Date archives "November 2012"

An example of sustainable commons management: the Maine Lobster Commons

Marjorie Kelly’s Emergent Ownership Revolution is one of the key p2p books for 2012, focusing on the commons and what we call “peer property”. Chapter 8 offers a very interesting case study on the Maine Lobster Commons, which we are reproducing here. (order the book here) Marjorie Kelly: “Something fascinating is at work in the… Continue reading

Book of the Day: A Study of Open-Source Software Commons

* Book: Internet Success: A Study of Open-Source Software Commons. By Charles M. Schweik and Robert C. English. MIT Press, 2012. This book has been hailed as “the first large-scale empirical study to look at the social, technical and institutional aspects of free, libre and open source software” David Bollier has published a review: “Schweik… Continue reading

Ask Michel Bauwens Anything Part 1 (audio)

This is the first part of the audio version (see video version here) answering your questions to the P2P Foundation Reddit page: redd.it/11d4m7 based on the Synthetic overview of the collaborative economy report by the P2P Foundation and Orange Labs. James Burke gathered together the questions and recorded a converstion with Michel Bauwens to provide more… Continue reading

Book of the Day: Sharing for Survival

* Book: Sharing for Survival: Restoring the Climate, the Commons and Society. Feasta, 2012 This is a 200-page collection of essays by nine Feasta Climate Group members: ‘Sharing for Survival recognises that official climate policy is dominated by states in thrall to fossil fuel and financial lobbies. It offers a realistic radical way to rapidly… Continue reading

Video of the Day: The Reinvention of Localized Economies

37 minute documentary about the work of the late Schumacher, author of “Small Is Beautiful”. Here are the details: “”In 1973, British economist E.F. Schumacher wrote “Small is Beautiful – Economics as if People Mattered”, – a book that offered a vision of an economy driven by a desire for harmony, not greed; an economy… Continue reading

The Internet and Creative Networks in Eastern Europe, a historical approach

* Rasa Smite, Creative Networks, in the Rearview Mirror of Eastern European History. Institute of Network Cultures, Theory on Demand Issue no. 11, 2012. Rasa Smite, the founder and curator of RIXC art center in Riga, Latvia, which focuses on the link between new media, art, and renewable energy, has produced a new book. Here’s… Continue reading

Hacking the Light: towards fully transparent companies

Closed can not fight open. It can not find purchase to land a blow. Microsoft has fought a decades-long war against Linux, only to lose the battle conclusively as the world moves to smartphones (Android), and embedded devices (such as the Light) running Linux. Windows may remain dominant on the desktop for another decade, but… Continue reading

Debating the Partner State (5): Civic Accountability for the Commons

Excerpted from Denis Postle: “What follows derives from my experience of participation in the UK’s Independent Practitioners Network (IPN). Founded in 1995, IPN is based on an open network of autonomous small groups functioning as a commons producing civic accountability. For detailed background see i-p-n.org or Therapy Futures – Obstacles and Opportunities PCCS Books, forthcoming,… Continue reading

Project of the Day: PyBossa, an open-source crowd-sourcing and micro-tasking platform

The website explains: “PyBossa is a free, open-source crowd-sourcing and micro-tasking platform. It enables people to create and run projects that utilise online assistance in performing tasks that require human cognition such as image classification, transcription, geocoding and more. PyBossa is there to help researchers, civic hackers and developers to create projects where anyone around… Continue reading