[wos] post-openness

[tt at cut3.com]

> I find it amazing that after roughly a decade of having that discourse 
> you are still operating with those sub-categories as if nothing had 
> happened or changed. 
> 
> > > > 
> > > > - Open Geodata
> > > > - Free Networks
> > > > - Open Money
> > > > - Open Civic Information
> > > > - Open Hardware
> > > > - Free/Open Culture
> 
> This looks to me like a supermarket of things 'open' and 'free' rather 
> than addressing the 'complexity' of things. the unqualified discourse 
> on openness is starting to do more harm than good. 
> 

i think you are right, there is some danger in the unreflected use of the
terms ‘free’ and 'open'. maybe there is also some cultural misunderstanding
there, a hazy vision from a continental european point of view.

but i think wos has to be both. a think tank and a shop window. most of the
window shoppers out there did not enter jet, into the "supermarket of things
'open' and 'free'". i think we still have to go on in waving them in. in
other words, after years of effort we just start to succeed in explaining
people that “access to knowledge” is a more relevant concept to them than
“intellectual property”. we still need the simple terms we dried to
introduce.

therefore, the program, as the rest of the public communication of the
conference, should avoid to much "'complexity' of things". at least when we
want some sort of participation from the general public. 

maybe that is part of the magic trick, do create a successful wos4. we need
simple, accessible concepts on the surface, to attract a crowd, and a real
look into the "'complexity' of things" to get a deeper understanding. a
possible way i see here, is to present a lot of nice projects. and than take
the next step, and see what we can learn from their practical experience.
so i would like to see a lot of panels where someone presents an existing
project, and someone else tries to explore its implications.

ng thomas