I've had two kinds of customers. The first are committed to corporate, trade secret software. Some are happy with their Macintoshes, and the rest are on a frustrating treadmill of viruses, random failures, and "patches" that introduce new problems. Those are the loyal Microsoft customers. All they want is for me to get them over a rough spot so they can go back to fighting their computers. "Put it back the way it was before it broke."
The other kind are taking personal responsibility for this aspect of their lives, and gradually breaking free from the software monopolies. I help them understand the monopoly and move from Microsoft's (MSFT) control to self determination. We use the excellent products of the free software movement. Here's my blog about that.
Do you write open source software? Want to help grow the Greens? Then please join the Green Code Weavers Network.
I've started posting my notes on how to do stuff.
Just Things | The Fair Trade Journal of Applied Counter-Economics interviewed me in volume 1 issue 3 (my copy), a theme issue on noncommercial computer software as a movement for worker empowerment.
When I started in '97, it was easy. These days it's a real battle. Computer crime has become a big business, and its most visible and destructive aspect is junk email. Spammers commission most computer crime, and Big Media (and a lot of so-called progressive nonprofits) are solidly behind them. The goal is to destroy the public email system so it can be replaced by something centrally controlled. Progressives are ignoring this, distracted by an effort to save something that never existed in the first place, "net neutrality." Here's my Green perspective on the spam crisis blog.
Web hosting is free. About half of the projects make a suggested donation so I carry about half of the cost. If you're doing peace or community building or environmental work, and you need cheap or free stable Web hosting, consider joining The Green Internet Society. I'm looking for volunteers to help folks who use Microsoft and MacOS figure out their software, too.
I've started a blog about Green issues nobody else is talking about. It's fun.
My servers host a skeleton ``Green Parties of North America'' Web site which provides an index of state and provincial Green Parties and related organizations. It's designed to get people to their local fast.
Z Magazine interviewed me about it in '99. (Their copy, my copy.)
I receive almost weekly letters of concern or vituperation about Gore's failure to defeat George W. Bush.
I don't believe the Democratic Party in the United States is salvageable, and that's based on conversations with dozens of people who have worked for years to ``reform it from the inside.'' The Democratic Party needs to be replaced by a new party that recognizes the scientific consensus on the strategic threats to the biophere (that phrase is from Earth in the Balance by Albert Gore) and the reality that only true democracy can avert them, that honors the rights of real human beings. For a variety of reasons, I believe the Greens are the best candidate to be the replacement party. Now that Kyoto has been scuttled, I'm no longer sure we can do it in time to prevent the coming biospheric collapse.
``If you want peace, work for justice.'' Environmental destruction cannot be halted in the current social order. Liberal environmentalism has had thirty years, and for the most part it has failed. The current social order cannot be changed by violent revolution, as has been proven in the PRC, the USSR, and even Nicaragua. The root cause is that violent revolution does not bring about a change in the fundamental social order. It's just one more round in a game of musical chairs, where one armed gang replaces another. Violent revolution is a quick fix, and every engineer knows that quick fixes never really work, and sometimes they don't even buy you much time. There are many organizations working for fundamental, nonviolent social change. Check out Global Exchange.
``More Americans get their news from ABC News...'' and similar corporate media outlets, and that's why most Americans have no idea what is happening in the world around them. It's work to find a real source of current events info. The Nation is an opinion magazine, but there is more real news in it than in the New York Times. Indymedia fills some of the coverage holes. The biggest hole in corporate news coverage, of course, is that corporate news outlets don't cover the adverse behavior of multinational corporations. That's a huge hole, because corporations are now more powerful than governments in the decisions that affect our lives and the ability of the Earth to support life in the future. Multinational Monitor is the only publication I know that covers what corporations do. Adbusters covers the corporate propaganda machine and Noam Chomsky puts it all in context.
Recently I discovered someone had interviewed me about political philosophy and saved the file in an antiwar anthology.