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  • From: Alex McCausland <alex1mcc@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Information monopoly
  • Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:56:13 -0800 (PST)

“Do you mean to say that the vast majority of the World?s population that
lives on less than 2 USD a day owns computers and high-speed Internet
connections to download PDF files?”
“my experience from eastern India is that people who are fluent enough to
read english and have access to land are rare and people generally have no
access to internet, especially if living
outside of monetary economy.”
Well we don’t have ANY “high speed” connections here in Ethiopia, especially
not farmers, but have you never heard of a thing called EXTENSION. What if I
download the manual (even on my dial-up at $0.007/minute) and print of 1 copy
then photo copy it 100 times. I can then distribute this to 100 different
organisations that work with  farmers around the country. None of them may
have been interested to buy the DM for $100, but one or two may actually leaf
through and get interested, then we may stand a chance of getting some PC
implemented on the ground, with illiterate peasant gladly taking on the (new) 
Gospel of PC and cooperative design. Do you think the missionaries that
turned up in Konso 50 years  ago could have been successful if they had to
pay Jesus $100 for every copy of the Bible they used!? (Could any of those
peasants who now spend their Sunday mornings screaming Allelujah at their
empty fields actually read the bible? Maybe they
will spend Monday doing cooperative design sessions so their fields can be
full, with a free DM) According to your philosophy, in order to do this I
should have to pay $10,000 to Tigari (assuming $100 per copy would cover it)
instead of $25 for photocopying. Not only that I have to wait a month for the
books to turn up from Tazmania. Now Bill may live a good old frugal
lifestyle, that’s not the point, the point is that it’s Permaculture, not
himself, which really matters. I don’t care about tigari, if I can get a
village to feed itself. For the same $10,000 we can give a full PDC to to 10
school teachers and implement a follow up program in 5 schools with 64 days
of consultancy monitoring and feed-back in each school. In other-words we can
take a big step towards generating food security for 5 communities. I don’t
see why Tigari should take that money. Yes Bill wrote the book, but what is
the USE of the book if it’s only there for the white
upper-middles of the anglo-saxon empire.
“Copyright infringement in the third World is not an issue.? As long as
people don?t try to amass a fortune that way it is by and large tolerated.”
That’s great then put the link back up. Who’s trying to amass a fortune here?
The guy just stuck up a link to a FREE online version and was formally warned
to take it down, or else...
“How and when Tagari decides to distribute their property is their business.
Ethics is the cornerstone of Permaculture and I support intellectual property
rights.”
SO DOES MONSANTO, that is their BUSINESS too. What about the patents on
Malaria and HIV drugs that mean Africans are the ones unable to buy them,
despite being the ones that need them the MOST?  BIZNISS is what it’s all
about. If the DM belongs to 1 person or 1 company then its USE to the WORLD
is severely LIMITED, I would say that is the most important ETHICAL issue
here. Sure it may not be good news for Tigari if the DM is available free to
all people that have access to an internet connection, but you can bet you
boots that the DM is gonna reach A LOT more people in A LOT more places than
it was under the former, NOW_OUT_DATED_MODE_OF_DISTRIBUTION.  Bill should be
HAPPY about the net gain for the Human race and this big step forwards in the
RE-greening of the DUNYA.
Salam
www.permalodge.org



>From zfgaugush@gmail.com Sun Nov 15 15:00:14 2009
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Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:00:13 -0500
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From: Zack Gaugush <zfgaugush@gmail.com>
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
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Subject: [permaculture] Permaculture Credit Union
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Hello,

Is anyone familiar with the permaculture credit union?

I am interested in hearing more about it.


Zack




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