On a flight last night, I got to pore over the most recent issues of InformationWeek. It has the right mix of technology, business, policy, innovation, and gadgetry for a person with my mix of knowledge, interests, and time.
I came across a refreshing article on open source. I think I liked it so well because it was pretty much devoid of interpretation. Nothing about open source’s meaning or consequences – just neutral reporting about who’s doing open source and why. How businesses are using it, encouraging it, or shunning it.
The money quote for me came from a sidebar:
The reason [Chase Phillips] contributes code “boils down to a passion or belief that Mozilla provides freedom to people to control their own computers,” he says. “I believe in different layers of freedom, technological freedom.”
I’m not a coder, but the people featured in the article remind me of me when I was a gear-head in high school. There were Ford guys and Chevy guys – and a few Dodge guys (freaks). Maybe these analogize to the major operating systems. (The former car guy in me wants to beat me up right now.)
We spent our leisure time tricking out our cars and helping each other trick out cars. My car wasn’t all that great – I didn’t have enough money to do it right – and I haven’t even owned a car for 10 years, but I still enjoy the car culture in this country, from the lowriders in San Jose and SoCal to NASCAR’s roots in bootlegging.
It’s all a challenge to auto manufacturers who would just as happily stamp out identical cars and control the revenue stream from parts and repair. But they don’t, and we’re better off because people can still get under the hood.
(N.B., The distinction between cars and computers is collapsing. Hackers will decide whether car culture stays or goes.)
While I’m on InformationWeek, let me recommend the columns of Editor-in-Chief Rob Preston. Recent gems: Rob mentions John Locke in a piece on broadband regulation/”‘net neutrality.” And here’s Rob’s poke in the eye to CNN anti-progress blowhard Lou Dobbs.
That’s good times, people.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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