A4D is being built by volunteers using an open source language (PHP) to assemble software components (like Drupal, MySQL, RSS, etc.) to build the toolkit. And their work is open source, so it's freely available for others to re-use and improve by returning their improvements to the code base. Sure, the code will be papered with advisories that it was developed for the Dean campaign beta users–notices that must be left in the code–but all candidates of all stripes are welcome to benefit from this extraordinary body of work.
If we offer it publicly and sincerely, it's just another open source tool, which is required of us by the GPL anyway. Why be afraid of an overwhelming grassroots movement of fundamentalist Internet mavens (is there such a thing?). We should embrace all grassroots organizing that raises the collective dialogue, since that exposes our most candid thinking.
Again, the GPL or any license requires us to re-publish the code, and we assume some republicans/Kerryites will get the code by becoming nodes. We're sharing it anyway, so if we say we're sharing it, the FEC issues disappear, IMHO.
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On Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 11:02 AM, CMR wrote:
Yeah, it is a soft money issue. Well you've got a good idea that I willgo check on (if one contributer payed for hosting out of pocket as a
campaign contribution). But i think if this thing works hosting will cost
a bit more than $2K a month and things will get messy. $2000 is not enoughto pay for this thing I think....
Got it; and that's all fine by me (although, if it's just linux hosting,
it's amazing what $2000, even $200, will buy...).
But at least part of my idea on this was, what if (god forbid) Dean flails?
As I've said a couple times before, this project is potentially much bigger
than one cause because it's really all about the future of online
networking/organizing. I'd hate to see things disintergrate if Dean "goes
south", say, when the primaries go south. So having the hosting space might
have given us an tangible "turf" where the organization's code and such
could be sustained and a central "site" could operate if need be.
But, even in this scenario, some hosting space could be always obtained at
that junture and we all could (and will I imagine) talk about what, if
anything, is next. So it's all good. (Besides, DEAN'S GONNA KICK BOODIE!!!)
Cheers CMR
<--enter gratuitous quotation that implies my profundity here-->
