Man Tries To Live an Open Source Life For a Year

jfruh writes "Sam Muirhead, a New Zealand filmmaker living Berlin, will, on the 1st of August, begin an experiment in living an open source life for a year. But this is going way beyond just trading in his Mac for a Linux machine and Final Cut Pro for Novacut. He's also going to live in a house based on an open source design, and he notes that trying to develop and use some form of open source toilet paper will be an "interesting and possibly painful process.""

Comments

While you're at it...

[Anonymous Coward]

...if you try, why not go a year without DRM?

Re:While you're at it...

[hawguy]

...if you try, why not go a year without DRM?

If you think that's hard, try to go a year without DRAM

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

But... but... hasn't Stallman been doing this for years already?

Er, wait, what?

[girlintraining]

I really don't want to know is how one programs in toilet paper. Worse, visions of managers telling me I have to eat more taco bell because my... production... is too low. Oh, the puns, the humanity. -_-

More seriously, it would be more accurate to say that he is trying to live a lifestyle in which only products that are part of the public domain or the mechanisms by which it operates must be made available for inspection, and any changes documented and also similarly made available, without cost. Considering how I have even found 'patent pending' stamped on spoons and forks (really, I mean... really?)... I don't imagine he'll be able to survive the year. At least not without a lot of rationalizing and hair pulling.

But while the experiment will probably ultimately fail, it will at least show beyond any doubt how deeply corporations have penetrated into every faucet of daily living. It is simply not possible to live in modern society without giving the devil his due.

Re:Er, wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's virtually impossible to do this perfectly, it's like trying to live Biblically. Sure he's using a Linux computer, but that's only software. Are all the components open source? I doubt it. Similarly he's using a camcorder that tries to use as much open source as possible, but realistically it's not really kosher.

Why use toilet paper at all? Just wash yourself with soap and water. It's what a lot of folks in Asia do and it's just as hygienic (probably more so) than paper. The toilet would need to be open source too, which points to a composting toilet unless you fancy firing your own porcelain.

Where do we draw the line? A lot of things aren't exactly secret knowledge, but require a big company with money to manufacture. For instance, common steel nails have an ISO (or similar) standard size. If you wanted to you could make your own, the exact dimensions are publicly available, but it would take a hell of a long time. Power generation is another one, unless you build your own turbine, grid power is definitely closed source. Even then, batteries? Nuh-uh. But then, a lead acid battery isn't exactly complicated, so arguably one could draw up a schematic, it's just a matter of finding the chemicals.

I would be very interested in a repository of open source designs for home living, I'm not sure one exists. There are projects like Open Source Ecology that are trying to make a civilisation starter kit, but that's a bit low level. I want to be able to go to a database look for a design for, say, a four poster bed or a spoon.

Re:Open source...

[girlintraining]

You do realize that "Open Source Women" are the one with the pretty old professional skill set???

Perhaps, but men are the retards that keep paying for a free product.

Re:A life without Coke?

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

I once spent 2 hours walking around with RMS looking for a restaurant that he liked AND served pepsi. This was in Recoleta, Buenos Aires, where most good restaurants have an exclusive deal with Coca Cola. In each place we entered, he asked if they served coke, and in a few places he insisted on speaking with the manager and when he got his way, he explained to him in gruesome details all the atrocities the Coca Cola company did in Colombia to workers.

I firmly believe in Free Software, and I admire RMS for everything he has done for the world. I try to uphold my principles, but this semi-religious thing of taking it to the extreme and avoiding anything even remotely related to something you disagree with, as if it was permanently tainted by immorality, is just plain stupid.

My company tries to free under the GPL as many products as possible, but if we freed certain things, we would be out of business. If I refused to use privative software at all, I couldn't even use a phone (even if the soft is free, the GSM firmware won't be).

What this guy is doing is just a publicity stunt, and a fairly stupid one at that. He thinks he's sending a message, but it's not the one he's thinking about.

Re:food?

[frup]

Sounds like he lives on the street.

Also a few things to keep in mind

[Sycraft-fu]

One is that women are actually people too (I know this seems to amaze many geeks) and as such are varied in their wants and desires. What one woman finds ideal may utterly repulse another. There is no one "What women want," standard. Were there, it would be well known. In all of human interaction there is no One True Way(tm) that makes everyone happy, so any time someone tells you they know what it is all women want, you know they are full of shit.

Another is that women (like all people) lie about what they want. Not just to others, but to themselves too. You will see a woman claim they want one thing in a relationship and yet seek out the exact opposite time and time again. That is no coincidence or happenstance, it is because what they claim they want and what they actually want are not the same thing. This is particularly problematic when they haven't analyzed it for themselves and are lying to themselves, so they aren't even really aware of what it is they are actually seeking out.

So just because a woman says "What I really want is a nice, caring guy," that doesn't mean that is what she actually wants. Also even if she does it doesn't mean that it is a particularly high priority. She may have other attributes she values more but doesn't say. For example she may like a nice caring guy but place a far lower value on that than having a guy who has a lot of money and an "alpha male" personality. She'd take it all if she can get it, but when it comes down to it she'll trade nice for the higher priorities.

Finally there is the problem of unrealistic expectations, which again all humans suffer from but research indicates with regards to relationships women suffer from it more. Women rate the majority of men as below average. That is of course statistically impossible so the real problem is one of perception. A great many women feel they are having to settle for someone who isn't as "good" as they are. They have unrealistic expectations, and and unrealistic assessment of what they bring to the table.

You can see this in online dating profiles where you will have someone who specifies a massive list of must and must nots for their potential partner, something that cuts the potential dating pool down to essentially nobody. Thus they either remain single complaining about how bad everyone is or they "settle" for someone "beneath them" since nobody can meet their unreasonably high and specific standards.

For that matter, "settling" is what you have to do. Nobody is perfect, you have to deal with another person's flaws. Dan Savage has a bunch of great things to say on this topic but one of the best is that there's no "the one" out there, no perfect person for you. There's just the 0.64 that you round up. You find someone you love and you pay the prices of admission, dealing with the things they do that aren't perfect for you, because the whole package is worth it.