<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><DIV>On 15/03/2006, at 2.08, John Hopkins wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica Neue" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica Neue">Humans are always confronted with this dilemma -- between physical survival and something higher than that.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>If one is content with "Might is Right" then one can easily swallow proprietary software. It will facilitate immediate survival.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Open Source is about something altruistic beyond survival -- it puts the user at risk of error, or stumbling down a hidden pathway, or creating something difficult to understand.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>It brings life back to its true chaos, complexity, and possibility.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Only certain kinds of people can tolerate that indeterminacy.</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica Neue; min-height: 12.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica Neue" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica Neue">Of course, I am being a bit dramatic and sarcastic here in these comments, but...<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously about the validity of our ideas versus anyone else's.</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica Neue; min-height: 12.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica Neue" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica Neue">cheers</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica Neue" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica Neue">John</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Thanks John for the post.</DIV><DIV>It gave me the kick to post on this mailing list (thanks Trebor for inviting me). The considerations you made about a) Trust and b) Failure, brought up a couple of thoughts. It is a sort of double movement, contradictory lines of thought, but that's we all are made of.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>First, trust. It's true that a life in the moment would be both painful and rewarding, but I'm not sure that this has to be realized at the expenses of trust. Trust in the Other. Such a life would be centered on the trust in the Self, and it would be challenging, difficult and fascinating at the same time, but how far could we go in this sense? What would be a human without the environment around, which include her/his similar? Isn't the idea of only first-hand experience (extendable to Open Software) a bit too privileged? Every subscriber on this list has the possibility to choose among a range of solutions, for work and life, including not only software tools but also information tools, and distribution categories. I'm not so sure if the majority of the world population can do the same. Trust in the other (and this implies also accepting canned software solutions, if we want) is simpler, but also - maybe - more human. I doubt all the time in my work practice and personal life, but at the same time I do trust people I have chosen to have around, or I share a life with. If I have to distrust everyone and everything, I would get stuck in my own thoughts. Is it really something wrong in trusting? I do not want to be become too transcendental (I know the term itself might rise some eyebrows), but isn't all this also a matter of love? Do we have to confront each other and everything around us all the time to claim we are 'free'?</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Second, failure. It’s not that we should fail in order to live better. Rather I believe we should allow ourselves the space, the mental dimension, of failure, and here the Open Software movement can teach something. We live in a win-win society, where one cannot afford to step into something wrong. For instance, we cannot bear the thought to lose our time following someone or something, which in the end disappears and leave us alone. This can happen in love as well as business. In our deeds we invest feelings, time, money, and so – because it’s an investment – we expect something back. Results. We cannot conceive an action freed from expected effects, freed from the obligation to avoid errors. It hurts us to see and to think about our failure. We can bear (maybe) only someone else’s failure, and we don’t want to be that someone else. I failed permanently, as well as not. I’m perpetually failing in doing what I most care doing. In writing these lines, I’m probably failing to communicate exactly my thoughts to you, completely or to some extent. Still, If I'm asked, I'd rather not speak about my failures. Our connected mind has lost one piece, an important one. Since we fail, as technology does (John, I owe this to you) it's good to reclaim the right to fail. The space of failure. Life is a circle, and not a linear progress.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Cheers,</DIV><DIV>Alfredo</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><P align="center" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center"><FONT face="Arial" size="2" color="#1912e8" style="font: 10.0px Arial; color: #1912e8; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: center; "><I style="color: rgb(25, 18, 232); font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; text-align: center; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(25, 18, 232); font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; text-align: center; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(25, 18, 232); font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; text-align: center; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(25, 18, 232); font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; text-align: center; ">A. 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