Re: [ba-ohs-talk] Learning Groove
John Maloney wrote: (01)
> HKvE --
>
> Thanks to you (and others) for your messages.
>
> This Groove thread is interesting, and is indicative of just some of the
> disappointing and stubborn social barriers to rapidly boosting Collective
> IQ. To wit,
>
> "And one should bear in mind that there is nothing more difficult to
> execute, nor more dubious of success, nor more dangerous to administer than
> to introduce a new system; for he who introduces it has all those who profit
> from the old system as his enemies, and he has only lukewarm allies in all
> those who might profit from the new system. This lukewarmness partly stems
> from fear of their adversaries, who have the law on their side, and partly
> from the skepticism of men who do not truly believe in new things unless
> they have actually had personal experience of them."
>
> - Niccolo Machiavelli, 1510 (02)
Interesting you should quote Machiavelli here, as it is only with
a disappointing and stubborn irony that one might note that those
of us not using Windows are not speaking from a position of power
but as those in the minority, and "those who would profit from the
old system" are the ones who are *able* to use Groove. A bit of a
reversal here from what I believe Machiavelli intended. (03)
> Remember, the essence of the Human System and Tool System dichotomy and its
> concomitant Capabilities Infrastructure is not so much -how- it works, but
> how it gets -used- ...and if it boosts Collective IQ. (04)
Absolutely. And what we're complaining about is a tool ostensibly
designed to boost the Collective IQ being available only to the
current users of the monopolist OS. The inventors and thinkers among us
who don't use that OS are excluded from the party. It seems rather
tragic to be excluding what might be (based on my understanding of
the predominant Macintosh and linux user bases) some of our more
creative people. Indeed, doesn't it seem a shame to exclude anyone?
On something so "trivial" an issue as OS? (I.e., if OS were so trivial,
why didn't the $60m invested in Groove include the trivial porting
of it to other OSes?) (05)
> If OHS was to happen all at once, then it would have been here years ago. (06)
Actually, the things Doug has described over the years have gradually
arrived, over the years. It is here already, in large part, only the
components were developed by different individuals using different and
often incompatible (i.e., proprietary) technologies. For example, one
of the more difficult aspects of getting a Hyperscope to operate is
getting it to read the valuable information in a Microsoft Project
file. (07)
> Few, if any, OHS offerings operate at the key intersection of the Human
> System and Tool System and deliver true C-level capabilities. The singular
> quest must be radical qualitative improvements in the Capabilities
> Infrastructure.
>
> When your true goal is the essential pursuit of the intrinsic and
> indispensable properties of OHS and the Capabilities Infrastructure, matters
> such as 'supported OSes' are quite trivial and irrelevant. (08)
I guess our "true goal" is overthrow of the government or something
then. For myself, the true goal I *thought* we were working toward
is not hampered by our ability to conceive of it, it's hampered by
the trivialities of things like "supported Oses" and "proprietary
software". (09)
> 'Support OSes' and the ilk may eventually matter, but they are simple
> implementation details that are relatively easy to solve. (010)
Sorry, I don't buy into this line at all, and the history of
computing would say you're dead wrong. Almost every major problem
of information sharing that I've seen in the past twenty five years
has to do with closed systems and closed data. Hand waving about how
trivially simple it is belies the amount of effort that has gone
into solving these problems, that it's taken someone the likes of
Eliot Kimber (not you or I) to build a Hyperscope-like system that
is capable of ignoring those "trivial implementation details." (011)
> It is far more important to concern ourselves with the elemental
> characteristics of the Capabilities Infrastructure than to fret over
> platform politics. (012)
Except that talk like what you suggest has gone on for many years
and has lead to little fruit. Getting down to the nitty gritty of
solving the ugly implementation details is what is now necessary.
I don't think of this as platform politics but as a push to remove
platform barriers. (013)
> Most of us are fluent in several 'OSes' and we all know their advantages and
> disadvantages. Thus, the logic of using one versus another should be plain,
> particularly for ba-ohs-talkers. (014)
The logic is plain. We're complaining about a $60 million system
that apparently is ignoring the current logic of using open tools
and technologies, selling itself as an "open" tool but locking its
users into a closed system. (015)
> Groove is a breakthrough socio-technical collective work paradigm. Its added
> bonus is that it tangible and real today -- ready for continuous
> improvement. (A key element of OHS). It moves our world yet another step
> closer to CODIAK. (016)
CODIAK for Windows users only is not CODIAK. (017)
Ghee, I hate to sound like a broken record, but I'm really not
interested in going out and buying a new 2.4Ghz/256MB WinTel machine
for $799.00 when I have *two* perfectly functional machines right
now, and I hardly have the time, money and energy to be spending
to buy yet another new hardware system to run a new software system
developed by people who plainly disagree with the open philosophy I
and others are touting, especially when there's plenty of open
standards-based, open source, or simply cross-platform software
available. (018)
I also don't want to embed any more of my content in proprietary
hardware or software. I just dumped about a dozen 130MB Macintosh
SCSI optical disks in the trash because I no could longer
open them, the formats (Mac Word 2.0 et al) being obsolete,
and the proprietary hardware drive they were stored on had died. (019)
> "To abandon oneself to principles is really to die -- and to (020)
> die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love."
>
> - Albert Camus, 1953 (021)
"The mark of our time is its revulsion against imposed patterns."
- Marshall Mcluhan (022)
" We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one
for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are
under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution,
anarchy." - Henry Miller (023)
"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."
- W. Somerset Maugham (024)
Two can play at that game, especially since the Book of Quotations
is online for all to share and abuse. (025)
Murray (026)
......................................................................
Murray Altheim <mailto:m.altheim @ open.ac.uk>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK (027)
In the evening
The rice leaves in the garden
Rustle in the autumn wind
That blows through my reed hut. -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu (028)