Read this. Now.

Source

The Meme Hustler is the best thing I've read all year, and if you haven't read it yet, you should. It's a hatchet job on Tim O'Reilly, basically, but it's a really good one, and it winds up being much more profound than that. Really, just go read it right now.

Comments

DaTo wrote on 2013-04-07 12:22:
Indeed an interesting read, thanks for linking. It's like a VERY long version of an article from "The Register" bemoaning "web 2.0rhea". About the author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Morozov I don't get the author's problem with the "open sourcers" as opposed to the GPLers though. Does he think that GPLed software would not allow Google to hoover up data about your online behaviour? There is nothing in the GPL license that says anything about that. You can use LibreOffice Calc to manage your death camp, no problemo. There are no problems with copyright licensing schemes X and Y (a false dichotomy), there are problems with patenting ideas. Also... "the Randian entrepreneur, who must be left to innovate, undisturbed by laws and ethics" I actually wish that guy falls down stairs and breaks a collarbone. Ethics is pretty much at the core of the "Randian entrepreneur". One may disagree with them as they put "think of yourself and don't be an sucker" at the center (a stance not often considered politically correct by the useful innocents and relentlessly criticized by the sociopaths in charge ... "have another 'solidarity tax'"), but they *are* there.
adamw wrote on 2013-04-07 17:04:
"Ethics is pretty much at the core of the “Randian entrepreneur”" Rand would claim so. Most ethicists would probably disagree. Let's say Rand has a pretty unique definition of 'ethics'. "I don’t get the author’s problem with the “open sourcers” as opposed to the GPLers though." It's not 'open sources as opposed to the GPLers', it's 'open sourcers as opposed to the FSF'. One of the cogent things the article does is to point out precisely the mistake you are making: conflating the FSF and the GPL. The 'open source' concept was invented specifically to try and replace the FSF's approach with something more business-friendly; it's not just about open source and 'the GPL'. The GPL is just one thing the FSF did - it's one application of the FSF's beliefs, which was appropriate in the context of the time and is still appropriate now. But it's not the sum total of the FSF's ideology or activities. One of the core points Evgeny is making is that the philosophy of the FSF would (and, indeed, does) have a lot of things to say about the Googlified world, but the open source philosophy is just hunky dory with it.
adamw wrote on 2013-04-07 17:07:
Oh, and you lose 100 points for saying "politically correct" (my blog, my rules). "Politically correct", in my experience, is only ever used as a handwave. Where you wish to espouse something that involves being a complete bastard, and someone points out that you're being a complete bastard, it's handy to be able to wave that person away as being "politically correct". It's always handy to invent a worldview where you're right and everyone who disagrees with you is either a) evil or b) a sucker ('useful innocent', in your not-at-all-condescending formulation), but it is extremely unlikely to be accurate.