How Open-Source will save the world

Introduction

In this thread I will be discussing how the Open Source, P2P and Creative Commons movements(along with Open Access for Biotech information) may be inadvertantly giving us the tools needed to take back our World and Economy from othe Corporate Pirates that only want to profit from the destruction of the Enivronment, of Nations and of Personal Choice and Freedom.

Now onto the matter at hand.

The Firefox Effect

As alot of us are already aware, Open Source is maturing quite nicely and with the first Public(ie non Beta) version of Firefox out and eating away at IEs browser share little by little month by month, one has to wonder. If we take the opensource model used to create Firefox with an open access model for a non-profit biotech company will it too challenge some of the Biotech giants like Eli Lily or Merck? My opinion on the matter is yes they can giving enough time and donated expertise. But aren't scientists only in it for the money? Well alot are but some are not as is demonstrated by the Canadian X-Prize team the Da-Vinci project which was touted as the single largest volunteer project in Canadian history(maybe even world history). Now granted Wildfire still hasn't launched yet but they have a rocket that cost approximately 500,000 CND to build and millions of dollars worth of donated time and labor by tens of thousand of volunteers and it can reach suborbit. Now compare that to Scaled Composits, while the real numbers are not known yet its been estimated the SpaceShipOne and its mothership cost of 30 million USD. Already we can see that going non-profit drives down costs considerably.

The Napster Effect

Ok now onto the infamous application that we have all come to love or hate. Peer-to-peer computing. It is the foundation of such distributed computing schemes such as SETI@Home and FOLDING@Home, but I have a question for all the ATSers that read this. How will P2P influance a project dedicated to finding cures and not just stopgap treatments designed to make money? How can new meds be distrobuted without going through corporate channels? Will this whole effort need to be conducted solely on the internet?

SCI-FI Writers start patenting your ideas!

I alot of cases, in technology a Sci-Fi writer will dream up an invention in a fictional novel and more often than not said invention is "stolen" by some businessman and used(or misused) to make untold amounts of money. I believe there should be a massive awarness campaign to be waged to educate upcoming Fiction writers on the prospects that some of their ideas could be patented(by them so even if they never see it first hand it will eventually enter in the public domain). It is starting to happen now, but I fear most are still ignorant of the ways of the patent system. If more writers who are genuinly interested in the wealthfare of this planet start do what I have proposed(allthough the only way it would work is if the patent is under Creative Commons or somthing simliar).

Any thoughts, questions, critisms or Flames?

its all about money and vying for control over the people. so they will have to flock to you in times of crisis in turn granting more control. the point in time where we are in complete control of the flow of everything is the day our government will collapse and the true democracy will come into power the NIO! a world of limitless boundries will seperate the weak and still let them be heard. all the while computing our lives through collective channeling, a new found arua of productivity will peirce the hearts of the apathetic if they so choose to stray away from their idiot boxes. or are we getting to big for our britches?