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The Rise of Open-Source Politics

Posted by michael on from the so-2003 dept.

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?"

7 of 492 comments (clear)

  1. Open Source == Communism/Fascism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    Thing is, most people in the Open Source world for whatever reason seem to have really extreme right or left wing views. Like RMS who is known to some a 'Stalinman' rather than Stallman for his rabid anti-freedom views, to ESR, who won't be happy until every 5 year old is packing an AK47 to school along with their lunchbox.


    The Open Source community have a childish attitude to everything, and politics is no exception. Imagine will the CEO of a fortune 500 corporation want to use Linux after he has seen ESR and RMS in action? I highly doubt it!!!

  2. Re:What I'm wondering is... by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Exactly the way the beast wants it.

    --
    You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
  3. Re:OMFG TEH OPEN SOURCE!! LEET by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It's not. However, the TPTB are more comfortable in an opposite environment.

    --
    You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
  4. Re:Election has been a victory of FUD over Facts. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    More whiney liberal sour grapes.

  5. Re:My turn to by cynical... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    That sounds just like John Kerrys campaign. He said whatever people wanted to hear at the moment.

  6. Hmm.... by Erik+Hollensbe · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ... 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?

  7. Re:What I'm wondering is... by dedalus2000 · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    The number of people affected is too small and/or doesn't provide politicians a giant govt program that can be used to con the voters into becoming dependant on.
    Spoken as a true Anonymous Republican. By the way you forgot to bash France for being socially egalitarian. Of course you did manage to imply that minorities were unimportant and that social programs are a racket so I guess your doing what you're played for.
    --
    My keyboads not woking popely.