Ray E. Harrell wrote:
>
> Just a question. Who pays the salaries for all of these
> folks doing free things and giving up their ideas for nothing?
>
[snip]
> someone always pays
> the bill. People do have to eat.
Very good question. Sounds to me like a good
research project for some sociologists!
>
> Also the first post that ascribed this to communism
> seems strange since that involves committees. It
> seems more accurately to be a Democratic process,
> not unlike the cultures of many pre-Columbian societies
> here. [snip]
Two points here:
(1) Ray's definition of "communism" seems to be
oriented to what came out of the Bolschevik revolution
and *called* itself "Communist" while *being* more
fascist, etc. If we're willing to give up the word
"communism" to the Right-wingers, then how about:
"anarcho-syndicalism"?
(2) Whatever one wishes to call a *material*
democratic process in which the workers are
also the policy makers, I wonder how such a
process applies to a bunch of *computer
programmers*, who, in my experience, have
a vision of human social interaction limited
by *science fiction*, which, for the most
part, seems to be very existentially "thin"
and to have an ideal of a rebirth of feudalism
in flying fortresses (Star Wars, etc.).
My guess is that many of the "free software"
programmers have little notion of any social
process, and that their vision of a "free software
community" is merely an epiphenomenon of whatever
*real* social system provides them
with computers and pizza (yes, even programmers
have to eat...). The present Global Capitalism probably
suits many of them just fine (Joseph Weizenbaum
argued that the computer has been one of the
most powerful forces for social reaction in
the 20th Century).
I would like to see technical workers develop a
richer sense of what it means to be human
(including what it means to do computer
programming), and to thematize the
political nature of what they do (whatever it
is). For, as Sartre said: To not choose is to
choose [for what will happen if persons
don't do anything to change it]. And, to quote
from imperfect memory, Joseph Weizenbaum:
I hope that, as the discipline of computer
science matures, its practitioners will mature
also, and that, whatever thsy do, they will
think about it, so that those who come after
them will not wish they had not done it.
\brad mccormick
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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