Free Software, Climate Change, and the Importance of Creeds-Ends Fit

"The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change" - James Hansen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/obamas-second-chance-on-c_b_525567.html

almost surely

normative - should -

normative take on normative change

what needs to happen for that to happen, though?

consilient analysis: morality and motivation: psych, social psych, biology

leff: the spanish prisoner: altercasting; attractiveness of an altruistic role.

moral vision: john brown, quaker anti-slavery movement

compare: free software v. open source

justice frame matters: have to be able to answer arguments about WHY to keep on struggling, when start to be pushback; claims that climate change hits poor mostly, so why should we care.

don'tr push the metaphor too tightly: acking the metaphor away from its metaphrand just a little more, so that the correspondences don't become so overtightened that the frame cracks.

arnold: different creeds: different organizational psychology implications

'm going to use the phrase "Free Software" to describe this material and I'm going to suggest to you that the choice of words is relevant. We are talking not merely about a form of production or a system of industrial relations, but also about the beginning of a social movement with specific political goals which will characterize not only the production of software in the twenty-first century, but the production and distribution of culture generally. My purpose this morning is to put that process in large enough context so that the significance of free software can be seen beyond the changes in the software industry alone.

This is a fascinating conversation, I've been thinking about it for fifteen years, I have a lot of fun doing it. I just want you to understand that such talk is the beginning of something way more important, and that in order to understand why it is important you have to understand why it is at all. It won't do to say it's Open Source--you'll get a good idea about the software business but you won't understand any of the rest of this because it won't be clear why what is happening is happening, or why the newspaper headlines read the way they do. What we are going through is a fundamental alteration in the areas of intellectual infrastructure and production all over the world. We're now talking about just one little piece. You have got to understand that the struggle is bigger than that. That it is more serious. That it commits us to fundamental moral questions that we have to take a side about. That the work we do as lawyers, and programmers and engineers now is about the future of freedom of ideas all over everywhere. That it means confrontations just as improbable in scale as the confrontation between the Microsoft Corporation and the Free Software Foundation, which I didn't name but which Mr. Mundie did. David and Goliath? Hell no. Goliath was just a big human being, basically the same as David but larger.

econodwarf - people only work for incentives > environmental economics/cost-benefit > veblen: workshmanship; autonomy.

distaste for futility: end with - why important to emphasize, this time, we win.

open source: incentive emphasized

free software: justice emphasized

McGowan? paper: holmes, gandhi

..... christianity and climate change article; other climate and ethics articles: framing as moral issue

john brown: moral vision; justice - thoreau commentary.

not fundamentally a technical issue, essentially; moral issue.

moral priorities and commitments - guide technical work, are embedded in technical work: free software concept.