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

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.

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.