newspeak

Jeremy deBeer’s work is invigorating. I’d love to be able to attend this lecture, as the Washington DC Program on Information Justice invariably draws interesting talent from all over the world. It’s not just about America. The subject of deBeer’s talk is provocative. I’ve long argued for more open source software and methods of making and distributing it but have also cautioned that open source software and its making is not a political or social solution. Pace Gates, but it does not lead to any ideological stance–witness now MSFT adopting open source software when it conveniences them. (Can one argue, though the inverse? That proprietary making and distribution lead to politics of inequality and division? Short answer: it depends on where you draw the boundary lines around the commons. Which would suggest a critique against boundary permanence.)

However, in the real world (or its near equivalent, my fantasy of it), tactics of exclusion and theft–you know, property–can be strategically challenged by the use of licenses which specify domains of open collaboration. But I think to make any such challenge anything more than a flash in the dismal pan is a notion of “society” or the “common good” that can work and then work again.

via PIJIP Summer Sessions Welcoming Reception and Distinguished Lecture » Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property.