Ancient Greek mathematics clearly developed in relation to geometry, measurement and building. In order to run vast amounts of changing data through sequences of uniform and repeatable processes. This is not to say of course that uses of certain forms of numerical technology are determined by inherent relations of power. It is again what they are amalgamated with that is of substantial importance. However, acknowledging this should not become a way of blocking processes of reinvention - particularly not as a way of slipping a more thoroughgoing conformism through as a way of seeming to, at least partially, confront the problematics of software production.
Culture becomes an engineering problem.
Where this is perhaps most telling is not in the area of proprietary software, but in those areas of software production that have made an important break with it. Free, or Open Source software, particularly that available under the GNU Public License, works because it operates via of one of the most useful socio-technical inventions of recent times 24 . Those active in free software are increasingly aware that it needs to develop beyond its core constituency of software written by engineers to be used by engineers. This model has of course given us some phenomenal successes but this process of openness needs itself to be opened up. Just as Microsoft trapped Apple into its financial domain by refusing to produce Office for their OS unless Explorer was bundled as standard, proprietary software traps supposedly 'free' programmers into their imaginal space by convincing them that they will have no users unless they conform to what is already known, what is already done.