Graham Seaman: Techonology and Society

Philosophers have interpreted technology. Some of them have even criticised it. But if the point is to change it, what changes should be made and how? Can the story of free software suggest how general changes in technology can be made? Or can critical theories of technology suggest which direction free software should take?

Edward Cherlin: Schumacher`s Dream. Economics when people do matter (given by Graham Seaman)

The Simputer, both as a communications device and through its use of GNU/Linux and other Free Software, enables a new model for sustainable global development. Instead of continuing dependence on charity and foreign aid, we can use low-cost computers and broadband wireless to enable sufficient economic growth in the village economies to pay for the initial installation and then buy more and ever more.

This concept depends on integration between programs in community development, health, education, e-government, microfinance, training and jobs in village ICT, village entrepreneurship, rural cooperatives and so on, all enabled by greatly improved communication, access to information, and the ability of even the poorest person to write and publish on the Net. It also demands that the tens of thousands of separate local programs of NGOs and others be brought together, with the NGOs themselves using the new technologies to communicate and coordinate. Even more important than all of this is giving billions of people a voice in the conversation about their future.

NGOs and aid programs are organized at present around limits, principally scarcity of money, people, and communications. But if villages can afford to help themselves, we have the opportunity to design programs so that they can be replicated to millions of villages and billions of people. And also inner cities, refugee camps, and other communities in great need, but now with great opportunity.

Christof Beaupoil: Freie Hardware 2004 - Stand der Dinge - 2 Fallstudien

Basierend auf den Freie Hardware Thesen der 2. Konferenz und dem Werk THE CATHEDRAL & THE BAZZAR von Eric S. Raymond, welches die Erfolgsprinzipien der Freien Software analysiert, möchte ich an 2 Fallstudien zeigen, wie diese Prinzipien erfolgreich auf Hardwareprojekte übertragen werden können und daraus die kritischen Erfolgsfaktoren für weitere Freie Hardware Projekte ableiten.

Grobe Struktur:

• State of the art - Stand der Dinge bei der Freien Hardware
• Fall 1: Volksbeamer
• Fall 2: Volksmühle
• Welche Entwicklungsprozesse werden verwendet? Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zum von Raymond beschreibenen Bazzar Modell
• Bedeutung von Standards
• gibt es bereits funktionierende Geschäftsmodelle
• Lessons Learned - kritische Erfolgsfaktoren
• Übertragbarkeit auf andere Freie Hardwareprojekte
• Ausblick