carlo von lynX via nettime-l on Tue, 14 Nov 2023 14:12:30 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> It's Time to Fight for Open Source Again (Galileo excerpt)


On 11/14/23 1:32 PM, Allan Siegel via nettime-l wrote:
>       From Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht

Cute dialogue, and Brecht had all reasons to cite such a dialogue, but
what do totalitarian regimes of the past have to do with the enlightened
democracies that people like Galileo and Brecht fought for and that we
luckily now have, at least to a large extent? Certainly the Internet is
nibbling at its foundations now, but we still do live in an open
democratic society with mostly separated powers.

Is the consensus on nettime not to confront the risks created by
technology, but rather to amplify its symptoms: a confused fear that we
may have lost the freedoms of Enlightenment and democracy which furthers
us on a trajectory towards the return of totalitarian structures simply
because we erroneously think we're already in them? Re-enforcing
distrust in what our ancestors fought for? Giving up way too early?

Brecht and Galileo wouldn't be delighted.

And to those who say free software vs open source: have you read the
thread at all? My criticism of open source applies to "free software" in
a GNU sense as well.

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