[SIGCIS-Members] Bridges & Empty Black Boxes

[Ceruzzi, Paul]

After following this discussion for the past week -- only a week? -- I went back to McPherson's essay for a second reading. I got a lot more out of the essay after following the recent debates. I make the following two observations:

1) The author relies on the writings of Eric Raymond in her descriptions of UNIX. Is it not relevant to our discussion that Raymond, in addition to being an articulate spokesperson for UNIX, is also one of the most forceful and articulate champions of unrestricted gun ownership and a literal interpretation of the Second Amendment? Do we place those two attributes in "modules" and not connect them? Raymond himself mixes the two together, should we?

2) McPherson's discussion of "modularity" has a resonance with a similar term, "compartmentalization," articulated by Paul Forman, in "Into Quantum Mechanics: the Maser as 'Gadget' of Cold War America," and Allan Needell, _Science, Cold War and the American State: Lloyd V. Berkner and the Balance of Professional Ideals_. Forman and Needell describe the term as "...a personal coping strategy among scientists who played complex, multifaceted, and often self-contradictory roles in American academic and military systems."  Berkner could describe federal support for science as furthering knowledge for its own sake, when talking to scientists; while at the same time, in classified briefings to military personnel, describe how the military could enlist the scientists into furthering weapons development. Does this also apply to UNIX? Not sure. 

Paul E. Ceruzzi, Curator
Division of Space History, MRC 311
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution 
PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
202-633-2414
http://airandspace.si.edu/staff/paul-ceruzzi