Re: [tlug] (OT) The enigma of Japan (was: UNIX jobs on TLUG)

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Christian Horn writes:

 > [Governments...] Instead of thinking of other ways to organize life.

Hey, if you want life differently organized, Just Do It.  It's very
possible to make a reasonable living, at some risk, self-employed in
IT, doing it your way.  Believe it or not, Larry McVoy (infamous CTO
of BitMover) considers himself to be in a "lifestyle business" (ie,
profit is sacrificed to other values, such as a better product,
employer-supported employee furloughs for education, etc).  Definitely
lots of other denizens of the Free Software Business list, from grad
student entrepreneur wannabes to OSS bigshots like Peter Deutsch
(Ghostscript, retired at 45) and Brian Behlendorf, express the same
idea.  (Google for "FSB", or browse around Crynwr.com.  NB, the list
is currently inactive, so I assume the folks on the list are
conducting their discussions and flamewars elsewhere.  Maybe in
O'Reilly blogs?)  Or look at Curt and Starling ... who could have
imagined that building a business on functional programming (of all
things!) could succeed?  But I bet it's fun! :-)

If enough people do that, the corporations will have to respond.
(Anybody else lucky enough to have spent the early 80s in Silicon
Valley?  Shee-it, man, the fringes that hot technology people got
there were amazing.)

But democratically elected governments can't do it, not without
risking everying in the next election.