Freedom to share must apply to everyone … sharing is the basis of society … Stallman

If you think about it … this claim much like our thinking about the key competencies and the purposes of education … learning what it is to be human … where the MoE identify the key competencies of: thinking, making meaning with languages, symbols and texts, managing self, relating to others, and participating and contributing …

Stallman calls for “sharing” we identify “relating to others” and “participating and contributing”

We just don’t understand what it really means because we have unthinkingly adopted the thinking of consumerism and business

And when Stallman framed copyright (and tracked its historical development) in this way it becomes much easier to understand his passion … and to believe that it is achievable Dorothy … [If you are interested I'll send you my notes on this bit ... ]

I loved the way Stallman exposed how limited our perspectives and thinking become when we can only imagine society through “consumption” … when “free” does not mean “free beer” but “freedom” –

We can no longer imagine how sharing could or should be the basis of what it is to be human … and that is pretty frightening

Illich was alert to this
I believe that a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows to make and unmake, produce and consume – a style of life which is merely a way station on the road to the depletion and pollution of the environment. The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies (Illich, 1973)

And I think Gatto gets close to the same analysis in the context of schools
The sheer craziness of what we do to our children should have been sufficient cause to stop it once the lunacy was manifest in increased social pathology, but a crucial development forestalled corrective action: schooling became the biggest business of all. Suddenly there were jobs, titles, careers, prestige, and contracts to protect. As a country we’ve never had the luxury of a political or a religious or a cultural consensus. As a synthetic state, we’ve had only economic consensus: unity is achieved by making everyone want to get rich, or making them envy those who are. Gatto Confederacy of Dunces

All these thinkers have been / are framed as radical and or too extreme … yet I suspect this comes from their ability to think with more clarity and insight than the rest of us … who live out our lives not realising we are manipulated, not knowing how our imagining is limited, not thinking

First of all, how can you say that you are not part of the cream of Auckland’s Geekerati? What about the Edu_Geekerati? Wear the badge and be proud …

And it’s the whole black and white, non-compromising attitude that is the issue. The Kuia in my whanau would be very reluctant to share anything that could possibly diminish their status … hell’s teeth the kuia in my whanau is …

As I said, sometimes there are grey areas