--- Cc: politech@private From: felipe rodriquez <felipe@private> Subject: paradigm shift Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:51:09 +1100 To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> Declan, Here is a little blurb I wrote yesterday: I have this image forming in my mind about a cultural change through the Internet. Its about a community that becomes increasingly vocal, creative and constructive. Feel free to share it with others. I have observed the Internet since 1989 and loved it myself for its potential. That drove me to start my company in '93. I've been virtually full-time immersed in the Internet since ~1991. I like it because of its community and because of the way people self organize to achieve a common goal. I have participated in many communities and usually loved it. In many ways it is human evolution into a very different future world, society and the international community will change, has changed, because of it. National boundaries start dissolving, some traditional legislation can no longer be enforced, new international subcultures form, communication can not be controlled, the media have a harder time fooling us et cetera. This has already happened. Spontaneous self organization of people is what created the Internet. Before it became commercial it drove on academics who donated their time to participate in programming projects to develop the technology. The Internet was created by the people, not by a business. The US government funded the actual hardware network, but the software was mostly a community effort. As the Internet is growing it is becoming more obvious what shape these initiatives are taking. There is a huge Open Source community that develops software that is free. That is where Linux, Darwin, FreeBSD et cetera come from. A clone for Microsoft Office was also created in that community, and a Microsoft emulator for Linux has been in development since 1993. The best anti-spam software also comes from it, the world wide web too, email too et cetera Now these little communities move into other areas. I am very impressed by the Wikipedia project at www.wikipedia.org This is an online encyclopedia by the people for the people. It is completely free and operates on a shoestring. People are opening their wireless connection for the community. With long range wireless like 802.16 people will start community networks, bypassing commercial companies. It will be like HAM Radio for the masses. Who knows what happens next. In this world when there is a group of people that want something, there is a common goal, and they are online, then it simply happens. Geographical location is not that important anymore. The way we experience the world is undergoing tremendous changes and this causes friction. Governments have already had their anxiety and tried to do something about it by setting up censorship, surveillance and anti-spam legislation. The censorship laws had no effect at all, the Internet routes around it. Not all fish know how to swim in this pond, it causes a culture clash for many people and companies. Microsoft is wetting their pants because of their angst of the Open Source community. Free software is quickly catching up with the sophistication of Microsoft. Office has already been replicated. A good writer friend of mine in .nl always used Microsoft and has switched to Linux successfully. She is not a geek expert hacker chic. The reason Microsoft is scared is not just because the competing products are catching up fast, it is also because Microsoft is increasingly under attack from hackers and virus writers. This has been going on for years, but now we're at a point that viruses come in by Email every day. Security has never been Microsoft's forte. In the old days when I was a hacker the main problem was that suppliers would ship their unix mainframes with insecure settings. As a consequence it would be trivial to gain access and get superuser privileges. Most unix platforms that are shipped these days are watertight. Microsoft has a long road to go to match that kind of security, and many monsters lurk on that road to try and derail Microsoft. Microsoft has a classic problem. Many companies and managers become very defensive when there is a threat. They fight tooth and nail to defeat the threat. This becomes a problem when the threat is the community at large. It is the same mistake Scientology made and is continuing to make. The Music industry is in this space too. So is SCO. Business-models will need to change in order to survive. Embracing the community is survival, coercion, legal battles against many individuals, aggression and incompetence are certain death. Microsoft has always dealt with threats successfully. Most competitors have been wiped out. But can they win the sympathy of the community ? Can they transform themselves into a pink, warm and cuddly company ? Will they cooperate with the community to make a better product ? What other companies are adapting poorly ? Examples of companies that are doing this well are IBM, Apple, Cisco, most Linux companies, Adobe. You can usually see by finding out if the company provides an open online forum where products and problems can be publicly discussed. For some reason many people and companies have a natural tendency to not accept these kinds of feedback systems because they easily feel threatened, they do not want their customers to organize themselves. But it makes economic sense to listen to customers and give them what they need, instead of being scared of the customer. These are dilemmas many companies face. The world has changed much, is always changing. Old habits die hard. In some cases the old habit will kill the culprit. Darwinian evolution kicks in and takes out the elements that do not work. Some companies will die or become obsolete, others will mushroom. The trick will be identifying them. Which companies will understand that it is better to ride the wave than to swim against the stream ? Don't invest in Encyclopedia companies :-) _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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