« When businesses have special influence on politics it means that the democracy is sick. The purpose of democracy is to make sure that the rich do not have influence proportional to their wealth. And if those who have more have more influence than I do, that means that the democracy is dying. Laws created this way have no moral authority, but only the capacity to do harm. »

"...These forums explore the ethical, social and political questions raised by government regulation of the internet. With the growing intersection between technology, politics and media, how do existing and proposed classification regimes measure up? ..."

So let's just accept that Linux geeks land on all points of the political spectrum and take a look at the personal politics and styles of the two godfathers of the open source movement: Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman.

For anyone interested in politics — and for more than a few interested in technology — the talk of the weekend has been the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009, which cleared Congress late Friday night and is due to be signed into law by President Obama on Tuesday.

“Linux is subversive”: so begins “The Cathedral and the Bazaar,” Eric Raymond's analysis of the open source way. The subversion there was mainly applied to the world of software, but how much more subversive are the ideas that lie behind open source when applied to politics.

"I wanted to take a minute away from politics to urge you to support Wikipedia. Wikipedia is my home page and I am a big fan of wiki technology. I believe it is one of the most important developments in human history and one cornerstones of the "Communication Revolution" we are in the midst of. It has allowed for the conglomeration of all human knowledge, thought, and perspective..."

Software is an unlikely medium for social change, and an inauspicious starting point. Free software cannot produce vaccines or treat disease. Nor can it put a roof over an orphan's head or fill an empty stomach.

Most geeks that I have met tend to not hold a great deal of interest in politics. We generally would prefer to spend our time solving technical problems than debating presidential politics. However, if we compare the two men fighting to be the commander-in-chief of the United States for the next four years, one has a clear advantage from a Free Software perspective.

Barack Obama's campaign built a powerful synergy between grass-roots politics and grass-roots technology, while presenting what many consider to be the most disciplined campaign of any candidate in modern history.