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I just registered sseRud (my screen name minus the first two letters) so nobody can do this to my main screen name. I also registered jsserud and tried to register esserud because the securityfocus and upsidetoday articles didn't convince me that I didn't need to register them as well. Esserud turned out to already be registered, which surprised me, but it's not important that I own those userids, just that the buggy registration thingie knows they're not available.

(Note: I'm not trying to imply that it's ok for there to be such a huge security hole by posting these instructions to slashdot. I just want to point out that it's possible to protect your account without going through too much trouble.)

Moderators: I'm above the karma cap, but I'm still a karma whore, so do whatever you want to this post.

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redundant

The LINX debacle affirms the idea that *reputation*, above and beyond human *attention*, is the chief currency in this idea economy. Clearly LinuxOne is getting attention, but of a bitter sort. (then again, press is often measured by quantity, not quality.)

Maybe Dr. Chiou's LINX will do little damage to Linux' reputation. But if he achieves his purpose, even slightly, many might follow suit. Snowball. After all, the "world domination" market is immense, comprising *billions* of newbies. The barrier to entry, as LINX proves, barely exists. Maybe "world partnership" would have been smarter.

Bernardo Huberman concludes that the bigger a system is, the more individuals within it will poach, simply because they can get away with it. Guilt free. The bigger Linux gets, (the way it's currently being financed), the more it may suffer infestation by parasites.

"Money" wants one thing: to maximize its return with minimal effort, and limited liability. "It goes where it's wanted, and stays where it's cared for." Gold rules. The rich get richer, and the poor get, uh.. motivation to get rich.. (and so on, until we reboot "money")

Meanwhile, how do we use yesterday's money to trade today's free ideas? How does open source get monetized? Are there choices?

Are "property"-centered IPO's and stockholder "ownership" the *ideal* way to finance trade in free ideas? Are they the *fairest* of possible arrangements? Are they the *only* kind of financial relationships imaginable? Maybe not.

Could the Open Source principle of "common ownership" conceivably adapt to the structure of a "business relationship"?

Maybe so. "Common ownership" is a key organizing principle of one of the most successful enterprises in history, which incidentally has plenty to do with software, entrepreneurial freedom, ingenuity, trade, globalization and money itself..

VISA defined "ownership" as a nontransferable *right* to participate, and an *obligation* to abide by community-defined terms. Legally, it was structured as a non-stock, for-profit membership corporation. So it can't be bought, sold, traded or raided. No pump, no dump. VISA has grown 20-50%, compounding annually, for over 30 years, past boom, bubble, bear and bust: $1,400,000,000,000 (trillion) in 1998 sales.

Dee Hock, who founded this semi-choard, believes that if "ownership" had been extended to *all* participants (including merchants and cardholders), then it would be *four times* more successful today. It would be truly chaordic.

(So does "common ownership" always mean "Communism"? Maybe not. Meanwhile, das Capital floods into Linux, which is rooted in the freaking GPL.. wierd. Maybe money follows ingenuity, regardless of ideology..)

Why do open licenses like the GPL so attract that most valuable resource, human ingenuity? Common ownership? Promotion of sharing? Trade rooted in ethics? Relief from pricey legal haggling? Rebellion? Civil disobedience? Cooperative advantage? Creative liberty? Maybe it boils down to freedom from restrictions.

"Freedom"? Are you *free* to scream "fire" in a crowded house or to punch the tip of my nose? Kinda.. Dee Hock (after Lao Tzu) claims that in reality, "everything is its opposite". Freedom is a fruit of self-restraint. By forced sharing, the GPL righteously claims to be more "free" than BSD. BSD rabidly disagrees. Considering the LinuxONE problem at hand, is the "GPV" dispute relevant?

Dr. Chiou and company seem to be breaking an *unwritten* community contract. He's free to do so. Any surprise at all, considering recent capital flows to RHAT and LNUX? To equitably and successfully enable monetized, fair, reputable and trustworthy trade in free ideas, maybe alternative contracts (open licenses) need to be written and tried.

No, not like the SCSL (a legal document that claims to create a "chaord". Dubious. Sun is infected with the "responsibility-to-stockholder" virus, which makes it difficult to truly extend equitable ownership to all participants.)

Who knows? What if, in the beginning, Linus added a few fairness enhancing restrictions to the GPL:

• Call this OS anything you want, but please include the name "linux" in whatever you call it.
• Please claim to your free subdomain (reputation) in our community-owned, mother-of-all-intranets at http://our.linux.org/dns (eg: va.linux.org = valinux.com etc)
• Let's chaorganize ourselves to free our idea exchange, while forging a commercial agreement to immunize ourselves from free-riders like Dr. Chiou.. This process might take us a year..

Maybe the resulting agreement would be as simple as "our free software is GPL, but if you have yet to agree to our terms, you are not yet free to call it "Linux" nor free to pretend that you are a Penguin. (no fraud, please) You are free to join us if you choose to at http://our.linux.org/agreement/LPL

Reputation management? What's in a name? Giving credit where credit is due? Patent and Copyright "properties" may perpetuate outdated economic models of scarcity, but Trademarks? Might they grow more valuable as info gluts?

What if the idea that *no one owns linux* switched to the idea that *we own linux*? What if we agreed to restrict abuse of "our" name, (and the values it represents)? Would [insert project "x", eg "linux"] then be better cared for?

These are just questions from an outsider looking in. Point is, a *truly* chaordic (distributed ownership, equitable rewards) community license to develop/use a free software system might enhance the *trust* between all participants, particularly when money enters the mix.

Maybe such an agreement could not be strictly defined as "Free" or "Open Source", (due to the tradename requirement/url verification), but maybe some resulting immunity to commercial parasites is worth that price. Maybe such an agreement could be called "Open Code" (for software *and* organizational code.)

Whatever.. open principles make better software, and they oughta extend to embrace business structures and practices.. which seems like it could happen with this chaordic stuff.. (chaorganization, coincidentally, requires a fundamental reconception of "ownership")

Why beware of VC money? It typically wants us to "acquire" customers, in hopes that shareholders will want to "own" a piece of us. Don't buy it! Pop that bubble! Customers are not "property", and neither are we.

"Ownership" in the chaordic sense will extend freedom (and *trust*) farther faster.

If that's our purpose, how can we then raise enough cash to incorporate our ideas into legal fictions (businesses) which may serve to help us reputably trade our ingenuity? Savings. Loans. Credit Cards. VC royalty financing. URL Bonds? Membership fees. Service contracts. Ad revenues. "Free" products for sale. Faith. Whatever it takes.. but don't sell off a single limb, not even a single digit. Extend ownership to customers, not stock-holders. Serve people. It will prove more profitable.

chaorganize!

[sources: LINX . "attEnTiOn"-NoT . StiG . BiOnOMiCs . CHaOs-is-G00D . PaRtneRsHiP . FrEELoAdiNG . MoNeY . ComMuNiTy-CuRReNcY . iNteLLeCtuAL-VaLuE . RHaT-IpO . AddApT . CHaRacTeRIStiCs-o-ChaORgAniZATiOn . ViSA . DeE-HoCK . CoMMiE-UniTy? . GpL=BiG-BuCk$?? . MiNDcRaFTiNg . EcOnOmY-oF-iDeAs . ETHiCs-of-iP . ScSL . CoOpeRaTiVe-adVaNtaGe . CHaOrDiC-PrOCeSs . wHaT'sa-NaMe? . CrEdiT-DuE? . OPEN-CoDE . ETHiCs :thanks]