About Blee: enveloping our own autonomy directed digital ecosystem

Mohsen BANAN (he/him) - Pronunciation: MO-HH-SS-EN

The following image shows where the talk is in the schedule for Sun 2024-12-08. Solid lines show talks with Q&A via BigBlueButton. Dashed lines show talks with Q&A via IRC or Etherpad.

Format: 46-min talk ; Q&A: BigBlueButton conference room https://media.emacsconf.org/2024/current/bbb-blee.html
Discuss on IRC: #emacsconf
Status: Ready to stream

Description

Emacs has long been recognized as the ultimate integration platform, enabling the creation of an unparalleled user environment. In 2010, Tomohiro Matsuyama, captured this concept crisply:

"The reason why Emacs platform is good is that it cooperates with OS, not because it is good by itself."

Building on this idea, Blee (ByStar Libre-Halaal Emacs Environment) can be seen as yet another Emacs re-distribution, akin to Doom Emacs or Spacemacs. However, Blee is distinct. While Doom Emacs is multi-platform oriented, Blee is paired exclusively with Debian — and on mobile, with Termux-Android. While Doom Emacs is Emacs-centric, Blee is digital ecosystem-centric.

To further elucidate Blee, let’s break down the subtitle of this presentation:

"Enveloping Our Own Autonomy Directed Digital Ecosystem With Emacs."

• "Enveloping": Blee is designed to fully integrate and encapsulate usage of an entire digital ecosystem.

• "Our Own Autonomy-Directed Digital Ecosystem": In contrast to the proprietary American ecosystems of Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Amazon, Blee is part of the Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem. ByStar is ours.

By* challenges the existing proprietary American digital ecosystem while operating concurrently alongside it. ByStar's primary offerings are tangible autonomy and genuine privacy on a very large scale. ByStar represents a moral inversion of the proprietary American internet services model. By* is about redecentralization of internet application services.

Some might dismiss ByStar as an ambitious, utopian vision. In response, I’ve authored a book titled:

Nature of Polyexistentials:

Basis for Abolishment of the Western Intellectual Property Rights Regime

And Introduction of the Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem

On Line:   PLPC-120033 at Github -- DOI --- PDF: 8.5x11 -- A4
US Edition Book Prints At Amazon:   US -- France -- UK -- Japan   (424 pages --- 6 x 0.96 x 9 inches)
International Edition Book Prints:   Iran (Jangal Publishers)   (406 pages --- 23.5 x 16.5 cm)

Comments, Feedback:   plpc-120033@mohsen.1.banan.byname.net

Blee and Emacs are integral parts of ByStar.

Analysis of digital ecosystems is inherently interdisciplinary, and so is my book. But, in this presenation, I won't be delving much into the philosophical, ethical, moral, societal, and social dimensions of the book. This presentation, focuses on the technical aspects of ByStar and Blee, specifically through the lens of Emacs users and developers.

Blee’s approach to integration differs from traditional Emacs culture in three key ways:

1. Avoiding the "Curse of Lisp": While Emacs culture emphasizes doing everything in Lisp, Blee consciously avoids this pitfall.

2. Cultivation of Best-of-Breeds: Emacs folklore tends to follow a laissez faire approach, but Blee is disciplined around cultivation of selected best of breeds.

3. Digital Ecosystem Orientation: Unlike traditional Emacs, which is component-focused, Blee is designed in the context of the entirety of our own digital ecosystem.

In ByStar, much of the integration occurs outside of Emacs, through a framework called BISOS (By* Internet Services OS). BISOS builds on Debian to provide a unified platform for developing both internet services and software-service continuums. BISOS and Blee are intertwined.

Now, in 2024, I am advancing Matsuyama concept with specificity:

"The reason why Emacs platform is good is that it facilitates creation of integrated usage environments like Blee, which cooperate with Debian, BISOS and ByStar."

An early version of BISOS and Blee is available for public use and experimentation. To get started with BISOS, Blee, and ByStar, visit https://github.com/bxgenesis/start. From a virgin Debian 12 installation ("Fresh-Debian"), you can bootstrap BISOS and Blee in one step by running the raw-bisos.sh script. It produces "Raw-BISOS" which includes "Raw-Blee". You can then customize Raw-Blee to create different parts and aspects of your own ByStar DE.

I welcome your thoughts and feedback, especially if you experiment with Blee, BISOS, ByStar, and the model and the concept of Libre-Halaal Polyexistentials.

About the speaker:

Mohsen Banan is a software and internet engineer. He was one of the principal architects of the Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) network specifications. He is the primary author of two Internet RFCs. He is the principal architect of the ByStar Digital Ecosystem and BISOS and Blee. The software and internet services that he publicly offers all conform to the definition of Libre-Halaal Software and Libre-Halaal Internet Services. All of his public writings are web published and unrestricted. He has never applied for a patent. As an expert witness he has assisted in legal efforts involving invalidation of a number of patents. He has been using Emacs since 1986.

Previous Talks: https://emacsconf.org/2021/talks/bidi and https://emacsconf.org/2022/talks/mail

Questions or comments? Please e-mail emacsconf-org-private@gnu.org