Open source and open markets: not “with” but “because of”

Thanks to Doc Searls for pointing me towards this FactoryJoe post. Fantastic stuff. And if that gets me labelled even more Utopian, tough.

I particularly like:

Think about it this way: if the water that’s piped into your house had DRM on it and only allowed you to use it for showers, how would you wash your clothes? If you were only allowed to make ice cubes, how would you make iced tea? If you had to pay $0.99 everytime you wanted a glass of water?

The whole lot of proprietary infrastructure needs to be open sourced and given back to people. To people over companies. To those who believe in self-determination.

This is not tree-hugger stuff. Markets are consumerising and market participants are gaining further self-determinism than was previously possible. And it changes everything.

And the post continues:

Listen, here’s what’s at stake:

Ideas and hope need to flow like water if a civilization is to continue its ascension toward greatness. Impediments to that flow will stall growth. Fortunately, like a solvent, the culture of open source will continue to expand, will wear away at these impediments, to restore the natural flow of social capital, of ideas, of hope. Those who get this first will rise, and rise quickly.

Don’t think that the owners of the 21st century have been preselected.

There’s a lot of snowballs in that, Doc.