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Open Source Geeks Considered Modern Heroes
loconet writes "The BBC reports that a report by Demos says that the all-consuming passions of geeks and nerds may actually be beneficial for society. The UK think tank's report published today, underlines the importance of 'Pro-Ams' -- amateurs who pursue a hobby or pastime, in many cases an all-consuming passion, to a professional standard. The report says Pro-Am astronomers have made 'significant contributions' to the knowledge of the universe, while Pro-Am computer programmers are providing the only serious challenge to Microsoft's dominance of personal computing."
this doesn't mean chicks will sleep with geeks now or anything.
Where's my damn cape then?
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Yup, I've known a few.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
It's too bad they/we cant get laid more often.
(rolls eyes)
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I have one Mod point left and I want to use it before the end of the day when it expires. How can I mod this whole article as Troll?
Come on folks. Only on select sites such as this one are people like those mentioned in the article considered heroes. Joe Average, as a rule, doesn't even know what Open Source is let alone that it exists.
Maybe, possibly, though unlikely, some time in the future those who have contributed might be recognized for their efforts (such as Linus) in hindsight but I'm not holding my breath.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Note that the article from Demos indicates that professional amateurs are not new - this is just reversing a trend that started last century when professionals made most of the contributions.
I'd say that the only "new" thing about professional amateurs is that the Internet allows them to publicise their work earlier, allowing us to take advantage of genius before the person dies.
Whether this marginalizes them by forcing them down the conventional paths by responding to feedback from their peers, where previously an amateur would have less feedback and explore the non-utilitarian aspects of an idea, or allows the amateur to expand their idea by meeting more of their ilk, is up for grabs.
Any ideas?
The terms "amateur" and "professional" are in no way synonymous with "expertise," and the phrase "professional standard," if it has any real meaning at all, has meaning only within the realm of a particular workplace, not the lab/workshop.
KFG
amateurs and people who code for corporations Pros?
don't people do both? i know i do, so does that mean only projects where money involved are "professional" and OSS is "amateurs"?
that is just assinine
Oh, the bad news? You still won't get laid.
Pros eventually reach a level where they spend more and more time managing the system (meetings, writing, planning, and press) than doing whatever they were doing to got them there in the first place. Amateurs have a love and the luxury (total absence of finances or already early retirement) of not having the management role and can focus their efforts more productively.
Take your point, but what about, for example, Phil Zimmerman? He gave us Pretty Good Privacy, and fought long and hard to ensure it was globally accessible. It's hard to know (for example) how many human rights workers lives have been saved by having access to secure communications, but for having the courage to fight for what he believed in, Phil Zimmerman is a hero.
Disclaimer : I was at a recent conference at which Zimmerman gave the keynote and he was, frankly, awful. It was as though someone had stolen his notes, which he hadn't previously read anyway; he winged it, kinda, sorta, for twenty of his allotted forty five minutes, then called for questions. The actual topic of the keynote was touched on precisely once, by a questioner. I suspect that he often *is* able to wing it in front of adoring geek audiences; it was embarassing that on this occasion he was so woefully unprepared. I didn't worship him before, and certainly don't now, but I still hold him as a hero.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
See, this doesn't surprise me as news. The article should be taking the complete opposite tack.
For the last 100 years in the US, for example, we've been consumed by consumption. Things have to make money in order to be researched or experimented with and people have to make money to survive. So everyone gets a 9 to 5 job and works their tail off until they go into business for themselves or find some niche that makes them happy that also pays them.
I think the problem is that the over all amount of science and pure research has shrunk in recent years because so many people are concerned about two things:
1) What they think is important rather than what's best for science in general.
2) Money.
I.E. "why should my taxes fund that research? Huh? it might cure disease in 20 years? I don't get it, it must be stupid since I don't understand how that could possibly happen. Now pardon me while I go manage my snack food and oil stock portfolio."
And worse, in the US, so many people have less hobby time than they used to because people are working longer hours in the US.
Scientists of old had more significant hobby time than dop typical US citizens. They also were funded more often by local lords who thought it a status symbol to be funding the local science or art geek. Our national endowments for the arts and sciences inthe US have been gutted as of late because the public feels these funds "unnecessary."
Science and Art lead society. Most americans don't get that, because they are scared of change. So we are stuck with the same music as before, the same stupid non-important drugs, and the same people running the government, and less and less real art and science coming out of this country.
Hopefully, the UK will heed the BBC and turn away from the way the US is running itself into the ground.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I believe the term is being used in this sense -- Dictionary entry: 1c. a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities
I understand your point, but I think the use of hero in this context is appropriate. A hero does noble things you wish you could do. Narrowing the definition to just people who save lives is not accurate.
"Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)"
Hero He"ro, n.; pl. Heroes. F. h'eros, L. heros, Gr. ?.
1. (Myth.) An illustrious man, supposed to be exalted, after death, to a place among the gods; a demigod, as Hercules.
2. A man of distinguished valor or enterprise in danger, or fortitude in suffering; a prominent or central personage in any remarkable action or event; hence, a great or illustrious person.
Each man is a hero and oracle to somebody. --Emerson.
3. The principal personage in a poem, story, and the like, or the person who has the principal share in the transactions related; as Achilles in the Iliad, Ulysses in the Odyssey, and AEneas in the AEneid.
The shining quality of an epic hero --Dryden.
I think this fits #2 ("...a prominent or central personage in any remarkable action or event; hence, a great or illustrious person....")
A long time ago, extreme was only for activities that had a significant risk of getting killed; now it's a soft drink. Hero's the same way.
Hero is now used for everyone important & significant, even if that significance is just being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
~~~
Click here, you know you wanna!
Actually, I'd argue that just being a competent firefighter or cop isn't enough to be considered a hero, and that the word is overused in reference to dangerous professions. And no, I've never been either one -- but I was a medic in Desert Storm, and worked as a civilian EMT in one of the nation's top trauma hospitals, so I do have some perspective on this. In the military, there is a very specific definition of heroism: putting yourself at great personal risk by going above and beyond the call of duty to accomplish the mission.
I think it's fair to apply this definition to dangerous civilian jobs as well. A firefighter who pulls someone out of a burning building, or a cop who busts an armed and dangerous criminal, isn't necessarily going above and beyond; he's doing his job. (OTOH, the specific circumstances may well involve going above and beyond, in which case this is heroism, and should be recognized as such.)
In the case of less dangerous jobs, such as medical research -- yeah, I'd certainly include Salk and the other pioneers of immunization (penicillin was Alexander Fleming, IIRC) especially since they did risk their lives by working with people infected with very dangerous diseases. But the average researcher working in a lab, no matter how competent, shouldn't be called hero unless he does something extraordinary to earn that title. Overuse of the word weakens its meaning, and dishonors those who actually deserve it.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I don't know...over the years trying to comprehend man files has raised my blood pressure more then a few points.
When you think about all the people in history that made sizeable contributions to society (like Galileo, Mozart, Tesla, etc.), did it not seem to you from our perspective that they were more of hobbyists? I'm not trying to belittle them, I'm just saying that when reading about their life, they seemed quite a bit like most of us. So I imagine there is a lot we could learn from their lives and experiences they had within their society.
That may be the colloquial useage to some, but the first dictionary that I checked does not mention life-saving at all. It mentioned courage, nobility, fighting for a cause...but nothing explicitly about saving lives.
And let's not forget the Greek mathematician "Hero" famous for devising a way to determine the area of a triangle....definately a geek.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
The guy sourced for the article happens to be an OSS geek. Anorak in the hed. Hello, slashdot? Is the BBC reduced to astroturfing?
Top five pro-am activities:
Gardening
DIY
Sports
Arts and Crafts
Photography
And the number one most popular pro-am activity:
Sex.
Go ahead, London.
illegitimii non ingravare
Hero is also a contextual (and very subjective) word. In a loose sense, a hero is a person who exemplifies the ideal. Also, in different circumstances the same act can be either heroic or cowardly. What open source developers do may not be seen as heroic by Americans, but it may be the case among Tibetans as allowing them to organize against violent oppression. Perspective drives reality; that sounds strangely neo-con but it really is the way of the world (neo-liberals would do well to figure this out before 2008.) The same man may be viewed as both a tyrant and a national hero depending on the perspective. And there's almost always going to be SOMEONE on either side of that divide (opinion on someone like Bush is a great example.)
Many people around the world (probably the majority, actually) see the advancement of multinational corporate interests as a threat. Those who go against the grain, be it coffee cooperatives in Chiapas, Islamist insurgents or "rogue" open source developers will always be seen as heroes by someone. True freedom from information censorship may be this generation's greatest gift to the world. Of course, my perspective is probably skewed as well, so as with anything on slashdot, grain of salt provided.
I do think paying 'pro-ams' money would be disastrous. Govt money seems to be a sirens song for hucksters, slackers and corrupt businesses.
One of the reasons I think people like working on opensource software is because they work with people that love what they do and want to do it the right way and be proud of it. You start mixing govt money into this equation, then every tom, dick and harry will be claiming they are pro-ams because they have contributed a bunch of half-a$$ed source to a project. This in my opinion would destroy the quality and 'pure' ideology of open source/free software. Keep OSDL, keep paypal or other donations to a project (firefox is a good example), but keep govt funds out.
Alan Cox has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Applied Mathematics, and a "real job", and yet he's a "Pro-Am"?
I have a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Texas and a "real job", and I'm a Pro-Am when I contribute to open source projects?
I feel insulted by this article, and I strongly disagree with the point that it makes. While it is true that there are Amateur OSS contributors, when you look at the major players (note: I'm not claiming to be a major player.) they all have advanced degrees in Computer Science, Math, or another Engineering method. These are some exceptionally bright people, and to dismiss them as "Professional Amateurs" does them a pretty great disservice. Just because an OSS contributer is not getting paid does NOT make them an amateur anymore then a laywer doing pro-bono work is an amateur.
Isn't this simply a corollary of "do what you love, and the rest will follow"?
and of course knighted Bill...
Calling them "Pro-Ams" - amateurs who pursue a hobby to a professional standard - it suggests such people should receive government funding to "promote community cohesion".
Fishing for the details in the report..
In sum our main policy proposals for promoting Pro-Am participation include the ideas listed below.
It looks like they are trying to recognise and reward volunteers at the community level. Interesting -- I especially like the part about giving out unused bandwidth. (grin)
What I personally think would be optimal is a both some major prizes for achievement of significant milestones(i.e. creation of the viable first fusion reactor or a cure for AIDS) and a series of smaller prizes that would involve smaller lifetime payments(work out a set of criteria that would be used to award small lifetime stipends to researchers/inventors on the order of maybe twice what social security pays so these folks don't have to mess with the mundane realities of just scraping by--and have thousands of these awarded every year so that a big chunk of Pro-Ams can expect to get one once they've showng themselves to be serious contributors). Frankly, if the government wants to be anything but a deadbeat, they ought to start giving out these prizes because a lot of agencies could barely run without free software!
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
First off, I should point out that I'm the guy who was interviewed by Demos for the report, and also the same Seb Potter that the nice people at the BBC interviewed for their piece. Please excuse any rambling in the article, I was interviewed very early in the morning, before coffee, on the day after the wedding of two close friends, and my brain was most definitely not fully engaged.
The first thing that I notice on here is a lot of detracting comments from people who haven't read the full report, but are just going on the headline. I'm not particularly surprised, as, of the several members of the press that interviewed me, only the BBC actually wanted to try to present the story in a positive light. Others just wanted to regurgitate the press release and get some nerdy quotes about not having a social life, for which I was happy to disappoint. No member of the press that I spoke to had actually read the port as far as I could tell.
Strangely, nobody wanted to publish my photo, because I don't look at all like the stereotypical image of a trainspotting nerd. I feel sorry for the other 5 people who were put forward by Demo as being examples of what Demos calls the "Pro/Amateur" economy, as the press ignored them completely.
So guys, remember that when you're pressing that submit button, you might be coming off as no more intelligent than a tabloid journalist.
I'm pretty encouraged by the report and what Demos are doing with it. For those who don't know the background, Demos is a think-tank organisation that provides policy advice to the british government. In this case, their advice has been obscured behind a knee-jerk press reaction, a reaction that I especially wouldn't have expected from the audience that the report praises.
You might need to know who I am, that I have the nerve to represent the community in this way. Well, I'm a 27 year old programmer from England. I've held a series of successively senior roles in several companies over the last 8 year, that has led to my current position as the Technical Director a company called Getfrank (http://www.getfrank.com/. Along the way I helped get Battle.Net started in Europe when I worked for Sierra/Vivendi running their online presence back in the 90s.
6 years ago, almost to the week, I was one of a handful of people that started an online community called evolt (http://evolt.org/). Actually, the wedding I was at this weekend was for 2 of the most prominent members of that community. I'm about to dump most of my time over the next couple of weeks to work on a complete rebuild of the technical architecture behind the community.
About 2 years ago I started working with the Plone project http://plone.org/, and became a core developer through working myself silly helping to get the 2.0 release out of the door. I don't get to contribute to the community as much as I would like at the moment, but that's mainly because everyone there is pretty damned good at what they do.
I have a steady girlfriend, but then, so do nearly all of my geeky friends, except the married ones. I have a social life that can best be characterised as amplified. I code about 50 hours a week at work for clients (on OSS projects), and about 30 hours a week for fun (on whatever the hell I like, but mostly little Torque Engine-based games for fun).
The point about the Pro/Amateur thing isn't people making a living out of their hobbies, it's mostly about motivation, and the availability of expertise and knowledge outside of the traditional bounds of "professions". In fact, it's one of the first indicators that many sections of the economy are noticing a move back away from the protestant work ethic, and back towards concepts of social responsibility and pride in self-directed achievement.
It's all small steps, and getting a report like this published and noticed in the press is just the first tiny step towards change, but it's definitely going to be an interesting journey.
I see... You're one of those too "mature" to admit he's been watching "The Incredibles" (crappy, boring and predictable btw, just in case someone's planning to buy tickets for it).
Look everyone, it's the head of Disney Animation!
The Incredibles is one of the best movies in recent memory - just in case someone was reading and decided to go with your wierd grinchy opinion instead of something like a 96% rating at RottenTomatoes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now, the works of Woolfe, Joyce, and hundreds of authors who are mostly forgotten are read primarily by 'experts' in the field or by lit majors, while Tolkien and Lewis are two of the most recognized fiction writers in the world.
The same case could be applied to Rowling, in that she wrote her first novel without consulting the "experts" in fiction writing or children's lit.
Perhaps we'll see the same effect in pop music now that there's Mac OSX, Linux, and all of the FOSS tools that are available, to say nothing of using the Net to promote and sell.
In a way you touched on how the Internet most threatens institutions; by leveling the playing-field, it short-circuits the copious ass-kissing and brown-nosing that lots of geniuses fail at when trying to go through the academia.
Freedom of ideas, freedom of communication, these are the enemies of corporate-managed countries.
I'm surprised the Internet has even been able to proliferate and circumvent most educational and class barriers (although there are still lots of people who cannot access the Internet).
Who knows how many people with society-changing innovations have been supressed by the old guard.
I wonder, are the people who invented the Internet (and by doing so enabled research's pace) heros?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
So why do about half the nobel prizes in science go to american universities? As a european physicist/mathematician I have to say that the world leading institute for a particular field of research is usually from the US.
Really i'm shocked that this groundless rant is modded +5. Even on /.
Heroes are people who save lives.
No they aren't. "Hero" is one of those words that's circularly defined: a person is automatically a hero if enough others call him a hero. It's about popularity, not effectiveness.
Look at Pvt Jessica Lynch for a good example of a recent hero who did absolutely nothing worthwhile, and whose failures put others' lives at risk. (She gets points for effort, though)
Dominant athletes from Tom Brady to Mike Jordan back to Babe Ruth are heros, and they don't save lives, or even make much of a positive social contribution.
Heck, Osama Bin Laden is hero to millions, and he's primarily a killer.
You could argue that none of the people I've listed SHOULD be heros, but that doesn't change the fact that they ARE.
(Of course, by the popularity-oriented definition, "geeks" aren't heros either...)
They're heros, nonetheless, because they achieved a purpose that was noble enough, at great enough personal risk, that people were "saved" in a humanitarian sense, not a physical sense.
Does Phil Zimmerman qualify in this category? Maybe as a minor hero. Certainly, there was personal risk and there was a degree of gain for the population. He'd qualify there, I think.
Early FOSS adopters, who risked their livlihoods, their professional future and possibly more, on installing Linux, *BSD, etc, on key systems (no, print servers don't count, unless it's a publisher) - those are also minor heros. They staked a lot, to benefit the company, knowing full well that flawed systems endangers a company - from hackers, from lost data, from many things - and also knowing full well the consequences of being found out. The risks weren't high enough, and the gains not significant enough, to qualify as "real heros" but certainly enough to be in the minor hero league.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
on the web that's not porn....
Don't be so sure...
Required reading for internet skeptics
I'm not an expert, but I suspect that it hasn't changed all that much. "Scientists of old" are the people who are remembered because they made such a significant impact on science. Just because we remember them, however, doesn't mean that there weren't scores of potentially capable scientists whose potential was blocked by limitations of society.
Tycho Brahe, for instance, is famous for making the first seriously accurate measurements of several thousand stars. (He had many assistants, of course.) He may have been well above average, or even brilliant. But the main driving force behind him being able to do this was that he had his own sources of money. He came from an aristocratic family, was in renowned standing with the various kings of the day, and was able to pull together his own resources to do what he enjoyed. This later extended into sponsoring further research and more scientists (Keplar is the most famous), but Tycho was one of the few exceptions in this. The social norms for people with money was for them to become educated in managing their money, lands and social situations, and not much more.
This isn't terribly dissimilar to today. Some people have money, most people don't. A few people with money or power do decide to support science, some support other interests, and some prefer to keep their wealth to themselves. If anything, we're better off because we have governments that see science as an important thing to support, at least relative to governments of centuries ago. But although there are tens of thousands of scientists contributing around the world, only a few will be remembered and have their names commonly recognised centuries from now.
We probably do remember a larger proportion of scientists from long ago. But if we do, it's because there weren't as many scientists then as there are now.
The moment you catch a woman you _STOP_ being a geek. :-P
And no, Anime DOESN'T COUNT.
"Ridicule us based on a sterotype that may not apply. This holds true in the media - look at how geeks are portrayed. It's always someone with big glasses, greasy hair, and clothes that don't quite fit right."
you seem pretty damn egotisitical to care about how your "class" is portrayed in the media. why not laugh it off? say haha media, thats what YOU think -- and proceed to have another snifter of hennesy.
also saying your smarter than everyone you know is kind of lame. news flash superman, everyone thinks they are smarter than everyone else. its called perspective.
personally, i dont care if geeks are supposed to get laid or not supposed to get laid. it really has no baring on my life. the one thing i think those sorts of stereotypes are good for are a nice warm feeling for those of us who dont get laid alot -or ever- as the case may be. why would you take the comedy of the lack of personal relationships and turn it into a horrible situation. just because you seem to be above middle class and probably shoot your own pr0n? this post was just an excuse to brag. so good job.
"The problem is that it's just not cool to be smart."
also the first step to being cool, is thinking cool which i dont think that you've mastered.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...