That is, I view open source as a means for maintaining deep understanding of complex systems through free information sharing and, to whatever extent possible, ground level participation in the productive process outside of large scale enterprises...
..If Microsoft tells the average computer user they're "adding value", many are inclined to believe because they're unaware of the many ways Redmond acts as a gatekeeper and hindrance to development.
Open source adepts - not all of whom are code gods and goddesses - have the analytical tools needed to dissect these claims.... .d.
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Yes. Great points.
This is another of the really great, and also threatening aspects. This OS and environment is a learning and teaching tool of unbelievable richness and depth. In fact it was designed in this particular form to be that...which is why it was developed at the comp sci dept and used at UCB from about the late 70s up to the early 90s Other parts like Emacs, X-windows, and TeX were originally developed at MIT and ported to PCs about the same time as the BSD4.4 version of unix.
[Side bar. You can write, edit, layout and typeset everything you've ever written or hope to write and send it directly to the printer, who in turn can download it to his machines through this OS and its APs. Or you can post it on the web and let anybody who wants to, print it out at their end. Many of APs and some of the underlying protocols and file formats of this system were design explicitly for this kind of publishing (http, postscript, etc). At one time this was the main system used in comp.sci documentation and is still the system used in many physical science and mathematics journals.]
Anyway, all I can say is, I've learned more about computers, software design, comp sci concepts, networks, internet, etc, etc, using this OS than I ever could in the M$uck world. In fact, the M$uck world is specifically designed to possess and control this kind of learning and this domain of knowledge---for the explicit purpose of selling them.
The importance of this knowledge domain is that it comprises much of the conceptual engineering and design infrastructure of mass electronic communication systems. A lot of this domain is made `visible' through an open source OS like FreeBSD. The reason it is visible is that the same high tech public research world that developed the global electronic communication systems, created OSs and APs to manage them---and this particular OS design was part of that development. So, you can go back and see, learn and understand to considerable depth how these larger systems work.
Capital, government, and the conceptual-communication fabric of mass society are critically interlock together through systems like these. Like any communication medium, it is both a means of expression and a means of management and control.
``...the process of labor Taylorization and atomization has produced modern primitives: people who treat the technosphere as an area of religious mystery due to their lack of knowledge and who, as a result, can be swayed from one pole to the other like medievalists with (on average) better hygiene and nicer toys...''
I only want to add this. The mystification of the techno-sphere, particularly its linguistic-communication systems has always been one of the primary modes of maintaining oppression and dependence on the established hierarchy of power, ever since about the time of Ur. All that is going here is a very fancy and elaborate version of the same thing.
CG