Open Source Future

I had a Commodore 64 when I was young and I wrote an original program in basic. It was called C.A.N.S. ..that stood for Counter Attack Nuclear Strike, It was just text and a random number generator that was my version of the computer that Matthew Broderick was using in Wargames. I would type in a number from a list of targets I had entered and after a few seconds it would tell me how much of the population of that city I had just wiped out. It was so exciting for me.. Those were simpler times. I was showing everyone… I was as thrilled about that as I was with any hand-drawn  picture that my Mom taped up on the fridge. Is that not art?

I do not subscribe to the long held belief that money fuels innovation. Way too much art is being made by people with little care for financial reward. I have proof of this. I’ve seen it firsthand. I love it. Which brings me to computers.

Technology is wonderful and although I believe we all need to live simpler lives, I do not think we should abandon the advances made and being made. (For the record, I support the responsable development of Artificial Intelligence), The inventors and programmers do not work for money.. Not the good ones. It’s a passion not unlike music or dance or painting. There are some art forms we take for granted. Software development might not sound like an artistic endeavor, but it is. It’s creating something (often beautiful) that wasn’t there before. If I could live a million years, I might look into it.

There are people out there…  or at least there used to be, who knew how computers work down to the actual, physical, switches that determine the ones and zeros that eventually make up what we see, hear, and what become pretty much our entire reality. Everything online. All data ever and always. I doubt there are very few people (if any) that understand computers ‘soup to nuts’ when it comes to modern mega-computers. That information is now a corporate secret and I make the argument that it shouldn’t be. If we are going to live with technology, and we are, then we should all be able to master it. If we are to survive as a species, that knowledge needs to be preserved and propagated and it should be free to all people of Earth. I’m not suggesting we all become computer engineers, but the information should be transparent and available so that if you want to know, you can.

Open Source

This is a pretty good explanation: (3:21 minutes)

You’ve heard of Linux? The computer operating system that nerds use? Yeah… if you’re holding an Android phone right now, you’re using Linux and the guy that developed it, Linus Torvalds… didn’t get paid. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds

If you’re not familiar with the term ‘open-source’, I would love it if you would take a minute to read this. It’s one of the most important documents ever written… I think.

From: https://opensource.org/osd

Introduction
Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open source software must comply with the following criteria:

1. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

2. Source Code
The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost, preferably downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.

3. Derived Works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

4. Integrity of The Author’s Source Code
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of “patch files” with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

7. Distribution of License
The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.

8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program’s being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program’s license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.

9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open source software.

10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral
No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface

Yes, a lot of it is techno-babble but what I get out of it is that this is about the art of programming, not the money or ego, this is to advance science and mankind. … at least that’s what I get out of it. 

Now imagine we apply such guidelines for physical products.. Imagine an open source car that could be mass produced. A car designed by a collection of people who love cars. One good car can help build a nation. That’s a trick I learned from the Germans. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen. The materials to make a car are not that much…. They shouldn’t cost $40,000. 

With an Open Source philosophy and the smartest people available, … the ones who do it because they love it. .. a machine could be made… not unlike a smart-phone, that could be used for secure voting along with all the other traditional functions of the phone. It could be a true digital wallet and so much more. One could be distributed to each adult, and … we can try democracy the way I always kind of imagined it should work.

More on this later.

** BTW, I don’t know Linux. Someday, maybe, I will learn it. I am a slave to Microsoft. And as long as Windows is the standard in schools and businesses. We all are.