[wos] post-openness

[Volker Grassmuck]

>From this thread and the one we had last summer on the "yes / sorry, 
we're open" subtitle proposal, I'd say the terms "open" and "free" 
are too fundamental and important to simply avoid them because 
they've become overused or fuzzy in meaning. I'd agree with Thomas 
that they are, well, not really simple, as the discussion shows, but 
they do have an intuitive appeal that we can utilize. But then, being 
at least in parts an academic conference, we should also make an 
effort in clarifying the definition of the freedom and openness that 
we mean. 

Here's an ad hoc idea:

"Free" refers to rights, either granted by law or by a license or 
where there are no contrary rights (e.g. public domain). The freedom 
to use, to redistribute, to modify, to fork etc.

"Open" refers to a state of a piece of information, a social or a 
technical system that allows to connect to it. Open Access allows me 
to read an article, connect it to my own thinking, reference and 
quote it. An open community invites new people in. Open hardware is 
fully documented so I can write my own driver. Open sourcecode might 
come with only the freedom to look at it (MS's Shared Source).

There is a finite list of freedoms (especially if we restrict 
ourselves to the informational realm, so leaving aside the freedom of 
mobility etc.), but there is a continous range of openness.

Freedom and openness are interlinked. Everything that grants a 
mimimal set of freedoms is also open in that sense (Open Access). The 
reverse is not true: Accessible APIs might make a system open but not 
necessarily free. Even more so with open data formats that might get 
wrapped in DRM.

On 18 Mar 2006 at 10:50, Janko Roettgers wrote:

> This of course challenges old-school
> thinking about openness. Why would I need the source code of Flickr
> or Del.icio.us if I can access every function of their services
> through their API?  

Good question. Is the technology behind Flickr so elaborate, that it 
would be difficult to do it again in free software? If everybody is 
using Flickr because everybody is using Flickr, would a free foto 
repository be able to reach critical mass? What's bad or dangerous 
about Flickr so that we would need a free version?

Open APIs might be an inroad for liberating an unfree system:

On 18 Mar 2006 at 21:46, Erik Moeller wrote:

> I think I see potential for an interesting panel here. Appropriation of
> proprietary platforms by user subcultures vs. free platforms. 

That was also Janko's point

Saul's point was exactly the opposite: community structures being 
appropriated, like CDDB etc., the usual pattern. So yes, if we find 
enough powerful examples of interesting interactions with open but 
unfree systems, that'd be great.

> Perhaps of interest in this context is a little project of mine to
> select the best Creative Commons (CC-BY or CC-BY-SA) material from
> Flickr and upload it to Wikimedia Commons:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:FlickrLickr
> 
> So far we've reviewed over 50,000 images and uploaded nearly 5,000 to
> Wikimedia. In a way, we're forking a subset of Flickr (sans most of the
> cat photos) -- and keeping Flickr honest in the process.

That's a pretty cool example. Are there others, maybe outside the 
Wikimedia space? BTW, it also shows that an "open" API is not enough, 
the "freedom" granted by the licens is what makes the difference 
here.
 
On 18 Mar 2006 at 10:50, Janko Roettgers wrote:

> Now one can argue that Myspace and Youtube are not open and that
> Wikimedia content is somehow more valuable than Flickr content, because
> Flickr users choose the "wrong" type of licese and - god forbid - upload
> infringing content. But obviously it doesn't matter to them. They take over
> closed platforms and appropriate them for their own good.

Are people who upload the pics of last Saturday's party and share it 
with a closed group of friends or even with the world not just using 
Flickr in its intended way? In how far are the appropirating it? 
[oops, curious typo, I'll leave it ,-)]

I'm not sure if you're right about 90 per cent not caring about 
freedom (in the above sense). Of course, there are very few people 
who care about licenses for their own sake. On Wikipedia, at least 
when you start contributing, it's pretty hard not to notice the 
information on copyrights and FDL. With Erik's example it becomes 
evident that licensing conditions have significant consequences. 

> If you really want a crowd, then concentrate on
> user-generated content. Because that's where the crowd is at. 

In principal: absolutely. That's why we have things like Wikimedia, 
Free Maps & Geodata, Citizens Journalism and the DV Camcorder 
Revolution on the wishlist. Just two question marks: 

"user-generated content" reminds me of "consumer-created content 
(C3)" as used in DRM circles (e.g. Rosenblatt). It implies that 
content, by default, is produced by the content industry, and if 
users or worse: consumers, start creating it, that's something 
remarkable (and causes problems and opportunities for DRMs). That 
should be the other way around: people create works as a default, 
industry-created content is a special sub-set of that. Googling for 
the term shows a lot of talk about amateurs doing something that 
professionals might turn into something interesting for advertizers. 
Since we are talking about basic vocabulary, I wonder if we can find 
a better term for this phenomenon?

Then about crowd-drawing: If you're right and 90% just do it without 
caring about the how and why, then why would they come to a 
conference where people talk about it rather than do it? If there is 
no or less of a community around Flickr than around Wikipedia, then 
would people using it go to listen to its founder?

Don't get me wrong. I do think mass-creativity and collaboration 
should be featured prominently at wos4, I'm just not convinced that 
the huge wave we're seeing on the net will actually flood Columbia 
Halle. 

> Youtube is a haven for
> unlicensed stuff. TV clips, home videos with commercial music in the
> background, weird remixes and appropriations are what makes this site
> work. By doing that Youtube and it's users challenge the copyright
> system in a way that is maybe even more profound than P2P. File sharing
> was about exchanging other ppls content. Youtube and Co. are about
> taking that content and building upon it. 

Another central point, I think. We have free-licensing of our own 
works. That's easy in principle, even if messy when you look at the 
details. Now it's about using other people's works. For 
redistribution a global license / content flatrate model to my mind 
is a pretty good approach, in principle while the details are even 
messier. The final challenge is the freedom to modify other's works. 
It's an obvious thing to do, given the powerful means of production 
we have sitting on our desks. It happens on a massive scale. And I 
don't see any solution in principle. Legally speaking, while the 
flatrate repairs the harm to the economic interests of authors, their 
moral rights (attribution, integrity) cannot be easily repaired. I 
think, Lessig has been thinking about this since Free Culture, but I 
don't know what solution he's driving at.

Volker