Jay Rosen has read my Manifesto, apparently likes it, but says he only understands 40% of it. So I read it again, this time with my Jay Rosen goggles on, and I see what he means. There's a lot of context to what I'm saying that isn't explained. It's not complicated though, it could be explained. Tried to think of analogies. For example, standards are to programmers what laws are to lawyers. There is a code for lawyers, I should read it, I bet it has a lot to offer programmers.#
BTW, this is something Lessig wrote a book on if I recall correctly.#
But I think he got tripped up with the word "code" -- because code in his world means something different from what it means in ours. #
Ethan Zuckerman, another longtime friend, pointed to it, with a comment that interop is to standards-makers as the Hippocratic Oath is to doctors. I went back and read the piece up to that point, and he's right, that is what I said. But it isn't what I meant. It's more broad. Interop is not the responsibility of just standards-makers, unless you believe that all developers make standards (there's an argument for that position, btw). Interop is the ethical responsibility for all programmers. Imho of course. #
Lots of good stuff falls out if you accept that. #
For example, it would be unethical for Facebook to be willing to read HTML but not emit it. I can't use linking in Facebook posts, but they hoover up links from the open web, probably a lot more than we know. #
Facebook extracts lots of value from the open web, and doesn't give back as much as they've gotten. This is wrong. #
At the moment Trump fired Comey, there was about to be a loud and wide call by Democrats and others that Comey should resign, because he had just, in his Congressional testimony, again slimed HRC, and was spinning badly in a highly political manner, in the way law enforcement officials must not. #
Then Comey could have either resigned or not. And guess what if Trump had fired him then, perhaps as the outcry was dying down, he could have turned this into a political win, instead of the disaster that it has become.#