Republished from Ray Podder: “If there is any one fundamental idea standing in the way of a bright future for all, it is the idea of human inequality. The idea that someone is above you or that someone is below you. It is the most confused and most dangerous idea in our existence borne from… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Types of Control in Open Source Projects
* Going Open: Does it Mean Giving Away Control? By Nadia Noori and Michael Weiss. Technology Innovation Management Review, January 2013. From the Abstract: “Nadia Noori, a graduate from the Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and Michael Weiss, an Associate Professor and TIM faculty member, move beyond a community… Continue reading
A thrivable humanity with a 2 hour working day: is it really possible?
Yes, says the team of Open Source Ecology. Watch this video with their basic argumentation:
Does the left need a p2p narrative?
An article in Open Democracy notes the paradox of the only relative success of the ‘radical left parties (RLP)’ in post-crisis Europe. (for a p2p context, see our editorial in al jazeera, with our appeal for a grand coalition of the commons, which could include both RLP’s and social liberals) First a recap of the… Continue reading
How to increase the trustworthiness of Citizen Science data
Excerpted from John Gollan: “Citizen science occurs when data for scientific research is collected by members of the public in a voluntary capacity. Public participation in environmental projects, in particular, has been described as a global phenomenon. But there is a stigma associated with these types of projects. The data collected are often labelled untrustworthy… Continue reading
Against the Internet-Centric Totalizing Anti-Hierarchy and Anti-Centralization Ideology
Challenging power requires a strategy that in many circumstances might favor centralization. To reject the latter on philosophical grounds rather than strategic grounds—because it is anti-Internet or anti-Wikipedia—borders on the suicidal. This antipathy to hierarchies and leaders is part of a broader Internet-centrist backlash against institutions; they are believed to be incompatible with the logic… Continue reading
Open Government Data should be seen as a Service, not a Product
Republished from Michael Gurstein: “Through a series of various types of meetings over the last couple of years I’ve been arguing the need to include notions of “inclusion” when discussing “open government data” and “openness” in general. My interventions along those lines are often greeted either with the dull stare of incomprehension; or with a… Continue reading
What would a hypothetical, GPL license for money look like?
What would a hypothetical, GPL license for money look like? Etienne Zoupic Hayem responds: “Metacurrency (Eric Harris Braun & Arthur Brock) answered this with : Open rules, Open transport, open data. Open Rules : you can see the rules and edit them Open Transport : the flows happen in an open source environment with transparency… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Stigmergic Organization and the Economics of Information
* Essay: Why is Open Access Development so Successful? Stigmergic organization and the economics of information. By Francis Heylighen. (Source: : B. Lutterbeck, M. Bärwolff & R. A. Gehring (eds.), Open Source Jahrbuch 2007, Lehmanns Media, 2007) The abstract: “The explosive development of “free” or “open source” information goods contravenes the conventional wisdom that markets… Continue reading
Against the idealization of relocalization as a strategy
When you step out of the global economy, you cut yourself off from the imperial wealth pump that provides people in America with the kind of abundance they take for granted, and the lifestyles that are available in the absence of that wealth pump are far more restricted, and far more impoverished, than most would-be… Continue reading