Frequently Asked Questions

   

Q:  Is Ideologi a service or software?

 

A:  Just like blogging or wiki software, it's a web server application.  Since it is free (aka "open source") the software that comprises the application will be available for free download by anyone who wants to run a copy of it themselves for any purpose they choose.  At the same time, a working version of it will be running at www.ideologi.org for use by the public.

 

 

Q:  If it's free for anyone to download and also free to use at www.ideologi.org, then how are you going to be able to support it?  Are you independently wealthy, or are you hoping to run this as a charity project?

 

A:  Ideologi is a non-profit project.  In legal and tax-related terms, it is a scientific, not-for-profit organization, such as the Mozilla Foundation or Wikipedia.  However, it is the intent of the initiator of this project to create a self-sustaining organization from which it can operate.  If Ideologi works as it is hoped, the organization will able to collect revenue from many different channels:  (1) advertising on both its web site and inside the publicly accessible version of its web application, (2) consulting and public speaking engagement fees made by its initiator, (3) fees collected by for-profit entities using the publicly-accessible version of its web application for commercial purposes, and (4) royalty fees from intellectual property generated from collaborative exchanges made on behalf of the organizaton.

 

 

Q:  So, why don't you just run it as a for-profit business.  If it's such an insanely great idea, then why don't you just shop for venture capital and make your pitch?

 

A:  This question has many different levels from which to answer it, so I'll try an angle that might be the most generally understandable.  Do you you know what the retail price of a browser was in 1995?  $40.  I remember because I made a small fortune selling hundreds of thousands of them.  To anyone who wasn't in the industry at that time,  just the thought that there was at one time an up-front cost for something the a computer today couldn't operate without must sound nonsensical.  But it was a true as people selling blocks of ice before electric refrigerators.  What's next, you say? Get ready for free-software-as-a-service.

As I write this, Microsoft has already announced that Encarta, its for-profit encylopedia product/service is being discontinued, while its non-profit rival (Wikipedia) continues to grow in sophistication and importance as a global institution.  Think about that for a moment.  A extraordinarily-funded for-profit entity could not figure out how to compete in a virtual commons (the Internet) against a non-profit entity comprised of an ad hoc collection of distrubuted volunteers using a free copy of web server software.  Get the picture?  Are advancements in ubiquity of technology going to increase these types of occurences or decrease them?  As you can see from the books listed on the right side of the page, I took a long, hard look at the concrete evidence of what this represents and where it could go.  This is what I mean by there being "different levels" to this question (philosophical, commercial, political, cultural).  The coming shift--and trust me, the world is just getting started with all of this--goes way beyond the revolutionary scale of the introduction of printing presses--it's more along the lines of the cultural switch from barter to currency (or maybe even from language to writing).  You're gonna want to sit down when I explain to you Ideologi's potential role in all of this...  But let's get back to my main point:  If Ideologi will work best (and for the longest time) by operating as a self-sustaining non-profit, then what should I do--deny the inevitable?  Or should I take the logical steps to fully embrace it?

 

 

Q:  There are a lot of projects going on right now with the Obama Administration pushing towards brainstorming/collaboration efforts both within government agencies and in how citizens and corporations collaborate with the goverment.  Are you working with anyone in that regard?

A:  I'm in the process of identifying all of the new organizations, stakeholders, and influencers that are out there to assist me.  Keep an eye out on the lists I have on the right-hand side of this page.  A lot of additions are coming.  When I put them up, I'll put a blurb up on who they are and why I they're important.  If you know of anyone or anything that I should know of, do not hesitate to forward it to me.