Blog magnets

For all those who can’t wait for intelligent fridge magnets, you can now eyeball my sidebar for a bit of semi-poetic weirdness.

The Massive Minority

What is open source?

In the software environment, historically the first environment to receive this predicate, it is a tenfold means to enable evolution. The open source concept has extended well beyond the creation of software. It is now a growing, and as yet incomplete, set of principles designed to enable the evolution of the creative instinct of humanity. It is a libertarian document that, if successful, will unite us all in a collaborative effort to link the world’s knowledge and human interest into a single, instantly accessible, complete whole.

This article will briefly explore what it means for creative work to evolve in a technology environment that is being increasingly likened to a community. In the process I hope to alert the reader to some disturbing aspects of the open source assumption. I also hope to provide an alternative foundation for further research and inquiry into the open source phenomenon.