2002.05.14 ~01 Nightmare flashback So I was just driving along and out of the blue came a flashback of a nightmare I had several years ago, when I was in middle school (jr. high). Well, more like a recall, but "flashback" sounds more dramatic =) The details are fuzzy, but the major points were basically these: a world (or city, rather, as my "world view" at the time was rather small) where there is a central "operating antenna", resembling a tower radio antenna, by which automobiles are able to run. All automobiles in existence had to check through the antenna in order to run at all; those that didn't failed to start. So far things are already deviating pretty wildly from reality. The scary part is when the antenna failed. It just lost power suddenly; looked like a major power outage (blackout) to me. In any case, the result was that all cars stopped immediately (engines just choked to death) and could not be (re)started. I was stranded. Mind you, most of my life was spent in and around Los Angeles, California, driven around by my dad to one extracirricular activity to another. This is a city where "mass transit infrastructure" is a Bill-Clintonism ("it depends on your definition of 'mass transit'..."). So being stranded in some remote place with means of transportation seemed plausible at the time. So, anyway, thus far, this "central automobile antenna" died and all cars were rendered useless on the spot until at such time power was restored (and I don't remember that happening...). And so I was stranded in some remote pocket of the world (or rather, L.A.). Far away from home. This is rather terrifying for a 12-year-old raised in a "traditional" nuclear family. Sounds crazy so far. And rather irrelevant. But as I pondered through this nightmare, I found a parallel to the modern world. Not cars (yet), but rather software. Think about it. The fascist licensing models used by a disturbingly increasing number of software [of any kind] where authorization to run, much less even to start (or even install), must be cleared through a centralized inet server. Should the connection be severed or denied, for any reason, the software dies, perhaps taking (live) data with it. This would be different kind of stranding, but just as terrifying as in my nightmare. In some ways, more terrifying. Denied the means to support myself (or be supported at all) by an external force beyond my control. Should the central server undergo a sudden failure in existence, no amount of money thrown anywhere will help resurrect such bondage software. And without source, no amount of time spent will help either. And at the rate current US legislation is headed, no amount of technical genius would help either (as it would be outlawed). I frequently reflect back on my views of Free software over the years since I was first introduced to GNU software and stumbled upon the *nix universe. At first, I found libre software to be "cool", as the philosophy of GNU and other free software oufits happened to overlap much of my thoughts and philosphy that I had developed independently of the *nix community, interestingly enough (e.g. the value of source, the value of sharing, the crazed notion of claiming loss of money never headed your way in the first place). Then I found it "convenient", as Linux easily stepped around the 2GB BIOS fiasco (PC hard drives) of the late 90s, and Debian GNU/Linux magically fixed itself from a libc5->libc6 bung-up (I still have no idea how it did that; I swear I f*cked up the upgrade!). Then it became "practical", as libre software let me do what I want to do, rather than be limited by the [original] author's notion of what ought to be done (cases in point: Window Maker customization, sawmill/sawfish customization, three simult XFree86 sessions, massive cheats hacking into snes9x (Super Nintendo emulator) like rapid-fire and joystick macros). In some ways now, I see libre software as "critical". When I was 12, the notion of automobiles umbilically tied to the functioning of a single operations antenna terrified me. Nowadays, the notion that software being similarly tied to a centralized inet server is fairly terrifying. The notion that the mere existence of my data, and/or my ability to use my own personal data, being intimately linked to the market performance of some company, is contrarian to the notion of personal liberty, never mind conflict of interest. If I'm driving a Ford F-150, I really don't want my ability to start and drive the truck to be intimately linked to whether Ford Motor Co. will decide to continue the line or not, or whether they might declare bankruptcy today/tomorrow/next week. In today's world, I (among many) would consider silly the idea that a car would suddenly fail to work any more simply because the associated car company said so. I'm not certain if contemporary proprietary software has reached this far, but, to me, this seems a very likely scenario given current trends of "subscription" (more like "rental") software. Libre software certainly is among the solution to ensuring that the free market stays free, without any one company's dictate controlling the activities of any other company beyond the force of "The Market"/"The Invisible Hand".