Joanna
Carrol Cox wrote:
>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
>
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