Re: [ox-en] "open source model permits elitism"
- From: Michael Bouwens <michelsub2003 yahoo.com>
- Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:40:35 -0800 (PST)
[Converted from multipart/alternative]
[1 text/plain]
I'm interested in additonal material on peer governance, its techniques and problems.
here are some summaries already
on peer governance in the context of meta-governance (how it relates to other forms of market and state governance), at http://www.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Peer_Governance
peer governance authority structures are mentioned here, at http://www.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Peer_Production_-_Authority_Structures
i,e. free-form vs owner-centric
and
historical vs competence based
What additional distinctions could be made? Is there any material on the use of legal Foundations in the governance of peer production aka free software?
For Wikipedia, I think Andrew Lih in Hong Kong is writing a book about it,
I agree with Stefan's comments about failures. Even the rate of failed entreprises is extremely high, something of the order of 50% in the first year already ...
Stefan, you seem to agree with the assessment that successfull open source projects emulate the mgt. of the corporations they're competing with. Are you really sure about this? Could you specify? Aren't voluntary hierarchies and peer governance modes quite distinctive from corporate governance models?
Michel
For Wikipedia this is different, however. Different from Free Software
Wikipedia distributes - hm - non-functional information. I.e.
information you can not proof by a machine - like you do when you run
a program and it either works or crashes. Therefore there is the room
to abuse Wikipedia and now Wikipedia became important and well-known
there is even a big inventive to abuse Wikipedia for own goals -
people might have heard of recent cases.
Indeed I think that Wikipedia faces a massive problem here. I'm keen
to know how and whether they handle it. IMHO the solution will tell a
lot about GPL society.
Indeed, only a few hundred of the
approximately 130,000 open-source projects on SourceForge.net are
active because the others are unable to accommodate open source's
shortcomings.
I heard estimations about half of the projects being inactive. It may
be more but a few hundred active projects seems to be far too low.
That is: What means active?
Also I don't think it makes much sense to count inactive projects on
SourceForge. I mean it is *so* easy to set up a project there. If you
want to compare this to capitalist corporations you'd probably need to
compare sayings(!) like "I'm going to found a firm." in some pub to
really existing firms.
The success of open-source projects often hinge on the
degree of similarity between the projects' management practices and
those of the companies they are trying to surpass, and most projects'
core component is a close-knit group rather than a wide-ranging
community.
Yeah that's true. But what's wrong with this?
Many open-source initiatives have set up a formal and
hierarchical system of governance to guarantee quality.
Why do close-knit groups need a formal and hierarchical system of
governance? Seems a bit of a contradiction here.
However, while
open source provides tools for very productive online collaboration,
ways to "identify and deploy not just manpower, but expertise" are
still lacking, according to New York University Law School's Beth
Noveck. The model permits elitism in the acceptance of contributions,
despite the egalitarian system of contribution.
I'm not sure whether I fully understand what is meant here but if
elites contributions are preferred over John Doe's contributions then
it seems to me like this is a a way to identify and deploy expertise.
Agains this seems like an open contradiction.
Mit Freien Gr��en
Stefan
- --
Please note this message is written on an offline laptop
and send out in the evening of the day it is written. It
does not take any information into account which may have
reached my mailbox since yesterday evening.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.7
iQCVAwUBRClmownTZgC3zSk5AQGmOgQAq2jT3knCE3+3W/+QO9Qqby0kTJSMc+Pk
pbsInUdm6yXUiT2yR23fRJ8ALxVbKynMBJVbcp453z1bgXEySYi33LLiOc7zZwdc
C9VZmBU1XpDC4u7UKhXO7pWN1iJGbiN+jRMWnB8Az6UEiiaBgwocWEbPcprSsW7/
zfziGWx0NNI=
=EAHo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de
---------------------------------
Blab-away for as little as 1¢/min. Make PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.
[2 text/html]
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de