I've been reading George Lakoff, and doing a lot of thinking about values, lately. My own values as well as those of others. I know what it is about open source software that appeals to my values. You can look at the list in my sig and get an idea of the values I'm talking about, and you can imagine how OSS fits into them, but I don't want to bias the discussion too much beforehand with my opinions. I will offer those up later.
What I would like to know from some of you guys is, which of your values are best served by OSS? Please let me know either directly in confidence, or publicly to the list, where you consider yourself on the conservative/moderate/progressive political spectrum, and what it is about OSS that appeals to you. I'm especially anxious to hear from my LUG friends on the right of the spectrum, as that is more difficult for me to understand. Once I've heard several opinions, I plan to formulate some kind of summary explanation, or theory, that connects different values and the open source movement.
Thanks for your input, Jim Herrmann
On Thursday 20 January 2005 12:05 am, Jim Herrmann wrote:
What I would like to know from some of you guys is, which of your values are best served by OSS?
I was reluctant to reply because I'm so burnt out on politics but after mulling it for a few days I think that, simply, there are two areas that the question might apply to: software and community.
1. I like the software because there is no single point of failure for the entire system in which the software is developed, deployed and used. There's redundancy built in everwhere in the ecosystem.
2. I like the community because it's the only working cooperative movement that I know of.
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 00:05:07 -0600, Jim Herrmann kclug@itdepends.com wrote:
What I would like to know from some of you guys is, which of your values are best served by OSS? Please let me know either directly in confidence, or publicly to the list, where you consider yourself on the conservative/moderate/progressive political spectrum, and what it is about OSS that appeals to you.
Well, first of all, the whole linear left-right thing is bogus. (See http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html for details.) By buying into the idea that you have to sign up for a whole package of ideas, you concede at the outset that sacrificing liberty in one domain is the price of preserving it in another. As you probably know, I'm a libertarian; to quote Austin Powers, it's about FREEDOM, BABY! YEAH!
The original design philosophy of Unix was to make as much of the OS code as possible platform-independent, and the configuration in plain text files. This frees people to write code that can run on any conformant system with just a recompile for the target architecture, and build reusable code and data structures that can be recombined in ways that the original designers never imagined. The astute observer will find a parallel in the ways that free markets produce goods and services that central planners didn't think were important.
Linux takes that philosophy to its logical conclusion, assuring that the platform-independent code is in the hands the system's owner (or whoever he hires to tune it for a specific purpose). In reality, 'Linux' (or even 'GNU/Linux' for the hard-line Stallmaniacs) is not an operating system, but a toolkit for building operating systems. To the conventional, authoritarian mind, this is 'anarchy, lawlessness, chaos!' They can't conceive of a society without government experts giving the imperial imprimatur to certain endeavours; they are frightened by the notion that people who aren't even licensed to practice computing could build systems to do mission-critical work. They take it as a given that such things are too important to leave to 'amateurs'.
And yet, people around the world, citizens of different nations, with no Five Year Plan from an Office of Operating Systems to describe in agonizing detail the legal ways to manipulate bits, have built, not a single system, but a meta-system, generating rock-solid software that runs most of the Internet, as well as constantly expanding its share in niche after niche that it enters.
I agree with the statement below, and is why I have a hard time understanding the appeal to the conservative person, which typically believes in hierarchy and authority. I really want to hear from Hal and Bill on what about OSS that appeals to their values. I'm listening. Trying to understand. Help me out here guys.
Thanks for the input Monty, Jim
Monty J. Harder wrote:
To the conventional, authoritarian mind, this is 'anarchy, lawlessness, chaos!' They can't conceive of a society without government experts giving the imperial imprimatur to certain endeavours; they are frightened by the notion that people who aren't even licensed to practice computing could build systems to do mission-critical work.
Quoting Jim Herrmann kclug@itdepends.com:
I agree with the statement below, and is why I have a hard time understanding the appeal to the conservative person, which typically believes in hierarchy and authority. I really want to hear from Hal and Bill on what about OSS that appeals to their values. I'm listening. Trying to understand. Help me out here guys.
Going OT here, sorry. Conservative pundits in politics and media seem to talk out of both sides of their mouths. From one side of their mouths they say they are against big government, that government should stay out of people's lives, etc. While out of the other side of their mouths they are attempting to pass legislation that will outlaw abortions, gay marraige or even domestic partnerships. They support the drug war, putting hundreds of thousands of peaceable citizens behind bars for committing crimes that affect only themselves.
If they are really for smaller government and really want to stay out of people's lives, then why do they continuously foster such a privacy violating agenda?
As for your original question, I love using Free software because having the source code available makes using and supporting systems easier. In the last decade that I've been using GNU/Linux, I've had several instances where I have been able to tweak a line of code to fix a bug or find an undocumented argument that would solve a problem with quirky hardware, etc.
Due to my upbringing (most likely) and my life experiences, I also believe strongly in helping other people out. The Open Source community seems to hold this as a core value. I have turned to this group and others like it for help more times than I care to remember and most times I have actually come away with a solution.
The hacker spirit that came out of MIT and the early days of computing where ideas were openly shared among peers led to the rise of the internet as we know it. Imagine where we'd be if those early pioneers had clung tightly to their ideas and weren't working cooperatively for the common good?
We'd all be using CompuServe or AOHell.
-- Dave Hull http://insipid.com
Going OT here, sorry. Conservative pundits in politics and media seem to talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Of course, this is limited to conservatives, because liberal and independent politicians/media/personalities are all honest, and have logical, consistent stances on issues.
Quoting Aaron Spiegel spiegela@gmail.com:
Going OT here, sorry. Conservative pundits in politics and media seem to
talk
out of both sides of their mouths.
Of course, this is limited to conservatives, because liberal and independent politicians/media/personalities are all honest, and have logical, consistent stances on issues.
I wasn't meaning to imply that conservatives were unique in this regard. The post I was replying to specifically mentioned conservatives and I was following in that vein.
You're absolutely right.
-- Dave Hull http://insipid.com
Did you choke on your dinner typing that?
Personally I would think that those of a liberal persuasion would be more inclined to be in the Microsoft camp. Single gigantic entity taking care of everyone, telling them what they want, and how they will do things.
-----Original Message----- From: Aaron Spiegel [mailto:spiegela@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 10:16 AM To: kclug Subject: Re: Open Source Values
Of course, this is limited to conservatives, because liberal and independent politicians/media/personalities are all honest, and have logical, consistent stances on issues. _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
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On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 20:56 -0600, kurt@verruckt.org wrote:
Did you choke on your dinner typing that?
Personally I would think that those of a liberal persuasion would be more inclined to be in the Microsoft camp. Single gigantic entity taking care of everyone, telling them what they want, and how they will do things.
Aaron Spiegel [mailto:spiegela@gmail.com] wrote:
Of course, this is limited to conservatives, because liberal and independent politicians/media/personalities are all honest, and have logical, consistent stances on issues.
The great thing about the Internet (and email in particular), is that no one can tell when you have your tongue firmly planted in your cheek.
-- Hal
My non political contribution
My personal feeling on OSS, it opens up the world of software to even those who cannot afford $oftware. With out apache, nobody would be running a personal webserver because they couldn't afford netscape enterprise server. Without linux/*BSD there would be very few unix admins, software geeks, and budding developers. OSS gave internet to the people, think of how small the internet was before OSS existed, it made the internet more accessible. In my opinion it created the dotcom boom. Without OSS think of how many projects and networks wouldn't have been able to even get past the planing stage. OSS made it easy to take commodity hardware, alittle bandwidth and create something that impacts the world. Think google, thats how they started.
I'm not a linux user, infact I don't like alot about linux, but fact is redhat 5 and freebsd 2.x got me started. I personally think alot of OSS is crap, kludgey, hard to work with, hard to get working and maintain, but there are also things like mysql, apache, php, bind, qmail, postfix, firefox/mozilla/thunderbird, BitchX. Those things allow me to do my job and more, they are all great products. To me that is what OSS is all about.
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 kurt@verruckt.org wrote:
Did you choke on your dinner typing that?
Personally I would think that those of a liberal persuasion would be more inclined to be in the Microsoft camp. Single gigantic entity taking care of everyone, telling them what they want, and how they will do things.
Here's the difference, for the thought-impaired.
Liberal: Strong Govt. regulation on Business, Weak regulation on Individuals.
Conservative: Strong Regulation on Individuals, Weak on Businesses.
Regards,
-Don, Business owner.
On Tuesday 25 January 2005 09:33 pm, Don Erickson wrote:
Liberal: Strong Govt. regulation on Business, Weak regulation on Individuals.
Conservative: Strong Regulation on Individuals, Weak on Businesses.
Last Democratic president: Decreased national deficit, unprecedented job growth in the private sector, decrease in size of Federal government as measured by number of jobs or percent of GDP spent.
Prior Republican president: Increased National Deficit, unprecedented job growth in Federal sector, decrease of jobs in private sector, increase in Gov't. spending.
Blame it on Congress, I guess.
At 10:31 PM 1/25/2005 -0600, you wrote: Previous Democratic president allowed WorldCom and Enron to go south defrauding countless people. 30 years of Democratic Congress, deficit climbed every year. First time Republicans were the majority in Congress budgets became balanced.
Let's face it, they are *all* crooks. We need to fight them all and remind them the money they are spending is OURs and not the governments.
On Tuesday 25 January 2005 09:33 pm, Don Erickson wrote:
Liberal: Strong Govt. regulation on Business, Weak regulation on Individuals.
Conservative: Strong Regulation on Individuals, Weak on Businesses.
Last Democratic president: Decreased national deficit, unprecedented job growth in the private sector, decrease in size of Federal government as measured by number of jobs or percent of GDP spent.
Prior Republican president: Increased National Deficit, unprecedented job growth in Federal sector, decrease of jobs in private sector, increase in Gov't. spending.
Blame it on Congress, I guess. _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 22:46:43 -0600, James R. Sissel JimSissel@yahoo.com wrote:
At 10:31 PM 1/25/2005 -0600, you wrote: Previous Democratic president allowed WorldCom and Enron to go south defrauding countless people.
What has the u.s. president to do with corporate misrepresentations? I think you're serious and I'd like to see your explanation. On-list, please, I doubt I'm alone here.
I'm sorry but to my mind the idea that the king is responsible for the crop yields went out a long time ago.
On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 10:31:03PM -0600, Jonathan Hutchins wrote:
Last Democratic president: Decreased national deficit, unprecedented job growth in the private sector, decrease in size of Federal government as measured by number of jobs or percent of GDP spent.
Prior Republican president: Increased National Deficit, unprecedented job growth in Federal sector, decrease of jobs in private sector, increase in Gov't. spending.
Blame it on Congress, I guess.
My political contribution:
Some presidents have/get to take the blame/credit for what happened in the previous 4 years. Things one president did to get the ball rolling (or when they dropped the ball) show their results some time later.
Okay back on topic.
I use open source because it's free. Free as in beer helps me spend my money on better hardware. Free as in speech lets me (and others) share our contributions. I realize that most users are not developers, especially that distributions are catering to the non-tech crowd or to the enterprise environment. I don't think this is a bad thing because it increases the userbase. But the true value of open source and applications released under OSI licences is that we have the option of tweaking applications and scripts to our heart's content.
Some users really need to be "saved from themselves," but for the rest of us, atleast I like to get down and dirty with source every once and a while.
Jeremy
--- kurt@verruckt.org wrote:
Did you choke on your dinner typing that?
Personally I would think that those of a liberal persuasion would be more inclined to be in the Microsoft camp. Single gigantic entity taking care of everyone, telling them what they want, and how they will do things.
You haven't been paying attention to American politics recently then. The voting machines alone (whether or not they were rigged, they were still proprietary closed source controlled by a central corporation) stick conservatives in the Microsoft camp, for the very reasons which you state. Microsoft is at its core "social conservatism": government tells you what you want and how you will do things.
As for "taking care of everyone": Since when does Microsoft "take care of everyone"? Microsoft does its level best to kill off any alternatives to Microsoft which are free (the closest equivalent to "social programs"). Under Microsoft all highways are toll roads, all cars are metered usage, everyone pays for everything they get.
-----Original Message----- From: Aaron Spiegel [mailto:spiegela@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 10:16 AM To: kclug Subject: Re: Open Source Values
Of course, this is limited to conservatives, because liberal and independent politicians/media/personalities are all honest, and have logical, consistent stances on issues.
===== And I always thought: the very simplest words Must be enough. When I say what things are like Everyone's heart must be torn to shreds. That you'll go down if you don't stand up for yourself Surely you see that.
-- Bertolt Brecht
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-----Original Message----- From: Leo Mauler [mailto:webgiant@yahoo.com] Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2005 12:57 AM To: kurt@verruckt.org; kclug@kclug.org Subject: RE: Open Source Values
As for "taking care of everyone": Since when does Microsoft "take care of everyone"? Microsoft does its level best to kill off any alternatives to Microsoft which are free (the closest equivalent to "social programs"). Under Microsoft all highways are toll roads, all cars are metered usage, everyone pays for everything they get.
Exactly. Comparable to 'government control'.
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--- kurt@verruckt.org wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Leo Mauler [mailto:webgiant@yahoo.com] Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2005 12:57 AM To: kurt@verruckt.org; kclug@kclug.org Subject: RE: Open Source Values
As for "taking care of everyone": Since when does Microsoft "take care of everyone"? Microsoft does its level best to kill off any alternatives to Microsoft which are free (the closest equivalent to "social programs"). Under Microsoft all highways are toll roads, all cars are metered usage, everyone pays for everything they get.
Exactly. Comparable to 'government control'.
I'm confused. I was told that conservative values called for "user fees" (i.e., metered access, toll roads, "consumption taxes") to replace income taxes.
Now you seem to be claiming that liberals want consumption taxes to replace income taxes, when I can't think of a single liberal who wants a consumption tax to replace an income tax. Or paying for some private company (i.e, Microsoft) to come in and perform the government services you chose to abolish.
===== And I always thought: the very simplest words Must be enough. When I say what things are like Everyone's heart must be torn to shreds. That you'll go down if you don't stand up for yourself Surely you see that.
-- Bertolt Brecht
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Jim Herrmann wrote:
I agree with the statement below, and is why I have a hard time understanding the appeal to the conservative person, which typically believes in hierarchy and authority. I really want to hear from Hal and Bill on what about OSS that appeals to their values. I'm listening. Trying to understand. Help me out here guys.
Monty J. Harder wrote:
To the conventional, authoritarian mind, this is 'anarchy, lawlessness, chaos!' They can't conceive of a society without government experts giving the imperial imprimatur to certain endeavors; they are frightened by the notion that people who aren't even licensed to practice computing could build systems to do mission-critical work.
OK, Hal here. I generally try to stay technical on the list, but I'll bite.
The belief in hierarchy, authority and licensing is not unique to the conservative point of view. Many groups in the liberal coalition believe in authority and licensing. A labor union has plenty of authority when enforcing work rules upon its members, even when it goes against common sense. An environmental protection group will use the law to tell a land owner that he cannot develop land in a particular way if there are certain fish, insects or other protected animals living in the area. Arms-control groups are quite interested in licensing and certification. Teachers unions are likewise interested in licensing and certification as well. We have government experts telling us what we should eat, how much we should exercise, how fast we should drive. The only difference between a conservative coalition and a liberal coalition is which things are desired to be under the authority of a hierarchy to be licensed, certified, and permitted, and which things are preferred to be left to the individual. I could go on, but I think that is quite a bit already.
As csappenfield said in earlier email, the free software development model is the ultimate free market, unregulated and uncontrolled, completely self-organizing. I disagree that "business conservativism" is what the group opposed to free software is, but would rather call it "business cronyism", which isn't a political group at all. Proprietary software is rental software. Free software is the ultimate expression of an individual "ownership society."
-- Hal
OSS is a big tent - that being said - I like the idea of people helping each other with out a lot of self inflated politicians taxing off a cut. A libertarian take?
What is interesting is that there is a lot more competition in the Linux world than in the so-called free market -- (because the government buys the vast majority of software and has not required open file standards. (Or perhaps M$ has put in back doors for the NSA?))
I don't think you will find this a red vs blue issue - I know many conservative engineers who love Linux and think that software patents are ridiculous.
The bottom line is that OSS produces a better product because of the increased competition, more eyes on the code, and the ability to fork (and forks work both ways.).
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