OS options for an easy life revisited?

OK, the question of FLOSS needing more tech support than MS Windows keeps being raised. It's time to question this conventional saw.

Small orgs have been strongly influenced by the FUD put out by Microsoft for the past decade — enthusiastically reinforced and re-transmitted by consultants and organisations set up to advise them on IT. They have been successfully convinced that Microsoft is 'easy' and needs little or no tech support whilst Linux is 'DIY' — flakey and needing an army of expensive technicians.

The contemporary reality is somewhat different. Ubuntu has come a long way, baby! But before we get into that, let's look at how small orgs actually use MS Windows . . .

The reality of small orgs' use of Microsoft technologies is that most of them are running pirated software which has not been updated effectively for years, or OEM preinstalled 9x systems which are no longer supported. They're often 'broken' in all kinds of minor ways over the years, are crawling with viruses and spyware, frequently have no effective firewalls or anti-virus software (properly updated or even installed). Their printers are endlessly and bafflingly delinquent and many have peripherals which they've never even succeeded in installing properly.

Their software is 'default' and frequently not the best choice for purpose or for their OS version. Their file management frequently consists of 'doc01.doc' 'doc02.doc' etc filed on local drives and inaccessible to anyone else. Most think that the file-manager window and default location opened by MS applications is specific to that application and that the files can't be accessed (or organised) any other way. This chaos and a miserable sense of lacking any kind of control over their computers or their data is a major contributory factor to people's 'rage against the machine'. Added to that, 'men in bowler hats' keep telling them they have to have reporting databases etc. No wonder they hate IT.

Most have their IT (such as it is) managed by an 'accidental techie' — usually an administrator or a 'mate' of someone. These accidental techies are often entirely usupported and have no access to effective training. They're at the mercy of rumour and misinformation and, in this land of the visually challenged, the one-eyed man is king.

There's also a new Microsoft minefield I'm running into recently. I've lost track of the number of times I've been asked to go and see what's wrong with someone's 'XP machine'. They tell me it's running realy slowly and keeps crashing and freezing and doing all kinds of weird stuff. I ask them its spec, they don't know, but they tell me it's 'an XP machine', it's meant to have XP, it had XP when they bought it (second hand) or it was given to them.

The reality usually is that this is a P3 machine with 128 MB RAM designed to run Win 2K. But MS culture is such that people feel a strong need to be running 'the latest thing'. So recyclers obligingly give it to them. I have to break it to the unfortunate user that they can either have a pirated version of Win 2k or a free and legal copy of Xubuntu if they want to solve the problems of slowness and instability. I point out how much longer Ubuntu will be supported. I fire up live Xubuntu to show them — they love it, they find it much more intuitive, faster, cuter, easier to use. I show them the free Ubuntu help and support, they're surprised by how friendly and clear they are. Then they demand Win 2k. Why? Because it's mainstream and suburban as a Ford car — familiar, 'safe' and 'predictable'.

I also frequently deal with PCs where an MS OS has been reinstalled inexpertly. Unaware that there are such things as drivers, their long-suffering owners don't 'get' why their screen looks like lego or their sound won't work or their printer has suddenly given up the ghost. They have absolutely no clue how to seek information or support. It doesn't even occur to them to ring their ISP's helpline if their modem won't work. They can't ring MS cos (1) their software is illegal and (2) even if it were an OEM copy, it doesn't come with free support.

Basically, Microsoft OS and apps encourage a state of infantile dependency and ignorance coupled with a strong need for unquestioning conformity. Having encouraged this woeful state of dependency, it offers no support whatsoever. How does this come to be seen as such a satisfactory state of affairs for the Third Sector that we should feel the need to protect it?

By contrast, let's look at Ubuntu, my favourite distro for small orgs (and non-techie computer-users from all walks of life).

I'll use a single example of a popular machine:

1 6 yr old Dell Dimension Workstation (P4 1.4, 500 MB Ram) which came with MS Home OEM preinstalled. This has needed reinstalling several times due to its owner's habit of letting security software licenses expire so their databases aren't updated and then unwittingly downloading destructive malware from the internet trusting in the wonder of Microsoft and installs all manner of dubious software on it.

To default install Ubuntu Dapper on the Dell Dimension, I need to:

1. Insert the Dapper CD


2. Reboot


3. Hit f12 and select 'boot from CD'


4. Using a clear visual interface and a mouse, answer when it asks where I am, what language I use and offers me a list of keyboards (no clicking through menus at all)


5. Watch it boot the live Ubuntu desktop


6. Click the 'install' icon on the desktop


7. Watch it install the workstation flawlessly, configure the screen correctly, automatically install/configure a USB hub, flatbed scanner (all of which I've left connected throughout) and a NIC and connect me automatically to the network, ask me to give a username and a password


8. Reboot once to be presented with a login screen then the desktop


9. Click on 'system -> administration -> printers -- Ubuntu has located the printer and just asks me to select the driver from a list (by the model number on the front of the printer). I don't need a separate CD.

All done! The Workstation is completely useable and correctly configured, it's connected to the network. All the partitions and peripherals are mounted and functional. Open Office software and Evolution PIM is already installed. Ubuntu will then put a discreet red blob on the status bar to tell you it needs updating. Click on it, give your password, and Ubuntu will update the system automatically. The machine is now useable for office and internet functions (it'll need some tweaking for media, otherwise, it's ready out of box).

If dual-booting, it will also import settings, mail and address books from Outlook to Evolution as part of the automatic install routine and automatically create a boot menu so you can choose which OS to boot into when you start up.

To install XP on the same machine, I have to:

1. unplug all USB devices (grrrr! much crawling around in confined spaces)


2. insert the disk and reboot


3. hit f12 and select 'boot from cd'


4. answer 3x as many questions as Ubuntu asks using very clunky, multi-layered dialogue boxes requiring you to look out for stuff like XP installing a default US keyboard without you noticing etc


5. reboot several times


6. Finally, I find myself on a desktop with a bunch of annoying balloons wanting to show me how wonderful XP is blah blah that I have to figure out how to turn off


7. My screen looks like lego, I have no sound, I'm not connected to the network, none of my USB devices is useable


8. VGA doesn't actually need a driver, I just have to drill down through endless menus to find where I can reset the resolution (luckily, I know what it is, a non-techie will not be so lucky!). The screen then lurches and goes black in a scary way before resizing and then giving you a few seconds to accept it (when I do this for non-techies who're watching, they frequently actually shriek involuntarily at this point).


9. Install USB-2 bus driver, wait for XP's hardware installer to punt balloons at me for half a minute. Check device manager (more drilling down) — USB OK


10. Reboot


11. Plug in external USB hub, wait again whilst balloons make faint popping sounds


12. Install flatbed scanner driver from manufacturer's CD (or download driver), plug in flatbed, wait whilst hardware installer balloons away


13. Install printer driver (from manufacturers' CD or download), plug in printer, wait for balloons etc.


14. Failure to do this tedious routine with every single USB device will result in your devices not working and possibly XP needing a(nother) re-install.


15. Install sound card driver from Dell CD (or log into Dell site giving an obscure number on the back of your tower somewhere, agree to having your puter scanned in order to gain access to the driver)


16. Reboot


17. Again, drilling through menus and knowing at least something about TCP/IP networking, create a network


18. Install proprietary (and expensive) anti-virus and anti-spyware software (usually requiring a reboot)


19. Install Microsoft Office


20. Do some upgrades that aren't done automatically and some more rebooting


21. Hope the 2 major service packs since this XP disk was issued don't break the drivers/anti-virus software and, if they do, go hunt around the internet and probably pay for upgrades to software/drivers that no longer work

Finally, it's useable.
I haven't enjoyed this experience personally, but I'm told that newer Dell machines have no XP disk and have to be reinstalled from a partition on the Hard Drive. Guessing that's going to be hours of fun for the non-techie !

OK, can someone tell me again why people with no tech support should be using Microsoft rather than Ubuntu desktop?

Comparing some downsides between MS Win and Ubuntu:

Many manufacturers don't provide Linux drivers or even provide Linux engineers with the information they need to write Linux drivers. Some even legally block Linux from making drivers available. If you have legacy peripherals with no Linux drivers and mean-spirited manufacturers, you may have to change peripherals.

In reality, when I moved to Ubuntu, I only had 2 devices that wouldn't work properly OOB: a Canon printer — which also hadn't worked properly on XP, I had USB 1 and it was designed for USB 2 but nothing in its marketing or packaging warned me of this. Its XP driver threw up error windows you couldn't close and was prone to freezing. Canon had not released a UBS-1 patch although the problem was known in tech forums. There was a proprietary Linux driver for the Canon, but I figured I might as well buy a Linux-friendly printer as shell out twenty quid for a driver for a flakey Canon. My son also has a very expensive Canon printer running on XP but frequently has to make use of my cheapo HP printer on Ubuntu cos his Canon isn't working AGAIN. The dirt-cheap HP has toddled along on Ubuntu for 2 years now without a glitch through 3 distro upgrades.

My iomega USB backup drive also wouldn't work properly on Linux and I can't find an external DVD writer that'll run well on Linux (thus I dual-boot). However, by comparison, it should be noted that when I upgraded to XP from Win2k, several of my peripherals refused to work, including my optical mouse and, rather more disastrously, an eighty-quid USB modem. Several bits of proprietary software (costing anything up to £70) also didn't work on XP. I gather that Vista is even worse in this respect. It was 3 months before XP drivers were released for my win2k modem — and even then I had to hunt all over the internet for them, the manufacturers' site didn't offer them. I finally got them in a crack of a BT technician's CD downloaded from usenet!!! Hardly something a non-techie is going to manage easily.

It was the same when 9x went from 16-bit to 32-bit, big driver and software mess/expense. In short, it's just part of the ongoing development of computing. As for going from DOS to graphical windows — well!!!

In short, whilst Ubuntu can throw up annoying hardware issues, this is hardly unknown on Microsoft OS? Similarly, it's not unknown for an Ubuntu upgrade to break software — but it's well-known that Microsoft upgrades frequently break software. Difference is that the Open Source community will fix it and, in the meantime, offer some free alternatives. On Microsoft, you're just as likely to have to buy new software or devices.

Ubuntu needs some tweaking to handle multi-media effectively and if you want the latest glam multi-media peripherals they're probably not going to work well on Linux. Then again, how often to small orgs without tech support actually need the latest glam multi-media peripherals? There's usually a Linux alternative available for most functions most likely to be wanted by small community/charity orgs. Again, by comparison, however, there's no annoying and intrusive DRM.

On the question of free help and support:

Free Microsoft help and even tutorials for the 'accidental techie' are getting very sparse on the internet these days. Ubuntu help and tutorials, on the contrary, are blossoming and Ubuntu helpers are increasingly sensitive to non-techie users' needs giving clear, step-by-step instructions. If you have to go onto a commandline, the exact line of code will be given. You won't be expected to figure anything out by yourself or follow arcane and insensitive instructions.

Is there really a good reason why small orgs with ad hoc networks and no tech support should not consider Ubuntu a viable alternative? Or is this 'received wisdom' due for burial?

Some people DON'T wannabee . . .

The question of diversity has come up in relation to another e-democracy-related site of my acquaintance. Of the incredibly few female contributions there to date, the one that stands out in my memory is the plea for legalising bare-breasted protest by women. Uppphhhhh!

Why don't more women post to this site? Well, cos the overall tone of contributions is such that you can see there's no point--unless you're planning to exhibit your knockers in the name of free speech or patronise someone in the developing world where it's perfectly legit to complain that women are oppressed by uncouth, unchristian cultures full of terrorists. But definitely not HERE. If you challenge the articulation of femininity by western culture and economy, you'll probably just get unproductive hate-mail from slack devotees who feel women's most natural form of expression is being draped over a page of GQ in a thong. Or, at best, yet another deeply dull training grant from the DTI in puny competition for the construction of female identity with pink razrs, anorexia, and scantily blinging gymnastic fannies on MTV.

In my experience, it's frustrating trying to extend decentred online organisational models beyond environments where a high degree of autonomy is pretty much the default professional mode anyway and people have been brought up to autopilot getting their own way whilst politely evading conflict. Promoting e-community to people from more diverse backgrounds usually needs more facilitation than can reasonably come from any small unfunded group without keeling over. It usually becomes a mammoth "people" task--all about working with different interest groups to figure out what they actually want from ICT (if anything), developing skills, negotiating basic access to broadband PCs, and managing conflict--bugger all innovatory glam and lots of patient slog ;-)

When working with activist or charity groups, rather than the general public, the problems are characteristic of any project in that sector--picking your way through internecine and sectarian obstructionism. Again, more about patience than innovation.

Meanwhile, most online stuff aimed at "Jane-Bloggs" wanks on about cosmetics, romance, motherhood and dieting. Who can be arsed? What's scary is that this has probably been thoroughly researched--girls, next time you see a consultant with a clipboard, THINK BEFORE YOU ANSWER for the love of Goddess. You might want to question the identity you've been marketed a little more attentively . . .

It probably needs some kind of collaboration between techies and "people-people"--possibly a contradiction in terms :-p Effectively, this is usually a women-with-the-people-idea and a techie-boyfriend combo such as put the popular Friends Reunited together. Is sex really the only blandishment that will actually motivate techie-blokes to work effectively with women? And, please, c'mon, are women really the only people with people skills? And where was I when they allegedly handed them out to all women? Engrossed in my GP2X, probably.

The next problem you run into is the dominance of neo-liberalism and neo-libertarianism--very popular with techies, twenty-somethings everywhere and "post-communist" societies in particular but loathed fairly comprehensively in the UK by anyone over 35 and anyone with an income below £20k (unless they're from a former communist country, of course). OK, OK, broad strokes, but that's sorta how it goes.

The short story is that the political "tone" and focus of e-democracy is often downright annoying/alien/off-putting to people outside the charmed circle of highly-educated, highly-paid twenty-somethings and American Dream wannabees the world over who swallow it whole, often sight-unseen.

If you want to extend a genuinely interactive, decentred online organisation, you have to diversify it. For the neo-libertarians among us, I probably need to explain that this doesn't mean that you need to make everyone else exactly like you (wonderful you). It means accepting that most people aren't like you, don't want to be like you and/or lack the opportunity to enjoy the education, background/networks, income, access, and spare time that make you like you.

No substitute for experience . . .

Thanks for your comment, John. Agree, no point in hurling money at developing electronic talking shops with no location in concrete communities of interest. It's only when you get involved in the basics of jobs, housing, childcare, law etc that you actually bark your shins against the intractable difficulties of those marginalised by "globalisation", "hypercapitalism" or whatever you wanna call it.

Studies are pretty unanimous that ecommunity functions best when combined with "Real Life" interaction. But Corporate hype behaves rather like those shoals of fish on David Attenborough progs--more instinctive shoalling than rational analysis. New Labour's neo-liberalism sucks up the Corporate-herd-hype-of-the-moment with a similar lack of rational analysis of its actual relevance to the concerns of its membership (much less its wider voting public) --which could explain why it's been haemorraging members for the past decade.

Changes to funding systems have done a great deal to discourage any kind of independent association or analysis. Cynicism sets in as everybody knows by now that if it's "off message" you might as well save your breath (the job you save may be your own). What's the point of more talking shops then?

It's important to remember that Corporate neo-liberalism is driven by the transcendental signifier of profit. Profit is not a suitable determinant for the development of political forms appropriate to human dignity. Consumer effing feedback is not a substitute for political thought and communal accountability. Gaaaaaah!

Web 2.0 systems developed to enable collaboration between highly enabled ruling-class innovators and/or to facilitate marketing and consumer feedback to save money on PR and customer service are not substitutes for effective political organisation and community activism. They're tools which can possibly be adapted to assist with organisation, development and dissemination of the ideas which cohere the body politic.

Governments should be afraid of their people, not the other way around . . .

The e-petitions site is part of an effort to make the UK Parliament more accountable and to encourage more direct participation on the part of our population. Or looks like mob-rule, depending on your point of view.

I've always supported direct democracy (aka extra-parliamentary action) fairly unconditionally, but have been viewing recent developments with some personal trepidation--largely confirmed by a brief glance at the most popular petitions on this site.

Government-by-focus-group is scary enough. Its full-blown form of "participatory democracy" seems to consist of the government giving Murdoch free reign to warp the minds of middle-England into a highly manipulable mess of fear and loathing, and then employ an army of consultants at forty quid per hour to ask its opinion before framing mountains of half-baked, knee-jerk crowd-pleasing legislation and appointing ever-encroaching armies of half-educated QA bureaucrats to ensure that everyone's full attention is on massaging metrics rather than healing the sick, teaching the young etc etc . . . This ain't accountability, it's collective insanity.

What can you do? 90% of the population apparently has the sense to oppose war in Iraq, but would also dump asylum seekers in prison ships, repeal race relations and gender equality legislation, string up paedophiles, ban sex education and force institutions to set up surveillance of political discussion in British universities--and is apparently more concerned about preserving the right of the rump of the feudal ruling class to chase foxes around in archaic dress before ripping them apart alive than it is about anything else!!!

I went to one of those wretched expert panel thingies they have at Portcullis house a while back where the Liberal MP chairing the thing took the view that government wasn't keen on ICT because it would blow the wind of change up their trousers. Can't remember what he said exactly but there was frequent reference to "government silos" in there . . . Personally, I'd love to open up the silos of government, but that isn't the apparent effect of all this "participation". Everyone's systems seem to be under scrutiny except for those at Westminster and Whitehall.

Sorry for this blast of cynicism, but grafting "participatory democracy" onto our secretive feudal parliament, "marketised" and monopolised media institutions and chaotic education system may have rather unstable results . . . When a right-wing demagogue owns most popular media, habeas corpus has been suspended, and the secret service, army and police are apparently somewhat to the left of government *and* the tabloid readership, it's time to be afraid.

But maybe I misjudge my countrypersons--perhaps they will drag their attention from headscarves, foxes, and paedophiles and lobby for anti-trust legislation to protect genuine press freedom, for greater social equality, responsible trade, effective action to protect the world's resources and all-round quality of life, protest at the erosion of civil freedoms and political tolerance, the suppression of independent media and the demonisation of a proportion of our population. I'm not holding my breath though.

But, having said all that, I still support this kind of initiative. It's not only a failure on the part of governments to deploy digital democracy effectively but also a failure on the left to modernise and effectively develop and disseminate critical thinking. Activists often don't make good use of ICT either. At least these guys are trying!

There is, of course, the huge problem of avoiding "talking shops" being ignored and tools like e-petitions lacking deliberation (and/or being ignored). The mind slightly boggles at how government might be made formally accountable to virtual and informal popular deliberation although some folk have hopes of concepts such as "liquid democracy"--but I suspect, much as with open source organisational structures, it may be difficult to extend these beyond their originary contexts.

The problem is that, given the "rubbish in, rubbish out" axiom, unless people are exposed to a greater variety of informed opinion, perspective, and socio-economic models in media and education *and* some sort of real (and sobering) political experience it's difficult to imagine how more relevant and effective debate is likely to develop?

This diversity of critical perspectives used to originate in extra-parliamentary mass political organising and percolate gradually through formal political theory and into the broadsheets and the national political language. This kind of independent organising is the magic ingredient. Activities such as free collective bargaining or agitating for electoral reform addressed structural issues of importance to the participants and effected real economic and political redistribution--it also focuses the mind on realpolitik rather than cosy "common-sense" --well, nonsense.

The loss of the socio-economic structures which fostered this kind of mass organising along with the socially atomising effect of hyper-capitalist individualism and severe crackdowns on public demonstrations have, perhaps, led to a haitus in politically effective mass organisation of the type that governments can't ignore. This is where virtual organising could be so crucial.

I'm inclined to feel that one could not, "top down" as it were, create the perfect tool for participatory or direct democracy. Effective ICT political tools seem more likely to be developed as a way of facilitating the focused activities autonomous organisations. If the stop-the-war coalition (or someone else) had made more use of the potential of their website a couple of years ago, and hooked up more effectively with human rights organisations over the PTA etc, we might be looking at a somewhat different scenario now. But, of course, the SWP doesn't play well with others and doesn't relish the winds of change either. This, of course, also brings us to realistic fears of surveillance of politicised (well, all) digital activity and other material difficulties for political organising in the UK at the moment. Again, there are issues beyond what constitutes an effective ICT tool to consider when widening participation beyond government, NGO and activist circles.

I don't know if you can generate political activity in the same way as you can get people swapping video clips and second lives. Social interaction for entertainment may work on an entirely virtual plane, but I don't think political economy is likely to do so?

It's important, nevertheless, to resist the pompous conclusion drawn in some quarters of Britain's ruling elite that the idea of popular sovereignty is passe. Populations can expect to be "consulted" (at huge expense) but need to bite down on the "fact" that life is now too complex for them to understand and they are not in control. This smacks of the reasons the ruling class gave to resist universal (male) franchise--that non-property-owners were too thick to understand what's going on (if I may paraphrase). The problem is not that political economy now passes all understanding (it always did!) but that people are being misinformed, manipulated and increasingly disempowered by complex practices which have been largely effective at securing mass compliance with high dubious corporate agendas.

Adapt and survive . . .

Oh God, women and technology and training. So many issues, so little time.

A group of women of my acquaintance are trying to develop a women's space within an established global new-media outfit. The established outfit is, needless to say, an eensy-weensy little bit male dominated. They use a custom content management system which hasn't been documented to speak of and which requires a rather good working knowledge of Linux server apps to deploy and maintain. The production servers are mostly maintained by techie blokes who all know each other. Many are "sympathetic" to women. There is also a small number of women (mostly in a single geographical location) who are able to deploy the system on the existing network.

I'm left musing on why a bunch of alleged Marxists appears to little grasp of the implications of restricted ownership and control over the means of production. This is a major lacuna in the whole FLOSS universe where issues of access to hardware and the skills necessary to deploy and maintain it are routinely brushed under the carpet and FLOSS represented as an entirely virtual universe of inherent equality.

Maybe I'm being 500x bitten and far too shy, but experience teaches me that a total lack of documentaion and/or assisted installation routine is usually a sign that its developers don't particularly want to deal with "non-technical" people. These guys also all-to-frequently enjoy shitting on non-techies from a great height and think that women are "differently wired" so there's no point in trying to encourage them. Sorry guys, but that's what's squirming under the "stats" proving women are useless at techie stuff and all the bollox about lofty "read the manual" stuff. I probably should add that I'm aware that loads of people are actively trying to address this etc etc.

Faced with arcane terminology and an assumption of previous knowledge of Linux system most women will just wilt and give up, confirmed in their original belief (carefully inculcated by a male bias in gender-research) that women in general, or themselves in particular, are just no good at this stuff.

At this point, the "sympathetic male" appears and magnanimously offers to take over the task for the little women and or "give advice" to women who want to learn the system. Now, instead of being faced with arcane terminology and an assumption of previous knowledge by male/techie-orientated documentation (or a blank space where documentation ought to be), women are dealing with it as a social reality in real-time. Unsurprisingly, they doubly wilt and give up again.

Happily confirmed in their prejudice of male technical superiority, the "sympathetic males" will do it for them and the women, unhappily confirmed in not being cut out for it, will slink off to catch some zzzzzz after a night of baby-disturbed sleep etc.

This slightly uneasy state of affairs can rumble along fine until an issue upon which men and women may seriously disagree comes along (and often threatens to split the women too). Now what? Tell the men where to get off? Hmm, they may very well pack up their toys and take them to their own back yard.

Now it's starting to look like the power relations within a marriage where the man works for salary and the woman works unsalaried in the home . . .

I do think it's a major issue for women's participation and we can't just agree that some (most?) women simply aren't "cut out for it". OK, lots of women have no interest in techie stuff (along with lots of men) and I completely agree that women shouldn't have to become "techies" to participate socially and creatively in other ways--but experience teaches me that its very easy to shut people (women) out if they don't have access to the skills necessary to develop independent infrastructure.

If you don't own or can't control infrastructure, you need to be careful how you deal with the people who do. This is not only because women obviously value their relationships with men and don't want to cause unnecessary grief and stress - but it's also because very very few women can run production servers, deploy and maintain content management systems etc. If we make too many waves, we'll be kicked out and we lack the means to develop these spaces for ourselves.

Not all women need to be able to do more than access the technology once it's up there, but there do need to be far more women capable of "controlling the means of production". At present, there are, at best, maybe a couple of women's servers in the world.

It seems there are uncountable numbers of women who want to contribute creatively and participate socially, but very few who are willing to grapple with the actual "nuts and bolts" of building the spaces themselves. This might be seen as confirmation that women just aren't interested in technical stuff, but I'm not at all convinced. Studies show that despite unequal representation in the field of technology, women are just as capable--if not more so. The problem is cultural and infrastructural.

It'd be fantastic to run a global network of women's production servers and be able independently to deploy the systems women need to achieve new-media independence. We don't all have to become a techie wizard, but I don't doubt that all of us could develop far more technological confidence and competence. Most of us just need enough to be able to participate and secure our PCs and communications and to participate in e-communities, but we do also need more women willing to wade in seriously and create infrastructure.

We need to create the kind of spontaneous networks of mutual technical support among women which characterise FLOSS development more generally and which can "reward" women in those important but intangible ways for taking the time/trouble to learn the stuff.

OK OK this is a bit unrealistic at the moment, but a journey of a thousand miles etc . . .

An awful lot of women find it very difficult to get the time needed to acquire these levels of technical competence--but there are also plenty of women who are retired or whose kids grown up--or don't have those kinds of domestic responsibility by choice. Although it's going to be an unpopular suggestion, it's true that when my kid was growing up I found time not only to run my own home PC network but to set up small systems for women's groups, get a PhD, write and publish, and run around doing activist stuff. Then again, I was supported by a 70s/80s feminist environment where creches were standard and there was general support for women with kids (though I wouldn't want to overestimate it ;-) I also didn't have a man to "look after", and I was young and willing to survive on nicotine, caffeine and nerves--I suppose I wouldn't recommend it . . . but it had to be done?

I'm a writer, the only reason I know how to do technical stuff is because I couldn't get community projects started without being able to create web spaces myself - and that's all I'm really bothered about. That makes me what they call an "accidental techie". I don't particularly fancy struggling with arcane and ill-documented custom apps either, but I will struggle with being in control of my own articulation and my own survival infrastructure as far as possible.

Cultures of ambiguity take II

Ah well, loooks like we can't even rely on the EU for grubby pragmatism anymore. Silly me, what was I thinking?

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, think brats with a rather childish notion of "freedom" playing with their crayons.

Cultures full of ambiguity . . .

Bloody Jack Straw is banging on (on BBC24) about Iran being "by culture full of ambiguity" —spookily, that's exactly what the Iranians think of us ;-)

Meanwhile, the EU is rumbling on again about European integration whilst Right and Left alike wonder which part of "referendum" it didn't understand.

The British Right bemoans frogs beseiging the White Cliffs of Dover and Uncle Sam's "special relationship" favouritism towards their more ingratiating sibling, Blair. Meanwhile, the USA apparently takes the view that the integration of Europe is a plan conceived and carried out by the Exalted Power and Glory of USA foreign policy for the benefit of lesser European mortals. It would like us to pick up more of the tab for USA (oops, I mean NATO) gunboat diplomacy and to leave us holding the baby when the bodybags start piling up indecently, but it deprecates independent thought on the part of its EU underlings (oops, I mean partners)—much less any independent action. Blair apparently deludes himself he can twist the crazed juggernaut round his cute little finger and make it play nicely with the EU.

The USA (along with the European Right and Left) probably needn't worry cos the chances of the EU ever successfully integrating the activity of pissing with the activity of chewing gum are remote. Especially since the post-colonial interests of its members don't co-incide for much of the time (Iraq was a French, not a British, postcolonial client state, for example). Integration might get a tad easier since recent EU expansion into rampantly neoliberal Eastern Europe. Merkl busting up the Putin-Schroder romance also helps roll the balance of power over to the free-marketeers—except that neocons often tend also to be nationalists prone to whinge about loss of sovereignty and a socialist "nanny superstate". Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

The Left has little time for the imperialist depravity of NeoCons or for the whole project of Fortress Europe. The EU's counter-juggernaut aspirations to see off Uncle Sam (along with "asylum seekers"—that's refugees to you and me) are hardly edifying. However, thanks to the unhinged extremism of British Conservative opposition to the EU, the left is careful to avoid any appearance of sympathy for anti-EU sentiment and the British public is prone to assume that the EU must be a good thing if it makes Conservatives foam at the mouth like that.

A couple of years ago, an EU-wide poll indicated that whilst only just over half of us Europeans-on-the-street fancy EU integration, 74% of us favour a common European defence policy. It seems we rather like the idea of orienting away from—or even out of—NATO. I suspect this may be because we hope the EU is likely to tell the USA to go boil its head next time it wants help illegally invading someone. Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that the EU just wants to forge ahead with its own invasions (at least, I think that's what they mean by a focus on "security" rather than "defence"). Or maybe that's just our culture of ambiguity talking . . .

The EU has always been "culturally-full-of-ambiguity" towards USA postwar dominance. This currently manifests in its multiple personality on issues such as Free Software, which it simultaneously supports and undermines, communications infrastructure, IP policy, common defence policy and UN reform.

Taking a global view, Fortress Europe is undoubtedly a running-dog of the USA's "war on terror", also demonstrating a fine disregard for human rights as well as democracy if there's a euro or two in it for them. As a "counterweight" to a US bullyboy, the EU is hardly a candidate for canonisation. I suppose the EU's sheer grubby pragmatism is something of a comfort set against the born-again lunacies of the USAs current regime. One should be thankful for small mercies I suppose.

Where is the Lone Ranger when you need him?