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Back in the early 1980's, I first ran across a guy by the name of Richard M. Stallman at various Science Fiction conventions that I was attending. One of them had an interesting unoffical event, the Hacker's Meeting. As I look back upon my memories of those events, I am impressed by the number of people who are household names today. But the ones that I remember most was meeting Marvin Minksy, and Eric S. Raymond. Me, I'm a nobody, but I have done my share of stuff for the "information revoloution". I haven't pioneered much, but as a early adoptor of many of the ideas and their fruits, I've been a good footsoldier in this revolution.
But Fast Forward to the new Century, the 21st.
"Information wants to be free" isn't just a buzzphrase, it is reality. Many times, digital information has escaped no matter how hard someone tries to hide it. Unlike hardcopy information, when someome takes it, it doesn't disappear. There is only one "Voice of Fire", but their are millions of copies of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", and more copies are being made right at this moment. Each copy mulitplies the number of the copies of that seminal work, which is fundamentally different from the hardcopy world, where one take is one less available. It's like that old commercial where one person tells two friends about how great the product was, and they tell to friends, and they tell two friends each, until the screen fills with a zillion small windows of each telling two friends. The same thing happens on the Internet. Any type of information on the Internet spreads faster than a wildfire. And the more information there is, the more interest in it, in a huge feedback loop. When people use that to promote their art, they benefit.
A good exampe of this is the band Wilco. And in an interview in Wired, the leader of the band put it susinctly "Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread".
You can read the whole thing at: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65688,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
It is well worth the read. And after reading it, you might want to go and download their album, and if you like it, probably buy it. Contrary to what the RIAA believes.
Information wants to be free, and those who embrace that will ride the wave, like a shockwave rider, and the other will probably drown.
ttyl
But Fast Forward to the new Century, the 21st.
"Information wants to be free" isn't just a buzzphrase, it is reality. Many times, digital information has escaped no matter how hard someone tries to hide it. Unlike hardcopy information, when someome takes it, it doesn't disappear. There is only one "Voice of Fire", but their are millions of copies of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", and more copies are being made right at this moment. Each copy mulitplies the number of the copies of that seminal work, which is fundamentally different from the hardcopy world, where one take is one less available. It's like that old commercial where one person tells two friends about how great the product was, and they tell to friends, and they tell two friends each, until the screen fills with a zillion small windows of each telling two friends. The same thing happens on the Internet. Any type of information on the Internet spreads faster than a wildfire. And the more information there is, the more interest in it, in a huge feedback loop. When people use that to promote their art, they benefit.
A good exampe of this is the band Wilco. And in an interview in Wired, the leader of the band put it susinctly "Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread".
You can read the whole thing at: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65688,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
It is well worth the read. And after reading it, you might want to go and download their album, and if you like it, probably buy it. Contrary to what the RIAA believes.
Information wants to be free, and those who embrace that will ride the wave, like a shockwave rider, and the other will probably drown.
ttyl
