worth reading both <http://www.worldofends.com> for those that haven't yet and Eric's post below (posted here with approval) in addition. this is one to share with those that need a clue.
Regards Elliot Noss Tucows inc. 416-538-5494 -----Original Message----- From: Eric S. Raymond [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 1:15 PM To: Doc Searls Cc: Dave Winer; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Dan Gillmor; Dave Farber; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Kevin Werbach; Esther Dyson; Elliot Noss; David L. Sifry; BryanField-Elliot; Charles Roth; Cindy McCaffrey; Cory Doctorow; Denise Howell; Donna Wentworth; Don Norman; Evan Williams; J.D. Lasica; Kim Cameron; Lisa Rein; Mary Lu Wehmeier; Mike Taht; Mitch Ratcliffe; Madison Slade Subject: Re: World of Ends Doc Searls <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > David Weinberger and I have summed up a bunch of what you might call > Commons Wisdom about the Net in this public draft right here: > > <http://www.worldofends.com> > > The idea is to help save dumb companies (and whole industries) from > wasting their money and our time by failing to grok what the Net is > fundamentally about. Very nicely done. I would add this bullet point: * The Internet has no secrets We've pointed out that the Internet is an agreement, rather than a thing, and that one of the qualities that makes that agreement fruitful and powerful is that anyone can join it. One of the central reasons that anyone can join it is that the net has no secrets. The technical standards describing how to talk to the Internet are open to anyone. There is no hidden magic, there are no legal barriers preventing anyone from re-implementing the Internet, and there are many implementations of the network available as open-source code. The transparency of the Internet's technical standards, and of the code that implements them, has many benefits. One is that it is remarkably difficult for software bugs to lurk undetected in the code for any length of time. The engineers who maintain the Internet have learned to value this quality a great deal, and to defend it. It's not just censorship that the Internet interprets as damage, but also secrecy and attempts at proprietary control. The attempts of governments, media conglomerates, and others to impose their own agendas on the Internet lower its value. -- <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>
