headers
Stefan Merten | 3 Oct 2007 18:29
Picon
Favicon

Economy of Free Software (was: Re: [ox-en] Slides for Lancaster)


Hi Gregers!

Last week (8 days ago) Gregers Petersen wrote:
>  in order to promote an economy of free software.
> 
> And how do you then see this economy which should be promoted - what
> kind of economy is it, if it is one?

Well, that probably depends largely on your definition of economy.

AFAIK the textbook definition of economy is coping with scarcity -
which IMHO is a pretty stupid definition. Anyway in this sense Free
Software can not build a economy because there is no scarcity - at
least not for the published products. (I remember Steven Weber
dicussed the question where the scarcity in Free Software is but I
can't remember his answer.)

Wikipedia has a more useful definition:

  An economy is the system of human activities related to the
  production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and
  services of a country or other area.

According to this Free Software clearly *is* already an economy.

						Grüße

						Stefan
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Franz Nahrada | 6 Oct 2007 10:39
Picon

Re: [ox-en] Re: transition from slavery to feudalism, mirror for transition fr

Michel, all,

die to my overload I could not read many posts, but I just feel that the
experiences of Evan Prodromou on paying wiki contzributors that you quoted
(a month ago on 11th september) are very interesting and it would be
worthwhile to agree about a place where the finer refinement of "Strategic
positions on keeping the integrity and vilality of P2P structures alive"
could be studied. Since oekonux is historically biased with the "hobbyists
or professional leisure time" point of view (which still, as Prodromou
shows, makes a substantial point in comparism to naive paiment ideas but
is increasingly unsustainable for me) I would like to see a neutral point
of view where working structures are evaluated but also patterns could  be
further developed.

All I can contribute is the ideas of "rooting the subsistance of P2P
developers in the support of local life maintainance organisations
minimizing the importance of money". I do not know if they have been
tested so far anywhere, since GlobalVillages are at its very beginnings
and even the concept of LMO is still a very theoretical one. But if there
exists a space on this on the P2P wiki please let me know.

Franz

_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt@...
Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |
headers
Michael Bauwens | 6 Oct 2007 17:57
Picon
Favicon

Re: [ox-en] Re: transition from slavery to feudalism, mirror for transition fr

Dear Franz;

this is indeed a key issue for the sustainability of
peer to peer ...

I also want to find about solutions which sustain peer
production; without making it dependent on the market;
so that the self-unfolding and non-reciprocity is
preserved.

there is no special area on the wiki at present, but I
feel that the page on benefit sharing, a concept to be
contrasted to revenue sharing, is appropriate (I mean
the discussion page associated with that page)

Perhaps you could introduce the key issues you want to
see covered, if you have some time at some point, and
we can reproduce this in our blog as well; in order to
stimulate other input?

here is the link
http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Benefit_Sharing

Michel
--- Franz Nahrada <f.nahrada@...> wrote:

> Michel, all,
> 
> 
> die to my overload I could not read many posts, but
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Stefan Merten | 7 Oct 2007 21:07
Picon
Favicon

[ox-en] Report on KLab9 workshop


Hi Oekonuxis!

I'm just returning home from Lancaster and thought I'd tell you a bit
about the workshop

	 Free Software and art - Similarities and differences

Raoul and I did on the KLab9 event yesterday.

The workshop went very well and after our presentation we had an
interesting discussions among all participants. Though the slides
[http://en.wiki.oekonux.org/StefanMerten/KLab9Worksheet/Slides] were
packed with information I had the impression we were able to give at
least an idea of what Oekonux is about and raised quite a lot of
interest. May be some of the participants will show up here on the
list - which I'd welcome very much.

We were also able to pose a lot of questions which most of them are on
the slides. We got little answers during the workshop but after
thinking again it would probably have been expected too much to get
substantial results in this rather ad-hoc setting.

However, we have the Internet and especially this mailing list here to
continue what seems to me like an interesting research project for
Oekonux. Indeed I think there are some interesting links between Free
Software and art and if in Oekonux some think culture is the next
onionskin in the onionskin model it certainly makes sense to look at
these links - and also at the differences. If we do well we may end up
in better explanations why some things work and others don't.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Stefan Merten | 9 Oct 2007 21:57
Picon
Favicon

[ox-en] Admin: Mailing list archive updates


Hi Oekonuxis!

Since some weeks the mailing list archives on the web sites are not
updated as frequent as before. In fact the archives are updated only
during the weekends. However, no content is lost and typically Friday
evening all online archives are up to date. So please be a bit
patient.

						Grüße

						Stefan
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Soenke Zehle | 10 Oct 2007 20:44
Picon

[ox-en] FLOSS Manuals Launch Party!

FLOSS Manuals Launch Party!
1800, Friday Oct 19, 2007
The Netherlands Media Art Institute (Montevideo), Amsterdam

FLOSS Manuals (http://www.flossmanuals.net) is pushing the big green
'go' button on Friday Oct 19, 2007. Over the last months we have been
getting our design and code in place, making our wiki not look like a
wiki, building a community of free documentation writers, writing a
plan, and ... writing quality free manuals about free software!

Now everything is in place and it's time to launch FLOSS Manuals and
celebrate the beginning of something beautiful. We also wish to
celebrate FLOSS Manuals recent prize (15,000 Euro) awarded by the
Digital Pioneers Academy.

We would like to invite you to celebrate with us at our launch party!

The evening will begin with a short introduction from Adam Hyde, Founder
of FLOSS Manuals, followed by a cutting of the tape, drinks and nibbles,
and lead into a performance by FLOSS Manuals Blender maintainer and
internationally acclaimed artist Julian Oliver.

As part of the launch a short documentary about FLOSS Manuals will be
presented on the opening night of the Video Vortex exhibition at the
Netherlands Media Art Institue (19 october, from 17.00).

Additionally, we continue the launch celebrations on December 13 when
another internationally acclaimed artist Derek Holzer (also the FLOSS
Manuals PureData manual maintainer) will host the first FLOSS Manuals
Documentation Workshop together with Adam Hyde.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
colourschool | 10 Oct 2007 17:58

[ox-en] Re: Report on KLab9 workshop

Dear Stefan and Co,

Many thanks for the note.

Just wanted to respond to your summary of the workshop and provide  
some more information if it is at all helpful.

I do hope so.

RHIZOMES
I realize that your group has come up with this model of the onion  
skin, but I would like to propose that you think about another, very  
well established model of cultural, social, political, and economic  
formation in the information age, which is the rhizome (or root  
vegetable such as a potato).  This form is theorized by the  
psychoanalytical/philosophical theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix  
Guattari in the book *A Thousand Plateaus* written in 1980.

I propose this text to you because in the context of critical theory,  
which is really what I would like to see the open software movement  
read (rather than about art per se).  This work is a foundational  
text in thinking about the organization of the world in an age of  
information technology and globalization, which is the era in which  
we all live and must contend with if we are to situate our work  
properly.  The book itself I would argue is an "artwork" in that it  
rejects traditional forms of knowledge transmission (in the form and  
organization of the book) in order to communicate the idea of the  
rhizome.  It seems to anticipate in some ways the language of  
hypertext and of nonlinear narrative and communication in a way that  
is not literature, but philosophy.  I will warn you that this is a
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |
headers
Stefan Merten | 14 Oct 2007 20:10
Picon
Favicon

[ox-en] Admin: Spam protection for Oekonux Wiki


Hi Oekonuxis!

During the last couple of weeks spammers found the Oekonux Wiki and
started spamming it.

As a spam protection measure you needed to have an account to edit
pages but unfortunately this stopped working :-( . Spammers now create
accounts and create their link-spam pages with this.

A few minutes ago I added an additional spam protection measure. If
you now want to create a new account you need to give not only a new
password for your new personal account - which is of course secret -
but an additional account creation password. This account creation
password is more or less public. Every legitimate user should know it
like the persons subscribed to the Oekonux lists. Therefore I
publish it here. At the moment it is

	freesoftware

Existing accounts are not affected by this change.

In case it doesn't work as expected feel free to contact me or projekt
AT oekonux DOT de.

I'm really sorry about this but spammers step by step destroy all open
infrastructures in the Internet. It's a pity but unless money is
abandoned I guess there is little there can be done about it :-/ .

						Grüße
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Stefan Merten | 15 Oct 2007 08:44
Picon
Favicon

[ox-en] Social Web and trustworthiness


Hi!

I just read an article in the German computer magazine c't (10/2007,
p.142).

The article discusses how trustworthiness can be created in Social
Web. The main focus of the article is on how comments about products
can be made trustworthy to users. This is interesting for firms to
gather information about their products - and can be dangerous when
"negative" information is listed there.

Two times the article highlights how bad alienated motivations are
(translations by me):

  The way to the success of such an approach [to make competitions for
  a new design or a new product - StefanMn] leads over a reward.
  Direct payment of winning contributions is one option but not always
  necessary. The chance to see a designed advertisement poster printed
  can be reward enough for the junior designer. "According to our
  findings giving goodies results in many users contributing only
  because of this" says Matthias B., boss of an agency [...]. The
  results get not better because of this.

And:

  Nobody pays for this [writing comments about products which are
  later sold to online shops and price comparsion machines -
  StefanMn]: "As soon as users are payed or get an artificial currency
  as reward the service provider buys all the negative excesses [like
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Stefan Merten | 15 Oct 2007 11:13
Picon
Favicon

Re: [ox-en] Re: Report on KLab9 workshop


Dear Kristina and all!

5 days ago colourschool wrote:
> Just wanted to respond to your summary of the workshop and provide  
> some more information if it is at all helpful.

Thanks for the information. However, in Oekonux there are quite a lot
of people who are quite used to political writings - such as Deleuze /
Guattari. On the other hand the knowledge about art related topics is
much less. It would be really useful if you could provide us with
resources about this.

Also I'd probably should make clear that Oekonux is not part of the
Free Software movement - at least not in a narrow sense. There are
some Free Software developers here but there are also a lot of other
people here. Also Oekonux doesn't develop Free Software but analyzes
Free Software and other phenomenons.

> RHIZOMES
> I realize that your group has come up with this model of the onion  
> skin, but I would like to propose that you think about another, very  
> well established model of cultural, social, political, and economic  
> formation in the information age, which is the rhizome (or root  
> vegetable such as a potato).

I think I have heard about this concept back in my anarchist times. I
agree that the rhizome model is in some respects very similar to the
germ form model. Indeed the germ form unfolds in a way similar to a
rhizome.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |

Gmane