[matilda] Open source philosophy

[dan at aktivix.org]

Love is something if you give it away,
Give it away, give it away.
Love is something if you give it away;
You end up having more.

It's just like a magic penny;
Hold it tight, and you won't have any;
Lend and spend it, and you'll have so many
They'll roll all over the floor.

Allo all,

Some thoughts bouncing off this excellent article in the Guardian today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1564447,00.html

"Ever since computer programmers began collaborating online to build software
applications, the "open source" movement has been developing into a serious
rival to the multinational software companies. Since the term was coined in the
late 90s, open source has rapidly matured from an egalitarian approach to
software design into a movement whose practices underpin the internet. More
recently, it has begun to represent the seed of an ideology, whose approach to
openness and sharing is spilling over into the wider world."

"... open source has led to a revolution in the way we think about the
production of software - who owns and controls the mortar that binds the modern
world - and now its ideas are spreading beyond the confines of computer
programming."

This is something that Chris has talked about a lot before: how open source is a
different model for the way things could be - and its happening right now.

I've sent this to the Matilda list too coz I think open source should be
fundamental to the way the whole project works.  And, if we're dreaming, how it
should work into the future...

The Gig collective have already talked about DIY culture.  Thinking about it in
Open Source terms shines a new light on this.

The song / poem I started with kinda gets to the point - except if you change
love for code, or music, art, knowledge or stories?

Code, for example, shows that there's a way to think about things that's beyond
the public / private split that everyone, including lefties, have been stuck
in.  Its either been "this is owned by The People" (meaning the State - which
often means a small nomenklatura of family-jewel-stealing party bods at the
top.)  

Or "let's privatize everything!"  Again, so that 'the People' are supposed to
own it.  Once again, though, everything ends up controlled by a small clique of
powerful corporations, squeezing profit from everything they can, and forcing
us to sit in cinemas reading signs that tell us to rat on our neighbour if
they're filming it, coz the film is the company's 'property'.

"Lyrics by kind permission, even though we wrote them" - Radiohead making a
slightly impotent point in the sleeve of OK Computer.  Kind permission of EMI?
Our f**king music, f**kers!

And open source?  Well - the more you give the code away, the more people out
there can use it, change it, and work in forums together to create fantastic,
evolving software.  And the thing is - nobody owns it.  And everybody does. 
Not the state, not 'the People'.  Its not privatised (at least in Europe,
despite the best efforts of some...).  Not you, not me.

That doesn't quite work for things you can drop on your foot, like guitar amps. 
But it does show how its possible for there to be a different way of being and
working.  And that's what MATILDA should be.  Open source to the core.  None of
that means you don't acknowledge the roots of what work you do, but it does
mean we don't sit in corners, huddled over our property, scowling.

Aaanyway... I could go on, but I should probably be doing some work...

See ya

love

Dan