open source memetic future engineering

Overview:

Ideas to shape our future, delivered as a portfolio of Open Source projects at RBJones.com, X-Logic.org and OpenBrand.org.

The X-Logic project aims to develop XML-based methods and tools to support the exploitation of logic as technology in the context of the World Wide Web. The OpenMind project is formal analytic philosophy, providing philosophical foundations for X-Logic, applying X-Logic technologies to philosophical problems, and investigating other application domains.

OpenBrand is a propaganda site which begins with "Open Source" as a software development ethos and extrapolates all the way to Utopia. Popper's Open Society transformed and relaunched for the new millenium. A philosophical project closely coupled with (and hosted at) OpenBrand. Ideas, methods and tools for exploiting and propagating the Open Society in a memetically engineered free-franchise.

The original ecclectic RBJones.com website continues to develop ideas and resources for its children.	a experimental "utopian portal" and the first Open Portal franchisee.

The X-Logic project aims to develop XML-based methods and tools to support the exploitation of logic as technology in the context of the World Wide Web.

X-Logic is a new project intended to provide technical infrastructure for formalising all the work in Factasia which concerns or applies logic. This ranges from tutorial material on elementary logic to the engineering of the Analytic SuperBrain (logic for problem solving on the Semantic Web). X-Logic will provide XML compliant generic logic technologies and is being set up as an Open Source web site and development project hosted by SourceForge.net.

The OpenMind project is formal analytic philosophy, providing philosophical foundations for X-Logic, applying X-Logic technologies to philosophical problems, and investigating other application domains.

The OpenMind project will be concerned with Rationality, and the contribution to rationality which can be made by formalised and mechanised logic. It will provide philosophical underpinnings and applications for the X-Logic technologies. It will apply formal modelling methods to a kind of Analytic philosophy in which the principal truths enunciated are formally demonstrable analytic truths. It will test the limits of applicability of formal logical analysis by exploring its applications in science and engineering, and in all other areas in which rationality may be thought important.

OpenBrand is a propaganda site which begins with "Open Source" as a software development ethos and extrapolates all the way to Utopia.

OpenBrand will be a new project intended to contribute to the ideology of Open Source. OpenBrand will concern itself with business models for funding independent Open Source developers, and will further the Open Source gift culture by promoting marketing by OpenSource development sponsorship. OpenBrand.org will also emphasise the applicability of Open Source methods to diverse mindware, all the way to utopian Open Source world futures, and the connections between the open source gift culture and utopian anarchist ideals.

Popper's Open Society relaunched for the new millenium. A philosophical site closely coupled with OpenBrand.

The Utopian (and other) applications of Open Brands are based on making every buck count. These means: you know what you are after you know what your spending options do (total impact knowledge) you spend to maximise contribution to your end goals.

The problem with this is total impact assessment, which demands thorough knowledge of what the seller will be doing with the money you spend with him (and a lot of software and mill to process this information). The Open Society is partly about the culture needed to make this information available.

The Open Society is about common values for a pluralistic global society. These go beyond "democracy and freedom" with which Popper was primarily concerned, to encompass the right to complete information about how suppliers spend and what they do. With this information consumer spending decisions are empowered to mould the future, providing a new participatory democracy effected through the marketplace.

Ideas, methods and tools for exploiting and propagating the Open Society in a memetically engineered free-franchise.

The Open Portal project will develop groupware which enables us all to create the Open Society and to apply our own resources to realising our own preferred futures. A key part of Open Portal groupware will be software which enables individuals to build their own personal portal which embodies and communicates their personal preferences, and which enables them to maximise the effectiveness of their day to day decisions in contributing to the realisation of those preferences.

Open Portal is not just (or even primarily) about personal portals, it is portal technologies for individuals or groups who have common objectives to pursue, and buy into The Open Society.

The original eclectic RBJones.com website continues to develop ideas and resources for its children.

The existing Factasia web site is likely to develop rather slowly, and to transit at a very leisurely pace onto the new X-Logic and Open Portal technologies.

an experimental "utopian portal" and the first Open Portal Free Franchisee.

This will be my own test-bed for the Open Portal technologies. To early yet to say much about it.

RBJones.com will become the website of Roger Bishop Jones Limited, but for some considerable time will continue to host the existing website (to avoid breaking approximately 1000 links now pointing from other sites into ) which is likely to continue to develop for some time yet, alongside the new sites.

OpenSource Web Sites All the new projects will be Open Source web sites. They will be built from XML sources held in an online CVS repository using a complex build process automated using GNU make. (a template for doing this is being put together for X-Logic and will be re-used on the other sites) They will be hosted by SourceForge.net or by a hosting service providing a similar or better range of features. This means that they will all have one or more mailing lists or online forums for discussing the projects, and the projects will be organised to encourage many developers/authors to contribute. I will continue to monitor facilities for hosting collaborative projects to keep near the (b)leading edge in collaborative methods. The new Factasia web site will be collaborative at two levels. It will enable individuals with no special skills to collaborate with each other in shaping our future. The software which enables this will itself be a collaborative effort (if I can persuade any one else to join in!).

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© created 2000/1/31 modified 2000/8/15