OSDCM

The First Thanksgiving

Posted on November 20th, 2007 in Main

Let me start by saying I love free enterprise, I am not some socialist who thinks that everything should be free. That being said, when did we lose our way? What does the first thanksgiving have to do with open source you ask? If it were not for Squanto teaching the Plymouth settlers how to plant corn and catch eels our forefathers may have perished. From the accounts of the settlers there is no mention of a licensing fee in order use this knowledge, no percentage of the harvest was promised. However when the harvest was reaped a three day celebration was hosted, a celebration that we still have today, all be it one day shorter. So what happened to us? When did we become so mired in ourselves, why do we sue each other to protect the things that we should share?

Today we have record companies suing moms, we have artists suing record companies, we have writers striking on the media. What has caused all of this turmoil? Well the rise of the Internet of course! The Internet was originally conceived as a way to exchange information. Code was shared and services were created. Message boards opened and some time passed before it was opened to the public sector and exponential growth occurred. New and better ways of doing things were shared across this digital world of ideas. A great human synergy evolved, a revolution of information ushering our civilization out of the Industrial age an into an Information age.

We may think that what we have is new, that this idea of sharing information is born of our new enlightened society, but I would argue that Squanto understood that somethings should be open. So this thanksgiving his openness to freely teach my forefathers is something that I will be thankful for.