[plug] 30 theses

Bret Busby bret at clearsol.iinet.net.au
Wed Sep 6 12:52:42 WST 2000


Leon Brooks wrote:
> 
> [lunch break time: please read this and add theses. Each thesis should be short
> (prefereably 2 lines or less) and to the point, but (and you know who you are)
> not violent or needlessly offensive. I plan to collate all useful suggestions
> and get them posted somewhere well-read on the Internet]
> 
> Preamble
> ~~~~~~~~
> 
> One might think that during the past 483 years, some civil progress would have
> been made. However, it seems that in certain areas, specifically computing,
> "there is nothing new under the sun". Today we are faced with a monopolistic
> situation not unlike the one faced by Martin Luther when he nailed his 95 theses
> to the door of the Wittemburg cathedral.
> 
> "The only thing one learns from history is that nobody learns anything from
> history", claimed Hegel, and these new theses are yet another effort to prove
> him wrong. It is our fond hope that you will take these ideas to heart, and
> change the way you think about computers, perhaps even change the decisions you
> make about buying and specifying computers.
> 
> While the modern equivalent of this action would be to "nail" our 95 theses to
> Microsoft's home page, we feel that this would not even be as well received as
> Martin's action was in his day, so we are publishing these theses here.
> 
> 1. The opportunity for greatest freedom of choice is key to the greatest common
> good.
> 
> 2. Freedom of choice naturally includes the freedom to avoid choice.
> 
> 3. The safest and simplest way to guarantee freedom of choice is to leave as
> many choices open as possible in each step of the software food chain, from
> developers through distributors to end users.
> 
> 4. The only certain method of pushing control out towards each end user is to
> make complete and useable source code readily available to everyone.
> 
> 5. Long feedback chains mean late and often erroneous changes to software.
> 
> 6. The shortest possible feedback chain, zero hops, results when the end user
> can also be the developer, and vice versa.
> 
> 7. Tailored gear can be made to fit better than sweatshop production-line gear.
> 
> 8. Practice produces a more well-rounded product than theory.
> 
> 9. Most people work best when they're working for themselves.
> 
> 10. Most people take better care of something that they own. We need to hear the
> lesson in "Don't worry, it's a rental."
> 
> 11. Many eyeballs (and minds) make light work of debugging.
> 
> 12. The only certain way to provide ownership, short feedback chains, practical
> coding, self-powered and empowered workers and a broad skill base is to make
> development tools readily available to the end user.
> 
> 13. An example can be worth a thousand words of theory.
> 
> 14. Monocultures are unhealthy, and in the long term not viable (in a natural
> setting, they will die out: think about the Irish potato famine or the effects
> of Texan broadacre monocropping on Russian farmland).
> 
> 15. Polycultures are healthy and beneficial, even for nearby or connected
> monocultures. The most robust situations in nature are extremely complex.
> 
> 16. The only certain way to provide a broad spectrum of useful examples is to
> establish a framework within which source code access is a right and source code
> provision is an honour.
> 
> 17. Entities with a larger number of centres of control are more difficult to
> destroy than more "concentrated" structures.
> 
> 18. Entities with a larger number of centres of control are more difficult to
> subvert than more "homogeneous" structures.
> 
> 19. Any significant success in a contested field will result in attempts to
> subvert or destroy the successful entity from limited numbers of hostile
> competitors.
> 
> 20. Distribution (even abandonment) of control makes destruction or subversion
> of an entity by hostile competitors difficult more quickly than it makes
> assistance or empowerment of the entity by sympathisers difficult.
> 
> 21. Hostile competitors must also have a right to life, however "the liberty of
> the corporation must be thus far limited: it must not make a nuisance of itself
> to other entities."
> 
> 22. There are many "right ways" of acheiving an end; where resources permit,
> many should be tried.
> 
> 23. Reliability is generally more important for a user than snazzy features.
> 
> 24. Reliability is generally more important for a user than the product being on
> supermarket shelves (or FTP servers) for Christmas.
> 
> 25. Wide document availability is generally more important that the power to
> double-underscore, colour or "fontasize" about your text.
> 
> 26. Keeping your passwords, credit card numbers and disk structure safe is
> generally more important than being able to fly a little man around on somebody
> else's screen on the fiery rocket blast from his backside, accompanied by a
> jolly tune.
> 
> 27. Having a public encryption system that works is better than having a private
> one with your name on it and enormous security holes.
> 
> 28. "Write once, run anywhere" is more safely and politely achieved with Python,
> TCL or PERL than with a black-box ActiveX binary or VBS.
> 
> 29. Reliability, interoperability and security are generally better achived by
> bowing to a standards committee than by bullying one.
> 
> 30. Paying a local computer guru $500 to set your machine up "just so" feels a
> lot better than paying a remote and faceless software corporation $500 just for
> a licence to use it.
> 
> 31. [add more theses here: we want 95 of them in the end]
> 
> --
> "I think that's how Chicago got started. A bunch of people in New York
> said, 'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't
> cold enough. Let's go west.'" -- Richard Jeni

39. Assertions should be clear, in plain english, and, devoid of
metaphors.

40. Applications and output, should be designed to be portable; to be
hardware platform independent, to be operating system independent, and,
to be application independent.

-- 

Bret Busby

......................................



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