Date archives "March 2007"

Why crowdsourcing isn’t peer production

As it seems that crowdsourcing is becoming the new buzzword in business circles, it might be useful to stress it difference with what we call peer production. Peer to peer is the relational dynamic at work in distributed networks, with the latter having as requirements the freedom of agents to engage in cooperation. Peer production… Continue reading

Solar energy is inherently distributed (towards a P2P solar energy grid)

Alternet is interviewing Travis Bradford of the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development, and author of the book: Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry . There/s a lot more in the original article here, we are only selecting a few key quotes: Travis says that we’re moving towards a distributed power generation… Continue reading

Gwendal Simon: what’s wrong with Second Life: there is no distributed power

Second Life is generating more and more controversy, about its purported exagerration of numbers, about its escapist potential for politics, about its open source strategy as competitive advantage, and around the recent launch of the Second Life Liberation Army. All these developments are monitored through our Second Life tag. The problem of Second Life exemplifies… Continue reading

Richard Stallman on peer production, 3

We continue our publication of the remarks by Richard Stallman, the blockqoutes are from our essay: Richard Stallman: I read the rest of http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499 , and here are my comments. They focus on details and side issues because the main points seem basically right to me. Peer production is highly dependent on the market for… Continue reading

Richard Stallman on peer production, 2

Richard Stallman has also sent us a number of corrections to our foundational essay, which has been published in CTheory at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499 Richard Stallman: Michel, you wrote: The fourth requirement is a legal infrastructure that enables the creation of use-value and protects it from private appropriation. The General Public License It is the GNU General… Continue reading

Richard Stallman on peer production, 1

I’ve recently been involved in a sustained email dialogue with free software pioneer Richard Stallman, who read the manuscript on peer production, and in particular the chapter on how free software fits in, see section 3.1.A. I will probably not have the time to make corrections until May, but will already add Richard’s remarks in… Continue reading

Who will dominate communities: users, or brands

Insightful blog commentary at Repositorium from our friend Martin Springer: “Tomi L. Ahoven writes on his blog “Communities Dominate Brands” that Mobile is the next mass medium. I do not think that the fact that a personal device is predominant leads to the conclusion that the mobile phone is the gateway to the next mass… Continue reading

Fouad Riaz Bajwa on Neo-Connectivity & Neo-Communities

Our Pakistanese friend and free software advocate, Fouad Riaz Bajwa, sent us the following contribution: The world is changing everyday, every moment at a rapid pace making available emerging digital technologies that continue to make it easier to connect regions that were once in the past disconnected from the rest of the globe. These disconnected… Continue reading

(The) Audience (2.0) at Swarming Media

Over at Swarming Media, I’ve posted an article written for the upcoming web-publication Audience 2.0, for which other P2P Foundation contributors have written.  Entitled (The) Audience (2.0), the piece takes a brief look at different implications of the word “audience” within several historical, cultural, and technological contexts.  Below is an excerpt, but the full text… Continue reading