Why not extend Free Softare Movement into political party???
 

The tools exist now.

The Free Software Movement/open source community has the technical talent to publish info on the internet.
The internet exists, bypassing all owned media.
The young have open minds and are adept at using technology.
Innovative organizational skills exist for large projects like the linux kernel, why not organize an ideal government?
Direct participation is now possible with access to the internet.
Communication is instanteonous, efficient, and more productive than ever.
Practical minded engineers/scientists exist that will have practical ideals.
A figure head with a reputation is possible to gain widespread noteriety. Richard Stallman, Linus, come to mind.

What's missing? A LEADER

Why not construct a website containing an ideal government, similiar to the original constitution, or whatever the community likes. Then use it to reform the current POS bureaucracy we have now.

Because not all Linux users are communists, LOL :p

Communism isn't a negative term in all contexts like some U.S. corporations would like you to believe.

Note that I gave the constitution as an example. A polar opposite of communism.

Every issue has it's own particularities and can't be labeled either way.

The open-source movement is vastly diverse and holds many different views on what makes good government. We, open-source people, are joined together with one common goal (open source software -- duh) which does not make a political platform.

How does the open-source "platform" feel about education reform, military spending, subsidies to grain farmers, animal rights, workplace safety, the drug war, research spending, civil protection... etc.?

Could you honestly say that any of these things are clearly defined from the open-source worldview?

The tools I mentioned above are what bring opensource people together. Given the correct construction of a website that allows people to participate in a real democracy. The mainstream people of opensource will outweigh the extremists. This is how a real democracy is supposed to work.

People that don't vote give power to those that do. Almost like shooting yourself in the foot. There is a huge portion of youngsters, technology adept, who would be drawn into a party that has a radical new way of thinking and using of technology. The grassroots movement of Howard Dean and his ability to generate money from average joes through the internet is an example.

But what is the platform? What are we rallying behind?

You don't run a government on the "idea" of open-source.

I dont think we have enough "open-sourcists" to be of any significance in the main stream..

When I here of people chanting linux, linux, linux at an AMD processor give away event. You can't tell me there's potential. You maybe surprised what word of mouth can do.

A quote by codergeek42 on gentoo forums .

My ideals would be above and beyond the Free Software Movement. The construction of the website would have specs of an ideal government. Example: U.S. constitution. Current issues would help affect its design and the process of creating and editing would have to worked out. The specced out government would then be applied to the party's actions in reforming the current government.

Communism in The US by Free Sofware guys ?
 

If anybody can stop or at least educate the people to stop dreaming to be as rich as Bill Gate(ok,to be more realistic, just wanted to be rich),then we will have a "platform"
If you really want to do something which are against the prevalent human culture(that is why the society can functions so well),you must be really somebody who the people can trust and sacrifice they "progressiveness" and "aspirations" for your cause.FSF is not what they are meant to be ! But they are definately a worthy allience,especially in the developed world.

While the ideals of FSF and OSI can be related as some sort of political movement "within" the software field, I doubt very much whether you can extend the goals to regions outside of software.

Multi-nationals does not remain "within" the their own particular fields of trading,be it the banking field,the petrolium field,the media field etc.
Microsoft definately does not want to be remained in the software field.
The self interest of these people are the national interest of their nation.
EU national interest,asian nation interest and the rest are over-ruled.
FSF does not need to defend themselve against anybody,it is better to let a hundred flowers blooms then claming that they are the only flower that produce the purest scent among all.

I've done some brainstorming and thought why not have a web interface where a topic is brought up for example, "immigration". Then have an upside down hierarchy of subtopics related to the issue. For example "immigration across southern border" and "immigration across canadian border" would be child suptopics of "immigration". There would be then child subtopics on all different viewpoints of "Immigration across southern border". Example "It boosts economy". "It requires us to pay services for illegals". "on an on". Each suptopic "immigration across southern border" would have a forum that people can post messages to and could possibly have even more child suptopics. Each message could be rated 0-5 by viewers based on acceptance, content quality, and possible other properties. Then possibly calculations would then be made and the person with the highest score on that subject would decide on the issue. Or possibly another solution to what, who decides the real policy could be calculated based on posts people make and their rating by readers. Readers would be members and only allowed to vote their acceptance, content quality between 0-5 once when viewing the message of some other. The message would then move up the list of messages based on its score of content quality or perhaps other properties you vote on and would have a better potential to be seen by more members.

Some method would have to be created in order for people to only vote once on each message and not create more than one account and vote the same way with multiple accounts(cheating). Finger print identication for logging in? I don't know what's feasible and cost effective.

The specs of this interface/implementation would need to be put together in which it would work effectively and democraticly. Some serious software engineering would have to be done.

Any thoughts by anybody else.

This topic is also being discussed at gentoo forums

OMFgt! I are BeinG BraAInWasHEd EvIl! CorPOrAtioNS!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Did it ever occur to you that *gasp* US corporations are not behind everything and that maybe JUST MAYBE the fact that most Americans don't like communism is because of Soviet Russia which wa labeled as a communist country is what most Americans associate to communism? I mean after all Soviet Russia only fell 15 years ago a lot of people still remember it. So whenever they thing communism they think Soviet Russia and the cold war in which they group up with.

Oh and as for the topic. yeah I don't think ti would work. There is no point as the Open Source community forming a political party. There is no premise behind it. Like someone said big deal you think you found a better software license. Which BTW is a completely subjective view point. On top of that it doesn't carry over to REAL issues like current political problem that plagues the globe.

And what keeps non-members of this country from voting? On top of that you are assuming people wants to see every single little matter pop-up in front of them that they need to vote for. Thats why we have a congress. People do not care nor want to hear about why snow mobiles should or shouldn't be allowed in Yellowstone park. They pay their taxes and the government is supposed to do the thinking for them. Of course if tis a big enough issue they can write into their congressman and voice their opinion hoping to rally enough to make him fear not being re-elected and thus vote for the majorities of his states opinion. What you are suggestion means everyones job will be to run the country. Thus we are back where we are started.

So if a bill was to appear for a more efficient water supply system to be put in place and then another one appeared that proposed a tax cut across the board the water bill would be forgotten.

So is the current system faulty? Hell yes. Does it need to be fixed? Most definitely. But is a web based government that wants everyone to vote make sense? Not really.

As far as the micro-management issue. The website could be constructed with locality in mind as part of your registration. Issues in your city, county, state, federal would be brought to your attention in that priority. Issues like these would be worked out in a specification of the software that would evolve over time.

People that are not connected to internet have no excuses in this day & age. Public libraries, internet cafes, and schools exist with access.

The out of country issue is subject to more conversation, but a social security # looks like a possible avenue since there's no other national ID that I know of.

Please note that I'm brainstorming and am open to suggestions.

I can't bring my four children to a web based goverment and ask for free down payment of public housing because I can bring in six votes for you,including me and my wife's vote.I don't want to talk and I don't want to be "free",I just need a proper house for my family,it is good for the children.Right?:)

I'm afraid these people have lots of valid execuses that you won't even dare to listern to.:(



Nowadays,people just can't be bother to brainstorming themselves with these "nosense" of ours,
good spirit ! Don't ever settle down with anything which are less than proper goodness.:newbie:

These aggravations that everyday people must cope with (having housing for family) should be the motivation that drives the opensource/Free Software community to use the tools I mentioned in my 1st post and get to work.

Somebody that has experience in doing a project on sourceforge.net could start a project that would start looking into specs. of a webserving app that could perform the functions that I mentioned. Allowing one to login, proving somehow it's that one person, & nobody else. Having topics/policies show up based on your location and allowing you to vote on each message giving it a higher or lower visability. This would then lead to an virtual government that would slowly turn into real government policies later on.

Sure there are valid excuses for not having internet access but as time passes by more & more will get connected and this possible party will be ahead of the game in getting these folks a way to participate in government and maybe a motivation in itself to get connected. Also understand that people connected now are likely to be more aware & intelligent of things going on around them providing a benefit to this possible party.

Ok but the point is still this: Why would people care to take the time to read about a topic about a new federal Water Supply restrictions when there may be a topic about the death tax? They won't. And you can;t force them to or then you are pretty much an oppresive government party. In fact the time it would take for everyone to log on and view their 100's of poltiical issues a day and vote on them is sooooooooo much more annoying then the current system of voting once every few years.

Thats why people tolerate our government currently. It does what they want them to do. Its total job is to go over every single bill that mst people didn;t even know existed and to vote appropiately. Im sorry I just do not see what you are trying to get at with your idea. Linux is an OS open-source, is a licensing scheme, niether of which apply to politics.

it seems that life are getting much much better for everybody as times goes by........

without our virtual goverment



does MS's and the rest's monopolistic tactics apply to politics ? Internationally not only nationally ?

Perhaps, then representatives can be picked based on their views/messages they post. Everybody will be able to post messages and those messages will be given a thumb up or down by other members. The messages with the most thumbups will be at the top of visibility giving it the potential for even more thumbups and the ability to stay #1 in visibility while other messages will follow in popularity & visibility. The downside is that more radical views will be at the bottom of the heap and people may not get time to look at them. But is this a bad thing???

all corporations have the ability to influence politcal parties in whatever country by giving donations that allow the party to stay in power. So yes, they have political sway, and many people would say to much sway to the point where the people as a whole are under represented.

hmm,at least you don't brainstorming for no reason.
But , all these languages :

"given a thumb up or down by other members"
"at the top of visibility"
"the potential for even more thumbups"
"stay #1 in visibility"

are the ones that used to engineered the under representation of the masses.
In the end :

"more radical views will be at the bottom of the heap and people may not get time to look at them"

and that is a sucess.

The point is we can't reinvent the whole social structure down to the last single "bytes" which is consciously engineered in order to under represent the "faceless" masses.It is definately self defeating.And this is what all those so called "radical" movement ,be it political ones or software licence ones,are doing right now.

Need to create or educate somthing which are more down to earth.
No necessarily must be a creation of a system,be it virtual,web-based,politically-based,concret-based or lincenced-based ,housing certain progressive ideas.

The website would be created for that purpose. To find common ground amongst the opensource & Free Software Movement folks not just on their software beliefs but everything else. Word of mouth may take place just like the linux movement and boom!!! You have a party. Every issue that the government faces would be up for discussion in a hierarchal form that would be easy to navigate, post, rate, etc... with messages. Calculations would then be used to figure out representatives of the party, what policies for each member should be looked at(priority for your city, county,state for example). Perhaps an ideal government can be created and then movement of the party in the current government towards the ideal. The problems come in who should represent the party if direct voting is not feasible. One idea is posted above.

Which is exactly the system in place now. State Representatives are made aware of the peoples view through all communcation outlets available be they polls, emails, letters, phone calls. Those representives basically vote on what the majority wants.

As for the the "radical" views. Im sorry that whole statment is wrong. Just because its is less popular does not make it any less important.

Or so you would love to believe. Where is your proof? Yes they have political sway but then the biggest sway is the fact that people need to vote for them to get them into power and keep them there so who has the most power? The voters. And they know that too.

You don't have to be sorry , it just simply not economically feasible in the context of national interest in it current state,but when will it be economically feasible ?

Corporations only have sway if allowed to by politicians. But a major motivation in this country is raising finances to one up the opponent for media time. Corporations also sway voters in tv media and other media outlets. Why is it that you can't purchase single channels but rather have to get whole packages of channels. This to me is a way for corporations to get their foot in your living room and to your children. Parental control would be easier if one could purchase channels one by one every month. Media is a huge influence on a country's voters.

If you had to sift through mountains of info on different aspects/solutions of a problem to see what you would accept. Would you want to see what most other people concur with 1st or have it thrown all at you at once?

my whole argument is basically trying to say that its just not fair either way. You canot focus on one and not the other.

That isn't even relevant!?

:rolleyes: There's no point in corrupting the anarcho-syndicalist nature of open source with a leader... That's so fascist... No need to ruin a good thing, it works perfectly the way it is.

The real future is enacting what makes open-source work on the real world. Why not "open-source" factories, or "open-source" department stores?

how ?

This is the whole point of the Free Software Movement/Open-source people to start a party and make their views known and possibly implemented when the party has enough power. Current government has all the power over these topics you just mentioned and they can be changed!

Would our current government work effectively without the executive branch(President). Would a political party work effectively without an organizer, somebody moving down some path out of many, somebody that's directly responsible to the members of the party. The word fascist would be in context with how the military operates and the term can be misused as a scare tactic. This possible party would choose the way it's represented somewhere in the spectrum of
anarchy<--------------------------->fascism.
It's up to the members' of the party on how their represented (possibly by majority vote). Which seems most rational.

It will not and cannot work. You are talking about a Direcy Democracy and there is no feasible way it can be implemented. on top of that to be a politcal force for anyone to care about you need the support of millions.

There already exists an "open source" party. It is called the Communist Party. No, they don't talk about all the technical particulars you mentioned, but their philosophy is very much in line with the Open Source Movement.

For compu-tech stuff, the OSS philosophy works, generally. Not better in *all ways* than closed source, but it definitely does work. Politically, I am very middle-of-the-road, but I basically agree with RMS about software. But when it comes to other things, like politics, and related processes, I think it is far too idealistic. It's a nice pipe dream, but when that dream hits the hard rock of Reality, something's gotta give.

Most of the people who don't vote, don't vote because the don't care. If you *give* them full, free, internet access, they still won't use it to vote. They won't even bother to read most (if any) of the bills/petitions/questions/whatever that you put in front of them. You will still struggle to get even 50% of the eligble population to vote.

OTOH, if such a system were ever *seriously* proposed, I would do everything in my (limited) power to ensure it never saw fruition....

No, I'm talking about creating a party with the talent of the FSF/Open-source people. The using of their tools mentioned in 1st post. The FSF policy towards software would probably be one policy that's already understood as correct. Other policies would be debated and in some way come to a conclusion. I believe the FSF/Open-source people can create a way to make this "debate and conclusion" process much more efficient using IT tools rather than are reality now in government. The party would use these tools to make its own policies and then once in power, implement them in real government. One of the biggest problems with democracy is inefficiency in getting stuff done. FSF/Open-souce people are masters at manipulating information. Let's use it to society's and our own benefit.

Please give constructive criticism and don't throw terms like fascism around.

Other reasons exist for not voting:

Believing the government is in shambles and it's not worth voting.
Believing the party in power is corrupt and in bed with corporations.
Working so many hours that you have no time to watch/participate media/politics and take part in democratic process.

Avoidance of the government is shooting yourself in the foot and that's what a lot of pissed of people don't understand. Withdrawal & avoidance is not the answer and just gives power to others. There's more than 2 parties that exist, and they probably represent at least some of your beliefs. You just don't know about them because they can't afford media time or are still in a small stage.

If you give people a party that is trustworthy & transparent, they will come. The FSF/Open-source people have a good reputation, following, and are pro's at manipulating/processing information. Let's use these skills and take the community to the next level. Political Party!!!

Most people don't vote simply because they do not care. Its not the "evil" corporations making people not vote, its not the fact that all governments tend to be inheritily corrupt, its not ebcause they don't have time. Its simply because they do not care. And the reason they do not care is because no matter what congress tends to stall everything its practically 50/50 down the middle and nothing ever goes anywhere. Just stalls out in congress. Open-Source is all about how information pertaining to the advancement in technology should not be locked out by copyrights and all people should be allowed to help make it even better. How in the hell do you apply that to politics?

What you are talkign about IS direct democracy. That is what Direct Democracy is. Where evryone gets a say and directly vote on issues. And on top of that if you think have several million people debate on certain topics and use that as a premis for formign and runnign a government is efficent or better then our current system then you are horribly mistaken. You would end up instead of just two different positions on topics you would end up with 1000's of different positions on the same topics. nothign would ever get done.

Above all you keep mentioning by using the internet asa tool makes it different. That is utterly pointless and useless. Its just another outlet forinformation. A powerful and rather open one but just another outlet. Its certainly no way makes it any less distinguised from a direct democracy or communism. Which niether of which would ever work in their truest sense.

I have no idea where exsactly you are going with your idea other then trying to suggest a cyber government ho would be made up of so many geeks that the only thign ever to be fixed would be technological issues.

To clarify, each member above would be allowed only 1 thumb up or down on any one given message.

Representatives being chosen by others to me doesn't sound like direct democracy.
You got to understand that a party website would be created. Methods would be worked out to choose representatives(possibly quote above) to make at as fair as possible based on their popularity, views, and other possible characteristics. The representatives of the party would then work their way into the current government because the majority of the party chose this person. What I want to do is change the "debate & discussion" -> "conclusion" paridigm so it's more efficient an organized using current IT technology. The party itself would evolve with these changes. Once in power, the party would change the current governmental processes to become more efficient & fair. Democracy is notoriously slow in getting to "conclusion". Let's think outside the box and think of new ways to make this process more timely. Otherwise we turn to a man on a white horse.

When I think of a political party, I think of something on a much larger scale and broader sense than strictly an open-source movement. Although, a 'union' of programmers or computer specialists would seem to be a more feasible or correct term. As far as I know the margins on intellectual property is like 99% or more at least for micro. office. This, to me, signals that programmers or people involved in the process of producing such products are not getting near what they deserve or in other words being exploited.

Why would they? Just like McDonald's prohibits Unions at any of their stores (read Fast Food Nation).
Technology Corporations are exploiting programmers as well. I would think the intelligence that people have in this industry would be at a level that a union would seem like a step to ensure stability in their job, steady raises that would keep up with corporate earnings, or even profit-sharing. Unions have protected construction workers, pilots and even supported POLITICAL positions that are in favor of the intellectuals behind the intellectual property. Unions are not-for-profit companies. So there is no power-hungry politicans compromising the values that you or i stand by.

I can undestand the use of the internet as a communication portal for the computer literate to communicate and exchange ideas and come to a mass. Because we all know that when you are in a cubical or home office, the likely-hood of meeting a group of people that agree on the same issues and agrees that something must be done is not in the realm of possibilities. But the internet allows such things to happen (howard deans campaign was funded mostly by internet contributions). Imagine using the same process to promote other positive changes in the technology industry. We are the largest, smartest, un-appreciated people in the world economy. We innovate and bring the new ideas to life. Why haven't we come together to bring prosperity to our future, not just microsoft's and apples?

For anybody out there listening. A parallel discussion is going on at the gentoo forums here.

A direct democracy means a system in which all people vote on the issues directly and not through a represenative.

it seems that everyone somehow sense that possibility.
the dilemma is why people are afraid of seeing the fruition which can touch or rather affect their lives considerably
That kind of possibility is kind of "bad" , unwanted and tiresome for the majority,if you can solve this particular delimma of them then you are sure of that fruition.
As for the "tools" to ensure that fruition,you got to do a serious rethinking,well it is still worth the tiresome brainstorming,right?

hahahahahahahahahahaha Unions!? Are you kidding? They are an antiquated means of insuring the employees were not exploited back when the government did nothing. Now all they do is hinder progress and become more greedy. I remember workin gfor a municipality and the streets department made up of union workers while their hours were from 8-5 m-f they came in like 9:30 and left at 3 and they had all this ridiculous breaks and 5 guys and two trucks would go out to fill one pothole. One guy fills the other 4 stood around and stared and chatted.

Non-profit my ass. Look at philadelphia and its unions its so corrupt.

Your assumptions of knowing that just a few unions don't work doesn't mean all of them are incapable of working correctly. It's similiar to saying if a few teenagers drive like maniacs, then all teenagers should not be allowed to drive.

If I were upper management. I would love to hire you and exploit you just based on your attitudes towards unions.

I'm getting the feeling that some people posting on this conversation like to lurk in the shadows, do nothing if at all possible, except give unconstructive negative feedback. This is juvenile and immature. Is this what they mean by the word "troll" on message boards????

People of FSF/Open Source Movement must have faith & optimism that they can come together & be heard, and use their talents for something constructive. This was shown when the Linux Kernel was being developed and became mainstream. Now it must be shown in constructing a website that gives are views not only on software, but other issues that plague are times.

Do something constructive right now and get more people you know involved in this conversation. The more minds, the better the ability to think outside the box and get something done.

lol :) I just had like 8 people tell me what *my* views are and why they're not feasible ;)
People are so funny, "defend the status quo! reject all that's different or requires extraordinary work!".

I came upon this link .

It's enlightening and educational.