[iDC] "recursive publics"

[John Hopkins]

hey folks...

> absolutely.  One aspect of this are the debates around "forking" a project.
> Linux is, quite remarkably, a *single* project with a now nearly 20 year

...snip...

> contractual coercion which does not allow "forking" of either its products,
> or the corproation itself, in any meaningful sense.

a system of social protocols, ('traditional' ways of going), has it's 
own inertia, which, depending on the system and the participants (those 
who surrender their autonomy more or less to others), will increase or 
decrease the overall potential autonomy of individuals.  forking 
requires greater autonomy (making a new, unknown-to-the-others, 
protocol) and thus requires that the one(s) making the fork exert a 
force against or away from that existing inertial vector...  it ain't 
easy, and most won't do it...  a corporation is merely one level on a 
sliding scale from low to high inertial systems (if you follow the 
mechanical metaphor).  this sliding scale is modulated by number (of 
participants), level of fear/trust, and so on...

jh