Sorry, your statements are not as axiomatic as you think.

If the world is mathematically a chaotic place I would love to see the mathematical prove for that. So far we got no further to say the world is complex and there are some chaotic processes. Chaotic would be akin to the claim that any fraction of a number, say Pi must eventually repeat itself or follow a descernable pattern. The other is saying (much less strict) it is a really long string of numbers, that might have come about for reasons that may be beyond the original domain (math).

The butterfly effect is a chaotic process. There is no prove the appeareance of a Black Swan is chaotic. If you referring to Taleb's book by the same name: What he describes is an interaction effect in complexity: Something extraordinary happens, the effects are negative so we are 'programmed' to want to fit it into reason. No chaos, just complexity hitting us over the head.

Complex planning does not necessary fail. Governments fail at it more often, because most others can revise planning, stop, alter goals or change paths to those goals. Government needs to meet utilitarian expectations, at least in a democracy and it needs to be predictable (at least follow prior law) so it is hampered changing plans.

That is always true. It is almost a commercial: "The best solution, proven emperically, is product 'X'. I concede that 'best' means different things to different people." That is just because 'emperical' as being seen in the real world and 'best' a subjective qualification in a hypothesis are inherently problematic.

You're question seems to come down to: What if the world changed so that a specific skillset I have in mind becomes invaluable? Well that is easy: The skillset you have in mind becomes invaluable. The real question becomes: Why would the world change towards that specific skillset and not to one of countless other skillsets? If an apocolypse does not pose some real serious challenges to our known skills, would we still recognize it as the apocolypse?

Just an idea: Create a cooperative entity with which real people (bloggers, posters, flcker users,etc.) can insure their possible copyright claims against larger entities. The cooperative entity can than represent them in cases of violation of that copyright using the sum of personal contributions. The fact that this entity has the financial power to go toe-to-toe with larger companies in individual cases will make them more warry of actuall trying to steal copyrighted materials.

I would even suggest the participants are contractually obliged not make public that they joined this cooperative entity. This makes free-riding for non participants easier, but it also prevents the participants being seen as a new collective copyright agency that needs to be dealt with. Furthermore it is much more fun and scarier for them if a company finds out too late they "f**ked with the wrong marine".

I can think of a couple of rules you would need to set up:

1. Only a natural person can join. No legal entitities.
2. You will have to limit the number of cases a person can bring
3. The copyright material in question must be published somewhere by a particiapt (on the internet). Otherwise you get too many cases of people having had an idea 20 years ago and now claim they have the napkin to prove they own google.
4. You probably have to organize this seperatly in different juristiction, but you can band them together to form a entity that can cross juristictions if necessary.
5. People have to be a participant for a given period before they can claim a case.
6. Cases between to natural persons should not be representable by this entity.
7. A percentage of any settlement should flow back into the cooperative entity.

The fact that it is a cooperative entity makes that contributions collected in excess of what is needed can be given back to participants. You could also give out bonds (I would limit this to participants) when the entity needs extra money to pay for a specific copyright case.

The stuff you need is pretty easy:

1. The legal paperwork and charter to create a cooperative entity
2. A website were people can join
3. A site where particpants can vote (at least annually) and deal with other matters concerning their participation.
4. Enough participants to create a reasonable warchest.
5. A lawyer on speeddail

Keep it clean and open, for instance by allowing the participants to review the cases brought fowared, unless you want it to turn into another incarnation of a copyright troll.

I am afraid these toys will lead to more extreme forms of misbehaviour: A child trying to pry open an other child to remove the batteries.
Ratl

Timster, you are right about file systems being a problem. Your focus on applications and data being structured to the applications needs seems to me to be slightly off the mark. Users don't care about applications. They care about their data. They might have a preference which with application that data is viewed, edited or processed. The preference is however completely dependent on what it allows them to do with their data.

Users are passionate about their data. They indeed want to see it in forms they can recognize, in an order that suites their needs from within the application they are using at that moment. "Where is that photo aunt Nelly send over two weeks ago? I want to insert it here into my document, next to the graph of uncle Bob's alcohol consumption for the family newsletter." Make up your own use-case. Applications don't figure into it.

Organizing user data is the big challenge and I do agree that specialized applications can do a better job at organizing than file management systems. The problem for the user is however precisely that specialization. The neat and clear organization in the one application is completely lost when trying to find the data in another, making the data less accessible. Try to find your bosses speech for editing with Audacity from your neatly organized iTunes library.

The solution is not to have more components in your application to do organization on all types of data. Users don't need one application to rule them all. Before you know it you are substituting your application for the operating system. It would be far more interesting to have a data organization system that can be used in the same way between all applications, so users can focus on what they care about: their data.

We have come full circle haven't we? From commercial business adopting open source for their profits to open source having to prove it can actually provide profits. Should open source be profitable? Richard Stallman thought it would change the world, Linus Torvalds thought it was fun to do Eric Raymond thought it would lead to better software. But real cash in their pocket profit: No! If you think open source is there to provide you profit: Get out. We will sadly miss MySQL, Open Solaris and Berkeley DB. We will also sadly miss all those paid hands contributing to those products. But although I won't speak for everyone it is save to say that nobody will spend their energy, creativity and spare time just for your bottom line. While you exclusively reap the benefits, the concern should be yours, exclusively, as well.

If you created or maintained open source projects in the past because you thought there was a way to make money and it doesn't: Be a business, cut your losses and move on. It is not as if any other contributors need a better reason. If Linus one day decides he had enough. We might be sad, tears may flow. It might even kill the Linux kernel, still. Even then there is nothing more to say: It was fun while it lasted.

Don't get me wrong. Open source could provide you with profit. Even if you can't figure out how. Other companies apperently can. And for that: more power to them. If they contribute in turn, even more power to them. They are however contributors at most, just like the guy spending another lonely night in the attic translating the online help in Armenian. They might not have the same reason to contribute. They have their own reason to contribute. Apparenlty that is what motivates them.

I do understand communities of contributors and users these open source projects will me sad, disappointed and/or bloody furious. They do however have a choice: fork the project, knive the project or put it in the fridge and hope something else will grow on top. They have however no right to expect anyone will foot their community apart from them. Communites survive by the effort of their members and if that is not enough they will dissappear. People might be motivated by nostaligia to keep some alive. That might however not do much for the progress of the project.

There should not be any expectation that open source projects cannot die. I have closets full of code for commercial products that no longer exist. Open Source projects aren't any different. If the motivation is gone, monetary or otherwise, the projects will follow suit. So to you as to all former contributors: "So long and thanks for all the code."

P.S. Open Source provides some great development tools. You might want to look into that.

Regards, Ratl