George Dafermos' Weblog

Monday, May 03, 2004

the empire goes open source

up to now i have tended to dismiss most claims about ?microsoft?'s dedication to going open source as pure hype, unfounded speculation and wrong use of the term open source at its best. when though people that i deeply respect and whose views i very much appreciate on all things-tehnology like glyn moody say so, i listen. it's not just the wix and the shared source initiative with its open licensing odour. and it's not only that ?MS? 's started blogging at full speed. it's all this and then the fact that openness and communication across and beyond previously well-guarded boundaries and corporate fortresses means business in an industry largely shifting its weight towards the provision of customised services.

of couse, cashing in on services need not be the case with ?MS?, not because it's not a lucrative revenue stream, but because it doesn't need to be so, at least for the time being. as anyone who's ever been involved in the software industry is well aware of, ?IBM? is no longer a hardware company - it's a formerly rigid bureacracy tied to its own hardware platform now turned huge consultancy because that's where the bulk of opportunities now resides. should we expect to witness a similar paradigm shift emerging from redmont? can't tell yet. but first things first:

Another of those blogs gives an insight into why Microsoft is opening up. It relates the company's new-found interest in blogging to concerns about "software quality" and the "customer connection." These are precisely the areas where free software excels, thanks to the tight links between coders and users that lie at the heart of the open source development model - and that people at Microsoft are trying to replicate through its official Shared Source Initiative as well as more informal approaches like blogs and Wikis, the latter mostly part of the interesting Channel 9 project. link

couldn't agree more. by default, all empires falter. only thing that can extend their time on earth is to infuse them with some fresh energy, talent, and feedback from the outside into their hardwired models and processes. and then to open up these processes to more outsiders. only in such a way, can a lifecycle grow beyond its otherwise naturally fixed limitations. and it seems ?MS? understands this and seeks a competitive edge beyond agressive OEM licensing/pricing schemes, "extend, embrace, and destroy" strategies and so forth, particularly now that google grows stronger and smarter by the day. welcome to the leaner empire, the time when we'll stop talking about hidden APIs and leaked emails that we now associate with pumpkins may be not far ahead.

10:55:59 PM

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we hold the power reigns

it has been repeatedly said that toni negri's and michael hardt's Empire is a grand philosophical work, so there's no need to add any further compliments here. still, when the act of reading the book and engaging with its counter-strategies and unraveling mysteries produces mental syntheses and electonic disturbances as powerful as those that gerry gleason compels us to pay attention to and contemplate, i can't do much other than sit still and marvel at the well hidden, nearly mystical, rhizomatic flows of energy that empire serves to unleash:

I need to come back to it and begin to formulate the vision of a way forward. This is not a singular vision, but a vision born of the multitude and cooperative processes that move and grow by dynamic, organic and vital processes from the grass roots outward. We are not alone, we have billions of allies once we throw off the bounds of thought that we have taken on from our indoctrination in the "Disciplinary Society". We need to realize the fear is an illusion perpetrated by Empire's "Society of Control", and that all they have in their arsenal is the weak powers of negation while we hold the reigns of biopower and bioproduction in our own hands. The only power they have is the limited power of violence and negation, the power to destroy. The power to create, to generate and regenerate is ours to have if we can just summon up the power to speak in our own voices. link

7:24:55 AM

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travelling

had been disconected for the last couple of weeks - no blogging, no serious emailing, so web surfing, no ftp, my cyber body literaly left behind, awaiting for instantaneous redemption through human touch and primitive interaction. finally got back home this morning. brought with me this awsum looking illuminated tiny keyboard, that i haven't yet gotten used to writing with, and lots of thoughts and fresh ideas. my inbox is practically overflooding with scores of email to be answered, and new things are on the works. good to be back blogging after a while :-p

7:11:19 AM

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