[hackerspaces] Sigh -- I'm not helping with Maker Faires this year.

[Doug Philips]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 11:45 PM, Al Jigong Billings
<albill at openbuddha.com> wrote:
> This has no bearing on the objections people have being associated with the
> military and projects that may be used by the military for their ends.

Is that how the deal is? Anyone participating in a Maker Faire is now
giving "the military" free license to use their stuff?

> Many of us won't take money from the Department of Defense for our work
> which can then be freely repurposed to military uses. Period. It doesn't
> matter what kind of dress you put on the pig.

Is that the deal here? Who is taking the money in this case, and what
is the ROI?

> Being associated with DARPA also legitimizes their tactics of cooping the
> grassroots Maker movement. Many of us also disagree with that as well. The
> military can go build their own hackerspaces.

That's a separate argument, which applies to the ARPANet and current
internet as well. Let's keep to the specifics on this case please.

Oh, and this is pretty fracking hilarious given the innate tendency of
hackerspaces to want to weaponize (lasers, rockets, etc.) most things
and there seems to be no shortage of fiery death dealing dinosaurs and
other easily repurposed projects either. Too bad the maker movement
doesn't have a pacifist non-violent leg to stand on, but I know few in
my makerspace would be there if we had that stance.

Oh well. In the end it seems the facts (as yet laid out) don't really
matter here.

-=Doug