I think you have to make a distinction between authoring/recording music and DJ'ing it. A DJ will often preselect a set of tunes based on his own tastes and depending on the situation, the anticipated tastes of the crowd. Well-known DJ's are often associated with a particular style or genre of music.
The article implies that the HPDJ "composes new tracks" but only in the sense that a DJ does. The music already exists, and it is up to the DJ to present it in a way that feels good to the audience; that's why the DJ is there, not to amuse himself (usually) but to entertain the crowd that has come there to dance.
Most DJ's that I've met will constantly read the audience and adjust the mix accordingly. They not only react to the audience's vibe in a room, but try to steer it in a positive way. HPDJ strikes me as a good application of these concepts.
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This thing about anarchy is that it provides freedoms beyond the contraints of a corporate mindset. "Organization" places definite boundaries on the way people think and invent. As a consultant, I have found myself in a position to witness brilliant ideas being killed because they did not fit in with the current corporate initiatives.
When I hear things like this, I get really nervous:
"If we were to evaluate and eliminate the worthless projects (as an organization would do)"
...especially if you are suggesting that this approach be applied to OSS. It is certainly reasonable for a company to standardize on a os/software suite, but I'm not sure how culling "worthless" projects would work here. A few points:
Who determines which development initiative is worthless? Some projects are started for the sake of starting a project, even if they duplicate the effort of another. There may still be value in this; the architecture and code is not going to be identical to other similar projects. But many projects that are similar to others are started because someone wanted to do something differently. In the current OSS model, developers are free to pursue these avenues. Sure, there is some redundancy, but it's not worthless; it's evolution.
How would you impose any form of organization on a body that refuses to be organized in this way? I fear that any such effort will simply create another faction (Organized OSS - OOSS?:) while the rest of the OSS community continues on its merry way.
But the point of the article was a call for unity of the OSS community under a common leadership, not a reorganization of the way things are currently working. The implied aim is to pull together and defend the OSS way of operating by presenting a unified front.
The fact that there are many distros, text editors, etc. is a positive thing in my eyes. As OSS matures, certain projects/products have and will become recognized as true leaders and will gain the prominence and effort they deserve. But you never know... one of those future stars could be one of those "worthless" projects that is just a gleam in some developer's eye.
Of course DirecTV wants to sell it, but since they legally enjoined from billing Canadian customers for the service, they cannot claim "piracy" when a Canadian descrambles the signal. It's "sensible" in the sense that there is no lost revenue; DirecTV cannot claim a loss on something that they wouldn't be able to sell to Canadians anyway.
I don't see the catch-22. It does not cost DirecTV more to broadcast into Canada. They are not, in fact, providing a service to Canadians as much as they are not taking measures to stop their signal from leaking across the border. In order to provide the U.S. with the widest possible signal coverage, they simply spray the entire North American continent with their signal. To limit this to within the borders of the U.S. would be a costly proposition, and one that would be of no benefit to them anyway.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. --Bertrand Russell
This quote has partucular significance for me. I always found learning from a person following a predefined course plan to be extremely limiting and restrictive. While there is usually a case to be made for a structured learning environment, this style of teaching does not appeal to all students.
Unfortunately, it also has the (negative) side-effect of locking students into a fixed way of perceiving and reasoning through problems that are set before them. It has been expressed to me by professional teachers that the most valuable thing a teacher can impart to a student is not necessarily knowledge, but rather the ability to think and reason. What they fail to mention is that they are imparting their way of thinking and reasoning.
The internet, on the other hand, offers alternative points of view and unique perspectives. Sure, a lot of the content online is misguided, innaccurate, inappropriate and just plain wrong... but that is the way of the world. Exposure to different ways of thinking leads to innovation(tm) and creativity, as well as a more open mind. I know that's something I want for my kids. ---
Slashdot Mirror
Cory Doctorow wrote about this concept in eastern standard tribe. The novel is available for download (free!) here.
Yeah... until the viewers start spontaneously exploding.
(first aired c. 1987).
I think you have to make a distinction between authoring/recording music and DJ'ing it. A DJ will often preselect a set of tunes based on his own tastes and depending on the situation, the anticipated tastes of the crowd. Well-known DJ's are often associated with a particular style or genre of music.
The article implies that the HPDJ "composes new tracks" but only in the sense that a DJ does. The music already exists, and it is up to the DJ to present it in a way that feels good to the audience; that's why the DJ is there, not to amuse himself (usually) but to entertain the crowd that has come there to dance.
Most DJ's that I've met will constantly read the audience and adjust the mix accordingly. They not only react to the audience's vibe in a room, but try to steer it in a positive way. HPDJ strikes me as a good application of these concepts.
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When I hear things like this, I get really nervous:
- Who determines which development initiative is worthless? Some projects are started for the sake of starting a project, even if they duplicate the effort of another. There may still be value in this; the architecture and code is not going to be identical to other similar projects. But many projects that are similar to others are started because someone wanted to do something differently. In the current OSS model, developers are free to pursue these avenues. Sure, there is some redundancy, but it's not worthless; it's evolution.
- How would you impose any form of organization on a body that refuses to be organized in this way? I fear that any such effort will simply create another faction (Organized OSS - OOSS?
:) while the rest of the OSS community continues on its merry way.
But the point of the article was a call for unity of the OSS community under a common leadership, not a reorganization of the way things are currently working. The implied aim is to pull together and defend the OSS way of operating by presenting a unified front.The fact that there are many distros, text editors, etc. is a positive thing in my eyes. As OSS matures, certain projects/products have and will become recognized as true leaders and will gain the prominence and effort they deserve. But you never know... one of those future stars could be one of those "worthless" projects that is just a gleam in some developer's eye.
Of course DirecTV wants to sell it, but since they legally enjoined from billing Canadian customers for the service, they cannot claim "piracy" when a Canadian descrambles the signal. It's "sensible" in the sense that there is no lost revenue; DirecTV cannot claim a loss on something that they wouldn't be able to sell to Canadians anyway.
I don't see the catch-22. It does not cost DirecTV more to broadcast into Canada. They are not, in fact, providing a service to Canadians as much as they are not taking measures to stop their signal from leaking across the border. In order to provide the U.S. with the widest possible signal coverage, they simply spray the entire North American continent with their signal. To limit this to within the borders of the U.S. would be a costly proposition, and one that would be of no benefit to them anyway.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
--Bertrand Russell
This quote has partucular significance for me. I always found learning from a person following a predefined course plan to be extremely limiting and restrictive. While there is usually a case to be made for a structured learning environment, this style of teaching does not appeal to all students.
Unfortunately, it also has the (negative) side-effect of locking students into a fixed way of perceiving and reasoning through problems that are set before them. It has been expressed to me by professional teachers that the most valuable thing a teacher can impart to a student is not necessarily knowledge, but rather the ability to think and reason. What they fail to mention is that they are imparting their way of thinking and reasoning.
The internet, on the other hand, offers alternative points of view and unique perspectives. Sure, a lot of the content online is misguided, innaccurate, inappropriate and just plain wrong... but that is the way of the world. Exposure to different ways of thinking leads to innovation(tm) and creativity, as well as a more open mind. I know that's something I want for my kids.
---