Open Source Parking

Open Source Parking

Good for you buddy, alternatives are good. But is it an either or question? Why not join forces and do both? Sounds to me like two good men who can set aside differences for the greater good.

Personally I'd be delighted if domain registration, parking, hosting, payment processing etc. were available via foss-supporting organisations. 1&1 Hosting in the uk for example helped in the fight against swpats in the EU.

I'd have a different approach to the organisations legal structure though. I'm enhusiastic about for-profit worker-cooperatives without shareholders, founded on strong principles that give 10% of pretax profits to good causes, eg. the foss movement. I call it a free enterprise. If the livelihood motive is there people will go through hoops to make sure the business thrives. Semco has gone part of the way, see wikipedia.

As my grandfather used to say "whoever controls the purse strings, controls the house". Unless the concentration of financial and thereby political power issue is tackled, the foss movement along with other endeavours will be swept away by the wave of ever increasing corporate influence. That's the big elephant in the corner. I'm particularly concerned about control of the internet and software, because these are enablers for people tackling wider survival and justice issues.

Hence I think free enterprises are the vehicles that will ultimately enable people to regain appropriate influence in their lives, and it seems free software and free enterprises should have a symbiotic evolution.

Bruces idea could be a free enterprise, offering domain services at first but then diversifying into related services. It could also deliver a portal, aiming at a free enterprise in a box, and enabling entrepreneurs to network and replicate around the globe just as free software has. Every person joining a free enterprise is one less unit of labour propping up the concentrators.

If someone else doesn't do it I will. I've just started out on my own and have a lot of coding to do, but 10% of this years modest profits will go to the free software movement.