A message from Ryan Lanham, announcing a new project which attempts to define the core collaborative principles of p2p:

“The project relates indirectly to the partnership Michel Bauwens announced early this April in association with the University of Hull as coordinated by Athina Karatzogianni. I contended, somewhat cynically, that universities do not know how to associate with p2p ventures, and their institutional mechanics might do more harm than good in such a partnership.

Athina and Michel (and others) then suggested, as a precaution, that a draft set of guiding principles be constructed to guide such ventures and others that might entail interactions with p2p organizations. Michel asked that I try to coordinate this effort since I had been vocal about my concerns. [If any of this mistates the ideas or intentions of principals, please correct as needed]

To achieve this, I started with a draft ethos for p2p in general and am moving on to draft interaction principles. I intend to add a section on best practices soon. Any other near-term addition ideas would be most welcome.

My intent is to build a normative document rather than an administrative charter. That is, it is meant to guide thinking about running p2p efforts, not to act as a policy sheet or corporate charter for one. Drafting those would be useful as well in boilerplate form, but that is not the current focus.

I have made some personal and perhaps excessively bold assertions in the document. Please call me on them or change them outright if unsuitable.

The effort can always be found by going to the p2p Foundation web site, entering the wiki and then searching for “core principles.”

The current version is update here: http://p2pfoundation.net/Core_Peer-2-Peer_Collaboration_Principles

Ryan adds:

“I strongly encourage (insist really) that this be a collaborative project that de-emphasizes my own role. I am however committed to coordinate the effort to assure reasonable progress for now.

You can put comments on the p2p research list or mail them directly to me via Facebook: Ryan_Lanham. You can also change the wiki directly if you have an account to do so.”