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Stink different Salon finds Apple doesn't have a negative clue valence. Bang! You're sold! Over in the Cluetrain list at Topica, we've got a hearty but polite disagreement going on the subject of "consumers." I'm with Jerry Michalski, who says a consumer is "a gullet who lives only gulp products and crap cash." That we are also human beings makes us no less fishlike to those who try to hook us with mass market advertising. Tom Matrullo has added a pile of value to my side of the argument. In one post he writes, "the producer has smuggled into the price equation the cost of misleading the consumer. The consumer is a consumer to the extent he consumes his own cognitive annihilation." And in his own blog he adds this:
This war upon our ability to know makes us refugees from fair markets. We're its targets, its financiers and its consumers. And before we move too quick into economic arguments, just bear this one thought in mind: the price tag was invented in the late 1800s by John Wanamaker, the department store pioneer. In other words, the supply side has held full economic advantage for less than a century and a half.
I'm off to Seattle and elsewhere tomorrow. But I think I can keep blogging along anyway. We know you've got some code in there Ms. Fiorina. Can it come out and play? Eric S. Raymond released an open letter to Carly Fiorina of HP, who apparently has been saying nice things about the open source movement. ESR wants HP to do three things:
He also adds, "The Open Source Initiative is willing to help you develop effective licensing, release, and community-relations tactics; that's what we're here for. We'd like to support your open-source strategy. But there needs to be something more than words for us to support." I kinda doubt HP will do #3, but I think there's a good chance for #s 1 &2. Especially since Eric adds, " We understand that this would require an IP-rights audit on the code, which will take some time; but an immediate commitment to release all unencumbered sources would mean a lot more to us (and to your customers!) than general talk of the goodness of open source." Unless the audit dredges up closed stuff licensed from other parties. Adobe comes to mind. Thoughts, anyone? More all the time A few days ago Joyce asked what percentage of weblogs were by women. Here's the answer from Lynn Siprelle:
There is a web ring of blogs by women available from my blog (right-hand gold nav bar, about halfway down...). I'm rather heartened by how many women participate in the blog/journal scene, considering you have to make some small technical effort and for a long time many of my contemporaries were skeered a them computer things. I love seeing that fear turn into, hey, this is EASY! like it did for me. Well, it's not easy, but it's nowhere near as hard as everyone always told me it was. I'm almost mad about that.
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