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1997-09-21 - Re: The problem of playing politics with our constitutional rights

Header Data

From: fnorky@geocities.com (Douglas L. Peterson)
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Message Hash: befbf671d2f719c08b74676beb66388f16eb2ea2a23b8373c121cfbc25bedcee
Message ID: <34280d41.54409218@mail.geocities.com>
Reply To: <97Sep15.121816edt.32259@brickwall.ceddec.com>
UTC Datetime: 1997-09-21 06:59:17 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 14:59:17 +0800

Raw message

From: fnorky@geocities.com (Douglas L. Peterson)
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 14:59:17 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: The problem of playing politics with our constitutional  rights
In-Reply-To: <97Sep15.121816edt.32259@brickwall.ceddec.com>
Message-ID: <34280d41.54409218@mail.geocities.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:18:51 -0400, you wrote:

>On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Lucky Green wrote:
>
>> At 04:36 AM 9/15/97 GMT, Douglas L. Peterson wrote:
>> >Ok, we write code.  But as James S. Tyre pointed out, if the code is
>> >too difficult to use it will not be.  And as Declan pointed out
>> >many/most people will not use the crypto if they must think about it.
>> >
>> >Writing the code is no longer enough.  The code must be usable by the
>> >sheeple to work.  How do we do that?
>> 
>> Write better code.
>
>I can think of many examples of very bad code that is difficult to use but
>is very popular, an obvious one is that Apple wrote better code than MS.
>
>Even most sheeple rely on whatever is built in to MSWord or Excel than on
>PGP, so on that basis there is *NO* existing example of such code.
>
>So, not only do cypherpunks have to write code, it has to be better
>quality than Apple, with more marketing push than Microsoft.  And it must
>do something useful so they also have to invent a new application that
>would justify using the crypto it contains. 
>
>All while they do something else to pay for things like food and heat. 
>
>At this point it is easier to write laws.
>

No.  Just difficult.  Look at the rise of Linux and Free/Net/OpenBSD.  They are
slowly making it into the mainstream (I found a copy of RedHat Linux and
InfoMagic Linux for sale at a CompUSA last week).

Linux was slow to take off because it is an OS and difficult to learn from
scratch.  If we make programs for mainstream (Windows, MacOS, OS/2) that are
VERY easy to use, do somthing everyone wants, and are free (with source code), I
think they will take off.

-Doug
-------------------
Douglas L. Peterson
mailto:fnorky@geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/1271/

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