open source software and "economics"

[Peter Kosenko]

Actually, I think the word is kind of funny, since
I find the raw geek mentality a little foreign --
a tendency to get caught in some self-referential
loop of talk about software, which can make me
kind of swoon.  "And tell me again, what does the
software you write DO?"  (Trigger bombs, find
tumors, help you make silly pictures that actually
make people laugh, shred some right-wing economic
"analysis"?)  For all his interest in "left"
politics, even Richard Stallman never quite seems
to get out of the loop.  You begin to think that
what really bothers him about proprietary software
is simply that he can't get in there and play with
the code (fun to do, if you've got the
puzzle-solving itch, but kind of a rarified taste)
to "perfect" it for the sake of perfecting it.  

"Some people seem to have more knack for it," I
told an artist friend this past week who was
overwhelmed with the idea of learning HTML. "But .
. . [looking out the window] if it were revealed
that beneath all of that out there everything was
HTML, I would still prefer the display." (That's a
joke.)

Much more interested in people and sociology and
their lives.  Often, not much thought is given to
that among the diehard of the geek tribe.

Uh, like are you sure that you want your
refrigerator "calling home" to the factory,
really?  Why?

Or how about this for a tale from the software
crypt that ought to cause Doug some amusement. 
One of the founders of Earthlink here in
California has been nabbed (or whatever they do to
initiate these things) for running a Ponzi scheme
"investing" money for his Scientology and
celebrity friends.  Some millions of dollars. 
Toward the end he was telling people that he had
hooked a piece of day trading software that could
achieve 60% return on investment.  Now there's a
creative use of the idea of "vaporware," huh?

Peter Kosenko

Kelley Walker wrote:
> 
> At 09:26 PM 5/8/01 -0700, Peter Kosenko wrote:
> 
> >Okay, so Kelley will call me a "geekazoid" (actually, I am a former
> >English grad student who taught himself how to program, but I have no
> >interest in software as an ultimate "ding an sich," so to speak).  8-:)
> 
> people call me a geekazoid too--tho, i don't program. the point was: i get
> called that regularly now and it is a laugh to those who knew me 2-4 years
> ago. as i already mentioned, i mock geeks-despite being identified as
> one.  i am also an academic, and mock them. i'm a sociologist, and mock
> them. i'm a feminist and mock them.  and so it goes, as my own form of
> snobbery, which i nicely foregrounded before anyone else did!!! :)--that
> is, i equate the snobbery of geeks with the snobbery of lefties who just
> can't figger out why "the people" or "the workers" are so dumb!
> 
> matt and ac are so het on themselves that they just can't seem to recognize
> this and think i'm knocking hackers in some sort of unique way.  right!
> 
> kelley

-- 
=============================================================
Peter Kosenko
Email: mailto:kosenko at netwood.net
URL: http://www.netwood.net/~kosenko
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"Man is a rational animal.  He can think up a
reason for anything he wants to
believe."--Benjamin Franklin