"I think, as much as anything else, the job over here in hackland is going to be to get the questions down into single sentences without losing anything..."
Yep! We certainly haven't answered everything, but there are a bunch of things we have made decisions on, and I'm happy to answer any questions! And no, this opensource/presidential campaign confluence is a hell of a fun ride! Just let Rove try it :) Z Zephyr Teachout Internet Organizing & Outreach Dean for America [EMAIL PROTECTED] Meetup at http://www.deanforamerica.com/meetup Get local at http://action.deanforamerica.com Contribute at http://www.deanforamerica.com/contribute -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jay R. Ashworth Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 3:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [hackers] Re: Legal Issues and dodo birds On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 02:43:07PM -0500, zachary rosen wrote: > Astute observations CMR - I don't disagree with a word you said. If we > are official, then we have sold out. > > That being said I remain almost completly unconcerned with the problems of > such a close association. All through the process of deciding how > "official" our organization would be come it was made clear that it would > be a conscious choice, and to knowledge there was not one objection. > > Yes there are very real conflicts with this development community having > such close ties with the official campaign, but in my opinion the problems > are almost completly mitigated by the fact that this project is completly > open source. Or maybe not. I think that, as I noted in my immediately previous email, delineating between a4d and h4d is probably something close to critical here. *I* tend to think a4d might get embroiled, but that h4d probably shouldn't, and that that split will make lots of people lots of happier. But what do *I* know; I just got here. :-) > * Yes, HQ is very concerned about the name "hack" and in my opinion it is > very probable we will change our name because of it. The fact that a > _presidential campaign_ - the official campaign - is willing to embrace > and endorse an open source development project is so outragously cool that > name of the working group working on the tools isn't so important to me > personally anymore. Besides, i would rather win this election than save > the word "hack". Speak for yourself. :-) > * Correct, the fact that the development community is becoming somewhat > "official" spells out conflict with the abilities for the communities > using our software to voice their opinion. However, HQ has already stated > and I truly believe that communities using our tools will remain > unofficial, and thus unrestricted by the official campaign. There are > very reall PR and legal reasons why this must be so, beyond perceivable > conflicts between control over the campaign message. That doesn't seem to coincide with what I think I've heard Z say here in the last 24 hours. Now, I understand that Burlington probably doesn't *know* how to approach this; no one has ever tried, I don't think, to intersect something as free-wheeling as open-source with something as tightly-controlled as a presidential campaign. And yes, we can't afford to make as many mistakes here. And yes, we need strategic thinking. And yes, (alas) they're likely to have to come from the political side of the house. I think, as much as anything else, the job over here in hackland is going to be to get the questions down into single sentences without losing anything... At least, that's what I've done for clients for about 20 years, and it seems to work well. If I can help... Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] Member of the Technical Staff Baylink RFC 2100 The Suncoast Freenet The Things I Think Tampa Bay, Florida http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274 OS X: Because making Unix user-friendly was easier than debugging Windows -- Simon Slavin, on a.f.c
