
Man Tries to Live an Open Source Life for a Year - blancarro
http://www.shareable.net/blog/kicking-off-a-year-of-open-source
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dbecker
I don't really understand what it means for physical items like shoes to be
open source in the sense that some software is.

Users are already free to modify their shoes. And even if you had a video
showing how the shoes were made, that isn't enough to replicate the shoes
unless you have the machinery and dexterity to make shoes.

He also claims he wants to be open source in "how I get around." What would it
mean for walking to be open source or closed source? Is it "open source" to
ride a bus?

~~~
daveasaurus
> I don't really understand what it means for physical items like shoes to be
> open source in the sense that some software is.

Tangentially related, but despite the article's definition of open source:
"It's definitely not just software", it's a peeve of mine nonetheless to hear
the term "open source" applied in non-software/programming contexts.
Especially with some of the examples you've pointed out:

> He also claims he wants to be open source in "how I get around." What would
> it mean for walking to be open source or closed source? Is it "open source"
> to ride a bus?

Not sure if I'm alone on this.

~~~
Gormo
Why is the term "open source" not applicable to any context in which the
design of a product is distinct from its final form, and in which that design
is conventionally covered by copyrights or patents?

If an architect released a set of standard building plans under an open
license, would that not be legitimately "open source"?

------
vasco
"Open source life for a year"

 _scroll_

Macbook.

~~~
devgutt
This is strange indeed. He provides some explanation in FAQ (but I don't buy
it)

*<http://yearofopensource.net/faq/>

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mbell
FTA: "I'm not buying any proprietary or traditionally copyrighted products
unless all other options are exhausted."

I'm pretty baffled by his mention of copyright here. The linux kernel is 'open
source' by most people's standards yet the copyrights are held by thousands of
people. Living a modern life with only open source products is very doable,
living with only products which have no copyright would be almost impossible

~~~
mwilcox
Key word being traditionally

~~~
mbell
What is that even supposed to mean?

~~~
tomrod
Whatever he wants it to mean, apparently. I would reckon any Disney movies
would fall under this, but not the Linux kernel.

Unless we want to go really old school, before copyrights were filed. But
"traditional" may not take that long to apply, I guess?

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jancborchardt
Got you covered in terms of web apps: <http://libreprojects.net>

~~~
blancarro
very cool resource. Thanks. Any other lists like this, for instance for
hardware or desktop apps?

Or whatever else.

~~~
icebraining
There's the Free Software Directory: <http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page>

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orangethirty
I don't go as far as strcitly using open source, but I've managed to improve
my productivity with a lot of open source software. To me, the software I use
is just well designed, quick, and hackable. The only non-open source software
I still use is the one included with Ubuntu, the one in my cell phone (non-
smartphone (runs java)), my appliances (Linux probably, not no source), and
the code that runs in my cars computer. Could I survive without closed
software? Not yet. Though I keep looking for ways to replace closed systems
with open ones.

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blancarro
Yes, good point about RMS.

Thinking about hosting a discussion about this. Seems like there's a lot of
knowledge out there. Any interest?

Or maybe there is already a forum for this. Pointers welcome.

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dsr_
I suppose he'll have to start with defining which licenses he thinks are
acceptable. CC-SA? Probably. CC-BY-NC-ND? Maybe? Maybe not?

How about patents? Trademarks?

------
cheap
... Grows a Beard.

------
softbuilder
Toilet paper. Is there open source toilet paper? I don't think anyone is 3D
printing that yet.

~~~
noonespecial
The source for toilet paper is always available. You are free to compile your
own. Personally, I prefer the "Charmin" distro. I think their current release
is "squeeze".

~~~
softbuilder
You don't find the license restrictive?

~~~
noonespecial
No, but I do fold the code to allow for tail recursion. It makes deployment
less resource intensive. This often prevents overflows.

~~~
softbuilder
I'm pretty sure I don't want tail recursive toilet paper. That may just be me.

------
Devilboy
RMS does this every year

~~~
Silhouette
He also recommends not using mobile phones, and reads the web using wget.
Software freedoms are all very well, but I don't think many people would
consider regressing about 20 years technologically a price worth paying.

While there are abuses in the worlds of business and government today that
might ( _might_ ) have been prevented if we had insisted on open code and/or
open data all along, I am reasonably confident that the various power
imbalances as we learn to cope with things like the Internet will have been
corrected long before 2032. I don't know what the technological, social and
political landscapes will look like by then, but if I were a betting man I'd
go with something much more open in most respects than we have today but with
a renewed emphasis on personal privacy when it matters.

~~~
Zigurd
Conventional mobile phones have become (some say they always were) Big Brother
tracking and surveillance devices. The amount of surveillance your are subject
to reduces the value of mobile phones. For some people, reduces it so much as
to make them, even when balanced against their usefulness, undesirable.

As for regressing 20 years, how often are you able to pick up an incoming call
right away? Your phone is 90% of the time a mini Internet tablet, not a
portable version of a land-line phone.

The privacy issue isn't just theoretical. There is a blacklist of more than
3000 activist construction workers maintained by police and UK companies.
Could the people on that blacklist have kept themselves under the radar by
paying closer attention to communications privacy?

~~~
Silhouette
_Your phone is 90% of the time a mini Internet tablet, not a portable version
of a land-line phone._

Your phone might be. Mine isn't.

 _The privacy issue isn't just theoretical._

No, I agree, it's not. In fact, I'm an active campaigner for privacy in
various ways, and I don't share my life with on-line social networks for
privacy reasons.

However, it's easy to get into a black-and-white mindset that values only
complete privacy and assumes no value at all otherwise, which I don't think is
helpful. Of all the ways someone could technically spy on me if they had the
resources to do it, monitoring the location of my mobile phones is unlikely to
be what causes me problems.

We are in an interesting and potentially dangerous time at the moment, because
it's been too long since a mass of people all suffered due to a major invasion
of their privacy. It is easy to dismiss the creeping invasions we see with
things like CCTV, monitoring of the Internet and telecomms services, and
social networking sites asking for ever more personal information, when these
aren't yet causing serious consequences to most people. And of course, people
often give up that information voluntarily because it benefits them in some
way that they value more than any perceived intrusion. Privacy isn't about
withholding data entirely, it's about controlling who know what and how they
can use that information.

I think the pendulum will swing back in a few years, though things will get
worse before they start to get better. As people start to find that they
really can't get jobs because of some minor indiscretion, or that their credit
rating is damaged, or that they simply can't get complete health insurance
because they know too many people at a high risk of some lifestyle-related
condition, social norms recognising the importance of privacy and the
political climate that follows will rein in the likes of Facebook and Google.
All that convenience won't look quite so cost-free any more. I also don't see
the kind of abuses we see by governments, for example the excessively personal
searches at places like airports, continuing indefinitely. These measures are
unpleasant, and no matter how much the airlines/governments stick their heads
in the sand publicly, the fact is that it puts some people off flying and that
costs those airlines/governments some of their profits/taxes.

At the rate things are going -- even 10 years ago, Google were the new kid on
the block and Facebook didn't even exist yet -- I don't think it will take 20
years for this to happen. The abuses (and resulting concerns) are already
starting, and we're already starting to see savvy politicians try to get ahead
of the curve on things like blocking employers from demanding to see their
employees'/applicants' private social network content. The security theatre
and government intrusion is getting tiresome, and ever more expensive at a
time when the global economy isn't exactly doing well.

In short, I think far more powerful social pressures than open source software
are going to be what preserves useful privacy and establishes new social norms
for what is and isn't acceptable behaviour in the era of the Internet and big
data mining. Open source may provide a valuable tool for audit purposes and
watching the watchers to keep them honest, but it's only one tool in the box.

