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?"

Comments

Re:What I'm wondering is...

[taylortbb]

Although its not a forefront issue is one that is brought up. Generally the left parties support open-source, a good example (though possibly co-incidence) is that the George W Bush website ran IIS but Kerry's ran Apache/Linux.

Though, to the average voter it doesn't matter, many think Microsoft is the best thing since sliced bread and really wont be told otherwise. (These are the same people that say Firefox is auwful before even trying it). And those that don't like Microsoft generally still consider many other political items to be much more important, and to an extent they are correct. If I was American (not Canadian) I would have voted Kerry, but if Kerry liked Microsoft and George W liked Linux I still would have voted for Kerry. I really think nuclear war is a bigger deal than Microsoft vs. OSS; and many would agree with me.

The Canadian Green Party (http://www.greenparty.ca/) is an example of a party that support OSS, if you look at their technology policies (http://www.greenparty.ca/platform2004/en/policies .php?p=16#pt14 , Open Source section) they very specifically say that they will ban proprietary software in government unless there is no OSS alternative, they will say that everything must be done in open, standard formats, they say that anything developed by the government will be open source. They are one of the few parties that makes a big deal of it, and although they have 7% of the popular vote they don't have concentrated enough support to win seats in the House of Commons. They are one of the small parties, I don't see any big parties (Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, NDP) doing this, and that might be because they have realized that this doesn't win votes.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

[pherris]

From "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"

The fact that this bazaar style seemed to work, and work well, came as a distinct shock. As I learned my way around, I worked hard not just at individual projects, but also at trying to understand why the Linux world not only didn't fly apart in confusion but seemed to go from strength to strength at a speed barely imaginable to cathedral-builders.

Politics up until recently has been an insider's only game. Any information about a candidate was only available through a few select news outlets and many times it was "polished" so said outlet wouldn't have their access shut off. Discussions were limited to the local coffee shop with a few people. It was the cathedral.

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.

Re:What I'm wondering is...

[C10H14N2]

South Africa: 89%
Iceland: 85%
Brazil: 79%
Italy: 81%
Germany: 79%
Sweden: 80%
Norway: 75% ...bear in mind, the United States in 1964 had 96% turnout.

The U.S. is particularly bad when you take into account registration versus eligibility. Most other comparable countries differ by just a couple percent between the two metrics, whereas the United States generally differs by 20-30%. So, while the U.K. may have 60% turnout--that actually represents roughly 60% of eligibles, whereas in the United States a 60% turnout is really only 40% of eligibles. In 2000, for instance, we had 63% turnout, but it was only 46% of eligibles, which oddly enough is almost exactly the same as experienced in Burkina Faso, which is not exactly something to cheer over.

Go to www.idea.int for more info on this. Participation in the U.S. is in fact quite painfully pathetic, like it or not.

Democrats and Republican need better candidates

[MarkusQ]

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