As the global economy continues its slide, U.S. politicians have staked out their positions at the stimulus trough, stopping only long enough to blame the other party for the world's problems. Now, more than ever, we need to focus on sound policy, not savvy politics. President Obama ran on the promise of bipartisanship but has come up against the stiff reality of a deep Republican-Democrat divide.
Given such serious divisions, how can we focus our government on policies, not politics? Mozilla, the creator of the Firefox browser, offers some clues.
Yes, that's right. Mozilla. For those who wonder how software could have anything to do with politics, well, you haven't been around open-source software long enough. There's a good reason the tagline for this blog is, "The business and politics of open source." For something as simple as a collection of ones and zeroes, open-source software drags its diverse adherents through a myriad of ideological minefields on a daily basis.
Just think of the bile spewed over the Windows-Linux war, or the antagonism between free-software revolutionaries and open-source advocates, and you get a taste for how deeply political open source can be.
And yet the Mozilla Foundation largely evades divisive jingoism. It just helps create an exceptional browser without mucking through the mire of ideological debates in the process.
The same holds true for the Eclipse and Linux foundations, in their spheres. Each of these foundations provides an opportunity for corporate and community interests to tackle difficult development projects with minimal rancor and little politicking, at least as exposed to the general public's view.
I've noted before that I think open-source foundations provide a clue as to one bright future for open source, but I'm also starting to wonder if they could provide a clue as to how to enable President Obama in the U.S., and other government executives across the globe, to encourage collaboration toward resolution of difficult, seemingly intractable policy problems.
Much of the problem with politics is that the information that feeds into political debates is suspect because it is so biased. As in computer science, garbage in, garbage out. Information is the "source code" of political debate, yet its nutritional content is sorely lacking here in the States.
Here's how Mozilla and open-source foundations provide a clue as to how to improve things. I liken Mozilla to a Rand of sorts: an organization dedicated to discussing and resolving difficult problems with little concern for who is right.
It may sound utopian, but I wonder if, in similar manner, President Obama couldn't require some form of Rand-esque analysis in congressional disputes to serve as a primary information source, rather than leaving it to competing special interests to funnel biased information into the Congresspersons of their choice?
Or, more broadly still, maybe what the federal government needs is more open caucuses, in which the big, thorny issues are discussed and debated. Perhaps it would help if the people stumping for votes aren't the ones in the debate: perhaps they would simply be consumers of the information, rather creators of it.
This, after all, is how the Linux Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation function. Big, partisan corporate interests fund these foundations, and then largely get out of the way, while developers, sometimes subsidized by this corporate funding, write the code. Congress could do the same.
What we do matters much more than who gets credit. If Congress will fund "open-source foundations" to create information which, in turn, will fuel its votes, perhaps we'd be one step closer to intelligent policies, rather than inane politics.
Too idealistic?
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BusinessWeek's Steve Hamm quotes David Kralik, director of Internet strategy for American Solutions, who believes that Republicans are gun-shy of open-source software:
Open source is a powerful force, but a lot of people on the right think it's liberal, and they don't want to be involved with it. They think if Apple likes it, they don't. That's a mistake. Open source is politically neutral. We should be using it.
Well, as an Apple-loving, open-source conservative, I have to say I agree. In fact, if anything, I believe open source is an inherently conservative ideal, making software a local affair, rather than a "big government" or "big vendor" affair.
But really, it's just technology, not ideology. Democrats can use open source. Republicans can. No party has a lock on .Net, MySQL, PHP, or (name your technology preference). They're just tools for getting our jobs done, and guess what? Open source happens to be a highly efficient way of getting an widening array of jobs done.
In this economy, that's something both conservatives and liberals need, and should agree upon.
TechCrunch suggests that Facebook's chief privacy officer, Chris Kelly, will shortly announce his candidacy to become California's attorney general in 2010. Given how poorly Facebook has handled privacy, it's difficult to see why California voters should assume Kelly would do better in the higher matters of public office.
Specifically, California's attorney general is charged with the following responsibilities:
The attorney general represents the people of California in civil and criminal matters before trial, appellate and the supreme courts of California and the United States. The attorney general also serves as legal counsel to state officers and, with few exceptions, to state agencies, boards and commissions...
The attorney general also assists district attorneys, local law enforcement, and federal and international criminal justice agencies in the administration of justice...
In addition, the attorney general establishes and operates projects and programs to protect Californians from fraudulent, unfair, and illegal activities that victimize consumers or threaten public safety, and enforces laws that safeguard the environment and natural resources.
Kelly is an experienced and competent attorney, having worked at Baker & Mckenzie and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosatti before joining Facebook. But if he's in any way implicated in Facebook's failed foray into consumer privacy (Beacon, anyone?), and he will be by virtue of throwing his hat in the campaign ring, he needs to answer for his involvement in Facebook's privacy faux-pas before California voters should vote him their trust.
He has answered critics before, and it's possible that being on the front line of electronic privacy issues actually makes him a better candidate than most, even despite missteps. But he first needs to demonstrate that he's done more good than harm relative to protecting people from "fraudulent, unfair, and illegal activities" on Facebook before attempting to protect the broader California public as attorney general.
It's very possible that he can, but I've yet to hear that campaign speech.
Over the past few years, the technology industry has discovered that those pesky bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. actually wield a lot of power. Microsoft, in particular, learned years ago that a little money goes a long way to stave off antitrust lawyers, as suggested by The New York Times.
It's therefore not surprising to see Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and others actively lobbying Congress for a wide variety of things, including H1-B visa expansion, Net neutrality, etc.
What is perhaps surprising is how much Microsoft is outspending its rivals, as The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.
Indeed, as the Associated Press notes, Microsoft's "tab of almost $2 million for the third quarter alone nearly equaled the amount its rival Google Inc. spent in the first nine months of the year."
There are good reasons for this: Microsoft has spent quite a bit of time (and, apparently, money) this year trying to convince Congress to put the kibosh on the Google-Yahoo advertising deal, as reported in The New York Times, and ultimately succeeding. Last week Google abandoned the deal in the face of an antitrust fight, one no doubt founded in part on Microsoft's lobbying cash. Microsoft learned the hard way that money can make Washington, D.C. work for it...with just a few million dollars' worth of influence.
Gone are the days of two entrepreneurs in a garage, changing the world. As technology becomes a critical part of the global economy, lobbying and lawyers have become de rigueur. This year Microsoft is the big spender on Capitol Hill, but as Google comes under fire for privacy and other concerns, it will no doubt be next.
Tim O'Reilly recently defended his decision to put a political endorsement on his blog (spoiler for those who don't know how Sonoma County votes: He's for Obama), and did a reasonably good job of supporting the decision. Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, however, does a much better job in a post of his own.
Mark's secret? Stick to principles, not parties.
Mark doesn't talk about politics at all, per se, though they're hiding just behind his words. Instead, he talks about the value of regulated capitalism, and gives testimony of his time living in post-Soviet Russia as a reason for believing in capitalism...but not unfettered capitalism:
The leaders and decision makers in a centrally planned economy are just as fallible as those in a capitalist one--they would probably be the same people! But state enterprises lack the forces of evolution that apply in a capitalist economy--state enterprises are rarely if ever allowed to fail. And hence bad ideas are perpetuated indefinitely, and an economy becomes dysfunctional to the point of systemic collapse. It is the fact that private enterprises fail which keeps industries vibrant. The tension between the imperative to innovate and the consequences of failure drives capitalist economies to evolve quickly. Despite all of the nasty consequences that we have seen, and those we have yet to see, of capitalism gone wrong, I am still firmly of the view that society must tap into its capitalist strengths if it wants to move forward.
But I chose my words carefully when I said "regulated capitalism". I used to be a fan of Adam Smith's invisible hand, and great admirer of Ayn Rand's vision. Now, I feel differently. Left to its own devices, the market will tend to reinforce the position of those who were successful in the past, at the exclusion of those who might create future successes. We see evidence of this all the time. The heavyweights that define an industry tend to do everything in their power to prevent innovation from changing the rules that enrich them.
Mark then goes on to explain the attributes of successful regulators. It's well worth reading, and serves as a poignant reminder of how to get involved in politics without getting political.
I don't fault Tim for wanting to get the vote out in behalf of his preferred candidate. But I think public figures like Tim and Mark have a duty to use their influence with caution and care, and I think Mark's promotion of right principles is a better way than Tim's declaration of right candidates.
One of Mitt Romney's sons used to be my neighbor. As such, it was hard to not contribute to the campaign.
I'm finding, however, that it's even harder to disengage from the campaign. I get four emails per day (sometimes more) from the campaign (usually two of the same message sent to the two email addresses of mine they somehow have on file). I get calls. I can't get away. Dana calls it basic database marketing. I call it annoying.
It's a bit like the traditional proprietary software model, where obnoxious sales people sit in your office haranguing would-be buyers until you purchase the proprietary ball-and-chain to get rid of the salesperson. (Which is exactly what happens when you write the check - the salesperson disappears. Completely.)
Today I found myself pining for an open-source political campaign. It would operate something like this:
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