Open Source Programming is Driving the Empowering of People: The Wiki CMS Potentially Provides the Highest Level of Natural Power Out of All Open Source Software Programmed to Date.

I wrote this back in 2008.  It is one of many past unedited writings to come.  Once again.  Not much has changed.  Some of it has become even more relevant with the times.

Open Source CMS (Content Management Systems) will continue to grow in popularity, potentials of their advanced features, ease of creation and of use. The general public will catch on by 2010, and the power in society will be shifted to the people. Natural power from people empowering each other with Free Relevant Information will take hold of most aspects of society. These Open Source CMS will bring about a relative golden age of business transparency, c2c social collaboration and a much higher level of accountability by businesses to the human race as a whole.

Natural power is from people empowering each other with Free Relevant Information. In the past this idea of natural power was based upon the simple caring information was practiced by the Dalai Lama and shamans. They both have worked hard to empower people with the message of peace and love. If everyone adopted such beliefs the world would be a better place, but this is reality. It is hard to have love and peace when resources are minimal or non-existent. Human suffering has been going on since the beginning of time. Being blessed with life in the United States during a time when all there is to do is educate yourself. No military draft or occupying invaders, just people living freely. Living freely helped create the computer, and the computer is probably the most empowering tool that the people have in their arsenal.

Before computers (pre-1960) taking a stand against corruption required giving up your identity to report it to the proper authorities and whether they listened or not, the party (business or government) that the person was whistle blowing on will probably learn of their reporting. The positive-focused whistle blow would have faced a high risk of retaliation, such as being caught up in court or worse... The power held by the big companies and governments used to be far to much to handle for the common person since there was practically no oversight compared to today and these institutions ruled over the general public who lacked the true empowerment of education.

The computer has progressed due to "hackers" modifying their early equipment to create uses unheard of before this time. The computer might have never even reached the general public if it wasn't for these "hackers" taking the time to learn more about the product than was required to use the current basic known functions. As the coding naturally formed together into patterns in front of their eyes, they became some of the first humans to realize the potentials of the technology. They recognized that digital computers didn't have to live by the rules of the physical world, and in time they could be used to increase the productivity, efficiency, and ultimate potentials of their part of the world within their lifetimes.

These early adopters worked hard with only a glimpse of what the computer would become. Being the first in the industry, these people were given the choice of working on whatever aspect of the computer they wanted. Some chose the software, some hardware, and a few others probably worked in other aspects of the business which were probably non-computer related, since usage was very complex and took a lot of learning time. By all of them working with a relatively uniform focus, they were able to create a system of empowering each other which would only 10-20 years later be recognized by the general public as a tool to empower themselves. Progress in the beginning of the digital age was negligent compared to the levels of output experienced today. Many of these hardware and software developers over time logically determined that they could gain way more natural power by aligning with other developers on a few basic systems. Some of these were programming languages that now allowed people who had never met each other to instantly have the ability to empower each other with knowledge through communication and application at a higher level than previously possible. This only becomes more intense in time because the coding becomes more stable as it has been objectively understood and integrated into the bigger symbolic pattern.

As time progressed into recent years, the level of cooperation between all parties has risen steadily in percentage while the whole industry exponentially increased in number of people partaking overall. The reason: The shared "public" knowledge allowed anyone with the time and patience the ability to partake in any aspect of trying out or perpetuating the evolving computer systems (of hardware and software). As programming progresses the number of advanced usable features that have been cooperatively simplified for the common computer user increases. Completely Open Source software is the logical extension of this cooperation. This is the belief that all chosen coding and software should be available for everyone to use and modify. Companies release in charge of the open source software coding release the fished product with a lot of the R&D information included. No legal protections are held by anyone over stock open source software, so the whole product is designed to be fully customizable. These companies actually welcome the after-market modification done to their software, especially since there is a good chance that any major developments would be released straight back to the public and the original source. These major developments are usually founded in one of the many online public social collaborating communities.

People feel positive about good deals and free stuff. Social collaborators will increasingly work together to conjure up the methodical information behind enhancing and customizing most products. While some people will just get more out of their "stock OEM" products by learning how to better setup and use them. Others who have access to this knowledge will logically spend some money on raw materials to make major modifications to their own product. As the in-depth product knowledge becomes more mainstream and the raw materials start to be marketed to the general public, people will take advantage of the higher ease of access to the advanced customization.

This situation mirrors the TV and music industries. Piracy has continued to grow heavily in the last 10 years, due to the relatively in-depth knowledge of CD/ DVD products that spread among software (bypassing copy protection)and hardware developers (who made burners faster & CD-Rs/ DVD-Rs cheaper). Now the software developers have created file-sharing programs and the hardware people bigger hard drives. The natural power created by these various technology enthusiasts first empowered each other, and through dissemination empowered the general public. Thus, these businesses trying to fight piracy have failed horribly. This trend will continue.

A company that releases their internal R&D information and doesn't booby-trap their product will stay far ahead of their competitors who do not. More and more web designers and programmers are foregoing developing their own unique platform from scratch and hoping on the band wagon. Logically a company making un-modifiable products (by designing the product for tamper-resistant self-destruction) will soon lose all of their business to the competing company who makes their product more easily customizable. Much like how the Open Source software system works right now. In particular the Open Source CMS programs are empowering people quicker and quicker. The wiki is a new form of natural power that far supersedes any previous empowerment given to the general public. People are just starting to wake up to the systems of communication that have recently been developed. This time though, the empowerment will not sway the general public in the direction of committing petty crimes just to experience more art in their lives. Rather this new empowerment is based upon working together to combine all human knowledge into a wiki CMS and provide this to everyone in the world for free!

MediaWiki was the first company to realize the true natural power of the wiki CMS, and they have acted rightfully knowing that they could change humanity for the better. As the general public adopts the wiki into daily life, the computer has evolved and grown into the mainstream enough now that the potentials of collaborative open source computer systems can be fully realized. People are naturally whistle blowers. If they are jealous of someone/ have anger for not being included in scam or don't approve of their activities to begin with, then they can report to a wiki (or other CMS) from any computer. If a business is acting unethically then the number of people secretly or openly reporting them will only increase, since everyone has access to untraceable public computers (libraries) and people are naturally whistle blowers due the nature of our society.

No longer will products be purchased by the general public solely because of their marketing campaigns, but rather consumers will be able to quickly locate troves of in-depth information online on at least 4 main topics that will provide them with a much more precise (close to reality) understanding of each business and their products. Information sought after includes:

• The People, the Product & Related Processes: PUBLIC-DRIVEN INFO

1. Stock R&D Info: All methods and materials used when creating the product (to meet the publics transparency needs or from internal whistle blowers).
2. Logistics/ Methods of Transporting the Product: The Business ethics along every part of the production chain will be under scrutiny (due to reports from whistle blowers handling products)
3. After-Market Modification & Hacking Info: Consumers modifying their recent purchases to get the results they desire (A.K.A. hacking) will share ALL aspects they discover about the product online with their favorite social collaborating communities.
4. <u>The Owners, Workers and Affiliates: whistle blowers will force all parties and affiliates related to a company to maintain a healthy public image. If the a few people in the general public don't trust a business, then some of them will probably conduct independent research and report all findings anonymously to the public.

Now that the people have the natural power of computer information systems all the above aspects of each and every business will not truly be that hard to monitor, especially since the monitoring is now being conducted by independent disgruntled or jealous people within the same big business and government organizations that they are trying to take down. The general public fear of being squashed by big business and government will fade as they open up to being empowered by the wiki and work together. The content of the wiki is actually the same as open source, but it is labeled as creative commons. That means that not only can the MediaWiki CMS be duplicated and modified in your own manner, but the information may also be. This is a great idea, but how can computer enthusiasts get the public to learn and adopt these great social collaborating advanced tools? The common person thinks it to complex for them to grasp...

Now that a lot of time has passed the programmers have made it incredibly easy for a common person to install a wiki, blog, forum, etc. Web hosting companies (like Netfirms.com) charge under $5 a month for the server and a domain name costs about $10 a year. These types of businesses are run by programmers who have made the installation of the most popular Open Source CMS a 1 click install! They realized by empowering people with the content management systems basically already up-n-running that the customers would be able to start with the final product, making them feeling empowered from having their "own" place on the internet. The customization of the CMS now doesn't seem that hard to the user and they usually feel empowered enough to work sort of backwards, by fitting in the basics. Overtime the once powerless general public person has become an empowered adopter of the computer technology. Businesses pay $1000- $2000 for websites that are created on Open Source CMS. These are a steal deal for any website designer, since the common adult business owner has no idea the complexities and simplicities of creating a basic website, much less one with advanced features. They have embedded in their minds images of pre-2000 computer programming. When very few, if any, open source CMS were out there for the grabbing. 8+ years later and almost every programming process have the coding hidden deep in the files that never need to be touched. Instead all the administrative options are available in anywhere from 5-50+ super-simplified questionnaire style forms. Replacing the default values with your own is very easy now that there is a blatant example placed in each section of the CMS that could, but wouldn't ever be deemed to complex for someone with even basic literacy. Now that being said, these business owners and anyone else with $70 a year could all be running their very own seemingly-complex CMS websites.

Back to the wiki CMS, The wiki has the most natural power associated with it. This power is held in the collaborative nature of the wiki. The database structure allows the community to recognize common categories through which information has the ability to be perpetually collected in a non-repetitive manner. The ability to be edited by ANYONE ANYWHERE in the world means that as people discover the wiki, more and more will work together. Thus, collecting more information quicker, while having a bigger community to review and organize it. The increasing intensity and amount of communication and interaction will make all the people feel way more involved and empowered in their lives. Much more than ever experienced in the history the human race.

The people have grown to see that the natural power had empowered them enough to work together and take a stand for what is right. The Natural power gained from people empowering each other with Free Relevant Information will take hold of most aspects of society. These Open Source CMS will bring about a relative golden age of business transparency, c2c social collaboration and a much higher level of accountability by businesses to the human race as a whole.