Homesteading the Noosphere

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the Open Publication License, version 2.0. $Date: 2002/08/02 09:02:15 $ Revision History Revision 1.22 24 August 2000 esr Handicap theory, peacocks, and stags. Parallels with knighthood. Revision 1.22 24 August 2000 esr DocBook 4.1 conversion. Revision 1.21 31 Aug 1999 esr Major revision for the O’Reilly book. Incorporated some ideas about the costs of forking and rogue patches from Michael Chastain. Thomas Gagne ([email protected]) noticed the similarity between "seniority wins" and database heuristics. Henry Spencer’s political analogy. Ryan Waldron and El Howard ([email protected]) contributed thoughts on the value of novelty. Thomas Bryan ([email protected]) explained the hacker revulsion to “embrace and extend”. Darcy Horrocks inspired the new section “How Fine A Gift?” Other new material on the connection to the Maslovian hierarcy of values, and the taboo against attacks on competence. Revision 1.14 21 November 1998 esr Minor editorial and stale-link fixes. Revision 1.10 11 July 1998 esr Remove Fare Rideau’s reference to ‘fame’ at his suggestion. Revision 1.9 26 May 1998 esr Incorporated Faré Rideau’s noosphere/ergosphere distinction. Incorporated RMS’s assertion that he is not anticommercial. New section on acculturation and academia (thanks to Ross J. Reedstrom, Eran Tromer, Allan McInnes, Mike Whitaker, and others). More about humility, (‘egoless behavior’) from Jerry Fass and Marsh Ray. Revision 1.8 27 April 1998 esr Added Goldhaber to the bibliography. This is the version that will go in the Linux Expo proceedings. Revision 1.7 16 April 1998 esr New section on ‘Global implications’ discusses historical tends in the colonization of the noosphere, and examines the ‘category-killer’ phenomenon. Added another research question. Revision 1.3 12 April 1998 esr