We tell people we use Linux because it's secure. Or because it's free, because it's customizable, because it's free (the other meaning), because it has excellent community support... But all of that is just marketing bulls[p]it.

In his recent Forbes article Cash Me Out (by way of The Register’s Open Season) Dan Lyons likens the assimilation of open source into the mainstream IT industry to the incorporation of gay culture into mainstream culture.

To outsiders, software whose source code is freely distributable is open source software. However, as soon as you become involved with the community that centers around such code, you quickly find that it is also called free software -- and that the two terms are far from synonymous. Which term you choose to use can quickly associate you with a whole spectrum of political and philosophical beliefs, and can make the difference between receiving cooperation and being ostracized. As a newcomer, you might easily imagine that you have stumbled out of the woods and into the target end of a rifle range, all because of your innocent choice of jargon.

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather [...] In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us. [...] In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace.

The open source movement, which is responsible for some of the most important innovations in IT such as the world wide web, Linux and Apache, neither pays fat bonuses nor offers flashy facilities. It does, however, provide much by the way of intangible benefits.

Jon Healey correctly points out that the debate over intellectual-property theft is complex because we are often dealing with "non-real properties." These properties cost nearly nothing to produce, and an infinite number of people can use the same property at the same time. And yet, we still want to treat them as if they were "real" property.

"The European Commission has decided that RFID tags should be turned off in products in detail stores. The proposal was submitted last week by European commissioner Vivian Reding and should guarantee privacy for citizens as well as development of new technology. A representative of the EC has citated that the proposal can be accepted before the summer if all 27 state members approve it. So far for the news. Now, my point of view is that the RFID technology brings serious privacy concerns..."

"Like an echo from the futuristic sci-fi film Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott) morphed with The Matrix (1999, Andy & Larry Wachowski), the not-too-distant hereafter promises to be a stratified cybersociety; those with the preferential attributes will gain access to the many coveted self-contained metropolises, available only to those with digital savvy and informational instinct. Long gone will be the days of slaving at the job to pay for the credit card that is paying off the Lexus and the mortgage on the 6-bedroom Tudor-style custom house in Palos Verdes. If you are not on the go, you are left behind.