[iDC] mining open source

[Alfredo Cramerotti]

On 15/03/2006, at 2.08, John Hopkins wrote:

> Humans are always confronted with this dilemma -- between physical  
> survival and something higher than that.  If one is content with  
> "Might is Right" then one can easily swallow proprietary software.  
> It will facilitate immediate survival.  Open Source is about  
> something altruistic beyond survival -- it puts the user at risk of  
> error, or stumbling down a hidden pathway, or creating something  
> difficult to understand.  It brings life back to its true chaos,  
> complexity, and possibility.  Only certain kinds of people can  
> tolerate that indeterminacy.
>
> Of course, I am being a bit dramatic and sarcastic here in these  
> comments, but...  we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously about  
> the validity of our ideas versus anyone else's.
>
> cheers
> John



Thanks John for the post.
It gave me the kick to post on this mailing list (thanks Trebor for  
inviting me). The considerations you made about a) Trust and b)  
Failure, brought up a couple of thoughts. It is a sort of double  
movement, contradictory lines of thought, but that's we all are made of.

First, trust. It's true that a life in the moment would be both  
painful and rewarding, but I'm not sure that this has to be realized  
at the expenses of trust. Trust in the Other. Such a life would be  
centered on the trust in the Self, and it would be challenging,  
difficult and fascinating at the same time, but how far could we go  
in this sense? What would be a human without the environment around,  
which include her/his similar? Isn't the idea of only first-hand  
experience (extendable to Open Software) a bit too privileged? Every  
subscriber on this list has the possibility to choose among a range  
of solutions, for work and life, including not only software tools  
but also information tools, and distribution categories. I'm not so  
sure if the majority of the world population can do the same. Trust  
in the other (and this implies also accepting canned software  
solutions, if we want) is simpler, but also - maybe - more human. I  
doubt all the time in my work practice and personal life, but at the  
same time I do trust people I have chosen to have around, or I share  
a life with. If I have to distrust everyone and everything, I would  
get stuck in my own thoughts. Is it really something wrong in  
trusting? I do not want to be become too transcendental (I know the  
term itself might rise some eyebrows), but isn't all this also a  
matter of love? Do we have to confront each other and everything  
around us all the time to claim we are 'free'?

Second, failure. It’s not that we should fail in order to live  
better. Rather I believe we should allow ourselves the space, the  
mental dimension, of failure, and here the Open Software movement can  
teach something. We live in a win-win society, where one cannot  
afford to step into something wrong. For instance, we cannot bear the  
thought to lose our time following someone or something, which in the  
end disappears and leave us alone. This can happen in love as well as  
business. In our deeds we invest feelings, time, money, and so –  
because it’s an investment – we expect something back. Results. We  
cannot conceive an action freed from expected effects, freed from the  
obligation to avoid errors. It hurts us to see and to think about our  
failure. We can bear (maybe) only someone else’s failure, and we  
don’t want to be that someone else. I failed permanently, as well as  
not. I’m perpetually failing in doing what I most care doing. In  
writing these lines, I’m probably failing to communicate exactly my  
thoughts to you, completely or to some extent. Still, If I'm asked,  
I'd rather not speak about my failures. Our connected mind has lost  
one piece, an important one. Since we fail, as technology does (John,  
I owe this to you) it's good to reclaim the right to fail. The space  
of failure. Life is a circle, and not a linear progress.

Cheers,
Alfredo



A. Cramerotti +45 26930501 / +49 1738210267

http://mediageographies.blogspot.com
www.annualgeneralmeeting.net
www.alfredocramerotti.net


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