Secret Society Ideology/Principles

There is somewhat lively debate about what founding principles should be included in the /prog/ secret society. We need a list of aims on which we can agree, and a list of problems to solve. Here is something to start, neither written in stone nor comprehensive:

Basic goals:
Freedom to conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells, to explore the universe, etc. etc.
Survival of the Society
Arcane power

We need a means for resolving disagreements. I suggested we ignore them insofar as it is possible to do so. E.g. "what is the UNIX philosophy and is it good?" is an entertaining question for debate, and an answer is probably necessary in the long term, but it does not contribute concretely to the goal of writing software. So membership should not require that an individual answer one way or the other on such questions.

Balancing freedom with economic sustainability
We want to give our software away, but we also want to be able to afford to write more software and engage in other activities. This is a structural conflict.
Best known solution: release software for free to the public, but at cost to governments and profit-making entities.

We need a name. We also need a motto. "We conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells" has been suggested, and I support it.

Other?

>>5
"Name ist," not "Namen sind." Name is noise and smoke, and if I know my German writers, it means not merely the name to which he directly refers, but more deeply that the fame - the good name - for which Faust traded his soul was worthless. That is itself a valid point, and I therefore believe that we as an organization should not seek attention from the outside world.

At any rate, anonymity will not be possible for all of us for practical reasons, and is not desirable for all of us. I don't care much whether my name is known, to be honest. I think the best thing to do here is to use the conflict-resolution mechanism I mentioned earlier: those who wish to remain anonymous may do so, and those who don't care can be named when it is practical to do so.

This leads to a point raised by >>4. An intermediary company, or, I hope, a non-profit, is exactly what we should be doing. A side effect of this is that those of us who wish to remain anonymous but still receive payment will hilariously have to trust those of us whose names are revealed to be fair and honest with them.

And regarding payment: I am reluctant to discuss money, because it is a long way down the road and extremely hypothetical, but I suppose it best that we get it out of the way, as it's a dangerous thing to ignore. A thought I had was that individuals would be entirely responsible for allocating their share of money - on salary for themselves, on computer hardware, on office space or on machinery or anything else that seems appropriate or desirable to them; in this way the acquisition of wealth would be in direct opposition to the acquisition of power within our organization, which I find pleasant. (All this leads to agony for the poor soul tasked with distribution of funds to many people, and it would be fair to hire some hapless bean-counter for the purpose of doing the drudge-work.)

How one's share is determined will be a trickier issue. A simple hourly rate is not fair to the more skilled programmers, but skill is subjective. This is a problem to which I have not found an easy solution.

Re: licensing in >>4: I hope there are licenses already freely available; we'll have to see. Your suggestion of talking to Michael Geist is probably a good one.