[cc-community] Omigod. The world just turned upsidedown.
Ben Roberts
ben.l.roberts at gmail.com
Sat Mar 10 04:19:13 EST 2007
So far as I can tell F/LOSS has never been the 'exclusive terrain of
the political left'. Its politics have always been deeply divided
between right-wing libertarians and left-wing models. Even the
nominally left-wing advocates sound liberal rather than left-wing in
their rhetoric (the focus on freedom, as in free software, rather than
on ownership, for example, or, to put it in classical political terms,
the favouring of liberty over equality and fraternity). Of course,
that doesn't mean you can't put a compelling left-wing spin on the
movement.
best,
Ben
On 3/9/07, Aaron Shaw <adshaw80 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Did the world really turn upside down? Politicians (especially conservative
> ones in neoliberal democracies) capturing and exploiting trends that enable
> them to downsize state expenses and claim popular empowerment at the same
> time doesn't seem like anything too new to me (cf. the Reagan
> administration)...
>
> Rather, I would say that this is an event which heralds the extent to which
> F/LOSS has achieved widespread political and corporate legitimacy such that
> it will no longer remain the exclusive terrain of the political "left."
> Besides, leftist politicians have also utilized F/LOSS to reinforce their
> populist and anti-neoliberal/anti-microsoft public appeal. In other words,
> this is business - and by extension politics - as usual.
>
> Just my 2¢
>
>
> Aaron Shaw
>
>
>
>
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>
>
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> On 3/9/07, David Berry < d.berry at sussex.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Open source politics
> >
> >
> > Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has promised that an incoming
> Conservative (UK) government would create a level playing field for open
> source software in the UK, in a move which could save taxpayers more than
> £600 million a year.
> >
> > In a speech at the Royal Society of Arts, he also announced the
> appointment of Mark Thompson, of the Judge Business School at Cambridge
> University, to advise the Party on how to make Britain the open source
> leader in Europe.
> >
> > Mr Osborne reckoned that opening up the market in software would enable
> the Government to slash 5 per cent off Whitehall's annual IT bill, because
> open software allows users to read, change and improve its code, in contrast
> to proprietary software where a company controls the source code.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=135394
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
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