[buug] Seek the Wisdom Of Our Elder Geeks

[Zeke Krahlin]

Quoting Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>:

> So, be anti-corporate, left-wing, and anti-establishment[3] if that
> makes you happy -- hey, you're in Berkeley, after all -- but don't claim
> that the Elder Geeks predominantly share your political and economic
> views, as I greatly doubt that is so.

That has not been my experience at all, with the "older set", not just  
from whom I've met personally, but also on various Internet discussion  
groups. For the most part, they all tend towers the moderate, and left  
of that. They tend to frown at things "google" and those who see only  
the dollar sign when discussing FS and OSS. I did not say that *all  
elder geeks are that way, just most...I'm sure there are *some on the  
right. But this turn towards conservative views among geeks is more  
recent, and not a phonomenon of the first wave...who are all as old as  
the hills by now.  :P

I don't think I'm at all unreasonable or inaccurate to describe the  
origins of the Free Software and Open Source movement as coming from  
the left, with main influence the Free Speech Movement. I've gone  
through more articles, which have only made me feel that much more  
confident, to describe Mr. Stallman as a political and social  
renegade...in the healthy sense of that phrase. And by extension, the  
entire birth of the personal computer, and explosion of hackers and  
free software:

Quote from [  
http://www.informationdelight.info/encyclopedia/entry/counter-culture ]:

In his essay ''From Satori to Silicon Valley'' (published 1986),  
cultural historian Theodore Roszak made the point that the Apple  
Computer emerged from within the West Coast counterculture. Roszak  
gives a bit of background on the development of the prototype models  
of these original home computers and on the two Steves' ( Steve  
Wozniak and Steve Jobs , the computer's developers) evolution toward  
being businessmen. In fact, a considerable number of early computing  
and networking pioneers – after discovering LSD and roaming the  
campuses of UC Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT in the late 60s and early  
70s – would emerge from this caste of social "misfits" to shape the  
modern world.

--

Quote from [  
http://www.datenteiler.de/translations/anarchy-and-source-code/ ]:

In Hackers, Levy wrote down the history of the hacker culture and the  
hacker ethics at MIT until its temporarily ending in 1984. The whole  
last chapter is concerned with Richard Stallman which Levy considers  
to be the last one of the true hackers. Stallman believes that the  
hacker culture at MIT was an example for a great and anarchistic  
organization that worked perfectly until it was eliminated. Stallman  
took the hacker culture as an example and founded a new community, the  
GNU Project, one important cornerstone of the Free Software Movement....

The new hackers were not really interested in the hacker ethic.  
Stallman had learned in the computer center of the MIT that an  
anarchist Institution was possible. But there was a lack of combatants  
because of the decentralization of the hackers by the home computer.  
In the beginning of the 1980’s Stallman felt like the last adherent of  
a dead movement with anarchistic principles. This movement he wanted  
to revitalize. With the free software movement the hacker culture was  
reborn and Stallman started to free the source code from proprietary  
licenses.

The free software movement with GNU, BSD and Open Source Initiative is  
the radical anarchistic criticism of today’s order of the intellectual  
property, not only in the liberal society of the United States but  
also in the whole globalized world. In contrast to the representatives  
of BSD or the market-economic anarchism of Eric Raymond from the OSI,  
Stallman postulates a corporate anarchism which expresses in relation  
to intellectual property freely adapted from the French anarchist  
Jean-Pierre Proudhon, that property is robbery....

The very thought of leaving markets and the exchange of property  
behind is as inconceivable to many people today as the enclosure and  
privatization of land and labor into property relations must have been  
more than half a millennium ago. (Rifkin 2000, 14)

Stallman and the GNU people of the free software movement do not only  
want to free software but also music and books from proprietary  
licenses. In an interview with Spiegel Online Stallman says why: “I  
tend toward the left-wing anarchist idea that we should get together  
voluntarily and think about how we can care for all by cooperation.”  
(Klagges 1996).

--end quotes

Of course, not all elder geeks were direct participants of the  
counterculture, but most would admit, that's part of history, the  
origin of FS and OSS. The movers and shakers of the hacker world, and  
free software, were in most part, a product of the new-found freedom  
of the 60's, in its rebellion to shake off the extreme conformism so  
prevalent in the 50's.

I also question your conclusion that the ideological clash between FS  
and OSS is trivial at this point...when the very foundations of  
capitalism are now being questioned...and for darn good reason. Just  
watched M. Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Affair", and was impressed by  
his clarification of the real problem w/Capitalism, how it seeks  
profit for corporations w/no regard for its workers who made them  
rich. Actually, I think M. Moore didn't go far enough in citing the  
severity of the damage done...as all the folks on camera who were  
workers suffering the abuses of Corporate hegemony, look rather  
healthy and happy in spite of their demise. The worst examples of  
abuse on the film, struck me as a walk in the park, compared to the  
evil manifesting in real life, as more and more people lose their  
livelihoods, homes, health and even lives as a result of moneyed  
privileged over the common man.

Perhaps as official organizations, FSF and OSI have ironed out all  
their differences. But ideologically speaking, I don't think FS and  
OSS are such great bedfellows.

At this point of our discussion, I have only done perusal examination  
in regards to your challenges...and have found no real errors in my  
article. Perhaps my enthusiasm to counter those who see the 60's as  
nothing more than a trivial and ridiculous "hippie movement", has  
caused me to emphasize the left-wing influence. I find the Free Speech  
Movement a most vital and serious era that challenged the status quo  
back then...black equality, morality of war, poverty, abuse of women  
and minorities, and so on.

It is with great pride I consider the hacker/FS movement as one of the  
most wildly successful political and social movements springing out of  
the counterculture. OSS folks seem to have forgotten their origins at  
best, or trivialize them at worst...with no regard for the ethics of  
free software so carefully constructed by R. Stallman.

Now, maybe it's just that I haven't had my coffee for the day, and I  
need some more time and research to consider your informed viewpoint.  
To assure you: I will keep your remarks in mind over the next few  
weeks, and continue my research, and will make *any* changes to my  
article if I see your critique necessitates such, in order to be fair  
and true to Linux/FS history.

But for now, I feel the best solution between our two perspectives, is  
simply to post your original comment, to my blog entry, and let it  
stand.


-- 
Zeke Krahlin
https://zekeblog.wordpress.com


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