In politics a committed minority usually wins. (The lobbyist image originally appeared in New York's Gotham Gazzette, but I found it at Italy's e-laser.)

That's because, on most issues, there is no majority view. Most people don't care.

Learning an issue, and becoming committed to it, teaches you the source code of politics.

If your organization is tightly-knit, if your issues are driven by corporate interests, then your politics is closed source. On issues that mainly interest businesses this is determinative. Lobbyists and financial contributions fight and often come to settlements that aren't half bad. Traditionally most issues before regulators, from the EPA and FTC to the FDA and FCC, have been closed-source arguments.

If your organization is loosely knit, and if your issues are driven by personal feeling, then your politics is open source. Open source politics defines social issues, and the numbers involved in turn drive American politics as a whole. Politicians can win with only committed minorities on their side, if those minorities stand united.

What happens when closed source and open source politics collide? It depends on how much real interest those on the open source end can manage.

This collision is now apparent in telecommunications.

Issues like municipal WiFi represent this collision. (Image from DymaxionWeb.)

After being knocked back by concerted Bell lobbying, there is some indication of momentum on the open source side. Bell companies are finding increasing difficulty manipulating legislatures to drive out competition. So says Muniwireless. Opposition to SBC is growing. Will there be enough to prevail? (Maybe not. The Bells are now ginning-up their own open source forces from the political right.)

Glenn Fleischman has provided good coverage of all this and it seems, once the Bells start to lose the battle over the idea of government-supplied WiFi, they turn toward stifling it with mandatory filters.

When you're making a living pushing a proposition -- when you're truly closed source -- you have that kind of agility.

Here's another example. I've written many times against what used to be called the "Gore Tax," or the Universal Service Fee. There was intensity for this on the right. But can that intensity beat a concerted effort by the closed-source Bells, who stand to lose millions if the tax is lifted?

I don't know, but I have some tentative conclusions:

• Where the idea of a public interest is distrusted, closed source has an advantage. Where the idea of the public interest is strong, all open source movements have an advantage.
  
• Closed source movements, by their nature, have greater political patience than open source movements.
  
• The more activists an open source movement can generate, the better chance it has against closed source. And you don't need a majority to prevail.
  
• Closed source movements need disguises to prevail once open source movements come out against them.
  
• Closed source has an advantage during times of economic growth. Open source has an advantage in times of trouble.
  

The battle between open source and closed source has only just been joined in the software world. In politics, it's old, old, old. And in politics, the underlying lesson is that closed source has staying power.