On 28/11/2007, vijay chopra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On 28/11/2007, Deirdre Harvey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Of course, where I've referred to Free in the context of this discussion > > I have generally meant libre, not gratis. > > > > > > > Why should people who do important jobs in the public interest not get > > paid? My father has worked very hard his entire life as a teacher in an > > inner city school. He thinks his job matters and takes his work very > > seriously but he wouldn't have done it if they hadn't paid him. You know, > > what with kids to support etc. > > > > > Please point out where I've said that people should work for nothing. I've > said things should be open and free (libre) not free (gratis). >
More to the point, 99.9% of the people on this planet get paid for the work they do just once. But there are some people who think that their work is so brilliant that they should get paid again and again and again. This was a feature of the old, one-to-many broadcast world, or the big-circulation newspaper, as the economics of the situation created this artificial condition. It's pure Gordon-Gecko greed to want to keep being paid for working once. If you think journalism isn't important to society then make that > > argument. If you think it is, then why blithely assume that other people > > should do that important work for nothing? > > > > > Journalism is vital to a functioning democracy, unfortunately it seems to > be a dieing art, and being fast replaced with sensationalists and people who > want to make news rather than report it. > Or perhaps not. Perhaps it is the simple removal of "professional" (ie, they get paid for it) journalists from the system will cause "the people" to communicate with each other, which seems to be more like democracy to me. Don't forget that the original democracy in Ancient Greece was a more involved system than we have today. They had great meeting on the hill of all the people where the crowd listened to the speakers debate issues. Each of the tribes took it in turn in rotation to be the "parliament", with members having to be "on watch" 24/7 for 28 days at a time. The senate was voted for very frequency. The "civil service" was hired on a daily basis using a randomized marble system. The system we have today is a joke by comparison, especially in a world of instant communications. I would start by constructing Acts of Parliament by Wiki for a start. Vijay. > > > > > -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
