[digital:meditation]

Entwicklungshilfe war gestern: FlexGo nennt sich das neueste Kind der Microsoft-Produktfamilie, eine weitere von vielen Ideen, gleichermaßen Computer in jenen Teilen der Welt zu etablieren, die wir gern als “Entwicklungsländer” bezeichnen, und zudem noch ein wenig mehr Geld in die Konzernkassen zu spülen, direkt aus den Taschen jener, die ohnehin noch weniger davon haben als der durchschnittliche westliche “Werktätige”.

Wie hieß es doch so schön: “Gibst du einem Mann einen Fisch, nährt er sich einmal. Lehrst du ihn das Fischen, nährt er sich sein ganzes Leben.” Andererseits: Warum jemandem das Fischen beibringen, wenn es eher in unserem Interesse ist, ihm auf Lebzeit die Fische, die er selbst angeln könnte, teuer zu verkaufen, ist er erst einmal auf den Geschmack gekommen. Hier ist die Situation noch besser, hier ist es nicht einmal erforderlich, irgendwelche Fische zu verschenken – dank der Prepaid-Technologie züchten wir willige Konsumenten, abhängig vom Treiben und der Gnade westlicher Konzerne, denen wir vielleicht über geeignete Nutzungsbedingungen des Dienstes diktieren können, was sie mit der Technologie tun und was sie besser lassen sollten. Und ich dachte, angesichts von Hunger, Bürgerkriegen, Kindersterblichkeit und AIDS wäre schon der 100-Dollar-Laptop der Gipfel des Zynismus…

Network neutrality – a term basically meaning that an internet access provider does right what the name supposed: Providing access to communication network for example using a DSL line, a modem dialup network or a permanent connection, regardless of whether you’re just hosting non-commercial websites, doing personal mail communication or run a big online business. Neutrality means that access to the network should be independent of what content you are about to transmit, about what you’re intending to use your line for. This seemed to be common up to now, and somehow it even seems to be the right thing, this way: No matter whether I am a company linked to “the internet” using a permanent link or a home user connecting via modem or DSL, I am charged for internet access, I pay for that, and I expect that this should be basically it.

There are efforts underway, however, to get over this. ISPs and telecommunication companies then and now are driving forces behind an US-american regulation attempt allowing to end net neutrality, basically allowing providers to prefer certain commercial entities on “the internet” while being discriminating against others (or even locking them out). What if one day Google is unreachable using your ISP, because your dial-up provider decided to make MSN search the preferred search engine on its network and thus cut your connection to Google? Right now, this is impossible because of network neutrality, but maybe it will end, soon. Currently, this is mainly is an US-american issue, but it’s not that far away in Germany, too. To keep the internet as we know it up and running, there’s a good deal of importance in getting active about this…

more:

http://www.savetheinternet.com
http://www.myspace.com/savetheinternet

How do I remember those days back some years… The Linux kernel still was at a version somewhere close to 2.2, GNU/Linux as an operating system still was “underground” and not something worth considering for everyday desktop usage for most people, and Web 2.0 still was far from being at the horizont… which, in some ways, was quite good, because, if running GNU/Linux or any other Unix operating system, there was only one browser you might want to use if you wanted to visit all the fancy new sites showing images and animations and possibly using content requiring plug-ins to be displayedd. This browser used to be Netscape Communicator 4.x, a big, slow, memory-eating, clumsy-looking beast no one probably really wanted to use, but these days there simply was no choice (not talking about text-mode browsers like lynx. Exclusively running Unix these days was a good chance to miss what nowadays is known as the Browser War, or, should I say, the “first” browser war… Why that “first”? Read on…

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