Alternative names to "open source party"
Ben Goertzel
I agree that a political party or movement named "open source party"
is unlikely to ever gain traction beyond a small set of open source
programming devotees ;) ...
My previous suggestion to Trevor was to call it the "Open Party"
rather than the "Open Source Party"
My reasoning was that "open source" is a label appealing only to
computer people, whereas "open" appeals to a much wider variety. And
of course the notion of "source code" is applicable to politics only
in a metaphorical sense.
Another decent possibility besides "Open Party" would be something
like "Open Governance Movement"
However, one point to consider is that a "Party" seems more newsworthy
than a more nebulous sort of organization, and is more likely to
attract attention...
Making it a new party conveys the subtext that working within existing
political parties is mostly hopeless because they're all interwoven as
part of the same messy establishment.... Making it an "open
governance movement" or some such, conveys the subtext that you're
interested in tweaking the current political system in the direction
of increasing openness.... Each subtext has its advantages...
If we go with "Open Governance Movement" then it should be stated that
one alternative being serious considered is the fielding of a new
political "Open Party", so that door would still be open (heh) if
there's enthusiasm for it...
-- Ben G
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 5:08 AM, Sedicious <goo...@dphi.net> wrote:
> May I humbly suggest that we first consider whether "Open Source
> Party" is the best name for this project, before developing a logo?
>
> I like the description you've got right now, but I think there's a bit
> of a disconnect between that description and this name. The
> description says it's an international net-roots campaign, and I think
> that's a much more appropriate starting point than diving right in to
> forming a party, which may or may not be the best strategy for moving
> the campaign forward. I also suspect that the "Open Source" part of
> the name immediately turns off anyone who isn't a hacker, which is of
> course most people.
--
Ben Goertzel, PhD
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC
CTO, Genescient Corp
Chairman, Humanity+
Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science, Xiamen University, China
Advisor, Singularity University and Singularity Institute
b...@goertzel.org
"My humanity is a constant self-overcoming" -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Trevor Tomesh
have to defend the name of the party. First off, "Open Source" is
gaining a lot of traction as a term outside of computer science... we
now have terms like (to rip wikipedia off):
* Open source appropriate technology
* Open source governance
* Open-source hardware
* Open Source Initiative
* Open source license
* Open source political campaign
* Open source record label
* Open source religion
* Open-source robotics
* Open-source software
* Open-sourcing
Because our roots are planted in the principles of open source
development, "Open Source Party", for those who don't know what we are
about, is a much better descriptor than simply "The Open Party".
"Open" principles can mean a lot of things, but "Open Source"
principles means a specific list of principles... what we stand for.
Am I right?
Trevor
Ben Goertzel
I understand your points....
... but still, my intuition is that the "Open Source Party" name won't
ultimately work as a name for a broadly, internationally influential
political movement
I think the principles that have emerged in the open source software
movement, do have broader applicability...
I just asked my mom about it ... she runs a social service oriented
nonprofit, and is in agreement with the OSP principles ... and her
view is that "open source" means nothing to the people in her part of
the world (professionals involved with social work, social welfare,
and local and state politics... and then working-class folks in the
ghettos in Philadelphia). So, I actually think the term "open source"
is strongly appealing to a small set of computer people and
"digerati", and off-puttingly confusing to a much larger set of people
who nevertheless would be sympathetic to the OSP principles...
To cast the net a little wider, I would reckon that many of the
individuals involved in the recent uprisings in Egypt would be
sympathetic to the OSP principles, yet have no idea what open source
software is... and no background to really comprehend it in any deep
way, due to not having any software dev background at all...
HOWEVER, I also think that the question of the name of the
party/movement may be better dealt with once we've accumulated a few
hundred enthusiasts rather than just a half dozen. Having more
enthusiasts involved, with more different backgrounds, may make it
clearer whether the "open source" name is gonna fly for the public at
large or not.
Maybe we can note on the wiki that "Open Source Party" is a working
name for our initiative, and we have debated alternatives, but decided
to defer this issue until the initiative has become a bit larger?
-- Ben G
--
Ben Goertzel
https://sites.google.com/site/opensourceparty/home/help-us-settle-on-a-name
;) ...
ben
Sedicious
Open Democracy Coalition
Open Democracy International
Open Conspiracy[1]
Panarchy Coalition[2]
Panarchist Union
Collaborative Governance Coalition[3]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Conspiracy
[2] http://panarchy.com/
[3] http://www.metagovernment.org/wiki/Collaborative_governance
I've also started a new page for listing related projects and
organizations:
https://sites.google.com/site/opensourceparty/home/related
I would strongly support bringing existing and similar efforts
together under a common umbrella, and would expect the name to be
something we'll have to negotiate as we do so.
On Mar 12, 9:12 am, Ben Goertzel <b...@goertzel.org> wrote:
> I created a wiki page summarizing this discussion...
>