[SLUG] Reith Lectures 2007

[john at johnallsopp.co.uk]

> The character of Linux and its community is, for me too, a paradigm
> for
> other levels of organisation; and one of the reasons I was interested
> in
> Linux in the first place.
>
> Martin

I haven't seen it 'jump species' though. It seems to work for software
development partly because those people are very familiar with the
Internet which seems a core enabling technology for it, and perhaps
software developers are happy with the rigid structures that also have
to be there, checking software in and out and so on, and perhaps geeks
like to be capable and knowledgable, so the reward for getting near
the top of an open source project is a massive ego stroke.

Reading something like George Monbiot's Age of Consent I got a real
buzz, I just wanted to make it all happen. But it's just one man's
idea. Once you go beyond the safe confines of the book it turns out
everyone else has their own opinion and there's no real desire to do
Monbiot's, everyone wants to do their own thing. Normal people are
much more analogue than open source programmers.

J