Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>
> >Doug:
> >
> >Who else could emulate it?
> >
> >================
> >
> >Anyone, if you expand the definition beyond software creation in
> >general and operating systems specifically.
> >
> >For example, Creative Commons attempts to fashion an alternative
> >copyright universe, inspired, I think, by Open Source ideals.
>
> That's ok if writers have day jobs and don't expect to be paid for
> their writing, and publishers don't have to pay any rent. Even so,
> that only expands the model slightly. It's not applicable to about
> 95% of what's produced in a modern economy - not computer hardware,
> not food, not transportation, not clothing, etc.
I'm completely with Doug on this topic. If "free software" were perfected and usable without manual or training, one would still have to buy the hardware; one would have to buy or rent a house with enough room in it to hold a computer. One would have to have enough free time to use the computer. One would have to know how to read and be able to read the material (copyrighted or free is irrelevant) that appeared on the computer. As the Panthers noted in the '60s, one can't learn much if one is hungry, so one would still have to somehow have enough food to give one the energy to peck away at the keyboard. If one's eyesight were damaged as mine as been one would need enough money (plus insurance) to afford the $32 per month for eyedrops for glaucoma, the hundreds of dollars for glasses that will enable one to see the screen as well as the location of the garage (different glasses for each function). Also, it wouldn't be very much fun using freeBSD if the temperature outside were 5 below and one had no money to pay the gas bill or 105 in the shade and one had not had the money to install air conditioning and pay the electric bill that month.
This attempt to give political significance to open-source software seems to me simply bizarre; in fact, I think it shows the same sort of political despair that in other periods has been expressed, for example, in individual acts of terroism (like throwing bombs at presidents). It is grounded in the despairing hope that individual gestures will make a difference.
Carrol