[ExI] it's better than it used to be

Kelly Anderson kellycoinguy at gmail.com
Mon May 2 07:37:01 UTC 2011


2011/5/1 Kevin Freels <reasonerkevin at yahoo.com>:
> Kelly said:
> Wikipedia is important primarily as a prime example of a new economic
> model that is, IMHO quite important. The encyclopedia itself is a huge
> accomplishment, but the open source economic model is the paradigm
> shift, and I believe that actually does rank up there with the
> invention of the printing press, double entry book-keeping, money,
> writing, poetry, musical notation, the English patent system,
> discovery of evolution, the invention of intellectual property, sliced
> bread and the scientific method as one of the great memes of all time.
> It will take a couple more decades, I think, to fully appreciate the
> model for what it will become, but I have no doubt that it will take
> its place among these other great memes.
>
> Kevin replies:
> Have you considered that the new economic model represented by Wikipedia
> isn't new at all? It is communism.

As others have already said, open source is nowhere near communism. At
least not communism as has been practiced by governments so far.
Everyone is free to participate or not for as long as they want.
Nobody's wealth is taken at the point of a gun and given to others.

There is a pseudo government that has evolved in Wikipedia, to its
detriment IMHO. When it first started out, it was better and more
anarchistic. Not quite so much now. Some people take themselves way
too seriously over there.

Wikipedia as it exists now isn't the very best example of open source
out there. Probably the very best is the Internet and the World Wide
Web. TCP/IP, Email protocols, RFPs, Apache web servers, where would
the Internet be without open source?

-Kelly



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