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The Founders were very much the makers and white hat hackers of their age, with many active in both politics and technology. Thus, in a very real sense our founding documents were nothing less than a political operating system devised to maximize and preserve the creative potential of the individual. Perhaps this is why America holds a unique position in ushering forth the age of Personal Computing.
As we have noted before, Personal Computing and Freedom share a deep and fundamental bond. The general purpose computing device, whether it sits on a desktop or is shrunken to clip onto an article of clothing, is ripe with promise. It only awaits the ingenuity of an End User like you to help you realize your latent potential. Countless careers were born of a young person’s curiosity about how computers work and the sense of empowerment that comes from the realization that anyone’s study could be rewarded with the ability to bend these machine’s to one’s will, solve real world problems, and maybe even earn a livelihood by using this knowledge to start a small business or find a position in industry.
But not everyone wants to see End Users develop such skills or the increasing level of sophistication in thinking about information & technology policy that comes with them.
Thus we see the eternal battle between the forces of freedom and control that gave birth to our nation, mirrored on the technological front with ever more restrictively controlled “walled gardens” offering the often illusory promise of security, fashion, and ease of use for the price of one’s willingness to sacrifice the ability to customize one’s computing environment and forgo the opportunity to freely purchase or install software from “unapproved” sources.
If this pessimistic vision of docile End Users comes to dominate, computers will loose their transformative power, innovation and freedom will suffer, and we will all be so much the poorer should technology tip in an Orwellian direction.
Fortunately, that day is not yet here. Rejoice in the potential of open systems, support vendors and communities that encourage you to tinker and share your discoveries, and never willingly surrender your freedom and independence!