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The Rise of Open-Source Politics
Incognitius writes "There's a great article in this week's The Nation about the rise of open-source politics. Never before has the top-down world of presidential campaigning been opened to a bottom-up, networked community of ordinary voters. Applied to political organizing, open source means opening up participation in planning and implementation to the community, letting competing actors evaluate the value of your plans and actions, being able to shift resources away from bad plans and bad planners and toward better ones, and expecting more of participants in return. What do you guys think, is open source a good model for politics?"
Why isn't protection for open source software and limitation of intelectual property law a political issue? I never heard it discussed in the presidential election. What can we do to force politicians to bring these issues to the forefront? Don't we want to put all the FUD behind us?
Simon's Rock College
I think you mean anarchist libertarian politics which has been around for quite some time.
Douglas Ruskoff seems to think so. He also thinks its a good model for religeon.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
In other news the Republicans launch their "Get the Facts" campaign, more at 11.
Can't you just, uh, not read Slashdot if you're so angry with it?
Or just register and block michael's stories, if you want.
Then NO, it didn't work.
sulli
RTFJ.
Hrm, I think outsourcing is a much better option, for instance what sort of market is there for a disliked unpopular Prime Minister who 'mildly' puts his own party on edge... yet the market for this product in the US for example is greater than for its own leader, as demonstrated by the work he did on a short-term contractual basis.
We can out-source him, open source him, whatever you like, bidding starts at $10 USD to get him off our hands, I'll write a cheque right now if you like.
I feel like I'm reading a Jon Katz story.
Enough with the buzzword bingo, please!
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I printed out about 100 copies of an activist
Felt better than watching Cheers reruns.
count me in!!! I want the lowest cost, most effective government that does only the things that matter and gets out of social services and morals, I want it now!!! This is the libertarian party politics!!! It has been around forever.
For instance, open-source style politics was the reason Howard Dean was leading before the primaries. It allowed him to reach out to more people than he otherwise would have. In general the Internet is causing the voice of the people to be heard, and we should expect more Howard Dean-style campaigns in the future.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Oh come on. That still isn't a significant step forward in politics. The only reason it got posted was because of the phrase "open source". Back off of the stupid "buzz words" for a bit, won't you? Open source stupidity isn't a good thing, as exhibited by the overuse of said phrase.
Can you understand BASIC?
Like it or not, modern day politics is a game for professionals. In open source technology related things, people who don't know what they are doing stay out of it. In politics though, everyone thinks they know what they are doing and everyone has an opinion.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
Funny.
I thought that was what the guys who wrote the US Constitution said when they were done?
Are we just saying we mean it for real this time, or are we just fooling ourselves?
Eternal vigilence is the only real way to keep the politics bottom-up.
It does help when the leaf nodes in the socio-political processes have as much access to the technology that controls information as the root nodes, of course.
I wonder how it is that we moderns have access to that technology when so much of history is full of examples of political and social systems where it was assumed that the masses must be strictly guarded to access to it.
Or are we fooling ourselves?
The main thing is this nation is founded on compromise i think rich poltical neo-cons could deal with the fact they might not be making monkey off us though taxes if we did a project FOR THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE!!!!!!
"to be like god we make our own dolls to play with, but what does that make us, but dolls for god to play with?" Ikari,
Ok, I saw no mention in the article of the echo chamber that Democrats lived in for the last 4 years. If we're going to take back the country, we need to instill some discipline: STOP ACTING LIKE THE GUY ACROSS THE DIVIDE IS AN IDIOT. Until we get every single Democrat repeating that in their sleep, nothing's gonna change.
Open-Source Politics means: "I think Republicans are idiots. What's this? Lord Omlette says I shouldn't treat Republicans as idiots? FUCK THAT NOISE! I'ma ignore him and surf a different website. Oooh look, this blog agrees w/ me that Republicans are idiots. Hurray for the Internet!"
All the nifty tools and new communications paradigms are not going to change a goddamned thing until we get back to recognizing that the opposing force are Americans, same as us.
[o]_O
... the two major political parties work very differently. The Liberal Party (who are the more *right*-leaning) have a top-down model broadly similar to how both major US parties work - decisions are made by the man/men at the top, and filter down to the underlings whose job it is to make them happen.
The Labor Party have a bottom-up model, where various factions (e.g. trade unions) push ideas, solutions etc. upwards to the man at the top. Infighting within the Labor Party is very much out in the open as the various factions try to win out, whereas infighting in the Liberal Party is almost exclusively carried out behind closed doors.
One thing that has been a pattern is that, when the Labor Party has been running the country, their leaders have almost always been extremely charismatic people. Keating, Hawke, Whitlam (and now we're back 30 years) have had very strong public personas. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, has had "grey men" in charge whenever they've been in power - nobody ever accused Howard, Fraser, McMahon, Holt or Gorton of being particularly visionary in the way they went about doing things (OK, Gorton is a slight exception, but he was nowhere near as charismatic as any of the Labor guys).
Here's my point, at long last: if you equate the open-source (bottom up movement) with the Australian Labor Party (bottom up model), maybe the thing that's missing is a highly charismatic leader for the open-source movement. Maybe FOSS needs someone who can present the vision, paint the future as rosy, etc. etc., while managing to galvanise the hard-headed FOSS coders behind the scenes to buy into the same vision. Someone who can stand up and convince a room full of sceptical businessmen and politicians that he knows what their problems are and FOSS can address them, while being able to stand up in a room full of C++ and Java coders and convince them his coding and design skills are on a par with theirs.
From what I've read, Miguel de Icaza would possible be the foremost candidate for that type of role at this particular instant, but I've got no idea if that's a role he sees himself filling at any point in the future.
rolfmasbihmt
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Never shall I allow actors, competitive or not, to evaluate the... value... of stuff.
The Open Source model is the future of politics. In the next few election cycles, I think we'll see a Cathedral/Bazaar phenomenon take place. Whether that phenomenon supplants the current right/left paradigm or not remains to be seen. A lot depends on whether the Democrats pick up the mantle of "Open Politics" or not.
Open Politics is, in many ways, what grass roots politics is supposed to be. In the current system I think it has turned into the national parties manipulating the local people, though I speak only for my own locale.
The Republicans are just coming to terms with the notion that their base is comprised, to quote one Republican polster, of "theocrats" - people who believe not that a theocracy is desirable, but that the separation of Church and State has been overemphasized to the nation's detriment. That's who won the 2004 election, and it will be very hard to deny that movement. Democrats should not make the mistake of dismissing the theocrats or ignoring the intellectual and numeric strength of the movement.
The Democrats need new intellectual vigor, and tapping in to the Open Politics movement seems like a natural for them.
If the Republicans embrace Open Politics, I don't know what effect that will have. If neither major party embraces it, then a huge vacuum is opened up for one of the minor parties to fill.
sigs, as if you care.
The campaigns are not what is important. Before you can get a good populist candidate, one who favors egalitarian change, you need to get the right set of ideas (memeset) out into the political "air". The rightwing wealthy and the mega corporations have already done that over the last 30 years using their think tanks and foundations. See here:
w .opednews.com/kall%20starting_a_progress ive_counterpa.htm
/. will no doubt tell me that CBS, NBC, PBS, et al are the leftwing meme propagation machine. I used to think so, too. But I was wrong, and so are you. Economically Leftism and social leftism are two different things. One feeds the bulldog, and the other does not.
http://www.hnn.us/articles/1244.html
http://ww
So before you can get a "candidate of the people" you need to have the voters already aware of a set of ideas that reflect his politics. What you need is a Leftwing Meme Propagation Machine which needs to be up and running YEARS before the campaign.
If you want to get a real liberal (as opposed to faux liberals like Kerry, Dean, Edwards, et al., you need to sell the idea of progressive politics to the public.
Rightwingers here on
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Ok...Given that the article talks about using open source as a model to galvanise the 'grassroots' supporters, I don't see this as a model that can be applied so easily to politics.
Open Source as a paradigm relies pretty much on two things, a desire to participate, and the belief that well reasoned argument based on merit will ensure the implementation of the best solution.
In Politics, I think both things are lacking from the general populace (as opposed to the, for the want of a better word, intelligentsia(sp?)).
Joe Everyman doesn't vote based on a rational discussion of ideas and policies - he votes along pretty much strict party lines. And that's when he bothers to vote at all.
Open Source is about informed intelligent participation, and I think that sounds too much like hard work for Joe Everyman.
As examples, I don't think anyone could argue that between Kerry and Bush, or Latham and Howard, that either of them won or lost on their MERITS
...or maybe I'm just cynical...
An idea struck me the other day. I've been thinking about what I consider to be our broken democracy for several years now, and I've half-ass considered writing A New Constitution, just as a personal writing project really. Wednesday (a time for introspection for a lot of people) I decided if I do that it should be submitted as an RFC. What could be more democratic than open source government? It's an intriguing thought.
Lawrence Lessig, President 2008
http://www.lessig.org/bio/cv/index.shtml
...is seriously, is everybody here *drunk*? I mean, come on people, I know that "open source" is more of a buzzword than a real signifier of anything these days, but do you HAVE to apply it to every aspect of life? What in the holy name of god does "open source politics" MEAN? Nobody's requiring a non-disclosure agreement to read the legislation governing our electoral system... give it a try.
Allow laws to be publicly editable via the web (in a Wiki style). The only power elected lawmakers would have would be to approve for a version of the page.
They've even convinced us that it even goes down to the very fabric of our being... Who are you? A Liberal, or A Conservative? So it's vitally important to *them* that *they* be the ones to draw the line... make the definition. But of course it's not true. You can believe whatever you want about any different issue. Son of Reagan shows up at the DNC to promote stem cells... and people are SHOCKED.
But no politician has to worry about the lines being blurred when it's a battle of Us or Them. Not until you destroy that paradigm can you begin to have influence.
Sure.. it can't be any worse than the crappy way things have/are been/being handled.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
The internet gives an equal voice to everyone, and that means a weighted voice for extremists, who care more about their positions than anyone else does. The mainstream process mutes these loonies and produces something that all Americans can support (in theory). I mean, if Howard Dean's campaign is the example, it's not exactly a shining theory.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Ever take notice of the KDE vs. GNOME camps? That's a political divide if ever I saw one.
The two projects could have merged long ago if only they didn't have such different models at the time. Can they merge now? Doesn't seem like it. And that division would seem to mirror the kind of division we might see in "open source politics" of the future.
I can only imagine that two camps out there might have "the best answer" to global warming, renewable energy, clear air, keeping the nation's unemployment rate down, managing terrorist threat, you name it.
I can see an open source model for research projects, however. The trouble is, people with money care more about profit than progress... then again, that's how they become people with money now isn't it.
I think the idea has merit but I can also see where it would be supressed or at the very least competed against by commercial interests so it wouldn't be enough that OS public activities would be competing against themselves but also against commercial interests. Is it a good idea? Yeah... I think so. If for no other reason than to maintain and incentive to keep politics close enough to the people that it's never completely out of the public's reach.
Time to mention CivicSpace Labs, a project started by Zach Rosen who had been with the Dean campaign (along with a few others who I don't know).
Quoting from the site:
"CivicSpace Labs is a funded continuation of the DeanSpace project. We are veterans of the Dean campaign web-effort and are now building the tool-set of our dreams. We are busily completing work on CivicSpace, a grassroots organizing platform that empowers collective action inside communities and cohesively connects remote groups of supporters."
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Because of the lack of games which is what politics is all about. Until you change the market shares in playing games, MS has the best political model.
No way could the open source community replace IBM's nazgul lawyers. And yet Groklaw is the best anti-FUD device ever invented. I think the same thing will happen in politics. Actually, it already has. The example that comes to mind is exposing the forged memos about GWB's service or lack thereof.
Uhm, what you're describing is called "democracy" and is, like, how it's supposed to work.
I.e., if you give a shit about something the government is doing, MOBILIZE and get involved. Start organizing. Start doing. And if you can't do, DONATE.
I guess if you have to slap "open source" on it to get the geeks to move, so be it. Most of the slashdotters think they can create change by posting angry messages on message boards filled with people who already agree with them!
Now the news and editorials come from everywhere. We can discuss the same issue with hundreds of people in a day. Opinions can be formed with the help of a diverse and eclectic group of people. While this system scares traditional news outlets like daily papers, local tv and radio stations, it works very well. It is the bazaar.
Even though I don't think when Eric wrote his landmark article about the history of GNU/Linux it could or would be applied to politics, I think parts of it fit this issue quite well.
The Internet and FOSS have truly changed the way we live. Is it any surprise that it's also changing politics too? BTW, if you haven't read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" read it soon. It's great stuff.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
I've actually been experimenting with open politics a bit myself. See my Journal. It turns out, I've started defining a political platform. I'd love some wider comments on it.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
democracy by definition is supposed to be "of the people for the people" type leadership. that's the way it was created. unfortunately the politicians and the parties have twisted it into being something all together different. i think we could possibly save our country if we begin by getting rid of the partisan system. once that is gone we allow the people to actually vote on all issues, systems, and governances. but the US government would never allow such a system because it would take the power away from them. i only wish this country had the balls to actually revolt. but we've become so apathetic and numb we'd rather just sit in front of our plasma televisions watching reality tv as our rulers take more and more rights away from usl.
nature loves variety::society hates it get your variety at http://www.monkeypantz.net
Here's what I hope.. The internet helps folks bypass the party tribe system, and that history is used as a lesson on which to base improvements of the future. That people can argue ideas on their merits, not on the tribal associations of those fielding the ideas.
:p
Unfortunately, there's something in the limbic system that makes people want to conform and seek the approval of others in their social groupings, something hardwired in the primate brain.
The one thing about opensource that I would want to see in politics is the concept of meritocracy. People earn respect and legitimacy on how correct their code or arguments are. That's pretty unique in the world of human endeavor. There's rarely an 'old boy's network' in opensource, there's rarely arguments about technology that last longer than a few testable patches. How much of that is applicable to things like socialized medicine, foreign policy, the environment, etc. I don't know, but I'd hope it's more than what we have now
How can a government be held accountable to the people if it is allowed to keep secrets? It can't. A democracy cannot function properly if it is allowed to obfuscate its methods. Get everything out in the open.
Monitor politicians 24/7 so they can't take bribes. Put webcams in Abu Ghraib. The fact that we don't know what our soldiers are up to is almost as disgusting as the things they are doing. Developing new aircraft in area 51 with taxpayer money? why bother keep it a secret? get all that shit out in the open.
Is this a risk for national security? Sorry, you should have thought of that before you cried wolf. Its time to demand accountability.
They need to remember that the next election so they don't do a repeat of this election. The anti-Bush crowd did an excellent job alienating the Republicans and motivating them to vote for Bush. In the process they failed to build up the support they needed for their own candidate. Any rational argument against Bush was quickly lost by screaming loonies calling Bush, Hitler and insulting the intelligence of anyone who didn't have the same negative opinion.
They put the Republicans on the defensive which resulted in Bush being re-elected, the Republicans getting a larger margin in the house and senate and the minority leader losing his job. The first time that's happened in 50 years.
I think the problem was that the Democrats thought they were in the majority judging by all the various polls and world opinion and they didn't need "idiots" voting for their guy. Turns out they really were the minority.
Work Safe Porn
Dang, I sure didn't see him on the ballot. Must have been hiding under one of those hanging chads.
does this mean we can compile our president from platform independant sourcecode ?
Please try not to mix terms here. Fascism and Communism are ideologically at odds; they don't mix. It is a common misconception that has been part of the american hyperbole ever since the red baiting of the cold war. Democracy / Fascism / Totalitarianism, is just as relevant. Thing is both democracy and communism have never been truly practiced. The russian revolution was probably the closest thing we had to a full working class based movement for equality. It was only due to the rapid industrialization and the war that gave Stalin power and the motivation / license to murder so many millions of what were once his comrades. Read up on your Marx to get an idea of what it could have been if not for Stalin and international pressure from outside of the russian state.
Now I can't comment on specific members of the open source community, but the open-source movement itself is, although with many metaphorical flaws, is a good example of a modern collective. Developing a stream of production and distribution for the common good, that is roughly equivalent to many other non-capitalist alternatives, growing in strength everyday.
I don't have time to clean up what probably were poorly worded, unsubstantiated statements, or dive further into what could be the subject of a doctoral dissertation, so I apologize if that was all completely incoherent or inaccurate.
Since politics is all about lies, and open source is, well, open, it's clear that the open source philosophy can not be applied to politics.
The invasion (and weakening) of open source by politics is, however, inevitable.
...can be bought in open source politics?
This election was won on 1st millenia principals, of frear & doubt care of the church.. All that you have proved is that you are still out of touch with most Americans, who think the world was created in 7 days, that science is a joke (unless they get sick) and that people like us should be shot. Hate to break it to ya sunshine, but *we* are in the minority... Hell most of the midwest has never *seen* a computer before, let alone used one.
First point: Why not run whole businesses that way, with open accounting and forcing renewal of corporate charters that have a limited "lifespan"? ...sounds a hell of a lot like a socialist plan except that, being based around the internet, it doesn't need the top-down heirarchy. So at least it gets rid of the weakest link.
Second point: if the government were going to be run in a bottom-up, buzzword loaded "open source" system...why elect anyone?
Republicans are idiots post!
Just kiddin, but that is generally the mentality you are going to be dealing with. The people here on Slashdot, are just as impressionable as those who backed the Republican party for "Morals". The problem is that no-one wants to listen to each other anymore. You do not hold my views because they are counter to my A.) Church B.) Party C.) Company D.) Parents, and therefore you are wrong. No sense in why you are wrong, but just knowing that you are.
Sig it.
It's only been what, 5 days since the election? What's with the politics talk so soon? I need time to decompress!
Open source is just a programming "contexted" facet of the regular behavior of information (Open/Free).
The fact is that, under real, tremendous stresses (like this election), this kind of information gets out anyway.
It has nothing to do with your software movement. Your software movement is a small acknowledgement of something bigger.
vk.
"not read Slashdot?" I'm afraid I don't follow you.
Consider the example of the "Kos Dozen." As the referenced article describes, Markos Moulitsas runs the Daily Kos political blog, and is probably the most successful blog fundraiser for democratic candidates, raising (according to his site) about $750K. Of that, $550K went to a list of 15 candidates he endorsed and targeted, the inaccurately named "Kos Dozen."
Moulitsas claimed that all these candidates could win, and bragged about helping some candidates that the Democratic Party bigwigs hadn't supported enough. For example, he raised a lot of money for Ginny Shrader, running for Congress in Pennsylvania's 8th District, and he said:
Maybe the DCCC was right after all, because in a Democratic district that Clinton, Gore and Kerry all won, Shrader lost by an 11-point margin. In fact, of the 15 candidates Moulitsas targeted for help, ALL of them were defeated. Despite his optimism about their chances, four were demolished by 3:2, 2:1 or even 5:2 margins, and five more (including Shrader) lost by 10-12 points. Only three races were even close.I don't know if there were more deserving candidates and races that Moulitsas could have directed the money to, but I suspect there were. It's great he could raise so much money from small donors (the average donation was about $100), but a lot of it may have been wasted because of poor targeting choices.
Morale of the story: Sometimes the party bigwigs really do know strategy better than the masses, and trying to "strategize by committee" through a blog is not necessarily a good way to help a campaign.
I think Darrell's mom is a good model for politics! You hear that Darrell? HAHAHA!
While I do applaud increased political participation in any form, I worry that the influence of the blog communities and new social networks formed on the internet may not have as much of an impact as the author suggests. Grassroots political organizations are relatively open institutions already. If you show up in person with a decent work ethic, and a willingness to help, they'll likely bring you onboard. By helping a campaign in person, you actively go out and seek likeminded individuals to join your cause, and can reach a broad array of people, including those who don't primarily use the internet to form political ideals, because of the variation in the quality of discourse (with a heavy concentration of low quality junk). If you look at the efforts of 'e-activists', I would argue that it would be far more valuable for online community participants to get off their desk chairs, and help a campaign in the flesh. There will always be a need for people to fold the fliers, and go door to door reaching beyond an insular communities that sap the already waning civic participation rates of the public. Ranting about politics on a blog is not a meaningful form of political participation, because it requires someone to stumble across it, and accept it as worth reading. And as Skocpol points out, participation is largely restricted demographically to the middle/upperclass, and largely white. The article glosses over this point, saying that increased internet usage by the next generation will level the field...but these kids are likely to be from the same demographic pool. The real value of using online communities in political activism is in supplementing 'real world' activities, like delegating tasks, posting meeting times and minutes, and a more open dialogue regarding policies and platforms. Parties need to embrace this change (top down) for it to have any effect, rather than being only clusters of unorganized opinion.
Example. Say I'm a Republican wondering if Bush is really doing the right thing. I want to have an open mind and I go looking. What will I learn?
- MichaelMoore.com will spin an insane conspiracy web and try to sell me books.
- Democrats.com will list every bad thing that's happened this week and try to blame it on Bush.
- Indymedia will tell us about the last fucking fatass cop somebody posted a photo of, eating a doughnut.
- Hundreds of independent blogs will rehash these stories and more, and add their own comments and spin and twists on it all, with varying degrees of accuracy and objectivity.
- And every single one of these sources will tell me that they are the One True Source of Facts.
The wonderful thing about the Internet is that literally anybody can find their voice and an audience. Problem is, I (the Republican) have given up my search for enlightenment because I don't know who to believe.The point is that an infinite number of viewpoints is NOT a good thing when you're trying to get a coherent message across. Bush didn't beat the Democrats, the Democrats beat themselves.
Spot on comment.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Similarities:
Most voters don't have a clue about the issues they're voting on, and couldn't state a coherent political philosophy if you put a gun to their head. I'd really like to see something more like the jury system used more broadly for political decision-making. Here's a straw-man proposal:
Find free books.
Call me a cynic but this is just another way to build ideas for the powers-that-be to ignore. Election politics and party image do not equal what is actually done later. You can feed the rhetoric in new ways but don't look to open source ideas to effect real change 'cause you won't be working on the actual "code" (law) but just the "spec" (which in politics is ignored even more than in software development).
Let's do an experiment. We all sign this petition to get Howard Dean as head of the DNC, and we'll see if this really works.
Before Dean ran, no one thought the Democrats could possibly win (or even raise more money than the president). When he started campaigning, he was the only one landing blows on Bush at all. Shifting the party right is useless (see the past 3 decades). If we sign this, we might keep losing elections, but we'll be losing them for a party we want to vote for and respect. I'm sick of this GOP lite shit. As far as I'm concerned, if the Democrats don't nominate Dean, they have one chance left to earn my loyalty before I'm through. And I'm only 20 =/
-Oobob
Politics will never be a suitable place for open source, in the sense that I understand from the question.
In open source, competing projects are OK (Gnome and KDE). Reusing good ideas is OK (ReiserFS incorporating some XFS techniques). Waiting until something's absolutely ready for release is OK (Hurd).
Those mentalities don't fit with people's egos. They're wrong and I'm right, or else I'd be on their side (Republicans vs. Democrats). I didn't make a mistake, and I won't issue an apology (fill in this blank...). It has to be done immediately, come hell or high water (DMCA).
.... tells the rest of the world to stay out of it's "democracy" when a vote happens and then it invades another sovereign nation to impose it's version of "democracy" on them ???
....
You cannot have it both ways.
Open Politics - ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,FOL
Tell us what you think when the *draft* letter arrives on your door mat
Does freedom taste good in the US ?
This is nothing more than a rephrasing of the Jeffersonian ideas of strong local governments and weak federal government.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Anyway personally I wonder what the point is - this election was supposed to show the rise of the bloggers, digerati and all the rest of it. What's the point when Dubya just gets voted back into power?
I was really surprised by the green party of Canada being completely for open standards and open source in the government. http://www.greenparty.ca/index.php
As someone said earlier - open source politics is what democracy is supposed to be about. More properly, open source politics is what particpatory democracy is supposed to be about.
In Australia, the first mainstream example of participatory democracy was the Australian Democrats. They have party members elect their leaders, and even require party policies to be balloted by members. As such, they were probably the first member driven party since the early days of federation (the ALP probably began as a very member driven party - but that has changed).
Now, for those of you that follow Australian politics, you will no doubt have noticed that the Australian Democrats are not in a very healthy state at the moment. At the last federal election they received their lowest level of support since their inception and lost all three of their senators that were up for re-election (including OSS advocate Brian Greig).
The decline in support for the Australian Democrats can be traced partly to their support of the GST, which alienated a lot of left-leaning voters, but most substantially to a major public brawl within the party back in 2001 (I think). This brawl included the dumping of then party leader Natasha Stott-Despoja - an individually who was both popular within the Democrats and the electorate at large.
This public spat shows the biggest difficulty faced by advocates of participatory democracy. Democracy is both beautiful and ugly. It involves the resolution of sometimes diametrically opposed positions. Such resolutions are not always peaceful and rarely ever private. As such, when the Democrats faced such an ugly moment it was became the political drama du jour and was lapped up by the press.
Now here is the kicker - if you have a public spat, voter very quickly stop voting for you. The media portrays you as "deeply divided" and "unlikely to recover". Politically that is the coup de grace.
Politics is not like software. In software if you have an idea you can demonstrate that idea in practice and you can debate the technical merits of that idea using quantifiable data. This does not preclude personal ambitions etc getting in the way, but OSS development is the development of a technical product.
Politics is only part technical. For the main it is philosophy, morality, expediency, ambition etc - none of which are the subject of technical discussion. The GNOME-KDE flamewars might sound nasty, the kernel VM flamewars might sound nasty, but they are nothing in comparison to political disagreements.
Open source politics is great - but it is painful. Unless voters accept that it is painful, and ugly, and personal, open source politics will lose out to the great political cathedrals every time.
I come from a LAN down under
Where the packets flow and routers chunder
Until we have a robust "Internet website" location where anyone can post information without threat from any government, or anyone, with the information permanent (unlike the spineless archive.org project) and freely accessible, we will not have the very foundation for a liberal society. Where there are places to hide, the corrupt will do so. Think back on even just the most recent media exposes. Only because of whistleblowers (who suffered the old rule that no good deed goes unpunushed) did we learn of widespread abuse/exploitation. We need protection of information and true privacy. If the smart geeks only focused their efforts instead of getting caught doing stupid hacking stints, maybe we would one day get the robust P2P high-performance "freenetproject" that humanity truly needs. This resource must not reside anywhere physically, or be personally identifiable. It is the most important challenge that the capable among us must absolutely strive to create. Without this, humanity cannot move forward.
It's just as logical to say that postgrads are smarter as it is to say that postgrads are influenced disproportionally by years of exposure to authority figures who are sheltered from reality by their stature within relatively unaccountable institutions.
Today, both parties operate centrally. The reason is touted as 'message control' and that's why you see talking points distributed to both party's agents on a daily basis to keep a consistent message.
Before 1964, politics was kind of folksy. Issues were local. States voted for candidates based upon adherence to local issues (partisanship was certainly there, but it wasn't the all-consuming force it is today). There weren't national TV ads to influence people. 'Message control' was based upon people repeating what the President said, nothing more. Most Senators were reminiscent of John McCain - troublesome because they spoke out of turn about their own pet issues, but generally supportive of their party. Today, it's blind follow-the-leader behavior in both Houses, on both sides.
After 1964, there were huge changes in the paradigm. For example, the Democratic party owned the entire South - that changed starting in 1968 and the complete domination of the region by the GOP is now complete. For all intents and purposes there are no Southern Democrats in office anymore. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one big reason, but another one is that the national party ceased sharing values with the Southerners and ultimately were ejected from political office in that region.
The big unions were crushed over the past 35 years - they exert some power in specific urban locales (and a couple rural ones) but they are a shadow of what they once were. Once again, this was a big Democrat stronghold (and still is, to the extent it exists) but to the modern worker a labor union is not a desirable or good thing, which is a good reason why IT workers in the US haven't unionized. It's not cool. Anyway, the point is that they don't have the ability to dictate issues to the Democrats anymore.
Once the Democrats lost the South, it was only a matter of time before they stopped being able to get 50% of the popular vote in this country, and barring weird events or supremely compelling local issues, every Presidential election would go to the Republicans. Carter was the last Democrat to get 50% of the vote, in 1976, and he barely squeaked by a Republican who was tarnished by his (peripheral) involvement with the Watergate scandal, specifically his pardoning of Nixon. Note also that the election would have been flipped by about 40,000 votes in the right places, if I remember right (IL and HI, I think). Carter was also a Southerner and fairly popular in Georgia, if not elsewhere.
Note of course that Al Gore got 48%, Clinton never managed over 47% (1996). The only reason they had any success at all with such numbers was the presence of a stalking horse third party candidate drawing off votes, whether it was Perot or Nader.
Perot was crushed - he is now believed insane by many in the electorate. Nader was crushed - he's a traitor to the Left, according to the DNC. I wouldn't want to be Ralph Nader trying to get any of my old Democrat buddies to return my calls. Third parties in this country don't stand a chance unless they stay under the radar. I don't expect there to be another anytime soon, either. We're about out of well-known people who want themselves dragged through the mud.
I would suggest aligning with the Republicans somehow, in other words. Explain to them how OSS would afford a competitive advantage far above and beyond the childish obsession with intellectual property vehicles. That's language they could understand. I understand OSS is dominated by people on the Left, but reality is reality.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
THe Nation certainly is leftwing in America. But in Western Europe they are centrist.
....eewwww, how extremist!
And in most western european countries, all citizens are entitled to healthcare. Here in America. 45 million go without, and someone goes bankrupt from medical costs about once every seconds (or thereabouts). In NW Europe, students do not get out of school loaded down with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, and have to work at McDonalds after that. In most NW Europe countries, their tax dollars go to things like state funded child care and education, instead of killing thousands of innocent civilians.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Think about it...
More useful than
Don't you think? ... wait a minute... oh, meme set... sorry... never mind.
I thought this was going to be a story about the Debian project :|
The notion of intellectual property cannot be reversed so long as there is free trade. For a rich nation to give up intellectual property when her workers are paid a great deal relative to the rest of the world is total economic suicide.
In order for there to be a genuine open source, you have to get rid of free trade. I think this is a move that is long overdue. Each nation would produce the goods it needed, but all information between nations would be allowed to be free. In this way, you don't have ridiculous sitations like the third world being held back because its own engineers are not allowed to construct a plant.
To make this model work, though, you need to have a kind of software that can guide a developing nation into manufacturing the kinds of things it wants - it needs to be able to schedule education, natural resources, etc. So that way you can let the third world build its own cars using the latest western technology, including fuel cells, etc, but at the same time third world wages won't throw richer nations into brutal social turmoil and poverty.
This is my sig.
"open source politics", basically can be restated as "democracy".
.. and to the Republic, for which it stands..."
Note that the US does **NOT** have democracy. It has a republic. Note that most people in the US have actually said this hundreds of time without thinking:
"
The thing is, if everyones vote was required on every issue... many issues would either not get properly voted on, or would get voted on badly.
And then there's the old Roman perspective. Something along the lines of "Let the people vote, and all they will vote for is bread and circuses".
[eg: all short term pleasure with no long-term responsabilities].
Unfortunately, that sort of thing assumes that the rational alternative is to have responsible people in charge, making rational decisions for the benefit of the nation.
Too bad that it seems inevitable that in any nation of decent size, the corrupt will always band together to get power, rather than the "benevolent ruler(s)" perspective often wished for.
Your personality seems perfectly suited to being a rightwinger!
Here are the titles of most of your last dozen posts:
eeewww..."The Nation"??? Sunday November
That's right, you moronic ignoramuses!!!
you fucking dumbass *Wednesday June 16, 02:55PM 1 1
I'm surrounded by idiots... *Saturday June 05, @09:35AM 1 4,
Try growing a brain first *Monday May 31,
this is the problem with looney liberal leftists *Wednesday April 21, @12:31PM 1 1
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I think this is very stupid if people are against open source software.
I think this is the future of computing and gives the users much more freedom in which software they use and how they use it.
Not everyone is a MS slave.
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
Dude, get a clue. There are way more than two "sides" to this and many of us couldn't stand either of these guys. Don't think that a low third party vote count equates with unity within EITHER of the corporate parties.
Both those fuckers have to go, and this last election as just more proof of the power of the divide and conquer strategy. Do you really think the people in power in this country really care whether a democrat or republican sits in the white house?
It sounds to me like the mainstream political machinery views this as nothing but a newfangled fundraising scheme, to be "tapped into" until it runs out of sweet sap and then they move onto whatever else is causing a fuss.
Sure, they'll take the ideas, give them some lip service, and certainly take the money gladly but even if elected I'm cynical the ideas would go very far.
That's why a separate party would be preferable. Not that it would get very far politically, I just think it would be convenient to read a forum about proposition X or amendment X, or local politician X and have a better idea of what it would do than what the current pro/con commercial soundbites provide.
Sadly, an incredibly small amount of mental horsepower goes into making most political decisions, and we just don't learn from our mistakes very well, especially if they happen in another state.
A new party with small ambitions (e.g. mostly local political discussions) would probably spend political contributors' money far more cost-effectively and get results much sooner.
fuck slashdot
If all politians say what ever it takes to be elected, they would all say, "Watch me kiss my wife. Watch me be just like you but also a great leader. Watch me shoot people trying to shoot you. Watch my oponent do the exact oposite of what I do."
Then they would be identical, and no one would bother to vote.
I think there would be more interest in this topic if someone was paying the politians to take a stand on it, even if it was Microsoft.
Simon's Rock College
Unfortunately no one knows how most of the best laid plans are going to turn out. So having a bunch of kibitzers giving advice in an area that they have little if any training seems kind of questionable. The Democrats thought they had a good plan this time until Tuesday evening. It is kind of like John Kerry's comment toward the end of the campaign that the Iraq war would be a good idea if it turns out okay.
count me in!!! I want the lowest cost, most effective government that does only the things that matter and gets out of social services and morals, I want it now!!! This is the libertarian party politics!!! It has been around forever.
To me the dis-enfranchised people are the people paying high taxes for social programs that don't work, being foced to pay for public education that should be private, and medical expenses that are driven up by the govt paying all bills at all costs. I don't want the government to administrate these things more efficiently, responsibly, or "fairly", I want them to stop forcing me to pay the bills, and once I have controll again - then efficiency and accountability will take care of itself.
It seems that all the people who are complaining of being "left out" , are actually complaining that they are being "left out" of my wallet - and want to organize more efficiently on the internet to take it back???
Am I missing somthing here?
Actually I think you might have misunderstood the previous posts :)
:)
:) pity really, but it would look kinda funny if we had a PM all lonly over in the corner trying to talk about legislation that was voted "1-everyone else in the chamber".....so the Westminster system has minor parties generally in the upper house, so they can vote with one of the other major parties or against to filter the propositions as they come up from below (except fater this election, the libs seem to have a majority in both houses, what we call a mandate.....scary huh?)
You see down here we don't have an election for the Prime Minister. The name says it all "prime" meaning first - the "first" minister is elected by the party, as the leader, or spokes person, and only become the PM if (and only if) they win the majority of seats in the lower house. The discussion was how the various parties elect the "chosen one"
In the Labour party, anyone can join their local Labour party, and they all get together and put forward their nominations for the seat, and sometimes (esp in a "safe seat") they're ring-ins from the top, like Peter Garret - ex singer of Midnight Oil for the rest of the world, who was shipped to Sydney to make the Labour party look more "green", but mostly they are local reps.
As far as a minor party PM - the system does not cater for that eventuality at *all*
Could Richard Stallman be charismatic, or just obsessed? I've never heard him speak, so it is hard to tell.
Simon's Rock College
I think you're subconciously overgeneralizing from the results of the recent election. Most people are "average" in many ways, but there is no average person. Most of the time, your opinion will be matched pretty well to those of a lot of other people. A keenly developed habit of listening to "trolls" can help break one of preaching to the choir.
An Open Source project is more than just the developers; it's also the beta testers, the funders, and not least the users. Not everyone needs to be a coder in order to contribute. Not all coders have the same skill level or commitment. It's not necessary for someone to be able to come up with a shiny new algorithm before they can trace a bug in the implementation of an old one.
Similarly, it's not necessary for everyone to know how to take a poll, or organize a focus group, or even put together a cogent argument. In politics, as in almost no other area, there's a slot for everyone.
Consider the effect that Groklaw has had on The SCO Group's attempt to steal Linux. A community of people, led by a core team, blends skills and does amazing work. Ordinary people with neither legal nor technical training contribute to the discussion in ways I personally find inspiring.
So take a look at these parallels:
I'm just wondering if the people in the FOSS movement will dominate Open Source Politics or if the mechanics of it will. That is, will the current FOSS people become active politically or will the politicians learn to apply Open Politics principles for themselves?
I suspect, somewhat grimly, the latter.
sigs, as if you care.
Somewhere, deep in my mind, I realized Australia had a similar system to the Brit one, but I understood your post to be about how 'politics worked' in Australia on a macroscopic level. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Oh and I forgot to add - it's actually part of the Lobour party rules - you have to "tow the party line" ie - no arguing when it comes to the actual vote, but when it comes to the media.....well they just cant help themselves
S enate.h tml
by the way - here's a great link:
http://www.free-definition.com/Australian-
We don't make it a noticeable issue. This past election I went to EFF.org to see what candidates they endorsed. I couldn't find any. I even bothered to e-mail them to see if they advocated anyone. No response. I did a bit of hunting around and could not find anything on it.
h p?can_id=CNIP0616
All the other issue groups rate the candidates & grade their past voting records. e.g. http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_category.p
Until we start doing the same & start getting the information out to the public, it will continue to fly under the radar screen.
OK. You might say with all the other issues going on in the world why would any sane person make their decision based on EFF issues? It's easy, no candidate is ever a perfect match. EFF ratings would be one more thing to consider when rating a candidate. I know on one candidate race I was looking at information like that would have changed my vote.
I got pretty feed-up with the Howard Dean Meet-ups. We would go around the room as if it was an AA meeting. Everyone would have a few minutes on the soapbox explaining why they were there. Most people used the time to state their political agenda as if the Meet-up coordinator was going to run the most popular views right up the line to Howard himself after the meeting.
There are some real advantages to dictatorships if the dictator is a intelligent and willing to channel resources to where they will achieve the greatest good. Consensus and compromise often end up getting you nowhere slowly.
The parties may try to adopt the trappings of openness without really implementing the internal changes, but I don't think that will be successful. The point is not that Open Source is cool and popular, because most voters don't give a hoot about it. Those that do care about openness in their software don't expect it in politics ... yet.
The point is that Open Politics is being thrust on the powers that be, and there's nothing that will stop it. They will either adapt to politics in the Internet Age or they will lose.
sigs, as if you care.
someone who gets it.
The delusion that there are always two and only two sides to an issue would be blown away completely if our voting system didn't mathematically preclude only two dominant parties. Imagine four or five people at a presidential debate, offering their very different perspectives on issues. I've seen the third-party candidates do it, and in multi-party environments it's far easier to treat one another respectably, to not pretend the guy across a particular divide is an idiot. Like Cobb does of Badnarik. Thinks he's dead wrong about health care, but not an idiot. The parent is also right that sometimes there IS only one smart side and many stupid ones. The inverse is also true.
I don't know if America is ready for that kind of mature thinking.
If an organization rates a candidate positively, it will forever be put down by the other candidates as a "puppet" or "biased".
Often correctly.
So, how do we prevent marginalization by this effect, and still push a candidate forward?
Simon's Rock College
Toe the line! Toe the line!
God, I'm sick of seeing "tow".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Governmen t
I'd like to start by saying that this is my first Slashdot reply/post ever. It's nice to be here. Slashdot is a perfect example of a system that fuels off bottom-up rule and emergence theory. There's no almighty-person or group of people figuring out what issues are most important and need to be discussed. In a way, it's a miracle that I'm sitting here responding to this article. This article represents something that the entire Slashdot system has proved is important.
Politics without a doubt should be like this. No person or group of persons should ever be in control. Even with programming, it seems we're always best off when we build our systems to learn and take care of themselves at the most fundamental level. I would love to have an Emergence Party, both political and for fun!
Is this serious?
I don't know the specifics of the political terrain in the United States, but in the western world in general, the interest in partisan politics is steadily decreasing while non-partisan interest is seeing an opposite trend. By non-partisan I mean organisations such as Greenpeace, taxpayers anonymous, autonomous left-wingers etc. The Internet is simply just another tool or another sub-phenomenon -- in fact, both the technology and the geeks are just part of a bigger trend.
You are only partially right when you say that Kerry did not argue 'anyone but Bush'. Kerry himself wisely stayed out of that mess, but what he utterly failed to do was keep his supports from advocating 'anyone but Bush because he is a baby killing fascist'. The Republicans on the other hand did a pretty good job at getting their base out and keeping them from being rabid. Obviously there are exception, but by in large the Republicans managed to stay civil, while the Democrats had a legion of people running across the nation arguing that Bush was the second coming if Hitler.
Look, I am not faulting the Democratic position or agreeing the Republican one, but if you go watch Fahrenheit 9/11 you, you are watching the real Democratic argument against Bush. When that movie came out the masses on the left side of the aisle cheered for the most blatant piece of propaganda that most Americans have ever seen in their entire lives. That movie's argument was 'anyone but Bush, at all costs'. The four minutes that shows Bush aides putting on makeup just to show them looking foolish, or the "Saudi connection" conspiracy was the Democrat's message that ended up resonating, not Kerry's media sound bites or is articulate policies on the web. The problem is that Kerry didn't try and crush the radical polarization of the party. Kerry made no attempt to tell people to cool down and be a little more sane. The Republicans made no attempt to keep their party cool, but by and large they didn't have to.
I don't think anyone is arguing that Kerry didn't have a message. You can hit up his website and find all sorts of policy and position papers. The problem is that when it came to spreading the message, the rabid 'Bush is a baby murdering fascist' message is the one that won over anything interesting Kerry had to say.
Not to speak against the gospel, but perhaps this is a problem with 'open source' politics. The more radical and rabid the politics, the more likely it is to win favor with the 'open source' distributors of it. You need to realize that the grass roots campaign that was largely responsible for Kerry's message were the harden zealots. These people might be perfectly capable of working themselves up into a anit-Bush fever, but when you put these people in contact with your average every day Joe, the extreme message they try and sell is far less appealing. Part of the politician's dance is to steer away from extremism and offer a hopeful message to as many people as possible. When you send a small army of college students out to do your PR work, there shouldn't be any surprise when a 20 year old kid with a picture of Che Guevara on his wall tries to talk to 40 year old engineer working for multinational corporation that things don't work out.
a) Kerry would repeal tax breaks for the rich,
so basically what youre saying is that hes gonna fck up the private sector. thanks but no thanks whens the last time u ever got a job from a poor person
b) work to build international alliances
Translation, cower to foriegn intereses even if its against us interests
c)provide stem cell funding
Why should the govt be funding any research nilly willy, let the private sector do it. Use your own goddam money.
d) seek gas alternatives
FYI the 'hydrogen economey' that everyones been talking about for the last four years was driven by republican initiatves. But fine, give me more controll over my money and I'll go solar.
e) protect a woman's right to abortion, select supreme court justices that feel similarly
I don't care, I'm a man. ok fine - i don't think the govt should be microregulating pregnant womens lives, but give me back my economic freedoms first and I'll work on it.
f) work to expand health care cover, and more.
Translation, socaialize medicine and other stuff. No thanks. We need less govt not more. It never ceases to amaze me - the people who don't think we have enough.
As for Bush...
a) poor economy
wtc, corporate scandals, stock market crash were all ready and waiting to happen before he got in. You need to do better than that, and apparently the voters agree.
b) no bin laden
none with clinton either
c) no WMDs and therefore no justification for war in Iraq
There's plenty of justification, WMDs were just the cheapest easiest sounding excuse. I thought he should have used others at the time, but either way.
d) cheney's haliburton connections
So? I haven't seen any compelling evidence of wrongdoing, but if so - whose to say they didn't bribe him to do the right thing anyhow?
e) silly stem cell stance
ok fine, but aleast he's not blowing my money
f) heavy handed foreign policy
Name one period in the last 200 years where we haven't pissed off half the world.
g) prisoner abuse problems
minor compaired to what they're doing to us
h) tax cuts for the rich
see statement a) at the top.
I hear about open source music, open source law, and now open source politics. Is the term "open source" now so divorced from meaning that it can be so liberally applied?
Lets take the content of the article: there's this thing called the Internet. Groups not directly tied but heavily biased form use the Internet as a tool. Sounds like "Grassroots with the Internet," if you truly need to make such a distinction.
I thought that RMS was overly pedantic when he made clear his distinction between Open Source and Free, but I'll willingly side with him if it will stem the tide of buzzwords. Viva le Free Software.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
The notion of intellectual property cannot be reversed so long as there is free trade. ......... you need to have a kind of software that can guide a developing nation into manufacturing the kinds of things it wants - it needs to be able to schedule education, natural resources,
Nobody but an idiot is going to invest say a billion$ in a factory, when theres a high chance that the govt could sieze it at will, or corrupt locals put the screws to you. That's the number one force keeping developing nations out of the industrial world.
As much as I hate the phoney 'Intellectual Property' racket here in the states - imho it has little to do with free trade. With perhaps the exception that most "free trade" agreements have nothing to do with free trade, and everything to do with mutual regulation.
I personally do not want my politicans to keep "what they will do once in office" a secret. Let's have out with the platforms and strategies, for they will effect us all in the end.
Most engineers, songwriters, and filmmakers support the IP system as it stands. This is only an issue on GNU/Lunatic Fringe places like slashdot.
Lunatic Fringe?
IBM, a major blue chip company, holders of the most patents in the world, which has stated publically that it makes more money from "Linux-related revenues" than from its massive patent portfolio? Are they the Lunatic Fringe?
How about David Byrne (former Talking Heads member) or the Beastie Boys, who have come out in support of the Creative Commons, and whose music you can download from creativecommons.org? Are they the Lunatic Fringe?
Maybe you should get out of the cave you've been hiding in for the past 2 years. There's light out here.
Yes, but the instant dissemination of information renders the whole "enlightened leader" concept of democracy obsolete. No single group of people should have the burden of making decisions. If politics were really "open-sourced"(as in perpetual referendums), the current system of management would not be able to compete with it. The quality and quatity of ideas would be far greater if the masses were allowed to directly make decision, instead of just a few elected (closed-sourced) politicians. Open-source democracy is truly the will of the people - they get to decide instantly what gets done and what doesn't.
http://www.idea.int/vt/survey/voter_turnout_pop1.c fm
US Voter turnout on average during the 1990s fell between that of Chad and Botswana.
GO AMERICA!
Pfffft... We are so pathetic.
The solid south cracked in 1948 when civil rights became a part of the Democratic platform and Strom Thurmond ran as a segregationist third party candidate.
but to the modern worker a labor union is not a desirable or good thing, which is a good reason why IT workers in the US haven't unionized. It's not cool.
Cool doesn't pay the bills when your job is outsourced to India.
I would suggest aligning with the Republicans somehow, in other words. Explain to them how OSS would afford a competitive advantage far above and beyond the childish obsession with intellectual property vehicles.
Companies with a strong IP base are doing rather well right now. Republicans have little likelihood of carrying states where OSS has even a modest constituency (Mass., NY, Calif., etc.) and quite frankly doesn't need them.
And not even RIGHT NOW. Idiot. If the campaign cycle were truly open source, Dean would have been the candidate.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Why not have all budgets viewable off the net.
One of the main stories of the 20th century is corruption in the munitions industry. Until that is addressed, we, in the USA, are at the mercy of the arms dealers.
It could also address the problem/myth of the 'welfare queens', slackers living off social programs.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
You want some rational arguments against Bush?
- He spends money with more abandon than any liberal in history
- He lies to the American public
- He lauches unprovoked attacks into third world countries
- He can't figure out how to win them once he's started them
- He shows no respect for the constitution
- He shows no respect for civil liberties
- He uses legal loopholes and questionable logic to rationalize going against pretty much every American Ideal, from "innocent until proven guilty" and "seperation of church and state" to "the right to a fair and speedy trial"
- He routinely places the good of corporations over the good of individuals
- etc., etc.
Before any Democrats reading this get to smug, ask yourself: was Kerry the best you could come up with? "I have a plan" and "Wrong, Wrong, Wrong"? Both parties have any number of sensible, credible people they could have run...and the real problem is they ran Bush and Kerry. The race was so close for so long mostly because neither one of them was worth voting for, except as a way to keep the other from winning.-- MarkusQ
Props if you catch the ref.
Have you people listened to yourselves? You're no better than the gay guy that votes for Kerry because Kerry's not against gay marriage. Personally, I think if gays want to get married, have community property, get divorced, pay alimony and childsupport, more power to them. I feel no need to try to legislate what happens in someone else's bedroom. They keep out mine and I keep out of theirs.
As much as I hate the current system, rule by committe is even worse. SomeONE has to be in charge and delegating authority. That's why we elect a president. We get together and decide who's orders we'll take for 4 years. We also elect a lot of his underlings (i.e. the House and Senate). Frankly, IMHO we're at a delicate phase in our history and we need someone who can make decisions. I don't always agree with Bush's decisions but at least he does make them and stick to them. We might not end up where I want to go, but we'll definitely not be where we are now in 4 years.
Further more, many of you are IT people. How many of you have ever seen a good product come out of a "design by committee" process? It's always a CF and you know it. For the rest of you, when have you EVER seen anything accomplished in a committee meeting at work that was more important than someone's birthday party or shower?
Next time you go to a meeting at the office, watch what happens and what doesn't get done. Then decide if you want your entire government run like that.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
... What kind of compiler do I need to build Open Source politics? Is the configure script m4, or is it a make file? If it's make, is it BSD, GNU?
Seriously, am I the only one that thinks labelling everything "grassroots" as "open source" is pretty freakin' stupid?
Well, I have started a political party here in Australia, and although my ideals are fairly different to yours on some issues, I salute you for putting yourself out there.
I've tried to model our party along open source lines, but let me tell you, the biggest hurdle is that without the means to get your voice out there (ie. $$$) it doesn't matter whether or not you are right, left or in between - no one will even know you exist, nor will the media take you seriously.
Anyway, have a look at my party site below, and grab any and all materials you need (I've open sourced the party's documentation to make it easier for the next group that wants to start a political party).
One of my goals was to make a party structure that could be carried over in materials and ideals across the world. Imagine having a party with certain ideals that is not just in one country, but lots of countries! With local sensitivities and laws of course, but still carrying forth the same set of principles and grounded in open politics with no hidden dealings. A pipe dream? Maybe, but at least I can say I tried.
Best of luck if you do decide to go further - the world knows America needs political change to pull itself out of its descent into Fascism.
Visceral Psyche Films
Undermined? They caught Dan Rather red-handed spreading phony documents about the President. And the article further trivializes this by listing it along with John Stewart's rant.
This article carefully avoids mentioning right-wing and Iraqi blogs, but I think they had an effect. For the first time, the media lost control of the "message". Also, the article only mentions military blogs run by unhappy troops. All the military blogs I've seen were pro-America and pro-war.
For a taste of what the article missed, check out Iraq The Model and Chrenkoff.
The echo chamber did for Dean (especially when he sent in the Perfect Storm: 2000 volunteers with orange helmets with blue propellers on each one.) There's a nice rant on this at El Reg
Even if Jesus set up a blogging cafe in the center of Rockport, Texas and extolled the virtues of a woman's right to choose while snapping pictures of gay weddings with his Nokia, it would have made no difference to this election. All of the bloggers would have told themselves about the miracle, while Bobby and Bobby Sue went right along with their business ... George W. Bush kicked your blogging ass.
I've had an idea I'm continuing to look for further opinions on, if anyone would be so kind.
d =10527304
Basically, instead of plain-text legislation, allow laws to have multiple and different explanations for a law, eventually organized by a DOM to make it intuitive. Not quite the open-source politics meant by TA (oooo gods descend from olympus to post on messageboards), but it would make laws far more visible to the average man.
I've posted it before, so i shan't waste precious bits ^_-
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=125671&ci
History teaches that power and information access gradually filter downwards together. Look at the Magna Carta; the nobles beneath the king wanted a piece of the King's power pie. This happened in all kingdoms. Look at the printing press, which gradually led to an increasingly widespread education. Landowners and business people wanted their own pieces of the power pie. Next you didn't have to own land to vote, or be male.
The Internet is just a contnuation of this process. No doubt people 50 years from now will be amazed to learn how concentrated power is now, and people 100 years from now will be just as astounded at the concentration of power 50 years from now.
Infuriate left and right
The phrases that come to mind are:
If you can't beat them, join them.
Embrace and extend (the Republican party into a more moderate future.)
Some evolutions of society can't be stopped, they can be delayed.
Human rights and republic have been something people dreamt about for a long time before they were used.
We'll have some countries making advances (Latvia?) and some era of obscurity (now?), but "you can't stop an idea whose time has come" (quote from someone else). Open Source politics are just another form of transparency, and that will not kill dishonesty in the circles of politics. It will just make them invent new form of dishonesty (such as denouncing corruption of africa's government backshish created new ways of backshish through making african leaders invest in occidental companies that were granted huge federal contracts)... Can you say pushing the limits?
We already have something like Open Source politics here in Sweden. By default, any record that is part of the public system is accessible to the public. Only some kinds of data is stamped secret.
That means that I can enter any government building (or call them) and get access to almost anything. What politicians do and the material they use for their decisions is always available.
On the other hand medical data (for instance) is not accessible, and is secret by default.
All of this will probably disappear in EU though, since there things are secret unless stamped public.
I'm not doubting what you are saying, but do you have a link to those stats about Broadband usage? I've heard there's some IQ ones going around, but some people say they are fake.
What about GOP 'crossover' rallies held in Wisconsin and Minnesota - supposedly intended to invite Democrats to cross over and vote GOP, but you had to take a Bush loyalty pledge to attend? Only one alleged Democrat - Zell - was there. That's not bubble reality?
It was a superior groundgame that won the election. Push-polling on gay rights issues was sheer evil genius.
Both parties are guilty of creating 'bubble realities', they are a necessary fact of a modern media. Too much cognitive dissonance and the base stays home. Why do you think that Bush contunally avoided the 'What have you done wrong' question?
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
"intrested" should be "interested".
Also, "Those who voted for the winning candidate" should be "Those of us who voted" etc.
Finally, "in the next four years" should probably be "during the next four years".
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Unfortunately, there's something in the limbic system that makes people want to conform and seek the approval of others in their social groupings, something hardwired in the primate brain.
You mean like Slashdot karma?
Son of Reagan shows up at the DNC to promote stem cells... and people are SHOCKED.
Not those who were familiar with him before ... he IS lefty, on many issues. Disappointed, maybe, but not shocked.
Yes. Will the party bosses allow it to happen to them? No way. Bottom-up politics is going to have to create itself *from the bottom up* until it is powerful enough to toss the top onto the scrap heap of history.
(And a generation later the most effective bottom-uppers will be the bad guys at the top and become the targets of a new generation of bottom-uppers.)
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0407/
When the structure of American government was designed, the Founding Fathers never imagined:
1. That America would ever have 300 million people.
2. That the government would grow so large that it would employ 1 adult in 5.
3. That every adult over 18 would have the right to vote.
The gigantic disconnect between the government and the people is due to the reduction of the participation in government decision making per person. In other words, there are so many of us, that none of us can be heard above the crowd. If the Open Source Model is applied to govenment, it will provide that missing voice, and return control of our nation to the will of the people.
The meaning of your Life is up to you. Mean well. -- Me, 9/11/2001
I live in South Dakota, usually considered a "Red" State.
Open Source could become VERY HOT, I think.
Political parties might look at us as, hey, here's a source of revenue and votes.
We should look PAST political parties and say:
Hey, we are going to build our own groups, HAVE OUR OWN DIGITAL OR PAPER BALLOT ELECTIONS, and HEY, We'll have elections every month or two, if we so choose.
We will be that will governs least, because we won't govern at all! We will simply acknowledge that political parties and ballot access are top down, and we will BE bottom-up.
Basically, anyone that SHOWS UP will be elected to our group(s), and they can choose whether they would like to be elected by the current members at the precinct, county, or state level.
It would actually be a nonprofit SERVICE group that could debate issues, elect people (thus showing we are NOT AFRAID of having elections OFTEN, with never any hanging chads!), and with part of any money raised, maybe 10%, donate to TURBO Charities that empower people, and the other 90% can go to projects that really help people, instead of enriching the already well-off media.
Here's the models that we have:
Political Parties, PACS, 527s, ballot access--top down, money driven
Traditional nonprofits--usually top down, cannot be involved in politics directly
Open Source Political Service groups--so open source, they get things done! Idea-driven. Maybe each precinct, county or state group makes just 3 resolutions done(a resolve to get something done!) each year! Sure political debate would happen, and the groups don't have to endorse candidates or give money to candidates. (Although individuals surely will).
The disconnect between top down parties and the people is pretty big.
I propose that we create Open Source Political Service groups in all states, in all shades of political thought (I am center-left), and grow huge ideas and PROJECTS, and it will work out quite well for these reasons:
1. We will elect regular people, and elect people often, and empower them in any function that they so choose (Precinct Governors, Senators, Representatives, also at the County and State level).
2. Our main goal will be to do 3 (or perhaps more) projects or resolutions per year, per precinct, county and state group.
3. Secondarily, some members may individually choose to hook up to a political party or its candidates.
4. The projects will do actual GOOD in the locality or state, and can be awesome and jaw dropping! Isn't that more exciting than millions of dollars going into a losing political camapaign. Politics is elections, of course, but it also about daily change and grand ideas, mammoth projects, too. Projects that are NOT derailed if a candidate loses. These projects just keep on going and going!
Yes, from these political service groups, other political parties might spring. That is possible.
The current political system is so driven on ballot access and recognized political parties.
I just think its VERY possible that political change and good things can happen outside of elections.
Let's say the laws changed, and Clinton and Gore became President and VP again. They would still face the massive opposition in Congress that they faced during 1993-2001. The Party system almost encourages 2 parties opposing each other, partisanship, gridlock.
The Open Source Service Groups (or whatever name we end up calling them) would be SO different. They would say:
1. We have elections in person or by e-mail, where there are no campaign costs. Real people get elected to REAL service group posts.
2. We actually DO something! 3-4 projects per year! Not bloviating on TV, radio and in print.
3. If we so choose, some individuals might go off and support a candidate. If not, no biggie, the groups go on, creating daily change through projects approved
Open Source Politics?
Really?
I thought the term "open source" was invented to get away from the political link from the "free software movement".
Interesting.
What the hell? There are two desktops for linux, why not two geek based political movements.
Grassroots 3rd parties got us the 40 hour work week, the right of women to vote, and many other things we take for granted.
Now that grassroots is not really "enabled" in the 2 party system, perhaps it will be TURNED ON by 3rd parties and by the Open Source Political Service Groups that I talk about in my "Salsa" post.
Pfff, you'll just end up reinventing anarchism (which of course includes rejecting the whole of representative democracy).
Seriously, who really even knows the philosopy is even out there? Who, among people you'd talk to on the street even know what OSI stands for, much less the principle behind it?
I mean, its the same reason Crapdows XP is so big... becuse you mention "Linux" and people just give you a glazed look like you're talking about some strange vegetable from Madagascar.
Seriously, if most people knew there was a treasure trove of some of the best software in the world... available 100% free! Who wouldn't mooch in on that action??
You can blame politics, you can blame Holywood, you can blame my grandma for all I care, but what it really comes down to is advertising. We have a hands-down superior product, and for the most part, nobody has ever heard of it.
-- Just another unsolicited opinion... from the Peanut Gallery.
Why can't the moderate Republicans join the Dems? The thing that both helps and hurts the Dems is the fact that they are a more accepting party. They aren't one homogeneous (christian) group, and Clinton proved that Dems can be fiscally responsible without stiffiling business.
I think it is just as reasonable (if not more so) that the fiscal conservatives and more socially moderate Republicans to switch to the Dems. Of course Tom DeLay will promptly work to restructure their districts so they can't will a new term, but thats not the current thread.
-- Bipartisan and Nonpartisan are not synonyms
Is there anybody here who actually RTFA!?!? Did EVERYBODY see the words "Open Source Politics" in the parent article and start blathering immediately about patents in a conditioned-response fashion?
1) It's not about gcc,
2) It's not about abolishing software patents,
3) It's not about mandating open-source software in govornment installations,
4) It's not about the DMCA.
Folks, It's about using the open-source organizational method in the political realm.
To which I can only say - in representative democracies, such as the U.S., politics has always been "open source"!!!!
Now, the recent rise of the "blogosphere" is starting to change the balance of power in various nations. Improved collaborationa and moderation methods result in a quicker method of collecting and filtering huge amounts of data, which has typically been the job of the media. (CNN/NBC/CBS/FOX) The "media" won't go away, but it's power is definitely dwindling. How far, only time (and the media) can tell.
The core concepts of end-user involvement, as seen in open-source circles, is the point of representative democracies!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Where did the 'values' ideas come from that the republicans ran with? Where did the screw the UN and the french come from? Where do the 130k people in Iraq come from (hint: volunteer army). Which blogs were the most influential in this election (and very successfully helped route around an uncooperative media)?
Another question, and the hardest one of all. Who came off as the most condescending in this election cycle? Who says that americans are stupid, uneducated and would act differently if they 'knew what I know'?
The Dean campaign was successful at one thing alone. Again a very uncomfortable truth. It was successful at gathering money. Not votes.
Election victories are about coalitions. The republicans have built a coalition that works. The democrats have lost theirs. In this last cycle the new means of communication has enabled the republican coalition but fractured the democrat one. Another nasty question. How many democrats voted for kerry for strategic reasons? How many would have voted for Nader et al. if they could have? The republicans have lost elections in recent memory to third party candidates. Not this time.
In canada the same dynamics are happening in parties of the left and the right.
Dilbert: People who don't vote don't have any right to complain.
Dogbert: Why not?
Dilbert: Well, uh, well, because that's how I was raised, that's why.
Dogbert: You were raised by bumber stickers?
Any Libertarian who says that only some people have the right to complain isn't really a Libertarian. Everyone has the right to complain.
FreeSpeech.org
I dont think open source system(moveon.org) can compete with a think tank system(protest warrior, project for a new american century). When you get a bunch of like minded people together they start to adrss issues that will alienate other voters. The reason the democrats lost is because of the gay marrage issue. With a little planning kerry would have realized that the crunchy hippie vote was locked in. While 30% of union members voted republican. An example is creatonism. A large voter block(43% of americans don't believe in evolution) of evangelicals tried for years to remove evolution from the schools. Discovery Institute with only a few hundred members managed to come up with intellegent design. And they made some headway. The democrats need to get there shit together and step up there tactics.
I guess it depends on what you consider a "shambles". Our Vice President is what they used to call a war profiteer.
In early 2000, our president was warning about an energy crisis. I saw it on CNN, followed by a commercial for Enron. 18 months later it was clear that a) the shortage was engineered by Enron, and b) Enron was tightly connected to the Whitehouse.
That None of these issues were brought up in the prez campaign is not a good sign. That no one cares as long as they have enough cash for beer is a disgrace.
I guess it also depends on what you consider "moderate". If you think Bush is a moderate... either you aren't paying attention, or you think Mussolini-style Fascism mixed with bullheaded religious sanctimony is a good idea.
Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
Well, I am a developer, I have a lot of experience in the MSWindows platform, and I can tell you that I feel much less limited now that I have the power of GNU/Linux software.
Before, I needed to buy, or get through my friends copies of proprietary software to do trivial things I needed. Now I have the software to do everything I do, and I can even sell what I produce, without paying royalties to anyone.
That was a show-stopper, because a single project requires a lot of OCX components when developing for Windows, and it forces you to either reinvent the wheel every time, or to pay astronomical fees to develop software. Plus you need to study lots of strange licenses, and understand them. That, effectively, was limiting.
Add to that the fact that I couldn't pay most of the software I used, and you will understand why I feel much less limited now that I use only free software.
Even if I were rich, there is a limit to the amount of money one can reasonably throw at software.
Add to that the fact that the skills I learned on the GNU/Linux system give me lots of power over my computer that I couldn't dream to have on Windows. I can make my computer do exactly what I want, not just what some configuration wizard will allow me.
Absolute freedom cannot be attained. You (or at least somebody else) always have to lose some freedom in order to attain other.
I believe people are less limited, and more free when running a free system.
I don't know about Statistica, but AutoCAD is one of the candidates to get serious competition from free software contenders, or at least open source.
ArcGIS is nice, but GRASS is a tool that can give birth in the not-so-distant future, to serious competitors.
There is a real trend to replace them, just because they are not there yet, you shouldn't dismiss them.
"What do you GUYS think, is open source a good model for politics?"
/.?
What do you think, is open GENDER a good model for
Actually, I talked to Jack Layton about this last year. The NDP doesn't have a policy on this because most of the executive didn't understand the issues in time to bring a motion to the last national convention. Without a motion passing at a national convention it can't be party policy. It can be constituency association or caucus policy, but not party policy. I forwarded him some information and contacts in the Ottawa civil service.
Subsequently, there was brief mention of Open Source and Intellectual Property issues in their election platform booklet. Few people read those booklets though; most just listen to sound-bites on Canwest/Global.
I've also talked to Jean Crowder about open source. She uses open source software almost exclusively, and wants to develop a policy on Open Source and intellectual property issues.
Quit reading Slashdot if it apparently bothers you so much.
You don't have to listen to the editors. You don't need to come, voluntarily listen, and then complain.
As long as we fight among ourselves, we are powerless against those who hold us down.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Sure, people don't go bankrupt from medical costs in Europe-- they just die while waiting months and months for operations that are diagnosed and taken care of in a week or so here. And they don't get out of school and have to take a job at McDonald's-- they get out of school and don't have a job at all (have you compared unemployment rates between the US and Europe recently? 5.5% or so in the US, 8% in France, 10% in Germany).
And in such wonderful places like France and many places in Europe, there is widespread and open anti-Semitism. Yep, Europe is quite the place to be. (/sarcasm)
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
you wrote:
Sure, people don't go bankrupt from medical costs in Europe-- they just die while waiting months and months for operations that are diagnosed and taken care of in a week or so here.
Nonsense. I looked into it myself. For elective surgery they wait longer. But for nonelective, the wait is about the same. If our system is so great, why do our next door neighbors Canada prefer their universal healthcare to ours by over 90%?
And they don't get out of school and have to take a job at McDonald's-- they get out of school and don't have a job at all (have you compared unemployment rates between the US and Europe recently? 5.5% or so in the US, 8% in France, 10% in Germany).
But they count everyone who is looking for a job. And over there, if you do not have a job, you get paid by the state; a pretty good check, too, and unemployment or welfare can last for many years or even decades there. But after 6 months or so, we Americans are on our own. And then America no longer counts you in the stats. So our REAL unemployment rate is just as high as in Europe.
And in such wonderful places like France and many places in Europe, there is widespread and open anti-Semitism. Yep, Europe is quite the place to be. (/sarcasm)
Nonsense. And at least they have not killed 10,000 or more innocent civilians in an illegal war.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
If neither major party state platform matches your beliefs (I believe you've browsed my journal already, I certainly feel this way), you can still caucus with the party that you feel most closely matches your beliefs.
It is unlikely that it would be difficult (if I were determined to do so) to become a convention delegate. That's something that the caucus states make easy - grass-roots participation. That said, populists are common in the major parties.
The second part seems an awful lot like your local Elks, Eagles, Lions, Optimists and Boy Scouts. All of these groups already do exactly what you are talking about. Some of them support candidates, some of them don't. No big deal. Mostly, ALL of them need more young, energetic participants to join thier ranks and help out.
And who doesn't like the Eagles - they are the reason Mother's Day is a national holiday.
All of that said, check the politics of the clubs that already exist in your area. You may find you fit right in with one of them. If not, then go form your own group, I'm just suggesting you check out what's already out there.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
We've had popular participation in the government for a few years in Brazil, and it works great.
I think "Open Source Politics" is a brilliant idea though it immediately makes visible three critically challenging issues which seem to have been ignored in this discussion so far.
With the noton in mind that Open Source ANYTHING is a dynamic organizational process embracing and enacting a set of core procedures and values as to how you do/deliver/make/ etc that ANYTHING, then certain questions come to mind and certainly apply to OS Politics (we would probably need an open source process just to converge on what those values are in any given OS effort!):
0. What does an open source process look like?, in general, and in politics in particular? There will undoubtedly be several wildly different configurations and models. But which ones should or will prevail? And Why? In a way 'Democracy US-style" (as compared with UK-, Germany-, South Africa- etc style) is one model of an open source process. Though the US form of this model is presently DOA (dead on arrival) and so full of special interest viruses as to have been rendered ineffective for the body politic from whence, if the founding father's myth is to be believed, it supposedly sprang. The question remains though, what does an open source politics process instantiate as and why?
1. If the Linux open source process is about delivering...ah, now it gets interesting..so I'll step into the spotlight....well, that's the first question isn't it.?...what does the open source politics process actually DELIVER? More aptly, what is it trying to get done? What is its mission? An idea? A platform? Ideas? A Party? Positions? Values? Electability? Electability For What? For Whom? Some synthesis of all these and more? et cetera.
In all of this the Internet, the Media, and the Communications system (notice the capitals) are, variously, different 'how to's' for organising the process, not the thing itself. For that open source politics needs of course, people.
2. In what way and manner then does os politics organize itself such that it results (given our present constitutional set-up) in not only candidates who have come "through" the osp process and, hence, by the design of the process, presumably actively enshrine the values and vectors it has converged to or agreed upon, but also in candidates that remain apprpriately and properly "beholden" to the constituencies that they represent, and resonant with the process that "selected" and supports them.
In short, what will osp (or particular models of it) have to say about representation, responsibility and accountability, that might be different from the "best government money can buy, lease or outsource" reality of today.
3. Just as software / hardware / systems designers have to both design and deal with "abstraction layers", any os politics model will invariably create new constituencies that can either be channelled or API'd into the traditional autistic Dem/Rep set-up i.e. Fire into Fixity; or, those constituencies may well push an osp model into it's natural, giddy, dangerous, strange, and always tempting territory of new political party representation (i.e. new players who look like and talk like the Senator and CongressPerson from X or Y but in reality come from party NEW and actually represent Z, which happens to be a synthesized plurality from within traditional X, Y and a bunch of other places::think of osp as a dynamic way to make a living interface with enforceable influences of "interests". Any "interests."
(The acts and dramas of the Green Party in Germany, and their journey from various degrees and angles of the 'fringe lunatic' (as seen from the centre) to meeting in unity and in power at the centre reflects one of dozens of, admittedly, out-of-context examples of this - the Greens in this case have been progressively co-opted as they headed "inwards").
These thoughts are not meant to be comprehensive in anyway, just provocative in response to the original post. I think os politics is at once both a brilliant idea and, from the point of vi
Maybe with an open-source model for the government, we can get rid of the endemic corporate cronyism that's been the hallmark of American government since the Reagan years and return America to its roots - a government Of The People, By The People, and For The People (instead of a government Of Big Business, For Big Business To Screw The People In The Ass With No Lube)!
Patrolling ftw
American politics now is all about 2 parties, lots of money, one party winning (for a while), and one party losing (for a while).
Open source politics would reverse that.
Multiple parties or groups. Running on small amounts of money. Everyone winning, because their issues are either being discussed, worked on, or accomplished.
Maybe we focus way too much attention on elections.
Sure that's where the power is. Trillions of dollars.
Elections are highly regulated.
Why don't we look towards accomplishments, doing grand projects, rather than winning elections (which is long and exchausting both financially and emotionally)?
Elections are about masses of people making decisions. Open source politics could be smaller groups of people making incrementally intelligent change daily!>
Did Linus Torvalds take a vote before he worked on Linux?
Did the Wright Brothers?
Politics is more than elections.
Anyone out there want to be a Wright Brother or Wright Sister of politics?
As William Blake said--
"Great things are done when men and mountains meet this is not done by jostling on the street"
If we see mountains of diiculty today, that's great!
Now we know GREAT THINGS can be done!
South Dakota has primaries in June. We don't have caucuses.
My main concern about parties in South Dakota is that the grass roots here seems fleeting and only exists every 2 years.
To me grassroots means permanent, doing something, no matter how incremental, each month.
Programmers now are building applications that go with Firefox.
So open source politics would be where you create something new like Firefox (I am suggesting nonprofit associations, which are very simple to set up) and once that something new is set up, people join it, and then ON TOP of that new group(s), new things are built on that, too.
The old model of politics are two dominant political parties. What goes with them? Media, which make millions of $$$ from the old political process. Consultants, pollsters, party bosses. Bad ads, a bored electorate.
Simply create the opposite.
Not even new political parties, which have to get the approval of Secretaries of State to be "legal". Bypass that.
The new model. Instead of a November election, which is a poll certified by the Secretary of State, state that the purpose of the group/association is higher than opinion. The purpose would be action, projects, getting something neat done, built, realized.
In South Dakota in the 1870's, people didn't wait for the Territorial Legislature to disburse funds to them to build schools. They took subscriptions to build a school house for a few hundred dollars, then parents paid so many cents per week to pay the teacher. It was SUBSCRIPTION BASED.
Current elections are free, so that our "representatives" can decide how to spend out tax money.
A Zero Removes (Democracy) Association would not be free. Members could pay very nominal small dues by PayPal, say 10 cents. But it would be SUBSCRIPTION BASED, just like the old prairie schoolhouses. You want to do this project? Great, then just kick in $5 a month, and enjoy building something new, exciting, mammoth!
Old model--free but full of conflict and polling boo boos and those wonderful TV ads!
New model---not free, but smaller, more nimble, more of a community, emphasis on doing something instead of waiting for the polls to close...
What kind of projects?
Our imaginations can summon up many things! Just about anything! Feeding the homeless, helping out foodbanks, giving away 1,000 bottles of salsa, renovating several buildings, micro-enterprise funds, buying and donating musical instruments...
These associations would rise above politics and the vast sums that are being spent in Iraq and on the military.
With smaller sums of money, these associations would say: The good that we can do is unlimited! So let's start doing something good today!
To the rest - I forgot Rotary International. Also a civil service, grass roots club, that's always active. (I think most of the organizations I mentioned probably fit your requirements, it's just a matter of finding the right political fit).
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Is open source-politics a good idea? Then we first has to ask us "what does *that* mean"?
If we start with the ideas mentioned in the above articles, then it has a couple of examples of politicians using the internet. Internet allows politicians to increase their efficiency. They can now answer peoples questions without meeting them in person, when they have time to answer them (not when the person has time to ask them) and let many others know the answer. All of this was possible before, but not at the same time. Now it is!
It also allows politicians to efficiently get to know the opinions of the supporters. For example, Swedish politician Lars Leijonborg (http://lars.leijonborg.se/) have for a couple of years now regularily made on-line polls that subscribers to his newsletter can answer (he calls the "advisers"), and comment on. He can that way not only see which action his supporters prefer, but he can see their comments. You get a direct line into the leader of a Swedish political party, to give your opinions of current issues.
Is this good? Of course! It's great! Just like internet and e-mail otherwise have flattened hierarchies, it now does so with politis. This was a revolutionary concept in company management ten years ago. Now it has reached politics. Kick out the middle men and talk directly to people in power. That's great! We need more of that!
But is it open-source? Nah, of course not. That's just some people taking a trendy buzzword and applying it onto something they want to promote. It should probably be called email politics, or internet politics, since there is no more openness than in any other politics, and there is no source in sight.
You haven't been keeping track of Libertarian political candidates, have you?
Seriously. Michael Badnarik, the 2004 presidential candidate, is a programmer. The http://www.lp.org/ web page runs on FreeBSD and Apache.
The things you complain about are not "political issues" because the mainstream press and their butt-buddies, the two faces of the Party of State Power, all agree that Copyright and Patent should cover everything and the mere "citizen" has no rights at all.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics