The Relationship Between FOSS and Democracy 239
An anonymous reader writes "Free software is about freedom. So it shouldn't be any surprise that the ideals behind the free software movement have spread to the place where freedom is most affected: government. The old definition of e-democracy is, basically, 'using computers in politics and governance.' So a politician sending out a batch e-mail is e-democracy. The new movement is about removing the power from politicians and making governance collaborative. The analogy to FOSS is remarkable: think of the current governments as the old guard computing companies, and the collaborative governance movement as the geeks with crazy notions of a different way of organizing things. FOSS looked like an impossible pipe-dream when it started. Tell that to the Apache group today."
Re:E-democracy? (Score:3, Funny)
Right. The appropriate term is "cyberdemocracy".
It all started with Washington yelling "First!" at the start of his presidency.
Re:Who's going to clean toilets and guard prisoner (Score:4, Funny)