Re: Newsweek Article, PLUG, & Open Source

["Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com>]

Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>:
> The NorthWest Indian cultures that had the potlatch were in salmon run
> areas -- so the abundances were cyclic.  These were also slave-owning
> societies, if I remember my antho classes correctly, which also follows
> the cyclically abundance.  Gather all you can (with your slaves), dry
> the salmon, and then, if you have a surplus, which you won't be able to
> calculate until after the salmon run, you give it away (because if a
> fellow chief has starving slaves, this may destablize the tribe).

Only *one* of the cultures in the group institutionalized chattel
slavery (at least according to Maus's account in "The Gift").  Don't
remember whether it was the Haida or the Salish.

There was something superficially like slavery in the other three cultures,
but it was a special status restricted to prisoners-of-war and (if I am
parsing the translated French correctly) could not have been the basis
of a large subsistence-labor pool.

> It didn't appear that potlach survived the disappearance of slavery, as
> far as I can remember.

The accounts I've read suggest that the institution of potlach was 
disrupted by the introduction of European goods.  Potlach luxury items such
as furs and coppers became too valuable within the new, larger exchange
economy to be given away.

> Eric's description of adverse possession didn't match what I was taught
> in real estate license class, either.  If the owner gives you
> permission, you can squat on the land all you want, but you can't take
> title ever.

That's right.

>           The adverse is that you openly and defiantly use the
> property without permission of the title holder. 

That's right, too.  Advertising is a form of defiance.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr";>Eric S. Raymond</a>

A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. 
	-- Ramsey Clark

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