[ox] (Non-)report from WOS3
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 18:38:59 +0200
Hi again!
The other event I have been this (long) weekend was the Wizard of OS 3
conference in Berlin. It was really good to be there - alone for
meeting all these nice and interesting people again or for the first
time :-) .
I simply enyjoyed consuming so much I didn't take many notes so this
is not exactly an report from the WOS but a number of unsorted,
subjective impressions and inspirations which came to my mind during
Friday and Saturday and also some thoughts about conferences. Other
Oekonux people have been also there so they may also report from this
important event.
People
------
What impressed me most on the conference was Lawrence Lessig and Eben
Moglen. Both of them I didn't see before so I was really curious. And
I have not been disappointed :-) .
Lawrence Lessig is the founder of the Creative Commons movement. He is
a very brilliant guy. Not only this - he gives also talks which are as
entertaining as they are brilliant on the content side. It's really a
pleasure to listen to him. I think there will be videos (and audios?)
on
http://wizards-of-os.org/
so it is really worthwhile to at least check out the panel Friday,
20:00 "Launch Creative Commons Germany".
As I listened to his speech on Friday I always thought that exactly
this way the early democrats must have been argued. For instance in
Germany their call for the creation a united nation state must have
been sounded very similar to what Larry says. Larry criticizes those
in power already from the stand point of the new ideology of the
(digital) commons (I'll come back to this word later). At the same
time as a professor of law he is of course part of this system he is
criticizing for hindering the new commons to unfold. To me he is one
of the most important people which are to bring about a fundamental
societal change.
The other experience was Eben Moglen. Eben is also a Professor of Law
and the general counsel for the Free Software Foundation. Though Larry
is said to be more pessimistic - which he wasn't at the WOS :-) - Eben
is known as an optimist. And he really is - I would even consider
myself as a pessimist compared to him ;-) .
I missed his speech on Thursday but saw him in the closing panel on
Saturday. He is very convinced that the Free Software movement and the
whole commons movement inspired by it will take over. The way he
argues is very much compatible with what we are thinking here in
Oekonux. Half of the time I wondered whether he is able to give
reasons for this similar to the way we are trying to find them in the
theory building process we are doing here. If not I think we would
have the theory giving reason for his optimism :-) .
For instance he was asked about the incentives for people to
contribute to the commons. He didn't answer that directly but asked
what is the incentive for the electrons to move when a wire is turned
in a magnetic field. Based on this he argues that the movement is
simply a feature of the system. He argued that it is built-in into
humans that they function this way when you give them a system working
as a commons. I think Oekonux with its argumentation of
Selbstentfaltung has to offer a theoretical reasoning for this which
does not need to refer to some unexplainable feature of the system.
He has been confronted with the fact that the ancient regime is trying
to catch the commons ghost which already left the bottle and asked
what to do / how to struggle. His answer was "Don't hit to hard. If
they loose they loose forever, if we loose we will build up again.
Keep the humor and don't evoke strong counter power by pushing too
much.". In other words: Time is on our side - not meaning the job is
done already.
Similarly Larry emphasized that today people outside our circles start
to understand what we are talking about. In other words: The Free
Software / commons movement has already changed the discourse. For
instance he mentioned the stalling of software patents in Europe he
sees as a big success.
Commons
-------
Eben Moglen also was the one who gave some very interesting insights
about the notion of the commons (a notion I can hardly think of a
German translation for). He pointed out that the commons are the space
between the private (capitalist) sector and the public (state) sector.
This is what is becoming more and more important today and the private
and state sector are attracted by these commons. Eben expressed it by
saying that the commons are becoming the gravity center. This is what
we desribe as the germ form becoming dominant in step four of the
five-step model
[http://www.oekonux.org/introduction/blotter/default_16.html].
If I compare this with what we are doing here I'd say Free Software is
the most important germ form
[http://www.oekonux.org/introduction/blotter/default_15.html] for this
commons. Taking this further the GPL society could also be called the
commons based society.
When I hear this argumentation it reminds me strongly of the 3. Stand
(can't find an English translation in LEO :-( ) which has been the
bourgeoise sector in medieval societies distinguished from the feudal
state (1. Stand) as well as from the church (2. Stand). As we remember
it was this 3. Stand who brought about fundamental change.
Creative Commons Licenses
-------------------------
Actually at the WOS I think for the first time I understood the
importance of the Creative Commons License. So far I thought about as
just another license for content of any sort. Though on first sight
this seems to be true I think it has some important features other
licenses of this sort do not have.
At first it is really thought out very well. For instance it is made
not only for the US but there are big efforts to make versions of the
Creative Commons License which perfectly fit into the legal framework
of the nations states of this planet conveying the intended meaning
into each of them.
Second I think there is no license which is advertised so well as the
Creative Commons License. From this alone one can expect a big
awareness and following a big distribution of the license and thus a
massive increase of Free Goods. Given the Oekonux background this is
something which can be expected and at the moment I think the Creative
Commons License is the thing which will really help to take off this
process.
Third the Creative Commons License gives people a choice on how their
particular license shall look like. This is combined with some easy to
understand icons so this license is really user friendly :-) .
I have been sceptical about this last feature because when for
instance you look at the rights Free Software gives there is no
discrimination against any field allowed. The Creative Commons
License, however, allows for denying commercial use. Though from a
fundamentalist standpoint this is a no-no today I think it may be it
better to give people this option when they want it. At least it is
worth a try. Larry also mentioned some numbers about how many people
choose which option of the license but I can' remember them. It would
be interesting to check this out. Does anyone have information on
this?
As a result I currently think of the Creative Commons License as the
generalization of the GPL and therefore an important step forward.
P2P
---
Wendy Selzer from the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave me some
interesting insights into P2P. Until now I wondered how the P2P
phenomenon could fit into Oekonux theory. My main point was that P2P
is mainly a result that it is illegal to distribute "pirated" copies
simply by putting them on a web site - and easily can be punished in
this form. Thus I saw P2P as something which for Oekonux theory has
only secondary effects the most important one being that young ones
get used to this sort of commons and thus it will be hard to take it
away from them again.
However, Wendy pointed out that P2P has some advantages over
commercial offers. First of all - though this is also about the
illegal aspect - the copies of copyrighted music circulating in P2P
networks are far more convenient and useful than there buyable
counterparts on CD with a DRM system which renders them unusable for a
number of interesting applications such as putting it into your MP3
stick.
The other interesting advantage - which is not linked to the legal
aspect - is, that in P2P people offer their personal collection of
music (taking music as an example). As a result if you are browsing
through the collection of someone else with a similar taste you may
well find something new you didn't hear of before and my find it also
interesting. This is an advantage a big central web site offering
material needs some extra effort to have this.
An additional advantage is that in P2P networks material is available
which simply can not be bought because it is no longer produced.
These advantages are similar to the higher quality of the products
offered in the commons when compared with the offers from the private
sector.
Anyway it was an interesting talk so I'd recommend checking it out in
the panel about "Alternative Compensation Systems" (Saturday, 13:00,
Track 1).
Random thoughts
---------------
Also here is a random thought I had during the conference.
Regarding the material production ("Brötchenfrage") I had the
following idea. If you look closely at Free Software it is only
construction plans for some product. This is very clear if you look at
the sources - which are nothing but a plan telling the compiler and
similar tools how to construct the binary. But also if you think of
RPM or Debian packages these are also a construction plan telling the
packager how and what to install on your machine.
If seeing it this way then Free Software - and other digital goods
common today - have mostly one advantage: People already own the means
of production to make the construction plans useful. If looking at it
this way then there is no fundamental difference between material and
digital products. The only problem is the availability of means of
production.
I don't know whether this idea is really original but I can't remember
having seen it anywhere. Also it may contain major flaws but I'm sure
you'll find them ;-) .
About the conferences
---------------------
Since the ox3 and the WOS3 were so close together it is tempting to
compare the conferences ;-) .
I general I think both conferences are useful as they are. Though
there is some overlap to me the conferences are distinguishable rather
well.
I felt that the WOS is more focused on inviting big names. As a result
most of the invited contributors came from a scientific institution (I
actually didn't count - that's my impression). Though I'm grateful to
have been able to see Lawrence Lessig and Eben Moglen there is the
problem that most members of an established scientific institution not
only were ties and suits - there is nothing wrong with ties and suits,
just to give you an idea of the atmosphere - but also tend to say only
things which they can prove / can not be attacked for. On the one hand
this ensures some sort of quality :-) but on the other hand more
experimental thoughts are not presented :-( - except by exceptionally
courageous persons as pointed out above.
This is where I think the Oekonux conference has it's strength. We do
not worry too much about inviting celebrities but instead invite
people which (seemingly) have to say something new and interesting -
though it can be controversial or even for being it.
Also I preferred the organization of the Oekonux conference where not
only the invited speakers had enough time for a substantial
presentation but also the audience has a lot of room to engage in a
discussion. At WOS there were up to 5 persons in 2 hour slots and you
can imagine that the discussion at least once has been discarded
because invited speakers are not used to be restricted to 10-15
minutes - which on the other hand I welcome. The format we found for
our 3rd conference with 2 persons in 3 hours to me seems even more a
good model we should keep.
Also a note about the location. This time the WOS was in the bcc, a
congress center in Berlin. Though problems like organizing food are
done by the personal of the center this set-up to me created a more
abstract atmosphere. Also the hall for track 1 were very big so for
most presentations the audience looked a bit small. We had a similar
problem with the two big lecture rooms in Berlin. Next time we should
try to have a set-up similar to this year where we had smaller rooms
which IMHO result in a closer, more inspiring atmosphere.
Also after the final panel Volker gave hope to believe that there will
be a WOS4 in two years time. We should check that a possible 4th
Oekonux Conference does not collide with this.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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