Let's put it this way, darwinism is just a theory and we're still trying to *prove* it. If it was true, there wouldn't be so much fuss around it and we wouldn't be here talking.
There may be some places in the evolution tree where evolution happened at a pace slow enough to support Darwin's theory. But in many places, including in relation to the human species, the leap in evolution are so sudden and large that we may wonder what kind of radiation could have created so many positive evolutionary changes. We can literally talk of species appearing out of nowhere and we're still trying to find missing links.
Personally I don't buy Darwin's theory because it clearly fails to account to the missing links. But that doesn't mean I believe in the genesis story given in the bible. To me the real and fascinating question is who created us? Just look at what we, humans, have achieved in genetics! Well then, can't we imagine beings more evolved than us who could have engineered humanity or at least played a role in its evolution? That would be a more plausible explanation for what we observe in many fields, including archeology and the study of ancient texts and artifacts.
Oh I see, I can already hear some people saying 'another lunatic believing in ETs'.
Well, I'm no more lunatic than these people who first considered the possibility of the earth being round and not flat. I don't really know the story of humanity's origin. But in making an educated guess about it I'm trying real hard not to be blinded by limiting beliefs and conditioning.
It's nice to see SoC so passionately discussed and even becoming a field of study, but before SoC really can establish itself as a reality, I think we need a technological breakthrough.
Why?
Because there is a complete mismatch between present web technology and social dynamics. We're like trying to reach the moon by building a rocket with LEGO blocks. No wonder there is so much vaporware behind the concept of web 2.0.
Current web technology, in the way it works and in the way it is presented to the user, is still tied to the network topology. The user is very much aware of crossing boundaries between machines connected to the internet. However the network architecture and topology is completely out of touch with the reality of social networks and communities. The velocity at which the social network evolves (links between people, groups of people, and their resources) is an order of magnitude higher than the speed at which the computer network evolves, so it's quite limiting for the former to piggy back its evolution to the latter. When it comes to bringing people together into a common virtual space the most successful initiatives are found when the user model does not depend on the computer network topology: network games, Second Life, Skype, etc. All these provide "spaces" that, once entered, no longer rely on the network topology to provide meaning.
So in order to realize the SoC vision I believe we first need an architecture where the network topology is completely transparent, and I would even say, irrelevant. The user should no longer feel like navigating a set of interconnected machines and have to bother with stuff like server names, ports, who owns the server, etc. Instead, what the user should be aware of when navigating the social web are communities, their members, their boundaries, their resources, their connections, and so on. In other words we're talking about a whole layer on top of the internet with a distributed and common object model. What a user understands as 'community' or 'network' should have a clear representative on the net regardless of the computer resources involved. Right now the concept of community does not even have a real representation on the web. All we have are sets of users of certain web sites or web resources. But where do we capture the fact that an individual is part of multiple communities? How do we specify a community by aggregation of other communities (e.g. neighborhoods aggregate into a whole city)? How do we manage communities with "moving" boundaries, e.g. those that work or have worked at a certain company? Unless we develop a new social layer based on a common object model on top of the web, the social computing ideals will be dead in the water because there is a complete disconnection between the computer network model and the social network reality.
In order for SoC to become reality we need major building blocks such as identity (for both individuals and groups), reputation services, directories, ontologies, etc. For all this to work together I don't think it's enough to be plucking low hanging fruits by developing protocols This and That. For SoC to really exists I believe we should think in terms of a new OS for the web. I expect more to come out from croquet (http://www.croquetproject.org/) than from RDF and usual web 3.0 contenders.
Protecting consumers? Could we please stop using this word and talk about protecting people's freedom in their exchanges over the internet?
Freedom not to be called or spamed, freedom to choose privacy levels, freedom to share, and freedom to express our opinions.
Today we are faced with the Internet being threatened by its appropriation from network owners who are starting to choose and select content (in France they are starting to filter out p2p software). That is number one threat to everyone and Lawrence Lessig has been screaming about this for years, and rightly so. In his 1999 book 'Code Is Law' (http://www.code-is-law.org/) he literally argued that the architecture we devise for our information systems are like laws that are directly enforceable. In the real world leniency is built in because full enforceability would be too difficult, expensive, unpractical, or unrealistic. This allows a certain degree of flexibility within which exceptions can have their space, thus avoiding suffocation by complete control over everything. However in the architecture of information systems we can ensure rules are followed whatever the situation. Such level of enforceability are not necessarily desirable, and an obvious example is in the domain of copyright and how computer systems can enforce them, leaving little or no space for fair use.
This is why the model of the commons is so crucial, especially where technology inserts itself in-between people's relationships. Letting just private and commercial interests be solely in charge of the network is a fundamental mistake. A social network software which cannot be changed by its users is simply a new form of totalitarism (cybertotalitarism?). How about online marketplaces where participants can't have a say in how the market should be operated, or where they can be excluded arbitrarily, or where their personal information is used for deviated purposes?
We need tools and platforms that give us choices. Not just skin(deep) choices, but real choice on how to play the games and what the rules are. How we architect the next version of the internet is the crucial point, and the FTC should better (re)read Lessig and make his concerns item number one on the agenda.
Well, our friend the Anonymous Coward was probably submitting his answer while I started to write mine. In the end we can conclude that 'Libre' does not bear the same confusion in French and Spanish as the word 'Free' in English.
I'm also European, and French, although I live in Belgium, lived in the UK and the US. This is not the first time I heard the term Free/Libre Software, and I also wondered why the word 'Libre'. I thought in the end that this wasn't such a bad thing: if the word 'Free' can be confusing in English, might as well find another word that removes the confusion, notably for those that do not understand English like native speakers. 'Libre' in French only means free as in freedom and not free as in free beer. It is also a Spanish word, but in that language I cannot confirm whether it only means free as in freedom. Any Spanish speaker around here?
There is monopoly and monopoly. Microsoft is a monopoly in the software industry because they have an enormous market share they can take advantage of. Then there is the monopoly given by a patent, which is basically saying: you are the only company that can profit from your invention, and me the government I grant you this monopoly. Both are related but in the end separate.
The former is a negative form of monopoly to be avoided in order to promote a fairer market, the second is a form of monopoly which has been necessary for ensuring an economic incentive for innovation. Enter the world of intangible and what has worked so well with tangible good for a couple centuries is now creating us more problems than originally planned.
For sure the patents as they are now are totally inadapted to the software industry. As you (Anonymous Coward!) say yourself they may not even be necessary to promote progress, profit in itself is a driver, because rare are these innovations in software that last for years. And those that do should precisely not be protected for 20 years at it is the case now with patents.
Unless we find other ways to ensure the ROI, I believe some form of intellectual property will be necessary, but not in their present forms. However finding other ways to ensure ROI probably means reengineering our economic system.
Some of the post here talk about money, where to find it, how it is created, etc. I cannot prevent myself to mention again the existence of complimentary currencies. For the curious reader, here is an interesting page that explains how a complementary currency would make sense for F/OSS development. If you really want to know more about money in general, how it was in the past, how it works today, and how it can be, then read the excellent book from Bernard Lietaer entitled "The Future of Money: Beyond Greed and Scarcity ".
Overall, Bernard Lietaer really convinced me that complementary currencies will provide valuable solutions to the ever pressing problems of jobless growth, monetary instability, aging population, and environment protection. The only problem: just like free and open source software is a challenge to the way software is currently owned and controlled, complementary currencies challenge the way money is owned and controlled. To me, CC are to finance what F/OSS is to the IT industry. Watch this space!
I think gun control is the wrong issue. The main reason why guns are justified is for self-defense, right? Please exclude sport, that's an easily solvable situation. However guns are offensive weapons, not offensive. It's like using an axe to open a can. In my view the real question is this one: what can effectively protect your life while not endangering other's? Find such a replacement and we'll be in a better position to discuss gun control. Unfortunately the best one I've seen so far is in Star Trek: a phaser that only has a "stun" setting. Does this mean there is no hope?
For decades marxism has been analyzing the relationship between capital and its main resource: the people it employs. While it has not been successful in producing alternatives to capitalism, I still believe there are valuable insights to be gained from *some* of the marxist theorists. If, like me, you would like to gain a better understanding of the relationship between capital, waged labor, and high-technology, then there is no better read than this book:
Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism, by Nick Dyer-Whiteford.
It's got excellent reviews on Amazon, and it is also available online here http://www.fims.uwo.ca/people/faculty/dyerwithefor d/index.htm.
You do not need to be a marxist to read it, but it's not light reading either. I'm still in the process of reading it, and I never studied marxism nor sociology before, so it takes me a bit more time than other books. Still, after having been through the first 4 chapters (out of 9), I cannot wait for the rest. If, like me, you work in the software industry, you will not be disappointed: it can really give you a much wider prospective, notably on the Free Software and Open Source movement.
If US justice fails us against the MS monopoly, how can European court take over the battle? What are the legal mechanisms Europe could use to enforce its own ruling?
Slashdot Mirror
If you want more mainstream literature try this:
http://www.amazon.com/Billions-Missing-Links-Mysteries-Evolution/dp/0736917462
Personally I don't buy Darwin's theory because it clearly fails to account to the missing links. But that doesn't mean I believe in the genesis story given in the bible. To me the real and fascinating question is who created us? Just look at what we, humans, have achieved in genetics! Well then, can't we imagine beings more evolved than us who could have engineered humanity or at least played a role in its evolution? That would be a more plausible explanation for what we observe in many fields, including archeology and the study of ancient texts and artifacts.
Oh I see, I can already hear some people saying 'another lunatic believing in ETs'.
Well, I'm no more lunatic than these people who first considered the possibility of the earth being round and not flat. I don't really know the story of humanity's origin. But in making an educated guess about it I'm trying real hard not to be blinded by limiting beliefs and conditioning.
Have a look at these articles, it may help:
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/darwinism.1.html
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/darwinism.2.html
Why?
Because there is a complete mismatch between present web technology and social dynamics. We're like trying to reach the moon by building a rocket with LEGO blocks. No wonder there is so much vaporware behind the concept of web 2.0.
Current web technology, in the way it works and in the way it is presented to the user, is still tied to the network topology. The user is very much aware of crossing boundaries between machines connected to the internet. However the network architecture and topology is completely out of touch with the reality of social networks and communities. The velocity at which the social network evolves (links between people, groups of people, and their resources) is an order of magnitude higher than the speed at which the computer network evolves, so it's quite limiting for the former to piggy back its evolution to the latter. When it comes to bringing people together into a common virtual space the most successful initiatives are found when the user model does not depend on the computer network topology: network games, Second Life, Skype, etc. All these provide "spaces" that, once entered, no longer rely on the network topology to provide meaning.
So in order to realize the SoC vision I believe we first need an architecture where the network topology is completely transparent, and I would even say, irrelevant. The user should no longer feel like navigating a set of interconnected machines and have to bother with stuff like server names, ports, who owns the server, etc. Instead, what the user should be aware of when navigating the social web are communities, their members, their boundaries, their resources, their connections, and so on. In other words we're talking about a whole layer on top of the internet with a distributed and common object model. What a user understands as 'community' or 'network' should have a clear representative on the net regardless of the computer resources involved. Right now the concept of community does not even have a real representation on the web. All we have are sets of users of certain web sites or web resources. But where do we capture the fact that an individual is part of multiple communities? How do we specify a community by aggregation of other communities (e.g. neighborhoods aggregate into a whole city)? How do we manage communities with "moving" boundaries, e.g. those that work or have worked at a certain company? Unless we develop a new social layer based on a common object model on top of the web, the social computing ideals will be dead in the water because there is a complete disconnection between the computer network model and the social network reality.
In order for SoC to become reality we need major building blocks such as identity (for both individuals and groups), reputation services, directories, ontologies, etc. For all this to work together I don't think it's enough to be plucking low hanging fruits by developing protocols This and That. For SoC to really exists I believe we should think in terms of a new OS for the web. I expect more to come out from croquet (http://www.croquetproject.org/) than from RDF and usual web 3.0 contenders.
Protecting consumers? Could we please stop using this word and talk about protecting people's freedom in their exchanges over the internet? Freedom not to be called or spamed, freedom to choose privacy levels, freedom to share, and freedom to express our opinions. Today we are faced with the Internet being threatened by its appropriation from network owners who are starting to choose and select content (in France they are starting to filter out p2p software). That is number one threat to everyone and Lawrence Lessig has been screaming about this for years, and rightly so. In his 1999 book 'Code Is Law' (http://www.code-is-law.org/) he literally argued that the architecture we devise for our information systems are like laws that are directly enforceable. In the real world leniency is built in because full enforceability would be too difficult, expensive, unpractical, or unrealistic. This allows a certain degree of flexibility within which exceptions can have their space, thus avoiding suffocation by complete control over everything. However in the architecture of information systems we can ensure rules are followed whatever the situation. Such level of enforceability are not necessarily desirable, and an obvious example is in the domain of copyright and how computer systems can enforce them, leaving little or no space for fair use. This is why the model of the commons is so crucial, especially where technology inserts itself in-between people's relationships. Letting just private and commercial interests be solely in charge of the network is a fundamental mistake. A social network software which cannot be changed by its users is simply a new form of totalitarism (cybertotalitarism?). How about online marketplaces where participants can't have a say in how the market should be operated, or where they can be excluded arbitrarily, or where their personal information is used for deviated purposes? We need tools and platforms that give us choices. Not just skin(deep) choices, but real choice on how to play the games and what the rules are. How we architect the next version of the internet is the crucial point, and the FTC should better (re)read Lessig and make his concerns item number one on the agenda.
Well, our friend the Anonymous Coward was probably submitting his answer while I started to write mine. In the end we can conclude that 'Libre' does not bear the same confusion in French and Spanish as the word 'Free' in English.
I'm also European, and French, although I live in Belgium, lived in the UK and the US. This is not the first time I heard the term Free/Libre Software, and I also wondered why the word 'Libre'. I thought in the end that this wasn't such a bad thing: if the word 'Free' can be confusing in English, might as well find another word that removes the confusion, notably for those that do not understand English like native speakers.
'Libre' in French only means free as in freedom and not free as in free beer. It is also a Spanish word, but in that language I cannot confirm whether it only means free as in freedom. Any Spanish speaker around here?
The former is a negative form of monopoly to be avoided in order to promote a fairer market, the second is a form of monopoly which has been necessary for ensuring an economic incentive for innovation. Enter the world of intangible and what has worked so well with tangible good for a couple centuries is now creating us more problems than originally planned.
For sure the patents as they are now are totally inadapted to the software industry. As you (Anonymous Coward!) say yourself they may not even be necessary to promote progress, profit in itself is a driver, because rare are these innovations in software that last for years. And those that do should precisely not be protected for 20 years at it is the case now with patents.
Unless we find other ways to ensure the ROI, I believe some form of intellectual property will be necessary, but not in their present forms. However finding other ways to ensure ROI probably means reengineering our economic system.
Overall, Bernard Lietaer really convinced me that complementary currencies will provide valuable solutions to the ever pressing problems of jobless growth, monetary instability, aging population, and environment protection. The only problem: just like free and open source software is a challenge to the way software is currently owned and controlled, complementary currencies challenge the way money is owned and controlled. To me, CC are to finance what F/OSS is to the IT industry. Watch this space!
Oops, I meant "guns are offensive weapons, not *defensive*".
I think gun control is the wrong issue. The main reason why guns are justified is for self-defense, right? Please exclude sport, that's an easily solvable situation.
However guns are offensive weapons, not offensive. It's like using an axe to open a can.
In my view the real question is this one: what can effectively protect your life while not endangering other's? Find such a replacement and we'll be in a better position to discuss gun control. Unfortunately the best one I've seen so far is in Star Trek: a phaser that only has a "stun" setting. Does this mean there is no hope?
For decades marxism has been analyzing the relationship between capital and its main resource: the people it employs. While it has not been successful in producing alternatives to capitalism, I still believe there are valuable insights to be gained from *some* of the marxist theorists.
r d/index.htm.
If, like me, you would like to gain a better understanding of the relationship between capital, waged labor, and high-technology, then there is no better read than this book:
Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism, by Nick Dyer-Whiteford.
It's got excellent reviews on Amazon, and it is also available online here http://www.fims.uwo.ca/people/faculty/dyerwithefo
You do not need to be a marxist to read it, but it's not light reading either. I'm still in the process of reading it, and I never studied marxism nor sociology before, so it takes me a bit more time than other books. Still, after having been through the first 4 chapters (out of 9), I cannot wait for the rest. If, like me, you work in the software industry, you will not be disappointed: it can really give you a much wider prospective, notably on the Free Software and Open Source movement.
If US justice fails us against the MS monopoly, how can European court take over the battle? What are the legal mechanisms Europe could use to enforce its own ruling?