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[ox-en] Re: Ecademy? BeTheChange.Org.UK, WTF2, Oekonux (World Bank and Unity Center in rural Kenya)



Hello Andrius, Hello everybody!

Yes I'm interested in joining your efforts for preparing an alternative "decision chart" for content creators. It will be an interesting exercise trying to observe myself in two different roles:

1) As an organizational project lead for Creative Commons Austria it is clear, what needs to be done: (Organizing the) Porting of a predefined set of "copyright building blocks" from the original to a version compatible with Austrian Law.

2) An other thing will be my role as a content creator in different contexts. In this role I have to decide whether to choose one of the specific Creative Commons Licenses or public domain.

And maybe it's helpful to introduce the third, forth ... role as one responsible for advising e.g. an educational institution which license to choose by default. etc.

In the first role I will be happy if more people even start thinking about copyright questions. And so they need a smooth and easy way. In the second role it will be an interesting question how radical an approach is viable for me e.g. within an academic context of 2004 (as opposed to one of 2006, 2008 ...) example scenario: Writing your PhD dissertation already in the writing process available online and as public domain.

Will be a helpful discussion!

Greetings from Austria
Georg

--
Georg Pleger
www.creativecommons.at
Wolkensteinstr. 5
A-6176 Völs/Innsbruck
t: [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED] (512) 933 682
m: [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED] (699) 1 933 682 1
georg.pleger eduplone.net



Andrius Kulikauskas wrote:

Jeff, Joy,
Thank you for your response!
Yes, it is good to work together. I think that if we take simple steps to work together, then we will end up with quite an organic and sophisticated IT system.

Some simple steps we might take right now:

- I suggest to Josef Davies-Coates (and perhaps Graham Stewart) to host a chat some time soon at the Espians #esp IRC chat web page http://webirc.espnow.net, in the Public Domain (is it possible to make that prominent?), to encourage synergy between the BeTheChange.Org.UK, Oekonux and WTF2 events before they take place. We could then encourage people to share parts of that chat through Ecademy, blogs, etc. to invite people to attend. We could give them a taste of what we're getting done.

- For my workshop at Oekonux, I want to make a "decision chart" for helping people make good decisions about when to place content in the Public Domain, when to use copyright, and when to use special forms of copyright such as Creative Commons or copyleft. I ask George Pleger for help, he will be presenting http://www.CreativeCommons.org at Oekonux. Creative Commons does have a "decision chart" but I think: A) it's oriented around legal action (with regard to "rights" and "requirements") rather than moral action (with regard to "preferences" and "wishes") B) it's oriented around restricting use (like "no commercial use") rather than achieving goals (like "help me make money"). C) it's oriented around how people are supposed to behave, rather than how they actually do behave. For social networking, it's very important for most of the content (in Wikis and elsewhere) to be definitely in the Public Domain. Any kind of copyright (which includes Creative Commons and copyleft) requires that:
A) the license be noted and kept track of
B) the boundaries of the material be marked
and this represents a burden when working with micro-content. It is a tax on the free flow of content needed for the sake of building relationships, accumulating repositories of knowledge, and allowing others to take over as stewards. All forms of copyright (including Creative Commons and copyleft) restrict the "freedom to fork". What I mean is that it is very prudent to realize that a project like Minciu Sodas or OneVillage or ThinkCycle or Wikipedia will come to an end, perhaps sooner rather than later. It's important to prepare for the day when we hope that some or all of our content may be used by somebody else. They should be free to continue with their own license. I think it's not helpful for us to impose a license on them. It's presumptious to assume that we know what's best for them. The "freedom to fork" is less important for software because "software likes to clump". But "content likes to disintegrate" and so the freedom to fork is much more important. Perhaps 1% of our project will have lasting value. It's not right for it to be captive to any particular license. So I want to have a realistic "decision chart" that helps explain that, if we don't want to rely on the power of the courts, then copyright of any kind is not relevant or helpful. But I do want it to help explain, in real life terms, when to use copyright, and what flavor of copyright. Anyways, I appreciate discussion on what's important to us in making our copyright decisions.

- I want to put together a questionnaire to collect information useful for social networking. That includes skills and capabilities, and availability for work. I want to ask Mark Roest if he might have a set of questions regarding that which would be helpful to get answers to (for example, from software developers we might organize.) I'll also need help to translate the questionnaire into German and other languages. And help collecting answers.

Peace,

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms ms.lt
[PHONE NUMBER REMOVED]
Vilnius, Lithuania



jeff buderer wrote:

Andrius,
I am working on some webpages which I will post on Friday to a website and then I will give you the link. I will spend most of today doing the final webwork for the send off of ?beta test? of our site tomorrow for review by this group. It will probably still be rough, but the idea is to get feedback from all of you to make the development of the Social Enterprise Platform a collaborative process. I feel that it is very important to develop a more collaborative way of doing things particularly given the nature of the task, which is the design of highly integrated, human scale sustainable systems. We seem to understand the problem increasingly with great clarity. It is safe to say that everyone in this group believes that ICT has the potential to transform the human condition and along with that promote the development of sustainable human habitats. We at oneVillage have a particularly keen eye on the impact this will have on underserved communities. With the internet and the potential of new low cost wireless connectivity solutions, a great door of opportunity has swung right open for much of the world that until now has been marginalized due to political and geographical factors that have significant economic and social implications on their societies and their attempts to provide a descent quality of life for their people.

The opportunity of ICT to dramatically shift the fortunes of underserved communities is a major theme of the oneVillage Foundation. However, it is not something that should be considered in isolation of the many other factors that need to be considered in any authentic approach to sustainable development. We are not simply talking about virtual/ICT tools but the integration of those tools into a sustainable and socially just built environment centered around communities rather than large mega scale urban projects?holistic ICT. I want to drive home this point: the development of the tools themselves will require a great networking effort an effort that will involve many groups. To make ICT technology work we have to improve the quality of the user experience as well as their effectiveness but we ourselves need a more effective set of tools to create this Holistic ICT platform.

We are developing this Holistic ICT platform to promote and integrate the kind of tools you are developing with all the other components creating sustainable communities and maximizing the replication of these systems throughout the world. The reason for this is probably clear to most of you: the ecological as well as the socioeconomic window for change is short and growing shorter. There is an understandable sense of urgency among us, but we must however remain patient and not be overcome with anxiety despite the great challenges we face collectively as a species. We need to ask ourselves honestly?what are the blockages?what is holding us back and keeping us from our full potential as innovators and designers of a new sustainable and socially just global system of doing things?

When I was running this morning it came to me. What is needed as part of this Green Community Network is a TECHNOLOGY portal to enable one stop shopping and help towards developing the right ICT solutions for each particular group user. Possibly there are already sites like this in existence. Yet obviously there is still much work to be done in this area. We need to condense our knowledge and focus on open source solutions that are not simply limited to those who know how to program. Open source is on the verge of dominating the server market but is still lagging in the retail markets. It is hardly a mystery as to why this is. Open source software particularly operating systems have not been designed for the end-users. I have this radical notion that not only should technology be empowering, but it should be fun!

One of the things we talked about when Joy and I were meeting with some people who are involved with the Global Women?s Leadership Center, project here in San Jose is some of the problems with existing ICT and the Grand Canyon like divide between designers and users. We see this in every aspect of modern design and the overall dismal level of interactivity between professional and laypeople. To sum up the conventional thinking technologists are too much in love with their designs and their jargon to really create easily accessible user-friendly interfaces that empower the user instead of imprisoning him/her. Computers as they are designed today are a source of much grief and they only add to our sense of being overwhelmed by too much data. If ICT is to be a real solution not just for developing countries, but for the world, this must change. Are we up to this challenge?

It is interesting to note that one of the most important movements towards sustainability involves the redesign of the ICT sector. Sustainability is not just about solar panels and sustainable agriculture it is about how we design the systems that we rely on. Are they efficient in the use of our resources, time and energy? An efficient and highly integrated set of computer programs can make a great contribution to sustainable development by themselves by reducing the amount of time wasted on the computer and the amount energy used by the computer to do tasks. I would say most modern systems in our world today are highly productive in stand-alone form, but as integrated systems, they are abysmal failures. The notion of productivity because it focuses on individual technologies and not integrated systems is an inaccurate measure of the technologies themselves and their effectiveness as tools that we can use towards achieving progress in the quality of our lives. In fact conventional economic measures, in fact mask the fact that much the technology and the consumer products being developed are actually moving us in reverse in terms of both personal and collective issues relating to human development, quality of life and a sense of personal empowerment.

Jeff

Jeff Buderer

oneVillage Foundation

Sustainable Design/Project Development

www.onevillagefoundation.org <http://www.onevillagefoundation.org>

www.onevillage.biz <http://www.onevillage.biz>

Cell 417.830.1029

Yahoo IM: jefbuder

http://www.ryze.com/go/Jefbuder

-----Original Message-----
From: Joy Tang [joy onevillage.biz]
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 12:49 AM
To: minciu_sodas_en yahoogroups.com; Colin Morley; ki-work yahoogroups.com; ondemand-network yahoogroups.com Cc: Christopher.Cooke 5deep.co.uk; nick bethechange.org.uk; 'Josef Davies-Coates' Subject: RE: [minciu_sodas_en] Ecademy? BeTheChange.Org.UK, WTF2, Oekonux (World Bank and Unity Center in rural Kenya)

Andrius,
Thanks for keeping the momentum going with clear and open communication.
I'd like to add that OVF-Kenya has submitted the proposal to the World
Bank's 'entrepreneurial incubator' program for consideration and the 'unity
center,' hub for oneVillage Initiative is being constructed with little
funding that's been gathered to start the construction of the site.  It
could be used strategically to coordinate our efforts deployed for the rural
sustainable development in that region.

Since you are going to approach the World Bank, I thought this could be used
as the demo site for the ICT solutions as the enablers for sustainable
economic development. When you are ready, we will be able to approach WB's
ICT development division for discussion.

Joy Tang
oneVillage Initiative - Holistic ICT Development for Eco Living
http://onevillagefoundation.org/ovf/initiative.html
Yahoo IM: joyayo
[PHONE NUMBER REMOVED]
http://www.ryze.com/go/joytang

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrius Kulikauskas [ms ms.lt]
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 1:07 PM
To: Colin Morley; minciu_sodas_EN yahoogroups.com;
ki-work yahoogroups.com; ondemand-network yahoogroups.com
Cc: Christopher.Cooke 5deep.co.uk; nick bethechange.org.uk; 'Josef
Davies-Coates'
Subject: [minciu_sodas_en] Ecademy? BeTheChange.Org.UK, WTF2, Oekonux


I'm preparing for the Oekonux conference  May 20-23
http://www.primarilypublicdomain.org/992.html
we will come to Vienna, Austria with a carload of Lithuanians.  I'm
preparing for my workshop on "infrastructure for virtual flash mobs".

I'd like to do some of that in practice by simply encouraging connection
with two other events in the same spirit.  One is BeTheChange.Org.UK
that will take place May 19-21 in London, so perhaps there can be some
online flow of ideas between our two events.

Already, I want to thank BeTheChange organizers Colin Morley,
Christopher Cooke and Nick Hart-Williams for arranging free entry for
Josef Davies-Coates to http://www.BeTheChange.Org.UK  And I look forward
to our events carrying momentum over to WTF2 http://wtfcon.org also in
London.

How can we get the word out?  I'm CC'ing London artist Natalie
d'Arbeloff http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/blaugustine.html  perhaps she
can help.

Also, perhaps some of our bloggers at Ecademy could offer some thoughts
and links in support.  Lets find steps that we can take as we
work-in-parallel at these events.

I've set up WOW and I look forward to using that to flesh out and merge
our activity to "work openly" at these events and elsewhere.  In
particular, I'll be creating a questionnaire which I hope we might
translate into German, Arabic and other languages.  It will include
questions about contact info, web presence, interests, capabilities,
availability for work, etc. that might help us work openly.  I want to
do this at Oekonux, and afterwards apply this for ERDE and for One
Village, and present this all back in Lithuania at a WorldBank showcase
where we're participating.

Life is quite hectic for all of our organizers.  Thank you to us all for
working-in-parallel!

Peace,

Andrius Kulikauskas
http://www.primarilypublicdomain.org/3.html





_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: projekt oekonux.de



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