The Hacker Ethic is not a set of guiding principles designed or built to promote the adaptation of programmers to development processes and business planning. And it shouldn't have to be.
Very well, you may want to train people within a different mindset prepared to fit into a process, acknowledge the existing rulebook and basically play nicely by it, working with others in developing business-oriented code for business purposes. But the Hacker Ethic is much more a cultural development for what was at its time mostly a subculture, than it is a series of well-defined principles for development. The Hacker Ethic emphasizes a series of value and skills that are perhaps way beyond a business development context - in that they belong much more in the future than they belong in the well-defined production/industrial contexts that we have come to tbe acquainted with.
So to put forth such an argument, that the Hacker Ethic harms developers' possibilities of conforming to market standards, is just that. It means conforming, thinking inside the box, and so on. Such is not the Hacker Ethic, and is not meant to be, and doesn't have to be. Just because there may be other, different objectives than those embodied in the HE, does not mean it needs to be put aside, transformed, or somehow modified. It's just different contexts.
The reason many people (myself included at some point) decide to use US-based services for different purposes is, in my view, quite reasonable. First of all, there's a matter of access: I can have access to much cheaper and better services via the web (i.e. web hosting) by choosing a foreign provider than a domestic one. Similarly for domain names - a generic.com domain hosted abroad costs about a tenth of what a similar domain would on my country's TLD.
The second possibility I see is more legally/politically concerned. It's much simpler for governments you may be trying to criticize to shut down your operation if it's based on a local provider than if it's based abroad - even if it's something as simple as it will take them longer to get it down.
So there's a reasoning behind using services abroad for your business or communication, and it is not necessarily "unwise". As for your comment - some very small scale operations will really have a hard time arranging for secondary providers and so on, so this might only be reserved for larger scale ops. I do agree with you in that it's very important - just perhaps not an option for anyone.
It will fade away slowly with time, until only four old geezers in the entire world, many, many years from now, are the only ones who can master that age-old, legendary art.
But then they will find an old nuclear missile satellite running on an old version of Unix which can only be hacked using CLI, and if it's not turned off (presumably right before Y2K38) it will launch a whole can of whopass and end the planet.
So they will have to send the old geezers up into space to turn off the satellite. Hilarity ensues.
I should probably write a movie script out of this. (Does that mean I should be on strike now?)
Not only that, the question as framed is terribly uninteresting. So there's tech where there's people, or vice-versa, doesn't really make a difference and doesn't really matter much. You could probably have said the same thing regarding any media, at any point in time where there was some sort of communication technology working in some city.
Things become interesting when we turn it around like you did. So yes, technology enables us to do lots of things, sure. But what's really interesting is what we do with the tech, even beyond what it was originally designed for. Therein lies their "real" consequences, if you want to call them like that.
I'm not being naive in denying that technology opens up new spaces of possibility about what we're able to do. I'm just saying that's mostly uninteresting, because those spaces we expect them to open up (what we design tech for) asre foreseeable. It's the unintended consequences that are far more interesting, the ways in which we apropriate technology and integrate it into culture, and do new stuff with it.
But that's freedom only on a strictly formal, institutional level. And that means very little in reality. As the OP said, without the money to buy a printing press, freedom of the press would mean nothing.
I do consider I have liberty in very high esteem, and I do think it is fundamental por societies to build upon it. However, that very same liberty means nothing if it is only implied in pieces of paper rather than acted upon by the social body (or even the State, if you like). Classical negative liberty, as in freedom of the State or "you're not the boss of me" conceptually considers individuals as atomic entities without substantial bounds amongs themselves, which is not true. Social bonds preexist you, you are born into a given context or another and are raised within a set of laws and customs. This is not to imply we're not free - only that freedom does not consist or cannot consist in denying the contexts of meaning upon which freedom evolved.
Somewhere above another poster was considering that if you didn't like your state's laws, then you should just move somewhere you liked the laws. And that's easy to say and think, but in reality, leaving your friends and family, the people and places you're used to, the memories, and so on, make it not such a clear-cut choice. Moreover, that very same notion of being a part of that place and having an interest on what happens there (so you will not want to move somewhere else) gives you a say on the process how such things come about. In other words, if you don't like the laws, you're entitled to participate on changing them (or barring them from being unlikable in the first place).
So, although freedom is of the most importance, it cannot be realistically taken as an absolute. Theoretically, sure, you can conceive of it, but must deal with the consequences of such a belief for it to be acceptable. In reality, several factors condition the way in which we make decisions and take action and effectively limit or shape our freedom. It is certainly not as simple as saying someone who doesn't have wealth, chose not too. Personally, I consider such a thing not only wrong, but dangerous. My experience is certainly different: I live in a poor country in which we have formal freedoms, but in which a vast amount of people manage to support and feed a family on a day to day basis. Their children are not fed properly and that will affect their mental capabilities if they are ever sent to study at school, instead of working on the streets. You could stand by your statements (as I would expect you would) and argue that these people are making choices, they are managing to create wealth by themselves and survive, and are thus exercising their freedoms. By earning those 2 dollars a day with which they manage, they're proving individuals create their own wealth and open up their own possibilities. I consider such a thing a blatant disregard for humanity, and a comfortable thought from a comfortable position.
Just by denying the fact that we live in societies and from there deducing all sorts of consequences about people getting of your lawn, does not make it valid, much less desirable. Freedom from something is useless unless you have freedom to do something. Not only that, but formal freedom is unstable unless there is actually a material, substantial freedom for people to develop themselves within the support networks of society. I refer you to the work done by Amartya Sen on the subject, and his studies on how the appearance and stability of political freedoms are related to the distribution of goods and wealth.
I think your story presents an interesting question in the light of the recent oppose copyright/support open source debate.
Maybe. I mean, with harsher enforcement of copyright, your friend would have a bigger legit business instead of just configuring pirated Cubase. The pressure of enforcement would most likely drive that very market sector to more affordable setups, therefore to your friend's service.
Transition wise, at least. A world without copyright could probably still maintain the same service structure for your friend's business (which makes it, IMO, a much more complete business model), but for such a model to catch on, maybe copyright has to really work. In other words, maybe DRM will really kill copyright.
Isn't the point, or rather than the point, the by-product of free software like Linux to turn software deployment into a service? I understand how for a musician, it's preferable to just get a Mac because it just works rather than to fiddle around with Linux for a week. But shouldn't that create a market for cheaper-than-macs, semi-pro systems custom-made by Linux geeks? I can see a service where a programmer or developer could specialize in audio hardware and software for Linux, and make a living out of setting up these sorts of systems por musicians or studios not willing to invest the money it would cost to set up a Mac-based studio (especially in regards to licenses). For the musician, it just works and it's transparent; the developer handles the inner-workings.
Am I wrong here? Is it not economically feasible? My first and foremost concern would be if the possible revenues justify such a project. Still, sounds like a fun way to make a living for a Linux geek/audiophile/musician.
I don't get this, where did group 3 supposedly come from? Haven't seen anything posted on critics getting laptops, this is just rather Microsoft giving freebies to people giving it freebies in the first place.
I fail to see how this could be counter-productive. Group 1 will be happy, they get laptops. They're a select few -the laptop-to-microsoft-blogger ratio must still be pretty high- to which group 2 will want to gain access. Group 3 I consider non-existent, whereas group 4 will keep on doing what they do, albeit with the minor difference that some of them will actually fell tempted to blog Microsoft for the chance of a laptop. And of course, as pointed out, group 5 will appear.
Yes, sure, there's the negative interpretacion wherein everyone gets resented at Microsoft for not giving them prezzies, but I think that's take it one step too far. In fact, MS has appealed to one of the oldest trick in the book: free stuff. People will want a chance to get free stuff; many will resist and criticize the move, but even among the critics, some "soldiers" among the ranks will feel the temptation of an Acer Ferrari, and though that might very well be publicly condemned, there are countless others out there that, even they resenting themselves for doing so, are just looking for a way to justify the acceptance of such a gift, just for the mere possibility than when given some random similar chance, they could accept it without blame or remorse.
It does sound horrible, it very well might be unethical; but it is nothing short of a smart move.
Just to add some thoughts based on some things I've been thinking about lately.
I haven't had too much of an approach on semantic web concepts being developed; I certainly will work on that after this thread. My interest, though, comes mostly from philosophy (and other things I want to add into the mix): I want to look into the possibility of our cognitive processes, the way we're dealing with information and transforming that information into knowledge, is either being shaped by our interactions with technology, shaping the technology we're interacting with, or both. This would somehow, I think, require some sort of mutability in the way we learn and the way we know, which is, of course, complicated hypothesis (but then again, who knows?).
This is all still in its infancy, I don't even know how viable it will be, but it is still fun. Our interactions with technology are transforming our interactions with the world and with other people, and this whole 'tagging' process, bears some resemblance with the tagging of the world that is the construction of language (clearly I still have a lot of research to do on language acquisition and cognitive sciences). And in a similar fashion as words are taken up and used commonly -being, after all, arbitrary pointers towards objets-, perhaps are tags applied to content.
It's all still pretty blurry to me. I just wanted to add to your comments on the value of the semantic web, as it is probably an indication of how we're perceiving our own minds to be working, but, of course, not all minds are working the same way (for starters, not everyone has access to the technology involved, or the knowledge required to use it), which makes it hard to expect it to be easily adopted. Or something along those lines. I see profoundly interesting possibilities for the concept as a research subject for the time being, but still, to catch on massively, a whole lot still has to happen, particularly on bringing access to everyone.
I know I'm just speculating here, but could there be a chance that the original author wanted all of this to happen? The Bean itself not being the intended result, but instead the resulting controversy, and all the attention brought to the whole issue of copyrights and intellectual property abuses.
I don't really know anything from the artist to support this, it's just a possibility which I though would be interesting. It's just so stupid that you'd want to think it was actually done on purpose, so what if it was? Argumentation through radicalization. If whoever sculpted The Bean wanted to prove this point, then taking it to this radical extreme, the actual total collapse of public space as actually public, then he might have gotten what he/she wanted for.
Especially considering two things: first, it's entirely reflective, so as many people have said, just place another copyrighted work in front of it and sue. It's a joke, I know, but it's just as silly as this whole thing. The reflective nature of the work might be trying to tell us something. Second, what has happened afterwards, that is, Chicago bloggers uniting to take photographs of The Bean and display them all over the place, as a form of civil disobedience. Being so many people and so many pictures, they can hardly stop them all, yet they're all bringing more and more attention to the whole issue of "copyrighting public space".
Yeah, I know, just wild speculation, but I dunno, I wished it was actually all about this than it being the real deal. Best shot I've seen so far: a guy photographing his own reflection, caption: "I am my own copyright". It's gotta mean something, I guess.
Being from Peru, I'd like to clarify some of your points. There's internationally a lot of confusion regarding exactly what happened (or is happening right now) with Fujimori and his top adviser, Vladimiro Montesinos. First of all, Fujimori WAS a dictator: he performed a coup d'etat against himself in 1992, overthrowing the Constitution and basically doing whatever the hell he wanted until international pressure forced him to proclaim a new one, the year after, which of course largely favoured him. There's still a lot of debate here over wether we should go back to the 1979 Constitution -the last valid one- or instead just focus on ammending the 1993 text where it is needed.
Peru suffered through 20 years of internal conflicts, which haven't really settled even nowadays. The main terrorist group, responsible for 54% of the almost 70,000 dead during that time, was Shining Path, a maoist, pol-potian, fundamentalist rebel group which spared no one. During the 80s, democratically elected governments relinquished responsibility on the internal war to the military, which in turn gained power, but largely failed against SP when applying conventional warfare mentality against guerrilla tactics. It was not until 1989 that new, intelligence-based tactics where put in place which eventually lead to the capture of SP's main heads.
So yes, Shining Path was a huge threat, but the tactics supported by Fujimori were largely the military-based ones, as we was quite reliant on the military to support his own power. Human rights were completely disregarded, people arrested denied a fair trial, even access to a lawyer. There were mass executions we may never know of, thousands of missing persons, paramilitary operatives working beyond the scope of the law. It was horrible times, during which Fujimori used the excuse of security and prosperity to actually extend his own reach on anything and everything going on in the country. This all the time with the close help of Montesinos, carefully pulling the strings of the newly elected parliament and the justice system.
Which brings us to corruption. Justice is very, very slow in Peru. For a long time, if you wanted your case to be dealt with in a shorter time, and also, with the result being in your favour, you had to visit Montesinos's infamous little room at the National Intelligence Service headquarters, and pay your respects. This was all videotaped, as Montesinos was sort of paranoid and voyeuristic, apparently: videos are still surfacing to this day, showing prominent political and ecomonical figures either paying or receiving money from the president's chief adviser. Corruption grew rampant across all state entities. Montesinos has even been proven links with top druglords at the time, from whom he collected money in exchange for having the military not interfere with their operations. Large part of this was known by the CIA, as was his previous, questionable background from years ago.
It is true that terrorism came tumbling down during Fujimori, but it can hardly be said it was largely because of him. Moreover, his actions led to thousands of innocent deaths, and to the building of a corruption network which pulled the strings on everything that happened in this country, and to a point, still does. In the last years of his unconstitutional second term as president, his economic achievements crumbeld upon themselves and led to recession and massive unemployment and underemployment. He built thousands of schools nationwide: after the TV inaugurations, many of them are falling in pieces, or have no electricity or running water. The justice system is swamped, not only with their regular workload, but also by all of the special corruption cases that have to be dealt with. And now, with all of the terrorist cases that have to be tried again, because the original trials have are invalid, being unconstitutional. Hundreds of innocent people were tried without even knowing Spanish (Quechua speakers from the mountain region, primarily), and are right now serving sen
Is is true that all software requires maintenance and support, but even though that's especially true of Linux and OSS, I think that comes as an added plus, especially when related to large-scale deployment in developing countries. With proprietary software, the money goes to licenses mostly and perhaps some kind of support deal, and most support issues will probably be dealt with tech support outside the developing countries. In other words, they just get shiny new software, but little on the side (although there's definitely always something on the side, it's just little).
On the other hand, I see OSS as a great way to push the development of new job sectors and technology markets within a country. Your license costs becomes nil, but that same money (which a government, for example, would probably be investing anyway) now goes to local tech staff and engineers who will not only install the services but also run and maintain them. New jobs created. And, since it's all open source, you don't have to settle with what comes out of the box, but you can actually have it tailored to your needs, using, of course, local programmers. New jobs.
Not only does that bring more money into the local IT markets, but having the software open in the future you leave the door open for expansion and thus needing more support and maintenance people, which could lead to a bigger importance in IT education and government and private spending in the sector.
I'd rather see all that money companies and governments usually shell out for XP licenses and such -which amount to really big bucks- being driven into something which, for the country and themselves, will serve a higher purpose in the long run. Not only that, but actually proving to be more useful, as you now have local support for anything and full customization at your disposal, instead of having to settle for what MS or any other company might provide you (like 3-piece multitasking or something).
Here in Peru, the government is currently in the middle of negotiations regarding our own US-Peru free trade agreement. There's a lot of hype about it, most people consider it to be the great economic panacea which will solve most of our terrible economic problems, and the one instrument which may single-handedly bring us out of underdevelopment. I say 'Ha!', but I don't think they really care about my opinion.
Anyway, mainstream media is nothing but sugar talk for the FTA, and have hardly noticed all of the fine print, especially regarding "enhancements" on our IP law, or other areas of our Constitution - essentially opening wide for foreign investment without any kind of protection for our inner markets.
So, to the point, as a sort of mini Ask Slashdot: how would you go about publicizing these little known issues, particularly the IP one, especially when most of the mainstream media just tries to shush any voices that are just not complying with their views? These are legitimate issues which could very possibly rally valuable support, yet none of it is being mentioned, anywhere, just the positive aspects of the agreement are publicized, particularly by the government. As far as I know, similar issues are popping all through Latin America, perhaps even other places. I would certainly appreciate any insight from Australians who've just went through this, or anybody else with similar experiences, which we may possibly adapt to our local scenarios.
I actually have two. But I have a perfectly valid excuse for that.
Here in Lima, Peru, you're pretty much stuck with it. Pretty much every beginner getting an e-mail address gets the tip from another newbie, "hey, get hotmail", and it's not because of the e-mail address itself or anything, but because of MSN Messenger. IM network usage is definitely a geographic phenomenon: Lima just happens to be an MSN Messenger city.
Which sucks, since a few years ago we were an ICQ city, and for a while we were becoming a Yahoo city. But MSN caught on and beat everyone out of it - most probably because, well, it's bundled with th OS, so it's like a no-brainer for most people. So, in any case, it's used for all kinds of communication, social, business, work, academic, people use it for everything, and if you wanna get "in the loop" and in contact with someone, you're pretty much socially forced to use it.
And of course, it has a very crappy 150 contact limit for your contact list. So when I maxed out, I had to sign myself up for another address so I could keep adding new contacts.
So, yeah, I use Hotmail, and why? Pretty much because society bends my arm to do it. Passport sucks, I use it for nothing. All my searches are Google, not MSN. In fact, I hate that horrible blue-purple MSN homepage. But if I don't wanna be a total social outcast and live under a rock around here, I've got to use that weird green-pawn thingy with the fucking butterfly, whatever it may really be.
... that's what they'd want you to believe, isn't it? That they're not all "out to get you" so you lower your guard, and then BAM, they get you. They can't fool me, I can see what they're doing, trying to undermine our voices, but they can't, they can't, I will not fall for their pathetic, childlike tricks...
Oh wait, someone's at the door...
First off, I do agree with that article being, well, not an article at all, but a news brief at the most. A more in-depth view is needed to really understand what's going on. But past that, I do agree with music piracy being a boost on sales and popularity, as it widens dramatically the potential market for any artist to not just people with 20 bucks but to people with MUCH much less who probably couldn't afford it at all otherwise.
Same thing happens with books, as pirated books, costing way cheaper than legits (at least in my country) find their way not only into a segment of the population's homes, but to a much broader market, and it is usually the widespread distribution through illegal channels that ends up dragging forward the non-pirate books or CDs or movies or whatever.
So, in a sense, piracy - despite its many cons - has the big pro of making culture (and yeah, a lot of garbage too) widely accesible to lots of people who, usually driven off by high prices, simply turn away in resignation. Knowledge for the masses, if you like, and in poor countries like my own, maybe the only working scenario to raise population's literacy levels.
Here in Peru, music distribution is pretty much monopolized by the big labels with money to import the CDs (since they're hardly manufactured locally), mostly from Colombia, whose recordings are, sadly and as far as i've been able to tell, signifcantly inferior in quality to those coming from other parts of the world, and, obviously, more expensive.
As you all probably know, we are a poor, third world country with a struggling economy, however big international labels find it coherent to charge an average of 20 bucks for CDs from any foreign artist, and since there's not a huge market (especially considering you can get pirate CDs for the equivalent of about $1,50, or less if you haggle), the selection is usually limited to your prefab-pop-boy/girl group-makes me wanna crawl up and vomit kinda "music". Seriously, going to a record store here is *almost* pathetic (with a few exceptions, of course).
Pirate CDs have impressive logistics, on the other hand. It is not uncommon to find a recently released album first on the pirate channel than on the formal one, and you'll end up forking out around $3 for a special edition double album (great quality, btw) against the $40 it would cost you on a store. They hardly notice the "struggling economy" bit . ..
So I turn to P2P, since, well, it's better, faster, more efficient, somewhat less "dark", and my selection of music - which goes from 60s brit rock to 2003 chillout music from east asia or whatever in the middle - is respectable. I truly feel terrible about not paying for all of this, but being realistic, if I dif pay those $30 for the official Pearl Jam bootleg of whatever date and place, I'm 100% certain they'd see not a cent of it. I promise I'll pay you back people, somehow sometime, if I ever get to meet any of you on my playlist, I promise to buy you a beer or something.
So, in conclusion, labels are corrupt and abusive, musicians are underappreciated and exploited world-wide, art will set us free, the third world must unite and stand together in order to rise, I owe a whole lot of beers, I refuse to feed the bastards running the RIAA who don't see their personal earnings even flinch about any of this, and, oh, the regular Kazaa totally sucks, K++ will never die. I hope...
While it is true that the US-USSR space race during the 60s and 70s was largely responsible for the quick developments and achievements, I can't help but interpret Bush's recent "space will" as not much more than political taunting, as in fear of the rise of China and potentially other powers out into space.
But since the Cold War is over, and I know it would take a huge leap of conceptual vision of how the world works, the age of competition as a worldwirde PR stance is over, and in comes the age of collaboration and friendly competition. If there was indeed a new space race, funds and efforts distributed in parallel and out of touch would be improductive to all of mankind, indeed. Joint efforts, however (very much in the spirit of Open Source in the 21st century), could certainly harness much more achievements with less time, effort and of course, money. I'm not an American, and i certainly wouldn't want the next flag on the moon to be stars and stripes, but instead something more Earth-planet-related.
Yeah, I know it's a long shot, but hell, it could happen.
Without even being European, when I first learnt about the Galileo project I found it an astonishingly important oppportunity to end the political/cultural/social/military international monopoly in at least one area. I can hardly conceive that a system as important as GPS is controlled by one nation only, having the entire world depend on it for so much. Galileo wasn't just important, hell, it was revolutionary. And now all of those nice feeligns are starting to fade...
Yes, this is a terrible setback for the project, for the EU, and for the rest of the world. Galileo might work and everything, sure, but when push comes to shove the US will have full powers to unplug it as if it were its own, or probably worse, to keep it running sending bogus information. This entire "imposing our system on the world" goes against the US' usual free markets and options discourse, but hell, they are usually hipocritical about it anyway.
I, for one, am afraid I cannot welcome our old-school dictatorial global positioning controller overlords. Real bummer.
As far as I've checked at the districts's websites, neither Miraflores nor San Isidro seem to have any plans regarding Open Source or IT in general. Barranco's doesn't specify anything either (though their website is still under construction), however it's interesting to note that both Miraflores' and San Isidros' websites are hosted on Microsoft servers, whereas Barranco's runs on a Linux platform (according to Netcraft, at least).
And yeah, it'd be really cool if our next president doesn't sell out to international corporations like our current one does. Lula's initiative in Brazil will hopefully attract other followers, especially considering the various regional integration plans under way (like the IIRSA with Peru, of which Toledo is a big fan of).
But, oh well, so little ever happens in the end here...
Funny thing was, after all the hassle of going over to Seattle and asking for help, they got a "measly" 500 grand, which was just about what the trip had cost in the first place.
Plan Huascaran is a terribly disorganized and not-thought-out plan. They've gone and installed hundreds of computers, yes, but it hasn't been unusual to realize, after the hardware was deployed, that there was no electrical connections available nearby, for instance, or telephone lines, or even decent classrooms. From where I see it, Plan Huascaran was more about good will and political showing off than what it really could have meant towards tech development here in Peru.
And yes, after the Gates accords pretty much everyone here into Open Source sighed in resignation, but initiatives are still floating around. One district here in Lima (the capital), the district of Barranco, had begun deployment of an Open Source plan to replace its entire software infrastructure. Others were to follow, but i'm not sure how much they accomplished.
Congressman Villanueva and others in parliament are still struggling to bring forward their proposal, but sadly, Microsoft and BSA lobbying is way too strong for alternative proposals. For some reason, Bill Gates is seen here as somewhat of a world hero, instead of what he really simolizes. Evil, that is.
Honor students, musicians or scouts can very well be messed up just as much as anybody else, actually. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if your kids were developing a profound apathy towards such activities, as you're probably forcing them into them and into the values they represent.
I'm 18 and have never been a scout, nor have I ever had any Internet restrictions of any type, in fact, as it usually happens, my Internet abilities far exceed that of my parents'. But no matter what kind of filter or monitor you try to set up, the only real tool you can be confident will work will be your own children's criteria to discern good information from bad information - and that's what you should be aiming for. When they finally get out into the "real world" as you parents like to call it, filters are gone, and it's up to yourself to handle all the information that jumps into your brain without asking for permission.
Oh, and by the way, no matter your age, you're always entitled to your privacy. It's just a matter of developing a personal space, and if you're intruding into your kids' just as you say you do, you may very well be building up some sort of paranoia on them - "there's always someone watching over your shoulder". Don't go Big Brother on your children, people, you'll only raise generations of Winston Smiths (although, from a certain perspective, that's not bad at all, but that's the subject for an entirely different philosophical discussion).
Rather than monitoring their actions and controlling their every move, try warning them of the risks involved (40-year-olds-posing-as-little-girls-in-chat-rooms come to mind), or urge them into asking openly about information they may find and may not totally understand (sexual, political, scientifical, whatever). Work with them, not against them.
We've all got our messed up side, not having it would be the actual messedupness. At least help your kids (us) be messed up properly and for ourselves, not inherit the previous generation's burden of complexes.
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The Hacker Ethic is not a set of guiding principles designed or built to promote the adaptation of programmers to development processes and business planning. And it shouldn't have to be.
Very well, you may want to train people within a different mindset prepared to fit into a process, acknowledge the existing rulebook and basically play nicely by it, working with others in developing business-oriented code for business purposes. But the Hacker Ethic is much more a cultural development for what was at its time mostly a subculture, than it is a series of well-defined principles for development. The Hacker Ethic emphasizes a series of value and skills that are perhaps way beyond a business development context - in that they belong much more in the future than they belong in the well-defined production/industrial contexts that we have come to tbe acquainted with.
So to put forth such an argument, that the Hacker Ethic harms developers' possibilities of conforming to market standards, is just that. It means conforming, thinking inside the box, and so on. Such is not the Hacker Ethic, and is not meant to be, and doesn't have to be. Just because there may be other, different objectives than those embodied in the HE, does not mean it needs to be put aside, transformed, or somehow modified. It's just different contexts.
The reason many people (myself included at some point) decide to use US-based services for different purposes is, in my view, quite reasonable. First of all, there's a matter of access: I can have access to much cheaper and better services via the web (i.e. web hosting) by choosing a foreign provider than a domestic one. Similarly for domain names - a generic .com domain hosted abroad costs about a tenth of what a similar domain would on my country's TLD.
The second possibility I see is more legally/politically concerned. It's much simpler for governments you may be trying to criticize to shut down your operation if it's based on a local provider than if it's based abroad - even if it's something as simple as it will take them longer to get it down.
So there's a reasoning behind using services abroad for your business or communication, and it is not necessarily "unwise". As for your comment - some very small scale operations will really have a hard time arranging for secondary providers and so on, so this might only be reserved for larger scale ops. I do agree with you in that it's very important - just perhaps not an option for anyone.
It will fade away slowly with time, until only four old geezers in the entire world, many, many years from now, are the only ones who can master that age-old, legendary art.
But then they will find an old nuclear missile satellite running on an old version of Unix which can only be hacked using CLI, and if it's not turned off (presumably right before Y2K38) it will launch a whole can of whopass and end the planet.
So they will have to send the old geezers up into space to turn off the satellite. Hilarity ensues.
I should probably write a movie script out of this. (Does that mean I should be on strike now?)
Not only that, the question as framed is terribly uninteresting. So there's tech where there's people, or vice-versa, doesn't really make a difference and doesn't really matter much. You could probably have said the same thing regarding any media, at any point in time where there was some sort of communication technology working in some city.
Things become interesting when we turn it around like you did. So yes, technology enables us to do lots of things, sure. But what's really interesting is what we do with the tech, even beyond what it was originally designed for. Therein lies their "real" consequences, if you want to call them like that.
I'm not being naive in denying that technology opens up new spaces of possibility about what we're able to do. I'm just saying that's mostly uninteresting, because those spaces we expect them to open up (what we design tech for) asre foreseeable. It's the unintended consequences that are far more interesting, the ways in which we apropriate technology and integrate it into culture, and do new stuff with it.
But that's freedom only on a strictly formal, institutional level. And that means very little in reality. As the OP said, without the money to buy a printing press, freedom of the press would mean nothing.
I do consider I have liberty in very high esteem, and I do think it is fundamental por societies to build upon it. However, that very same liberty means nothing if it is only implied in pieces of paper rather than acted upon by the social body (or even the State, if you like). Classical negative liberty, as in freedom of the State or "you're not the boss of me" conceptually considers individuals as atomic entities without substantial bounds amongs themselves, which is not true. Social bonds preexist you, you are born into a given context or another and are raised within a set of laws and customs. This is not to imply we're not free - only that freedom does not consist or cannot consist in denying the contexts of meaning upon which freedom evolved.
Somewhere above another poster was considering that if you didn't like your state's laws, then you should just move somewhere you liked the laws. And that's easy to say and think, but in reality, leaving your friends and family, the people and places you're used to, the memories, and so on, make it not such a clear-cut choice. Moreover, that very same notion of being a part of that place and having an interest on what happens there (so you will not want to move somewhere else) gives you a say on the process how such things come about. In other words, if you don't like the laws, you're entitled to participate on changing them (or barring them from being unlikable in the first place).
So, although freedom is of the most importance, it cannot be realistically taken as an absolute. Theoretically, sure, you can conceive of it, but must deal with the consequences of such a belief for it to be acceptable. In reality, several factors condition the way in which we make decisions and take action and effectively limit or shape our freedom. It is certainly not as simple as saying someone who doesn't have wealth, chose not too. Personally, I consider such a thing not only wrong, but dangerous. My experience is certainly different: I live in a poor country in which we have formal freedoms, but in which a vast amount of people manage to support and feed a family on a day to day basis. Their children are not fed properly and that will affect their mental capabilities if they are ever sent to study at school, instead of working on the streets. You could stand by your statements (as I would expect you would) and argue that these people are making choices, they are managing to create wealth by themselves and survive, and are thus exercising their freedoms. By earning those 2 dollars a day with which they manage, they're proving individuals create their own wealth and open up their own possibilities. I consider such a thing a blatant disregard for humanity, and a comfortable thought from a comfortable position.
Just by denying the fact that we live in societies and from there deducing all sorts of consequences about people getting of your lawn, does not make it valid, much less desirable. Freedom from something is useless unless you have freedom to do something. Not only that, but formal freedom is unstable unless there is actually a material, substantial freedom for people to develop themselves within the support networks of society. I refer you to the work done by Amartya Sen on the subject, and his studies on how the appearance and stability of political freedoms are related to the distribution of goods and wealth.
I think your story presents an interesting question in the light of the recent oppose copyright/support open source debate.
Maybe. I mean, with harsher enforcement of copyright, your friend would have a bigger legit business instead of just configuring pirated Cubase. The pressure of enforcement would most likely drive that very market sector to more affordable setups, therefore to your friend's service.
Transition wise, at least. A world without copyright could probably still maintain the same service structure for your friend's business (which makes it, IMO, a much more complete business model), but for such a model to catch on, maybe copyright has to really work. In other words, maybe DRM will really kill copyright.
Isn't the point, or rather than the point, the by-product of free software like Linux to turn software deployment into a service? I understand how for a musician, it's preferable to just get a Mac because it just works rather than to fiddle around with Linux for a week. But shouldn't that create a market for cheaper-than-macs, semi-pro systems custom-made by Linux geeks? I can see a service where a programmer or developer could specialize in audio hardware and software for Linux, and make a living out of setting up these sorts of systems por musicians or studios not willing to invest the money it would cost to set up a Mac-based studio (especially in regards to licenses). For the musician, it just works and it's transparent; the developer handles the inner-workings.
Am I wrong here? Is it not economically feasible? My first and foremost concern would be if the possible revenues justify such a project. Still, sounds like a fun way to make a living for a Linux geek/audiophile/musician.
I don't get this, where did group 3 supposedly come from? Haven't seen anything posted on critics getting laptops, this is just rather Microsoft giving freebies to people giving it freebies in the first place.
I fail to see how this could be counter-productive. Group 1 will be happy, they get laptops. They're a select few -the laptop-to-microsoft-blogger ratio must still be pretty high- to which group 2 will want to gain access. Group 3 I consider non-existent, whereas group 4 will keep on doing what they do, albeit with the minor difference that some of them will actually fell tempted to blog Microsoft for the chance of a laptop. And of course, as pointed out, group 5 will appear.
Yes, sure, there's the negative interpretacion wherein everyone gets resented at Microsoft for not giving them prezzies, but I think that's take it one step too far. In fact, MS has appealed to one of the oldest trick in the book: free stuff. People will want a chance to get free stuff; many will resist and criticize the move, but even among the critics, some "soldiers" among the ranks will feel the temptation of an Acer Ferrari, and though that might very well be publicly condemned, there are countless others out there that, even they resenting themselves for doing so, are just looking for a way to justify the acceptance of such a gift, just for the mere possibility than when given some random similar chance, they could accept it without blame or remorse.
It does sound horrible, it very well might be unethical; but it is nothing short of a smart move.
Just to add some thoughts based on some things I've been thinking about lately.
I haven't had too much of an approach on semantic web concepts being developed; I certainly will work on that after this thread. My interest, though, comes mostly from philosophy (and other things I want to add into the mix): I want to look into the possibility of our cognitive processes, the way we're dealing with information and transforming that information into knowledge, is either being shaped by our interactions with technology, shaping the technology we're interacting with, or both. This would somehow, I think, require some sort of mutability in the way we learn and the way we know, which is, of course, complicated hypothesis (but then again, who knows?).
This is all still in its infancy, I don't even know how viable it will be, but it is still fun. Our interactions with technology are transforming our interactions with the world and with other people, and this whole 'tagging' process, bears some resemblance with the tagging of the world that is the construction of language (clearly I still have a lot of research to do on language acquisition and cognitive sciences). And in a similar fashion as words are taken up and used commonly -being, after all, arbitrary pointers towards objets-, perhaps are tags applied to content.
It's all still pretty blurry to me. I just wanted to add to your comments on the value of the semantic web, as it is probably an indication of how we're perceiving our own minds to be working, but, of course, not all minds are working the same way (for starters, not everyone has access to the technology involved, or the knowledge required to use it), which makes it hard to expect it to be easily adopted. Or something along those lines. I see profoundly interesting possibilities for the concept as a research subject for the time being, but still, to catch on massively, a whole lot still has to happen, particularly on bringing access to everyone.
Oh well.
I know I'm just speculating here, but could there be a chance that the original author wanted all of this to happen? The Bean itself not being the intended result, but instead the resulting controversy, and all the attention brought to the whole issue of copyrights and intellectual property abuses.
I don't really know anything from the artist to support this, it's just a possibility which I though would be interesting. It's just so stupid that you'd want to think it was actually done on purpose, so what if it was? Argumentation through radicalization. If whoever sculpted The Bean wanted to prove this point, then taking it to this radical extreme, the actual total collapse of public space as actually public, then he might have gotten what he/she wanted for.
Especially considering two things: first, it's entirely reflective, so as many people have said, just place another copyrighted work in front of it and sue. It's a joke, I know, but it's just as silly as this whole thing. The reflective nature of the work might be trying to tell us something. Second, what has happened afterwards, that is, Chicago bloggers uniting to take photographs of The Bean and display them all over the place, as a form of civil disobedience. Being so many people and so many pictures, they can hardly stop them all, yet they're all bringing more and more attention to the whole issue of "copyrighting public space".
Yeah, I know, just wild speculation, but I dunno, I wished it was actually all about this than it being the real deal. Best shot I've seen so far: a guy photographing his own reflection, caption: "I am my own copyright". It's gotta mean something, I guess.
Being from Peru, I'd like to clarify some of your points. There's internationally a lot of confusion regarding exactly what happened (or is happening right now) with Fujimori and his top adviser, Vladimiro Montesinos. First of all, Fujimori WAS a dictator: he performed a coup d'etat against himself in 1992, overthrowing the Constitution and basically doing whatever the hell he wanted until international pressure forced him to proclaim a new one, the year after, which of course largely favoured him. There's still a lot of debate here over wether we should go back to the 1979 Constitution -the last valid one- or instead just focus on ammending the 1993 text where it is needed.
Peru suffered through 20 years of internal conflicts, which haven't really settled even nowadays. The main terrorist group, responsible for 54% of the almost 70,000 dead during that time, was Shining Path, a maoist, pol-potian, fundamentalist rebel group which spared no one. During the 80s, democratically elected governments relinquished responsibility on the internal war to the military, which in turn gained power, but largely failed against SP when applying conventional warfare mentality against guerrilla tactics. It was not until 1989 that new, intelligence-based tactics where put in place which eventually lead to the capture of SP's main heads.
So yes, Shining Path was a huge threat, but the tactics supported by Fujimori were largely the military-based ones, as we was quite reliant on the military to support his own power. Human rights were completely disregarded, people arrested denied a fair trial, even access to a lawyer. There were mass executions we may never know of, thousands of missing persons, paramilitary operatives working beyond the scope of the law. It was horrible times, during which Fujimori used the excuse of security and prosperity to actually extend his own reach on anything and everything going on in the country. This all the time with the close help of Montesinos, carefully pulling the strings of the newly elected parliament and the justice system.
Which brings us to corruption. Justice is very, very slow in Peru. For a long time, if you wanted your case to be dealt with in a shorter time, and also, with the result being in your favour, you had to visit Montesinos's infamous little room at the National Intelligence Service headquarters, and pay your respects. This was all videotaped, as Montesinos was sort of paranoid and voyeuristic, apparently: videos are still surfacing to this day, showing prominent political and ecomonical figures either paying or receiving money from the president's chief adviser. Corruption grew rampant across all state entities. Montesinos has even been proven links with top druglords at the time, from whom he collected money in exchange for having the military not interfere with their operations. Large part of this was known by the CIA, as was his previous, questionable background from years ago.
It is true that terrorism came tumbling down during Fujimori, but it can hardly be said it was largely because of him. Moreover, his actions led to thousands of innocent deaths, and to the building of a corruption network which pulled the strings on everything that happened in this country, and to a point, still does. In the last years of his unconstitutional second term as president, his economic achievements crumbeld upon themselves and led to recession and massive unemployment and underemployment. He built thousands of schools nationwide: after the TV inaugurations, many of them are falling in pieces, or have no electricity or running water. The justice system is swamped, not only with their regular workload, but also by all of the special corruption cases that have to be dealt with. And now, with all of the terrorist cases that have to be tried again, because the original trials have are invalid, being unconstitutional. Hundreds of innocent people were tried without even knowing Spanish (Quechua speakers from the mountain region, primarily), and are right now serving sen
Is is true that all software requires maintenance and support, but even though that's especially true of Linux and OSS, I think that comes as an added plus, especially when related to large-scale deployment in developing countries. With proprietary software, the money goes to licenses mostly and perhaps some kind of support deal, and most support issues will probably be dealt with tech support outside the developing countries. In other words, they just get shiny new software, but little on the side (although there's definitely always something on the side, it's just little).
On the other hand, I see OSS as a great way to push the development of new job sectors and technology markets within a country. Your license costs becomes nil, but that same money (which a government, for example, would probably be investing anyway) now goes to local tech staff and engineers who will not only install the services but also run and maintain them. New jobs created. And, since it's all open source, you don't have to settle with what comes out of the box, but you can actually have it tailored to your needs, using, of course, local programmers. New jobs.
Not only does that bring more money into the local IT markets, but having the software open in the future you leave the door open for expansion and thus needing more support and maintenance people, which could lead to a bigger importance in IT education and government and private spending in the sector.
I'd rather see all that money companies and governments usually shell out for XP licenses and such -which amount to really big bucks- being driven into something which, for the country and themselves, will serve a higher purpose in the long run. Not only that, but actually proving to be more useful, as you now have local support for anything and full customization at your disposal, instead of having to settle for what MS or any other company might provide you (like 3-piece multitasking or something).
Here in Peru, the government is currently in the middle of negotiations regarding our own US-Peru free trade agreement. There's a lot of hype about it, most people consider it to be the great economic panacea which will solve most of our terrible economic problems, and the one instrument which may single-handedly bring us out of underdevelopment. I say 'Ha!', but I don't think they really care about my opinion.
Anyway, mainstream media is nothing but sugar talk for the FTA, and have hardly noticed all of the fine print, especially regarding "enhancements" on our IP law, or other areas of our Constitution - essentially opening wide for foreign investment without any kind of protection for our inner markets.
So, to the point, as a sort of mini Ask Slashdot: how would you go about publicizing these little known issues, particularly the IP one, especially when most of the mainstream media just tries to shush any voices that are just not complying with their views? These are legitimate issues which could very possibly rally valuable support, yet none of it is being mentioned, anywhere, just the positive aspects of the agreement are publicized, particularly by the government. As far as I know, similar issues are popping all through Latin America, perhaps even other places. I would certainly appreciate any insight from Australians who've just went through this, or anybody else with similar experiences, which we may possibly adapt to our local scenarios.
I actually have two. But I have a perfectly valid excuse for that.
Here in Lima, Peru, you're pretty much stuck with it. Pretty much every beginner getting an e-mail address gets the tip from another newbie, "hey, get hotmail", and it's not because of the e-mail address itself or anything, but because of MSN Messenger. IM network usage is definitely a geographic phenomenon: Lima just happens to be an MSN Messenger city.
Which sucks, since a few years ago we were an ICQ city, and for a while we were becoming a Yahoo city. But MSN caught on and beat everyone out of it - most probably because, well, it's bundled with th OS, so it's like a no-brainer for most people. So, in any case, it's used for all kinds of communication, social, business, work, academic, people use it for everything, and if you wanna get "in the loop" and in contact with someone, you're pretty much socially forced to use it.
And of course, it has a very crappy 150 contact limit for your contact list. So when I maxed out, I had to sign myself up for another address so I could keep adding new contacts.
So, yeah, I use Hotmail, and why? Pretty much because society bends my arm to do it. Passport sucks, I use it for nothing. All my searches are Google, not MSN. In fact, I hate that horrible blue-purple MSN homepage. But if I don't wanna be a total social outcast and live under a rock around here, I've got to use that weird green-pawn thingy with the fucking butterfly, whatever it may really be.
... that's what they'd want you to believe, isn't it? That they're not all "out to get you" so you lower your guard, and then BAM, they get you. They can't fool me, I can see what they're doing, trying to undermine our voices, but they can't, they can't, I will not fall for their pathetic, childlike tricks ...
Oh wait, someone's at the door ...
First off, I do agree with that article being, well, not an article at all, but a news brief at the most. A more in-depth view is needed to really understand what's going on. But past that, I do agree with music piracy being a boost on sales and popularity, as it widens dramatically the potential market for any artist to not just people with 20 bucks but to people with MUCH much less who probably couldn't afford it at all otherwise.
Same thing happens with books, as pirated books, costing way cheaper than legits (at least in my country) find their way not only into a segment of the population's homes, but to a much broader market, and it is usually the widespread distribution through illegal channels that ends up dragging forward the non-pirate books or CDs or movies or whatever.
So, in a sense, piracy - despite its many cons - has the big pro of making culture (and yeah, a lot of garbage too) widely accesible to lots of people who, usually driven off by high prices, simply turn away in resignation. Knowledge for the masses, if you like, and in poor countries like my own, maybe the only working scenario to raise population's literacy levels.
Here in Peru, music distribution is pretty much monopolized by the big labels with money to import the CDs (since they're hardly manufactured locally), mostly from Colombia, whose recordings are, sadly and as far as i've been able to tell, signifcantly inferior in quality to those coming from other parts of the world, and, obviously, more expensive.
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As you all probably know, we are a poor, third world country with a struggling economy, however big international labels find it coherent to charge an average of 20 bucks for CDs from any foreign artist, and since there's not a huge market (especially considering you can get pirate CDs for the equivalent of about $1,50, or less if you haggle), the selection is usually limited to your prefab-pop-boy/girl group-makes me wanna crawl up and vomit kinda "music". Seriously, going to a record store here is *almost* pathetic (with a few exceptions, of course).
Pirate CDs have impressive logistics, on the other hand. It is not uncommon to find a recently released album first on the pirate channel than on the formal one, and you'll end up forking out around $3 for a special edition double album (great quality, btw) against the $40 it would cost you on a store. They hardly notice the "struggling economy" bit . .
So I turn to P2P, since, well, it's better, faster, more efficient, somewhat less "dark", and my selection of music - which goes from 60s brit rock to 2003 chillout music from east asia or whatever in the middle - is respectable. I truly feel terrible about not paying for all of this, but being realistic, if I dif pay those $30 for the official Pearl Jam bootleg of whatever date and place, I'm 100% certain they'd see not a cent of it. I promise I'll pay you back people, somehow sometime, if I ever get to meet any of you on my playlist, I promise to buy you a beer or something.
So, in conclusion, labels are corrupt and abusive, musicians are underappreciated and exploited world-wide, art will set us free, the third world must unite and stand together in order to rise, I owe a whole lot of beers, I refuse to feed the bastards running the RIAA who don't see their personal earnings even flinch about any of this, and, oh, the regular Kazaa totally sucks, K++ will never die. I hope
While it is true that the US-USSR space race during the 60s and 70s was largely responsible for the quick developments and achievements, I can't help but interpret Bush's recent "space will" as not much more than political taunting, as in fear of the rise of China and potentially other powers out into space.
But since the Cold War is over, and I know it would take a huge leap of conceptual vision of how the world works, the age of competition as a worldwirde PR stance is over, and in comes the age of collaboration and friendly competition. If there was indeed a new space race, funds and efforts distributed in parallel and out of touch would be improductive to all of mankind, indeed. Joint efforts, however (very much in the spirit of Open Source in the 21st century), could certainly harness much more achievements with less time, effort and of course, money. I'm not an American, and i certainly wouldn't want the next flag on the moon to be stars and stripes, but instead something more Earth-planet-related.
Yeah, I know it's a long shot, but hell, it could happen.
Without even being European, when I first learnt about the Galileo project I found it an astonishingly important oppportunity to end the political/cultural/social/military international monopoly in at least one area. I can hardly conceive that a system as important as GPS is controlled by one nation only, having the entire world depend on it for so much. Galileo wasn't just important, hell, it was revolutionary. And now all of those nice feeligns are starting to fade ...
Yes, this is a terrible setback for the project, for the EU, and for the rest of the world. Galileo might work and everything, sure, but when push comes to shove the US will have full powers to unplug it as if it were its own, or probably worse, to keep it running sending bogus information. This entire "imposing our system on the world" goes against the US' usual free markets and options discourse, but hell, they are usually hipocritical about it anyway.
I, for one, am afraid I cannot welcome our old-school dictatorial global positioning controller overlords. Real bummer.
As far as I've checked at the districts's websites, neither Miraflores nor San Isidro seem to have any plans regarding Open Source or IT in general. Barranco's doesn't specify anything either (though their website is still under construction), however it's interesting to note that both Miraflores' and San Isidros' websites are hosted on Microsoft servers, whereas Barranco's runs on a Linux platform (according to Netcraft, at least).
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And yeah, it'd be really cool if our next president doesn't sell out to international corporations like our current one does. Lula's initiative in Brazil will hopefully attract other followers, especially considering the various regional integration plans under way (like the IIRSA with Peru, of which Toledo is a big fan of).
But, oh well, so little ever happens in the end here
(Note: all links are in Spanish)
Funny thing was, after all the hassle of going over to Seattle and asking for help, they got a "measly" 500 grand, which was just about what the trip had cost in the first place.
Plan Huascaran is a terribly disorganized and not-thought-out plan. They've gone and installed hundreds of computers, yes, but it hasn't been unusual to realize, after the hardware was deployed, that there was no electrical connections available nearby, for instance, or telephone lines, or even decent classrooms. From where I see it, Plan Huascaran was more about good will and political showing off than what it really could have meant towards tech development here in Peru.
And yes, after the Gates accords pretty much everyone here into Open Source sighed in resignation, but initiatives are still floating around. One district here in Lima (the capital), the district of Barranco, had begun deployment of an Open Source plan to replace its entire software infrastructure. Others were to follow, but i'm not sure how much they accomplished.
Congressman Villanueva and others in parliament are still struggling to bring forward their proposal, but sadly, Microsoft and BSA lobbying is way too strong for alternative proposals. For some reason, Bill Gates is seen here as somewhat of a world hero, instead of what he really simolizes. Evil, that is.
Honor students, musicians or scouts can very well be messed up just as much as anybody else, actually. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if your kids were developing a profound apathy towards such activities, as you're probably forcing them into them and into the values they represent.
s come to mind), or urge them into asking openly about information they may find and may not totally understand (sexual, political, scientifical, whatever). Work with them, not against them.
I'm 18 and have never been a scout, nor have I ever had any Internet restrictions of any type, in fact, as it usually happens, my Internet abilities far exceed that of my parents'. But no matter what kind of filter or monitor you try to set up, the only real tool you can be confident will work will be your own children's criteria to discern good information from bad information - and that's what you should be aiming for. When they finally get out into the "real world" as you parents like to call it, filters are gone, and it's up to yourself to handle all the information that jumps into your brain without asking for permission.
Oh, and by the way, no matter your age, you're always entitled to your privacy. It's just a matter of developing a personal space, and if you're intruding into your kids' just as you say you do, you may very well be building up some sort of paranoia on them - "there's always someone watching over your shoulder". Don't go Big Brother on your children, people, you'll only raise generations of Winston Smiths (although, from a certain perspective, that's not bad at all, but that's the subject for an entirely different philosophical discussion).
Rather than monitoring their actions and controlling their every move, try warning them of the risks involved (40-year-olds-posing-as-little-girls-in-chat-room
We've all got our messed up side, not having it would be the actual messedupness. At least help your kids (us) be messed up properly and for ourselves, not inherit the previous generation's burden of complexes.