Re: [ox-en] Germ of a new form of society or germ of a new form of business?
- From: "pietro" <pietro bastardi.net>
- Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:38:27 -0200 (BRST)
Martin Hardie said:
This point of Niall's deserves further discussion. The source is useless
if
you haven't got the skills to use it. The result is that the free in FLOSS
in this respect is free only to a technical elite.
i agree with you in terms. there is a freaking elite in FLOSS, but there
are people fighting against elitism too.
and the only way to gain entry or gain the knowledge is by having someone
show you/Train you. You have to be inducted tot he elite to be able to
take advantage of the "free" attched to the source code.
i think this can be worked around. if you have access to some source of
information (internet or a library) you will be able to train yourself.
here in sao paulo city in brasil there is a project of the local govt
caled telecentros, these are spaces with computers running a modified
debian with free internet access (anyone can do whatever s/he wants for
one hour/day). but there are other things like workshops and so. right now
they are preparing a workshop about php. but, there is a 14 year old kid
who leabed to program alone. and believe me he is far from being well
educated middle class. i know this is just one story and a exception to
the rule. but i think that if you give access to everybody all elites will
fall. wheter they are programers elites or econimic/political ones.
pietro.
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