permaculture

[jedd <jedd@progsoc.org>]

On Monday 22 January 2007 1:51 pm, chauncey williams wrote:
 ] I have always believed in sharing whatever I have to anyone who is
 ] looking.  Sharing software is a no-no, and I should have known
 ] better, but I want to see the permaculture activist succeed and I
 ] wanted offer what I could.  

 I think a point is being missed here.

 Sharing software is okay - you just need to be more careful with which
 software you're talking about.   In this particular instance you were
 referring to software that is encumbered with licences that disallow
 copying (amongst other things).

 I feel an analogy coming on .. something about that continent over
 there {pointing} that's being offered assistance in the form of
 terminator seeds that will lock their entire food production system
 up in ways we haven't even dreamed about yet.

 Consider a scenario where, as an example, the Permaculture Activist
 seeks assistance with their publishing activities.

 Let's say you provided them copies of proprietary software - Flash,
 Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Quark, etc - software you had purchased
 and then gifted, in the belief that you were doing a good deed.

 What happens when the PA asks someone to help with some DTP layout,
 editing an image, developing a web page, etc?  Anyone wanting to help
 now has a significant $-hurdle to get past just to be able to offer
 some assistance.  They're now also obliged to be running a certain
 type of computer and a certain operating system - more $-hurdles.

 The format of the documents produced by these systems necessarily
 preclude people who can't afford to buy those systems -- you've just
 removed a significant number of resources from the pool of people
 who'd like to help.

 Perhaps worse, the PA is then lumbered with a commitment to
 joining the upgrade cycle - a significant $-burden over the life of
 the files they've produced (perhaps a few decades).  And getting
 off that merry-go-round is ever a painful process.

 The good deed is starting to look like a beige elephant.

 Dude -- I have no legal qualms with you copying software, but I do
 have concerns about the ethical implications of such activities.

 There are serious flow-on effects from merely advocating that we
 lose our freedoms.  The parallels with what Permies are forever
 fighting in the 'real world' are astonishing, and I'm constantly
 surprised that more people don't get 'it' -- both 'its', I mean,
 the real and the virtual.

 Rhetoric about your preference that other people adopt your way
 of thinking, and share their creative output with you for free, is
 a bit misplaced -- in part because there's plenty of people who
 already adopt those beliefs (though probably with slightly different
 motivations) and you've just discounted all their efforts by offering
 commercial / proprietary / closed-format systems -- and partly
 because you'd likely be fairly annoyed if they were convincing you
 to adopt *their* attitudes towards privatising everything.

 Jedd.