[KLUG Advocacy] Re: Decency Standards for Open Source

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> If anyone missed what this is all about, I posted the Digg.com link to 
> my article in the members list, and Bruce wanted to move it over here. 
> Please be sure to click the "Dig it " link at digg.com for my article so 
> I can get the article promoted to the front page. I think I'll need 
> around 50 or so digs to get it up there.
> http://digg.com/technology/Decency_Standards_for_Open_Source

Very nice article,  you do a nice job of succinctly dismantling the
'slippery slope' argument that people use against just about everything,
Not just free speech.  This argument is always annoying in a debate
because you just can't get around it - it denies basic truths - such as
the purely qualitative difference between a shoulder mounted rocket
launcher and a hunting rifle or a hand gun.

This paragraph - 
It is unfortunate that free speech idealists (like me, incidentally)
often misdirect their enthusiasm for attacking "censorship." The
censorship we should be worried about is what governments do to private
and public enterprise. The real enemy is censorship by a central
authority or small but vocal special interest, prohibiting speech in a
broad domain, such that certain kinds of speech are prohibited from
existing anywhere.
 - is also particularly insightful.  It isn't anti-freespeach if my
website, or the KLUG lists, for that matter ban certain content and set
certain posting requirements - it is necessary to accomplish the ends
for which those resources exist.  It is very different from big brother
saying you can't discuss or share X anywhere.

> Bruce:
> Thank you for your feedback and I have to say that in everything you 
> said I agree with you. Yet I am still convinced that in the case of 
> OCAL, at least, an open submission policy would sink the ship.
> It is a difficult question to deal with. In this age of globalization 
> the problem is especially vexing. But as I suggested in the article, 
> there is a way to deal with fanatics, which is to ignore them -- 

Always my suggestion,  you just can't win with certain segments of the
populace.  It is better and healthier to just not try.

> a 
> solution you have (IMO, rightfully) employed with Devil Linux up to now 
> and which the restaurant likely failed to do by caving into what was 
> probably a very small but vocal minority.
..
> What I really think is that all 
> open source projects should have top-down management just like 
> commercial ones, 

Yep.  Communities are good at some things, and they suck at others.

> and that the small group of managers making the 
> decisions should set the standard. Let them decide what "fanatic" means, 
> and what their vision of the project should be. If they get it wrong, 
> then a competing project will eventually win out.

Well, to a point.  Those oligarchs should put forth some kind of
standards guidelines.  But, like the Supreme Court,  it should be made
clear that they are he final arbiters of the interpretation of that
text.

> The "blanding" of our culture is a serious problem. It bugs me too, and 
> I have an even better example for you. Schools. Tests and textbooks, in 
> particular. The standard has become such a high bar there that kids 
> can't stand to study because there's nothing interesting about the 
> material, and nothing the kids can relate to. This is a place in our 
> culture where the small and vocal minorities, the fanatics, have had too 
> much say. But the reasons why the "blanding" of texts is wrong, isn't 
> just that they're boring. There are two major reasons.

There is a simpler solution to this problem - drop the concept of 'text
book' altogether.  I went to school over a decade ago,  our text books
were 10-15 years old then - and they were already impenetrably horrible.

> 1.) What I call the business reason. The books are so bland that kids 
> are having a hard time learning. The purpose of the product is being 
> adversely affected by the high level of censorship.
> 2.) Small centralized authority with control over a broad domain of 
> expression. I touched on this in the article.

You can also improve things by abolishing School Boards,  never has then
been such both insidious and useless organs of government.  They are (a)
the back door through which fanatics enter the system [ these candidates
and elections receive also no coverage,  even if you go looking you
can't determine who you'd actually WANT to vote for ]  and (b) give
completely unqualified people a sledgehammer voice in the system.  I
can't tell you the number of times I've watched experts and analysts
trying to present something almost tremble with frustration as some
house wife interrupts them to ask, "But we want kids to learn, right?"

> Trying to keep this short(er) so let me just wrap up by saying...
> I hope my article conveyed the idea that what I'm recommending is a 
> Taoist, middle road, approach to dealing with decency. It's okay to 
> offend the fringes, as their needs are still attended to, and the price 
> of their fanaticism is extra work and expense in finding what they need. 
> What I'm aiming at is just to move people towards a consensus that some 
> censorship is necessary and good, and excessive censorship is bad and to 
> be avoided. If we can agree on that, then we've made progress.

And that some censorship is legally required,  or else your project
won't last long at all.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20050814/8836eb2f/attachment.bin