Forgetting history
This blog is a bit of an experiment. I have
long wondered why anyone with any choice in the matter would want to read a
stranger's musings. Sometimes, of course, it makes sense, for the blog may be
entertaining or informative, just like a regular column in a newspaper. Wanting
to write, or at least to have written, such columns would seem to be a powerful
urge, at least in the U.S. Theodore Dreiser, who in many ways was an everyman,
lusted after just such a column, a newspaper section where he could write on the
city (Chicago), give his impressions, be the odd flâneur whose invisibility
shadows others' lives. He was hardly the first--the late 19th century was full
of such and even more full of the commercial need for casual, short writings. So
full that Gissing was able to write a deadly satire, New Grub Street,
essentially about the failure and death of literature (as that which was opposed
to the rhythm of the market) and the success of the market-friendly "chit-chat,"
or occasional babble about this and that, and all with no consequence or art.
"Art" and "literature" for Gissing were good; the market sort of bad, for it
values surface and not depth. Gissing it goes without saying was a child of his
times. My own take on the literature of the market is decidedly different, and I
confess to liking the pure speed of trade fiction.
But why this blog, then? It's not
meant to be chit-chat. Quite the opposite. I want it to be a space of sustained
thought, though limited, an indulgence of sorts, but limited. Do I expect
comments. I don't know. I doubt even if many (or any) will bother to read even
this far. After all, my "fame" lies more because of my work with OpenOffice.org
than because of my work on U.S. literature and culture. That said, I am
presenting on Twain at the upcoming MLA in December; as well, on open source,
only from a more theoretical
perspective.
And that takes me now
to open source. One of the things that bugs me about non-academic (and even a
lot of academic) discourse on open source is the amazing lack of historical
consciousness. It's as if people think that the concept, the act sprung without
historical antecedent from Raymond's mind, or as if the sharing of software code
was somehow fundamentally different from the sharing of any other property
amenable to collaborative development, like music, or a film, or scientific
works. Coupled with that ignorance, most people seem to think that open source
owes nothing to the vast government expenditure manifested by DARPA and
university networks and computers, not to mention student scholarships. In
short, people seem to want to think of open source as a libertarian
paradise.
And they are
wrong.
Posted: Sun - August 28, 2005 at 11:58 PM