
>> enterprise...)
>
> Sorry to be the one to break this, but there's nothing
> really special about your position in the economy that
> wasn't there for the attorneys, doctors and clerks of
> Marx's era, and he's already pigeonholed you.
hmmm, i don't recall ever asserting that *we* had a really special place in the economy. indeed, my argument is just the opposite. geekdom may be at the forefront of the change, but the change is universal (in a mature economy). as for those "clerks of Marx's era?" computers already replaced them!
On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 20:39:16 +0200, "Minerva's Cat" <spectra at elits.rousse.bg>
wrote:
>Intended to stay out of this originally but jeradonah coded::
>> but the computer makes it possible for *everyone* to gain the knowledge
>> essential for creating wealth in today's society...
>
> Do you think this will work (and, more specifically, how) on a somewhat
> wider scale than within your imagination?
(i will come back to this...)
> Which reminds me: someone promised an Internet-mediated revolution
> some time ago...
isn't that what we are discussing? in my original post to kelley (sent to the list but apparently unseen), i stated that i don't seen the "Internet-mediated revolution" happening. geeks won't leave their computers long enough to lead it!
now, i have to add (i am neither a leftie nor a libertarian, i am an ideological orphan, because the world i see doesn't match the one that ideologies are fighting over!) that we saw that those who protested against the wto used the tools of the "Internet-mediated revolution" quite effectively. if you can not declare them a strategic winner (although i would), you certainly have to admit that they had the tactical advantage for the duration!
your other question requires more careful thought, though, and i will come back to it...
On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 12:34:14 -0400, "Carl Remick" <carlremick at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So why are geeks such market-besotted libertarians? Because they're
>> poorly socialized loners? What's the reason?
>
>Who cares? Philosophers have only interpreted geeks in various ways; the
>point is, to change them. :-)
did i mention that i am not a geek!
ac
'''
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| inherit the earth |
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ooO Ooo
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