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Reclaiming the Commons
NeuroManson writes "What do fresh air, medicine, culture, copyright, and government have in common? Perhaps not exactly what you think. Up until recently, I considered the term "commons" as an archaic term from Victorian or Elizabethan times. However, apparently it still exists both as a concept and a philosophy. Despite its almost ancient connotations, it's an eye opener regarding how concepts centuries old hold true even today, but much like freedom, require eternal vigilance to protect, and covers everything from the air you breath through the GNU, HDTV, and copyright issues. Read on." Bollier's article and the responses are superb intellectual reading. If you don't have time today, bookmark it, come back later.
"[...]while eroding our democratic commonwealth."
Well right now it's more like an aristocracy, with corporations being the aristocrats.
What seems intellectual today, may seem quite silly tomorrow.. Aw - we are talking about fundamentals here.
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It is most amusing to see an anonymous, cowardly libertarian... sorry, I should say Randite, because I've heard the occasional libertarian who wasn't a loony... trying to claim credit for all of Linux and open source.
Gee, if you're claiming credit for an essentially social-anarchist endeavor (in which it is just easy enough, and just beneficial enough, for people to give to the commons without being too concerned about bankrupting themselves), doesn't that make you a human parasite, with your philosophy living off others' hard work, talent, energy, and altruism? :D
What really made Linux happen was this: software licenses that encouraged the giving of software work you were doing anyway, to a commons, where it could possibly benefit others at very little or no additional cost. It's the 'scratch your own itch' idea. People who've tried to start open source projects hoping for other people to do the work haven't gotten anywhere- it's been the cases where people did work that THEY needed, and then took advantage of the fact that, having done the work, it was possible to give it away without being themselves deprived of it.
There is no argument for doing this but that of benefitting society, and the licenses that made it possible (by blocking predation on this commons) tend to emphasise the further benefit of society rather than the opportunity for individuals to come in and enrich themselves selfishly.
The common factor is that people needed to write software themselves to solve various problems- and having done so, had the opportunity to contribute this work to society without being the slightest bit poorer for it practically. They had to give up the hypothetical possibility of being all proprietary in hopes of profit, in favor of the idea of benefiting society by doing something very easy- open sourcing the program that THEY had already written, that THEY were already able to use. In that context, they lost nothing, because they were still able to use the software they'd written. It was a very cheap way to do something that feels good and might help others- if the deal had been that the author had to give up rights to use their own program, things might have turned out very different. Even if the author had to give up say 3K of RAM, or 2% of the lines of actual code (and do them over), things might have been different, but the interesting thing about software is the way it can be used to build a collective wealth without impoverishing contributors in any way.
Doing things in this way benefits society immensely, and I think it is good for the people. :)
By which I mean to say that society is benefitted by the people easily being able to participate in a 'commons' collectively... *sound of randite troll's head exploding* ah! There. Thought that would do it. Carry on ;)