The Distributed Library Project

An anonymous reader writes "Mike Benham of thoughtcrime.org has started a cool project for sharing information and building community in San Francisco. From the website: "Unfortunately, the traditional library system doesn't do much to foster community. Patrons come and go, but there is very little opportunity to establish relationships with people or groups of people. In fact, if you try to talk with someone holding a book you like - you'll probably get shushed. The Distributed Library Project works in exactly the opposite way, where the very function of the library depends on interaction." It looks like the software is now available for other cities."

Re:Decentralized?

[cioxx]

Did I miss something?

Indeed, you missed a lot by failing to read the site before posting.

This is not a download/file sharing service. It's a physical distributed library where the inventory is in the hands of users in a form of private property and they simply share resources upon request through one of the portals.

This system could be exploited

[grug0]

What's to stop a whole bunch of people giving themselves high ratings and good feedback, and then stealing other people's books?

I suggest they use something like the Advogato [advogato.org] trust metric to maintain the integrity of their system. This allows bad "nodes" to be isolated and damage to the system avoided.

I also think that there should be penalties, like at any library, for having overdue books. Get a bad rating from one person is just a slap on the wrist.

I followed all the links...

[Anonymous Coward]

...on the parent site [thoughtcrime.org] (first link in write-up) and was surprised to find the following: linux for anarchists. [thoughtcrime.org]

Ha!

Neat web-site

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Slightly OT, but the same guy's site has a (slightly outdated, but still a good argument) page about why the War on Drugs is a failure [thoughtcrime.org]. Good read, especially in light of my state's recent decision to flout the Supreme Court's ruling that "Narcotics Checkpoints" are illegal and unconstitutional invasion of people's 4th amendment rights. Even though they're patently illegal, Marion County Indiana is having them on average of once a week for the rest of the summer. The Indiana Civil Liberties Union is already suing, and you know our Drug-Warrior/Sherriff will waste millions defending his actions, (millions of tax dollars, of course) then complain when his department has to cut budget mid-year because of the money he is wasting on lawyers.