Potential of Free Software in the social space (was: [ox-en] Hi there.)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 14:32:11 +0100
Hi Merv and list!
Last month (51 days ago) Mervyn Robert Hammer wrote:
I feel I should introduce myself.
:-)
My name is Merv and I have been
researching and writing about the relationship between the computing
experience and (democratic) freedom for a while now. Naturally, I am a free
software advocate and a free software developer myself, as well as a
professional developer for a small Norwegian company here in Cyprus, near
the Middle East.
This is the nice thing in English lists: People from all parts of the
world participate :-) .
Of special interest to me are the ways in which the architecture and design
of both software and hardware can be shown to impact directly and
indirectly on the freedom of the user, in the context of computer-use
I'm always emphasizing the technique of configuration. IMHO any
software should come with a standard configuration useful for the most
users and a hell lot of configuration options useful for people who
want and like to roll their own flavor of software. To me this allows
for maximum freedom / selbstentfaltung on both parts, the quick /
one-time user and the permanent user of a software.
Moreover, there is the additional aspect of alienation from the use
value separating proprietary and Free Software. A proprietary software
vendor is interested in making money and if that means to limit the
freedom of its customer a vendor will do that - at least in principle
and the more the vendor has a monopoly in the field.
A Free Software author, however, is interested in the freedom of the
users and so a Free Software author is interested in users knowing how
to make the best out of the software.
and
also in a broader social framework, most notably by re-locating
conventional sources of legitimate behaviour and redefining what are
acceptable choices and what are not.
Very interesting. I guess you heard of Lawrence Lessig? Unfortunately
until yet I didn't find the time to study his work more, but as a
professor of law he is one of the more knowledgeable people in the
field.
I study the effects and trends in
both proprietary and free software from phenomenological/ontological and
epistemological angles in particular, paying most attention to the ways in
which our evolving use of computers and the evolution of computers
themselves are changing us as social collectives and as individuals in a
democratic world-view. In relation to free software, I am interested in
the ways in which it may be possible to demonstrate the importance of the
role of free software in defining and safeguarding freedoms that we have
formerly entrusted to broader, more conventionally ideological/policitcal
methodologies such as the electoral system
"And the state" I guess.
and the ways in which free
software may become a catalyst for future, more 'constructivist' systems of
knowledge and information that have a spontaneous, non-heirarchical, 'free'
form. My writing and research has formulated around the ways in which
software and computers, the computing experience itself, is both the
product of and a medium for a pernicious social engineering that is
increasingly threatening our universally recognised human and civil rights
to privacy, freedom of choice and the sanctity of our individually and
collectively chosen identities.
I think if we are thinking about witnessing a revolution (in the
broader sense) there are new rights (or whatever the correct term may
be then) which are even more important than the ones from before the
revolution.
The implicit and consistent working thesis
underlying my writing is therefore that free software shall and should
feature prominently in our grass-roots defense of our freedoms and in our
critical re-appraisal of social models and systems of knowing for the
future.
Welcome :-) !
I guess, therefore, that my interests concur mostly with the *implicit
possibility* of your second proposition: that of value/importance of free
software in the construction of a new social framework.
Yes, this sounds like being a part of the Oekonux research pretty
much.
I hope,
nevertheless, to be able to contribute something useful to your global,
egalitarian and hope-inspiring discussion forum.
:-)
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
___________________________
Unread: 14 [ox], 92 [ox-en]
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/