mentions our good friend Marco Fioretti ...<br><br>for more, <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Spirituality#Christianity">http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Spirituality#Christianity</a><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 11:34 PM, James Quilligan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jbquilligan@comcast.net">jbquilligan@comcast.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;"><h2>Monitor</h2>
<div>What would Jesus hack?</div>
<h1>Cybertheology: Just how much does Christian doctrine have in common with the open-source software movement?</h1><div><div>
<img src="http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20110903_TQD004_0.jpg" alt="" title="" height="335" width="595">
</div><div><br></div><p>�THE kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,� Jesus said of
little children. But computer hackers might give the kids some
competition, according to Antonio Spadaro, an Italian Jesuit priest. In
an article published earlier this year in <i>La Civilt� Cattolica</i>,
a fortnightly magazine backed by the Vatican, entitled �Hacker ethics
and Christian vision�, he did not merely praise hackers, but held up
their approach to life as in some ways divine. Mr Spadaro argued that
hacking is a form of participation in God�s work of creation. (He uses
the word hacking in its traditional, noble sense within computing
circles, to refer to building or tinkering with code, rather than
breaking into websites. Such nefarious activities are instead known as
�malicious hacking� or �cracking�.)</p><p>Mr Spadaro says he became interested in the subject when he noticed
that hackers and students of hacker culture used �the language of
theological value� when writing about creativity and coding, so he
decided to examine the idea more deeply. The hacker ethic forged on
America�s west coast in the 1970s and 1980s was playful, open to
sharing, and ready to challenge models of proprietary control,
competition and even private property. Hackers were the origin of the
�open source� movement which creates and distributes software that is
free in two senses: it costs nothing and its underlying code can be
modified by anyone to fit their needs. �In a world devoted to the logic
of profit,� wrote Mr Spadaro, hackers and Christians have �much to give
each other� as they promote a more positive vision of work, sharing and
creativity.</p><p>He is not the only person to see an affinity between the
open-source hacker ethos and Christianity. Catholic open-source
advocates have founded a group called El�utheros to encourage the church
to endorse such software. Its manifesto refers to �strong ideal
affinities between Christianity, the philosophy of free software, and
the adoption of open formats and protocols�. Marco Fioretti, co-founder
of the group, says open-source software teaches the �practical dimension
of community and service to others that is already in the church
message�. There are also legal motivations. Commercial software such as
Microsoft Word is widely pirated in many parts of the world, by
Catholics as well as others. Mr Fioretti advocates the use of
open-source software instead, because he doesn�t want people �to violate
a law without any real reason, just to open a church document�.</p><p>Although the Vatican has yet to encourage the faithful to live like
hackers, it has praised the internet as �truly blessed� for its ability
to connect people and share information. The pope has even joined
Twitter. But praise has always been tempered by warnings. As early as
2002, for instance, the Vatican�s �Church and Internet� document
cautioned that �there are no sacraments on the internet� and worried
about the solipsistic appeal of technology. Moreover, hackers in
particular have problematic traits from the perspective of the Catholic
church, such as a distrust of authorities and scepticism toward received
wisdom. And the idea of tweaking source materials to fit one�s needs
doesn�t mesh well with the Catholic emphasis on authority and tradition.</p><p><b>Cathedrals and bazaars</b></p><p>Mr Spadaro recognises these tensions but finds them manageable. Not
everyone agrees. Eric Raymond, author of a classic essay on open-source
software, �The Cathedral and the Bazaar�, finds it hard to believe that
some Christians want to canonise the hacker mindset. After being quoted
in Mr Spadaro�s paper, Mr Raymond took to his own website to note that
he had deliberately equated cathedrals with proprietary, closed-source
software directed from above, by contrast with the more chaotic bazaar
of equals which produces open-source code. �Cathedrals�vertical,
centralising religious edifices imbued with a tradition of
authoritarianism and �revealed truth��are the polar opposite of the
healthy, sceptical, anti-authoritarian nous at the heart of the hacker
culture,� Mr Raymond declared. As for Mr Spadaro�s ideas, they possessed
a �special, almost unique looniness�.</p><p>But Mr Spadaro is merely the latest to link coding with Christian
attitudes towards creativity and sharing. Don Parris, a North Carolina
pastor, wrote an article in <i>Linux Journal</i> in
2004 in which he argued that �proprietary software limits my ability to
help my neighbour, one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith.�
Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, an open-source programming language,
said in an interview a decade ago that God expects humans to create�and
to help others do so. Mr Wall said he saw his popular language as just
such a prod to creation, saying, �In my little way, I�m sneakily helping
people understand a bit more about the sort of people God likes.�</p><p>More recently Kevin Kelly, co-founder of <i>Wired </i>magazine
and author of �What Technology Wants�, published last year, has argued
that creation can go further in code. Whereas a novelist can craft a new
world, coders can build worlds complete with artificial agents that
exist and evolve outside the creator�s mind. Mr Kelly takes literally
the words of his friend Stewart Brand, whose �Whole Earth Catalog�
quipped, �We are as gods and might as well get good at it.� Mr Kelly, a
Christian, says the ability to create artificial life will come with
great parental responsibility and suggests that artificial worlds will
need to be imbued with moral value. �This causes a kind of revival of
religion,� he says, �because religion has been thinking about this
issue.�</p><p>From the outside, hacking computer code has largely been viewed as a
technical discipline, not as a theologically rich vision of how to live.
But some see a divine aspect to programming�at least when looking with
the eye of faith.</p></div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>� - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
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