The environmental case for keeping the Internet and its markets free
The Generative Internet is more than a seminal brief on behalf of the Net. It provides the intellectual and legal foundations for many arguments to come.
The response to "Saving the Net", posted here last Wednesday, has been overwhelming to the verge of embarrassment. Bret Faucett called it "The Internet's Lexington Green" Geek News Central said I deserved "some sort of award". Phil Windley wrote,"if you take the time to read just one essay on the Net and the politics surrounding it this year, read this one". It even got Slashdotted. There are 54 comments under the piece so far, many of them thought-provoking and helpful. (And I promise, when I'm back from the road trip I'm on, I'll respond to as many as I can.)
Meanwhile, there have only been 61 downloads so far of The Generative Internet, by Jonathan Zittrain in the Harvard Law Review. We need to change that.
The Generative Internet is entirely consistent with what I wrote in Saving the Net, and describes in much greater depth the fecundity of the Internet as an environment that supports commerce, culture and governance. It also makes a reasoned and passionate case for protecting it from those that seek to limit its services in their own selfish interests.
It is also something we desperately need: a case anchored in an understanding that works across all political sympathines. For those on the left, it makes the environmental case. For those on the right, it makes the free market case. For all of us, it makes the case for keeping a place we all share as open and free as it was designed to be in the first place.
It is, in short, required reading.
Doc Searls is Senior Editor of Linux Journal
Realizing the promise of Apache® Hadoop® requires the effective deployment of compute, memory, storage and networking to achieve optimal results. With its flexibility and multitude of options, it is easy to over or under provision the server infrastructure, resulting in poor performance and high TCO. Join us for an in depth, technical discussion with industry experts from leading Hadoop and server companies who will provide insights into the key considerations for designing and deploying an optimal Hadoop cluster.
Sponsored by AMD
If you already use virtualized infrastructure, you are well on your way to leveraging the power of the cloud. Virtualization offers the promise of limitless resources, but how do you manage that scalability when your DevOps team doesn’t scale? In today’s hypercompetitive markets, fast results can make a difference between leading the pack vs. obsolescence. Organizations need more benefits from cloud computing than just raw resources. They need agility, flexibility, convenience, ROI, and control.
Stackato private Platform-as-a-Service technology from ActiveState extends your private cloud infrastructure by creating a private PaaS to provide on-demand availability, flexibility, control, and ultimately, faster time-to-market for your enterprise.
Sponsored by ActiveState
| Speed Up Your Web Site with Varnish | Jun 19, 2013 |
| Non-Linux FOSS: libnotify, OS X Style | Jun 18, 2013 |
| Containers—Not Virtual Machines—Are the Future Cloud | Jun 17, 2013 |
| Lock-Free Multi-Producer Multi-Consumer Queue on Ring Buffer | Jun 12, 2013 |
| Weechat, Irssi's Little Brother | Jun 11, 2013 |
| One Tail Just Isn't Enough | Jun 07, 2013 |
- Speed Up Your Web Site with Varnish
- Containers—Not Virtual Machines—Are the Future Cloud
- Linux Systems Administrator
- Non-Linux FOSS: libnotify, OS X Style
- Lock-Free Multi-Producer Multi-Consumer Queue on Ring Buffer
- Senior Perl Developer
- Technical Support Rep
- UX Designer
- Web & UI Developer (JavaScript & j Query)
- RSS Feeds
- Reply to comment | Linux Journal
5 min 30 sec ago - Reply to comment | Linux Journal
4 hours 5 min ago - Yeah, user namespaces are
5 hours 21 min ago - Cari Uang
8 hours 52 min ago - user namespaces
11 hours 46 min ago - yea
12 hours 12 min ago - One advantage with VMs
14 hours 40 min ago - about info
15 hours 13 min ago - info
15 hours 14 min ago - info
15 hours 15 min ago
Featured Jobs
| Linux Systems Administrator | Houston and Austin, Texas | Host Gator |
| Senior Perl Developer | Austin, Texas | Host Gator |
| Technical Support Rep | Houston and Austin, Texas | Host Gator |
| UX Designer | Austin, Texas | Host Gator |
| Web & UI Developer (JavaScript & j Query) | Austin, Texas | Host Gator |
Free Webinar: Hadoop
How to Build an Optimal Hadoop Cluster to Store and Maintain Unlimited Amounts of Data Using Microservers
Realizing the promise of Apache® Hadoop® requires the effective deployment of compute, memory, storage and networking to achieve optimal results. With its flexibility and multitude of options, it is easy to over or under provision the server infrastructure, resulting in poor performance and high TCO. Join us for an in depth, technical discussion with industry experts from leading Hadoop and server companies who will provide insights into the key considerations for designing and deploying an optimal Hadoop cluster.
Some of key questions to be discussed are:
- What is the “typical” Hadoop cluster and what should be installed on the different machine types?
- Why should you consider the typical workload patterns when making your hardware decisions?
- Are all microservers created equal for Hadoop deployments?
- How do I plan for expansion if I require more compute, memory, storage or networking?



Comments
I really like this entry
I really like this entry based on what I have read. I do agree that the internet should be free. Lately, a lot of entities have been very dependent with the internet. Notwithstanding the fact that a lot of technologial retooling must be done. Keeping the internet free will allow the continuity in information dissemination.
YARRR MATIES JOIN ME SHIP OF JOKERS AND KILLERS
Lol well really reading this was quite fun. As much as the nay sayers and the jittery peps who worry about the internet somehow being turned into somethig that they feer i have a bit of something to calm the mind. What is suggested is not econmicly viable so be it that SBC and others want to control everything it wont work. People will indeed stop using the service. Cox is a good example. A few years back there was talk of cox charging people more if they went over a cirtin GB per month quota. They did a pratice run in nevada and it failed like the spruce goose. Pleople dident put up with it and finannly it was canned like a jar of rotten fish. If they want to limit content ohh well if you cant run a FTP server out of your home to distribute illeagal material too bad for you. Why does the avarge person need to have a FTP server with 3gbit uplaod anyway??? Unless you program your own stuff then your probably distibuteing something illegal anyway. you pay for a service from an ISP they limit your bandwith they always have and always will no mater how much whineing you do. Because they paid for the damn line and the power to run them. If they limit Yahoo or Google then google will simply stop paying them for bandwith and pay for there own lines an such and if COx wont let me into that network then ill stop paying them and start paying Google. Freedom to go whereever and do whatever drives the internet economy COX and others may want to put phone line service and movies and every damn thing else on there network but that doesent mean that the consumer will pay for it. I say let it happen and watch how fast it stops. It will happen because these people are greedy and this will not change. But there is hope and it is with wireless and private networks. Us that are prepared will not care when the access is gone because we would have found a way around or we will have our own personal content to use. People have computers with massive space nowadays. I have much much content saved from my personal collection paid or unpaid :P if i lost internet i wouldent care because i have my own network with my own content that i can give to anyone or sell to anyone inside my own personal network. They cant ban my personal property or break in because of the same laws they made to protect there own networks. Being a pirate is not about being evil its about using what they think is an atvantage into there disatvantage. The more they try and make it secure the more they fail. So join the ship with me and lets plunder some cargo ships :P See you in the digital sea ill bring my guns better have yours.