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[h2o-discuss] Welcome to h2o-discuss
Dear Members of the h2o-discuss list,
Thank you for you interest in the work of the Berkman Center, and a
special thanks to those who are already contributing to this list.
Forgive me for not contributing sooner, and forgive me also for now
going offline for two weeks.
The most important message I took from the May 20 strategic planning
meeting was that the case has to be made for the importance of open
code to a wide audience. I want to share the story of the Berkman
Center's own case to make within Harvard, and I hope others of you
will share stories of your own.
Earlier this spring, the Berkman Center proposed the formation of a
legally independent nonprofit entity -- a consortium of educational
centers to foster the development of open software, open research,
and open content. (<http://www.opencode.org>) The Provost of Harvard
responded to this announcement with a note stating that the
permission of Harvard's President and Fellows would be required for
the Berkman Center to sponsor the formation such an entity "outside
Harvard." (<http://www.opencode.org/faq/>)
This is, I believe, a request from the hierarchy of Harvard to be
persuaded of the wisdom of the path we at the Berkman Center espouse.
It is an opportunity for us to present our case for open code in an
open way to the leadership of a great educational institution -- an
institution with a glorious past, a glowing present, and an uncertain
future.
Even more importantly, it is an opportunity to explain, not only to
the administrative hierarchy of Harvard, but also to others in
similarly situated institutions and to the world at large, why
openness in code, content, and law is essential to the future. It is
an opportunity for us, in conjunction with other institutions, to
attract and engage an international audience to consider the argument
for openness, to deliberate in structured and moderated discussion,
and to form rough consensus.
The Provost's caution provided background for our May 20, 1999
strategic planning meeting, and it provides the Berkman Center with
an agenda for the coming year, leading, we hope, to a positive result
in time for Harvard's Millenium Internet & Society Conference, May
2000.
Unlike the frontier Columbus opened when he discovered America, there
are no pre-existing purple mountains and fruited plains in
cyberspace. Cyberspace exists only as we build it, and how we build
it is up to us.
So, the key strategic insights for me from our May 20 meeting relate
to who we are and what we can do. We represent the integration of
three important communities: coders, teachers, and lawyers. We have
the capacity to challenge the boundaries of our separate cultures in
service of an open cyber environment. We can combine our talents to
design open architecture. We can, as coders, build it. We can, as
teachers, fill it with open content. We can, as lawyers, defend it.
In the words of my colleague Eric Wiseman, leader of our Open Code
Project (<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects/opencode.html>), "let
us begin."
We are making an argument for open information technology. We need to
understand, articulate and project our argument. We need to explain
the relationship of open code to freedom, justice, security, and
education.
We intend to initiate and foster a campaign for OPEN IT that makes
the issues of openness central to the institutional, local, national,
and international politics of the future.
We are building the environment in which we intend this argument to
develop. (<http://opencode.org/courseware>)
The Internet was born of public spirit out of government and
education. It grew in the eighties as an open domain. In the nineties
it was discovered by capital investors, who realized that investment
in Internet produced exponential return. So began a still-growing
rush of capital into the Internet that has produced an unprecedented
growth of the proprietary domain. But there has been no balancing
growth of the open domain. Rather, we must organize and build it. We
need to convince our institutions -- government, academic,
philanthropic -- that the creation of a substantial open domain
serves their missions.
Our institutions are largely run by people who do not understand the
medium into which they are being rushed. To persuade our institutions
to invest themselves in an open knowledge domain, we need to offer
comprehensive vision, scalable demonstration, open organization, and
a positive business plan.
Harvard, like other similarly situated institutions, faces three
broad options: (1) Do nothing. Just keep going as we are, with pens
and yellow pads; (2) Invest in helping teachers reach new audiences
and teach in new ways; (3) Set up Harvard.com -- commit to the
commercial online education business.
Harvard's business model is currently based on tuition, endowment and
product sales, the last a relatively recent and rapidly growing
corruption in which a product-sales business orientation threatens to
extend from sales of sweatshirts to sales of courses.
The model of university as producer of knowledge-as-product-for-sale
is closed. Knowledge is treated as property to be copyrighted,
patented, classified, licensed, and litigated. Under this closed
model, creative work cannot progress without negotiations about
license fees (the ambit of legal "fair use" at a minimum). As faculty
become work-for-hire, money becomes the currency of the campus, and
legality the dominant feature of relationship. Under this model, the
nature of Harvard will change fundamentally -- for the worse, I
think.
The community of scholars at the heart of the academy trades riches
for a comfortable secure environment in which to think, research, and
teach. This community, comprised of intellectuals who do not hold
money paramount, will be oppressed by a commercial/legal environment.
The Berkman Center aspires to demonstrate a different model -- OPEN
IT, we call it. We encourage cooperative work dedicated to the open
domain. Faculty, students, staff, alumni, relatives, and friends are
permitted and encouraged (though not required) to work together in
the public interest. Intellectual community and creative process is
our product, knowledge the by-product. This approach galvanizes
spirit and produces educational works of great distinction and wide
public utility. Furthermore, this model maintains the community of
scholars while avoiding the meanness of money and licenses. It will
enhance the prestige of the institutions that contribute and become
part of it. But there are questions. In particular, can such a model
be sustained by tuition and endowment?
OPEN IT
Who will support IT?
Who will join our list?
Who will participate in our next lecture and discussion series?
(<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/online>)
Who will contribute talent? (<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people>)
Who will contribute funds?
(http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sponsors.html>)
Who will work with me in a patent group to advance the open genome
and defend open code? (<http://www.opencode.org>)
Who will work with Larry Lessig to found the Berkman Press?
Who will work with John Perry Barlow to develop OPEN MP3?
Who will work with Eric Eldred to build a Copyright Commons?
(<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc>)
Who will work with Dave Lubin and Caroline Hunter on Jamaica as a
demo developing nation? (<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cyberjam>)
Who will tell friends we need help?
We think we have a working business model. We service an open
knowledge domain to an audience of customers we judge best able to
contribute to it. That is and always has been Harvard's mission and
the mission of educational institutions in general. OPEN IT is a
mission we hold in common with other great institutions, so let us
join to build a magnificent common resource for us all.
Charles Nesson
aka eon