[FRIAM] Subject: Re: Friam Digest, Vol 180, Issue 3

[Marcus Daniels]

Glen writes:
 
"This reminded me of my (postmodern) criticism of open source (in spite of any of my advocacy of it), that open source *can* be exploited by an elite set of people who are elite by their capability to know how to read, use, and think about code, or design google queries, or SEO. It's only "democratization" IF the skills and resources to use it are available to everyone."

How about bicycle racing.   Not everyone can achieve > 80 ml/kg/min VO2 max, but a few people can.    These are biologically gifted people, and then they train like hell too, and/or sometimes use performance enhancing drugs.   There are some people that can train like hell but always be beaten by someone than trains as hard or less.  They just don't have it.   

Open source as a meritocracy is attractive to its adherents because it selects for individuals that succeed in developing a particular kind of sustained intellectual productivity, based on nothing else but the fact that they do.    You can't just go through a particular training procedure and come out a productive peer in this community.  It doesn't matter if you are born a citizen of a hypothetical Code Nation.    People from all over the world end-up being recruited to major tech firms who can see the value of their work, and not just the bullet points on a resume.

It seems silly to say that one would democratize elite bicycle racing.   

Marcus