Talk:Free and Open Source Software

Please post comments, suggestions, etc. for our F/OSS page!!

Crowdsourcing and Gift Economies?

If we managed to bore ourselves with this topic, maybe we can move it along into a discussion of what crowdsourcing can learn from free software. They seems to meet at a philosophical level around the notion of a gift economy, don't they? Dulles 07:10, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I actually don't think we bored ourselves - reading what you wrote, I think we could think (and I'm following Yochai Benkler's class today) of proprietary software - based on an intellectual property regime - as a "clash of civilizations" with f/oss, which is based on a commons-based system. that is, because these both are based on two different sets of assumption: market economy v. gift/reputation economy, hegemony v. grassroots movement.

the interesting question we could consider is, I think, about F/OSS as growing "in the shadow of the IP law" (it is a reference to a classic article about settlement arrangements as being "in the shadow of the law").

Benkler, for one, would think (I think) that IP law and IP-based systems create an infrastructure that stops F/OSS from developing. Lessig, on the other hand, if I understand correctly, as in the Creative Commons idea, thinks that the two can develop at the same time.

I think a very cool idea will be to ask them both (maybe Lessig via video-conference) to debate about the question of the enfluence of current copyright and patent law as to software as a "shadow" for the development of F/OSS. (Ayelet)

You may want to meet up with me & Miriam at some point to discuss some commonalities between our two weeks. One of the central questions that we are considering is whether our ideal of creativity is best effected within or outside of IP mechanisms, specifically copyright. --JFishman 23:29, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Usufruct?

Can we use the concept of usufruct? Dulles 07:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Feedback, Feb 2

• How to best deploy Mako? There are other options other than "focus group of 1."
• You seem to focus on the economics. How about the culture? (Analogies to movements, religious movements)
• Another dimensional aspect: public generation of a public good - the public domain debate and what goes on with copyright.

Twittering

A thought: you might want to send a "how to twitter" introduction email/link to the class mailing list, and offer to help get people set up. Also, I hear that educators are ridiculously good at using twitter as a means of communication, so that's a demographic you might ask (perhaps through User:Drood for best practices and tips.) Mchua 22:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)