P2P FoundationFuture Internet and Society: A Complex Systems PerspectiveThe conference “Future Internet and Society: A Complex Systems Perspective” will take place on 02-07 October in Acquafredda di Maratea, Italy. The digital revolution and the advent of the Internet are transforming the way we work, how we spend our free time. These phenomena are also changing how we communicate with each other and the way in which we establish and maintain our social relations. The relationship between Internet and society is complex and bidirectional, leading to a co-evolution of the two systems. In fact, the Internet exists because humans need networking and the Internet evolution is ultimately driven by our ever-increasing use of it. The complexity of the current Internet structure and its future developments cannot be understood without taking a full multi-disciplinary approach. Such an approach must necessarily be based on the science of complex systems, and in particular complex network theory. It must also depend on social sciences and humanities to elucidate the underpinnings of the Internet at a societal and economic level. This conference will bring together experts in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), social scientists, as well as experts in the area of complex systems They will assess the state-of-the-art, identify new trends and envision future developments in the intertwined domains of future Internet and society. Topics that will be covered in the conference include:
We welcome top-level presentations on the most recent results in analysis and modelling, from the point of view of complex systems and other techno-social issues. Invited Speakers
The preliminary programme will be published in February. For more information please visit the ESF Research Conferences website: http://www.esf.org/conferences/10341 Categories: News
Tribes vs. P2PDavid Ronfeldt has a post recalling his recent interventions on tribal governance, and part of it is a recall of a recent debate we had. David Ronfeldt: “A set of interesting posts appeared at the P2P Foundation blog — one of my favorite blogs — in August 2009 comparing the histories of Maghrebi and Genovese traders in the Middle Ages. The posts concerned a view, raised at another blog, that the Maghrebis exhibited an early kind of P2P/network approach to organization, the Genoveses a more market-like approach — and that this might explain why the latter proved more durable and successful as traders. To quote P2P blog author Michel Bauwens: “Ignacio de Castro has written a fine trilogy on medieval p2p-like practices, that is somehow framed as a challenge to our p2p approach. It describes the practices of jewish maghrebi traders in the Middle Ages and their international support network, and wonders why they ultimately lost against their Genovese more ‘capitalist’ competitors. Ignacio asks: could the same defeat happen to contemporary P2P practices and communities?” Bauwens voiced his doubts, and so did I. My point was that the Maghrebis were less an expression of the p2p/network form than of the tribal form — and that’s what explained the differing outcomes: The Maghrebis do exhibit some P2P relationships. But it’s one thing to exhibit some relationships, quite another for those relationships to add up to a full, distinct system of thought and action. The key systems of organization that have developed across the ages so far — tribes, hierarchical institutions (like states), and markets — all contain some P2P relationships in varying respects and degrees. But we have yet to see a full-fledged, distinct P2P /network system emerge to take its place alongside those systems. That still lies ahead. The Maghrebis appear to correspond far more to an innovative tribal system than to a P2P system. This is particularly so given the exclusionary behavior that accompanied their ethnic orientations. And it’s this tribal nature that ultimately limits them. The Genovese appear to have been less tribal. Thus, perhaps it remains an open question as to whether and how much it’s the tribal, the market, or the P2P orientations that explain the differing outcomes. Categories: News
Links for 2010-03-08 [del.icio.us]
Categories: News
Dominic Muren on the three pillars of HumblefactureClear insight on the necessary preconditions for open and distributed manufacturing to become the next ecosystem for making things. Dominic Muren: “We need to identify new methods and research directions which will lower the systemic barriers of entry to making. I believe that three primary directions exist for this exploration. In order to be free to make what is appropriate for them, people must have appropriate knowledge, agency, and resources. The three pillars of Humblefacture address these needs: 1) Tools for making should be high information, not high energy. By far the most common response to someone who says we need to remake manufacturing is “but we can already make anything we want”. Modern industry may be able to make anything, but only with huge, expensive, proprietary, and specialized machinery. To illustrate what I mean, let’s do a little thought experiment, using Humblefacture’s Robot ally, Makerbot (for those of you not in the know yet, Makerbot is a low cost, open source machine which can fabricate plastic parts using 3d digital files). If we made three objects — one made by Makerbot, one made by injection molding, and one made by hand carving — what would the costs be? Injection molding is cheap, but high initial cost(giant metal molds and machinery) and relatively inflexible, design-wise. Hand carving is flexible(it takes just as much effort to carve any old shape), but expensive, and requires a high degree of skill not available to most makers. Makerbot is more expensive than molding, but cheaper than carving(because of automation and reduced need for skill), and as flexible as carving. Most importantly, sharing the descriptions of objects is easier than either molding or hand carving (which bolsters pillar 3). Ideally, a semi-skilled Humblefactory will use high data, flexible machines like Makerbot. However, plastic extrusion is only one type of fabrication we should be exploring, especially given plastic’s dubious compatibility with pillar number 2. We need computer controlled sewing machines, computer controlled composite layup machines, and other machines we haven’t even thought of!! Any making technology can be made more useful through the use of computer numeric control. 2) Language should be a commons, therefore, the vocabulary of making must be a commons. Imagine what it would be like if you had free speech, but only within the narrow confines of a few select words and phrases. You might be allowed to say anything you wanted, but you wouldn’t be able to. Similarly, makers today suffer very few explicit restrictions on what we can or cannot make (some types of firearms and explosives are restricted). This does not mean we are able to make anything. Take the example of Thomas Thwaites, who for his graduate thesis endeavored to make a toaster from scratch. Don’t laugh, it’s not as easy as it looks. Indeed, it’s not as easy as it looks to make nearly anything, because we rely so much on far away, high energy, toxic, dangerous, or rare materials which through the magic of the global market economy become affordable at some hidden expense. Instead, Humblefactories will need to resurrect, discover, and develop materials, processes and tools which can be made we need to use tools, materials, and techniques that are available to local populations without large infrastructure development. 3) Objects should be composed of modular, interoperable components. Forget design for recycling, or disassembly. Think more about design for co-opting, hacking, reintegration, etc. Think about how object oriented programming enabled the open source software movement. Great communities like SourceForge are made possible because participants can share not only knowledge and assistance, but packets of code which can be dropped into new programs. Just as with programming, where libraries for graphics, sound, I/O, or printing allow quick generation of new programs, modular power supplies, drive trains, displays, wheels, and other parts would relieve the need for everyone to design everything. Instead, each designer creates what they are best at, and the group benefits from many exceptional components to combine however they see fit. This is perhaps the most complex of the pillars, because it requires standards to be set across many different disciplines — electronics, software, mechanisms, and power systems. But, ad-hoc groups have created pretty amazing standard-sets before (think of TCP, IP, HTTP, FTP, not to mention standardized bolt threads, battery sizes, and others). By combining Flexible Fabricators, Appropriate Materials, and Shareable Modules, a humblefactory will be able to make an almost infinite variety of objects to respond to whatever new problems arise to confront it. More importantly, because the makers using these techniques are empowered to make more choices and control more material and part fabrication themselves, they will have more input on what social, toxicological, and environmental costs are reasonable for their local situation. Just as in nature when local populations evolve to better use their resources and work within their ecology, so will humblefactory-equipped communities be better able to provide for their needs from their local capacity. Humblefacture’s mission is to work bring together as much information as possible on the progress toward making these three pillars a reality.” Categories: News
Al Jazeera on the Icelandic Modern Media InitiativeAl Jazeera reports on the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a proposed reinforcement of free speech rights based on the best available legislation in the whole world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbGiPjIE1pE Categories: News
Links for 2010-03-07 [del.icio.us]
Categories: News
Bolivia’s position about life forms patentabilityRecently Bolivia have published it’s cmmunication to WTO’s TRIPS Council on the Review of Article 27.3(b). This article allows patenting of life forms and requires provision to be made for the protection of plant varieties Article 27.3(b) says the following: “Members may also exclude from patentability: Here you can read the full review. Really interesting reading. ——————————————————————— 26 February 2010 Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Original: English REVIEW OF ARTICLE 27.3(B) OF TRIPS AGREEMENT Communication from Bolivia The following communication, dated 24 February 2010, is being circulated at _______________ I. INTRODUCTION 1. The purpose of this submission is to contribute to the work programme of 2. Article 27.3(b) allows Members to exclude from patentability plants and 3. The review of Article 27.3(b) is an issue within the mandate of the Doha 4. The review is also an issue within the mandate of the Doha Work Programme 5. The “Compilation of Outstanding Implementation Issues Raised by Members” “Tiret 91: The period given for implementation of the provisions of Article “Tiret 95: …[Article 27.3(b) to be amended (...) The amendments should “Proposal by Least-Developed Countries 22 October 2001: The General Council II. PRESENT SIGNIFICANCE OF REVIEW OF ARTICLE 27.3(B) 6. Over the years, various submissions and proposals have been made on the 7. Meanwhile various developments have taken place at different national, 8. First, and for us most importantly, in January 2009 the people of Bolivia Article 255 paragraph II: Negotiation, signature and ratification of * Respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and peasants. * Harmony with nature, protection of biodiversity and prohibition of private 9. Another important development is the adoption of the United Nations 10. Further Article 31 of the Declaration recognises that “indigenous 11. Furthermore extensive patenting of life forms, misappropriation of III. ISSUES FOR CONSIDERATION 12. This communication is a brief introduction to some of the issues that A. PATENTING OF LIFE FORMS 13. The rationale behind Article 27.3(b) is not clear. This relates to the 14. There is no reason why “micro-organisms”, “micro-biological processes” 15. Moreover, by giving Members the option whether or not to exclude the 16. Consequently, since the adoption of the TRIPS Agreement, there has been 17. Firstly, most of the patent holders and applicants are from developed 18. The resulting effect is concentration of ownership of patents in a few 19. Patenting of life forms promotes an imbalance in the current 20. There is also an ethical dimension to the issue. The patenting of life B. PROTECTION OF PLANT VARIETIES 21. The issue of protection of plant varieties is also of concern to the 22. Firstly, in several developed countries, patenting of plants is already 23. Fourthly, pressures are often placed on countries to accept a certain 24. In this sense, the new Constitution of Bolivia is a step towards C. TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES 25. The process of review of Article 27.3(b) should take into account the 26. One of the cornerstones of Bolivia’s new Constitution is full respect 27. The indigenous peoples’ cosmovision has been a structural element in the 28. In addition, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous 29. Therefore, the Plurinational State of Bolivia shall prevent the IV. CONCLUSION 30. Following the above, we conclude on the need to urgently review Article (a) prohibit the patenting of all life forms, including plants and animals (b) ensure the protection of the innovations of indigenous and local farming (c) prevent anti-competitive practices which threaten food sovereignty of (d) to protect the rights of indigenous communities and prevent any private 31. The above-mentioned issues are long outstanding and thus the delegation __________ 1 “Cosmovision” denotes a set of concepts and beliefs related to the Categories: News
Peter Linebaugh on the principles of commoningVia Keimform (originally from Counterpunch): Peter Linebaugh (excerpt): “Human solidarity as expressed in the slogan “all for one and one for all” is the foundation of commoning. In capitalist society this principle is permitted in childhood games or in military combat. Otherwise, when it is not honored in hypocrisy, it appears in the struggle contra capitalism or, as Rebecca Solnit shows, in the disasters of fire, flood, or earthquake. The activity of commoning is conducted through labor with other resources; it does not make a division between “labor” and “natural resources.” On the contrary, it is labor which creates something as a resource, and it is by resources that the collectivity of labor comes to pass. As an action it is thus best understood as a verb rather than as a “common pool resource.” Both Lovelock’s ‘Gaia Hypothesis’ and the environmentalism of Rachel Carson were attempts to restore this perspective. Commoning is primary to human life. Scholars used to write of ‘primitive communism’. ‘The primary commons’ renders the experience more clearly. Scarcely a society has existed on the face of the earth which has not had at its heart the commons; the commodity with its individualism and privatization was strictly confined to the margins of the community where severe regulations punished violators. Commoning begins in the family. The kitchen where production and reproduction meet, and the energies of the day between genders and between generations are negotiated. The momentous decisions in the sharing of tasks, in the distribution of product, in the creation of desire, and in sustaining health are first made here. Commoning is historic. The ‘village commons’ of English heritage or the ‘French commune’ of the revolutionary past are remnants from this history, reminding us that despite stages of destruction parts have survived, though often in distorted fashion as in welfare systems, or even as their opposite as in the realtor’s gated community or the retailer’s mall. Commoning has always had a spiritual significance expressed as sharing a meal or a drink, in archaic uses derived from monastic practices, in recognition of the sacred habitus. Theophany, or the appearance of the divine principle, is apprehended in the physical world and its creatures. In north America (“turtle island”) this principle is maintained by indigenous people. Commons is antithetical to capital. Commmoners are quarrelsome (no doubt), yet the commons is without class struggle. To be sure, capital can arise from the commons, as part is sequestrated off and used against the rest. This begins with inegalitarian relations, among the Have Lesses and the Have Mores. The means of production become the way of destruction, and expropriation leads to exploitation, the Haves and Have Nots. Capital derides commoning by ideological uses of philosophy, logic, and economics which say the commons is impossible or tragic. The figures of speech in these arguments depend on fantasies of destruction – the desert, the life-boat, the prison. They always assume as axiomatic that concept expressive of capital’s bid for eternity, the a-historical ‘Human Nature.’ Communal values must be taught, and renewed, continuously. The ancient court leet resolved quarrels of over-use; the panchayat in India did – and sometimes still does — the same, like the way a factory grievance committee is supposed to be; the jury of peers is a vestigial remnant which determines what a crime is as well as who’s a criminal. The “neighbor” must be put back into the “hood,” as they say in Detroit, like the people’s assemblies in Oaxaca. Commoning has always been local. It depends on custom, memory, and oral transmission for the maintenance of its norms rather than law, police, and media. Closely associated with this is the independence of the commons from government or state authority. The centralized state was built upon it. It is, as it were, ‘the pre-existing condition.’ Therefore, commoning is not the same as the communism of the USSR. The commons is invisible until it is lost. Water, air, earth, fire – these were the historic substances of subsistence. They were the archaic physics upon which metaphysics was built. Even after land began to be commodified during English Middle Ages it was written, But to buy water or wind or wit or fire the fourth, We distinguish ‘the common’ from ‘the public’. We understand the public in contrast to the private, and we understand common solidarity in contrast to individual egotism. The commons has always been an element in human production even when capitalism acquired the hoard or laid down the law. The boss might ‘mean business’ but nothing gets done without respect. Otherwise, sabotage and the shoddy result. Commoning is exclusive inasmuch as it requires participation. It must be entered into. Whether on the high pastures for the flock or the light of the computer screen for the data, the wealth of knowledge, or the real good of hand and brain, requires the posture and attitude of working alongside, shoulder to shoulder. This is why we speak neither of rights nor obligations separately. Human thought cannot flourish without the intercourse of the commons. Hence, the first amendment linking the rights of speech, assembly, and petition. “ Categories: News
Developments and enclosures in open source mobileWhat’s often missed in open source discussions is how open source licenses tell only half the story. The governance model, the implicit rules defining transparency and influence into an open source project, is the small print that determines the power dynamics around that project. The March Issue of OSBR, the excellent Canadian “Open Source Business Resource” monthly, is dedicated to mobile and the role of open source in it. Amongst the articles: 1. Open Source Enclosures in the Mobile Space * In, Open is the New Closed: How the Mobile Industry uses Open Source to Further Commercial Agendas, Andreas Constantinou discusses the importance of governance models to understand the dynamics of an open source product, constrasting it to the better understood role of licences. Using the mobile industry as an example, he demonstrates how governance models can be used by open source sponsors to control the development of open source products. The article gives clear insight in the power dynamics that detract the use of open source from its original aim: “In practice, mobile open source initiatives use a variety of control points - such as trademarks, private lines, distribution of derivatives, ownership of reviewers, gravity of contributions and contributor agreements - to turn an egalitarian governance model into an authoritarian one. Such control points can detract the very freedoms that open source licenses are meant to bestow.” 2. The State of Free Software in Mobile Devices * In The State of Free Software in Mobile Devices, Bradley M. Kuhn reviews the state of the art of free software in mobile telephony. He writes and concludes: - “Based on this analysis, it appears that the HTC Dream currently gives the most software freedom based on the Android/Linux platform. It is unlikely that Google wants anything besides their applications to be proprietary. While Google has been unresponsive when asked why these hardware interface libraries are proprietary, it is likely that HTC, the hardware maker with whom Google contracted, insisted that these components remain proprietary.” - “A community-oriented Android/Linux fork has more hope. Google has little to lose by encouraging and even assisting with such forks as its goals include wider adoption of platforms that allow deployment of Google’s proprietary applications. Operating system software-freedom-motivated efforts will be met with more support from Google than from Nokia and/or Intel.” - “I must also mention the FreeRunner device and OpenMoko. This was a noble experiment: a freely specified hardware platform running 100% F/LOSS. I used an OpenMoko FreeRunner myself, hoping that it would be the mobile phone our community could rally around. I do think the device and its software stack has a future as an experimental, hobbyist device. But, just as GNU/Linux needed to focus on x86 hardware to succeed, so must software freedom efforts in mobile systems focus on mass-market, widely used, and widely available hardware.” Categories: News
Langdon Winner: from cyber-libertarianism to cyber-communautarianism?Paul Fernhout unearthed this older piece from Langdon Winner: “One especially foggy area in cyberlibertarian rhetoric is its depiction of matters of power and distribution. Who stands to gain and who will lose in the transformations now underway? Will existing sources of injustice be reduced or amplified? Will the promised democratization benefit the populace as a whole or just those who own the latest equipment? And who gets to decide? About these questions, the cyberlibertarians show little concern. Characteristic of this way of thinking is a tendency to conflate the What “ownership by the people” means, the Magna Carta insists, is simply “private ownership.” And it eventually becomes clear that the private entities they have in mind are actually large, transnational business firms, especially those in communications. Thus, after praising the market competition as the pathway to a better society, the authors announce that some forms of competition are distinctly unwelcome. In fact, the writers fear that the government will regulate in a way that requires cable companies and phone companies to compete. Needed instead, they argue, is the reduction of barriers to collaboration of already large firms, a step that will encourage the creation of a huge, commercial, interactive multimedia network as the formerly separate kinds of communication merge. They argue that “obstructing such collaboration — in the cause of forcing a From that standpoint, The Magna Carta moves on to advocate greater Today developments of this kind are visible in the corporate mergers that have produced a tremendous concentration of control over not only the conduits of cyberspace but the content it carries. We see elaborate weddings between Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner, ABC and Disney, and other media giants. What, one wonders, ever happened to the predicted collapse of large, centralized structures in the age electronic media? And what happened to the movement of power closer to the realm of everyday actors and decisions? … The combined emphasis upon radical individualism, enthusiasm for free It is interesting to speculate about how it happened that prominent views about computing and society have become associated with a political agenda of the far right. There are a number of explanations one might give, explanations about the rise of the electronics industry in the of the Cold War, or about the role of former hippies in Norther California’s high tech industries who now affirm libertarianism as the spirit of Haight/Ashbury finally realized. But such speculation is a project for another occasion. The pressing challenge now is, in my view, something entirely different: Offering a vision of an electronic future that specifies humane, democratic alternatives to the peculiar obsessions of the cyberlibertarian position. Categories: News
Mobile vs. Internet for the Global South: continuing the debateThe Community Informatics mailing list has a continuing debate on whether the diffusion of mobile broadband is sufficient to replace the internet in developing countries. One of the best contributions is from Parminder Jeet Singh of IT for Change: “PC/Internet versus mobiles is one of the most important policy issues in ICTD today. It is not that I want to present it as a ‘versus’ issue, I would prefer not to. However that is how those with unadulterated belief in markets-as-panacea present it as, ironically, even when the dominance of their ideology has largely been responsible for what as been described as the failure of first generation telecentres initiatives. And this ‘versus’ thinking also dominate policy makers today, and thus we need to address it. At one level, there are substantive issues in this discussion and at another clarificatory ones about issues/ concepts etc that one may be speaking for or against. First the latter, the clarificatory stuff: If anyone is arguing that the less developed regions be left with p2p voice/ telephony application alone because this is what they have so eagerly lapped up while the rest of world is transforming the very nature of social interactions and social institutions - in sum, the nature of society - over new techno-social possibilities offered by the Internet, I think this argument does not even require refutation. Such kind of arguments have been used regarding modern education and communities living in ‘traditional ways’, and I thought were completely out of fashion now a days. There is however a curious new over-valorisation of ‘choice’ in neoliberal thought whereby it seems to be offered as overruling all ethical and normative considerations. However going into that discussion may not be possible here. Then comes the issue, if Internet is indeed required (1) how should it be best provided in the conditions that obtain in developing countries, and (2) a related question of, what ‘kind’ of Internet it should be. In the light of the above, we may be not be arguing about whether Internet or not (unless someone here is so radical to be arguing that, whereby I may be corrected), but whether (1) mobile or landline Internet/ broadband, and (2) PC or mobile/ handset as user device A connected and, at the base, a very important question is whether connectivity is easily and freely available for a range of social purposes for which, as per the typical economic definition of a ‘public good’, a model of a large number of people accessing the Internet on user-fee basis does not work. Example; a community trying to build a community generated database of local information. Also, whether a PC is the end device of a mobile/ handset is an issue completely different from the question of the underlying infrastructure - Internet or mobile telephony infrastructure. The two questions should be teated separately and not conflated as is often done Beyond that, there are certain limitations in relying ‘only’ on mobile/ handset as the user device, which choice affects the kinds of activities and applications that can be accessed/ done. This factor too can determine the nature of uses of the Internet, in terms of empowering uses versus passive uses - a factor I consider very central to the consideration of ‘development potential’ of new ICTs. In the light of above clarificatory analysis we may examine the available policy and market options. This brings us to the real ad substantive issues of the present discussion. Mobile connectivity has the obvious, and immense, advantage of ‘mobility’, as well as better economics for less densely populated areas. However, the question remains if it should be a wired backhaul and a wireless last-mile connectivity, or wireless all the way. The former to me looks the preferred model which means we still have to lay the fibre backbone almost everywhere. The problem with mobile connectivity is that the bandwidth scarcity is often used as an excuse for bandwidth manipulation to change the net neutral nature of the Internet, which for me is very essential to its ‘development potential’. Unfortunately, many market-model enthusiasts do not think so. A connected issue is that mobile connectivity has come to be associated with pure market play model while in broadband infrastructure - due to natural monopoly factors - there often is a strong possibility of a public sector player. This particular factor (1) on one side, reduces the possibility/ incentive to manipulate the net neutral character of the Internet for endless ‘innovations of business models’ to squeeze in more and more profits (2) and on the other, makes possible availability of connectivity on special subsidized terms, or free, for a range of social purposes, as is required in the case of all essential infrastructure and services. It was (wrongly) assumed by the first generation ICTD initiatives that a pay-per-use model of providing a general purpose transformational technology like the Internet can enable its appropriation to its best potential. There is so much literature on ‘productivity paradox’ and its subsequent clarification regarding use of ICTs for the business sector in the world’s most developed economy. In the light of it, I continue to be amazed how we cannot simply see that the usage/ appropriation/ ‘productivity’ curve will be even much more difficult for social uses of the Internet in under-developed regions. Such difficult - as in, ‘apparently’ unpromising - curves cannot be cited as the reason for jettisoning efforts to appropriate a technology, a mastery of which is the very condition of even expecting to live on fair and equitable terms in the emergent social arrangements. (Never forget what literacy and education has meant for the same purpose.) The above to me are the two main issues/ factors in any discussion on what kind of connectivity or infrastructure is needed for less developed regions, and for marginalized sections of the society. The point two above of providing connectivity (plus) as a public good relates to a larger - and very ideological - debate on whether it is enough to expose marginalised communities to markets for ensuring their development or whether ‘interventionist’ (enabling/ empowering) initiatives continue to be needed to ensure development. One cannot easily expect to convince those on the other side of this great ideological divide. The only thing that can be attempted in this regard is to offer clarifications on some issues, and also some deliberate obfuscations that get created by the strength of various resources that market-fundamentalist ideology obviously commands. To expound on and expose the other point, regarding what does an exclusive reliance on mobile infrastructure (and to a lesser extent, exclusive reliance on a very small user device) do to the very nature of the much celebrated phenomenon of the Internet, is something which should appeal to a much greater swathe of interests and opinions. I propose that we undertake a systematic study of how Internet on mobile is increasingly provided in a stunted, non net neutral manner, and the prognosis for the near future in this regard is even much worse, and how this threatens the very egalitarian potential of the Internet. This egalitarian and empowering nature of the Internet, as against possibilities of providing some goodies while increasing dependencies, is the real development question that should frame the ‘Internet versus mobiles’ debate. So while we discuss much whether mobiles can provide more Internet to more people, we need to at the same time ask the question, what kind of Internet is this? It exactly parallels the key development question around us today - the issue is not only ‘more development’ but also ‘what kind of development’. “ Categories: News
Links for 2010-03-06 [del.icio.us]
Categories: News
When is a commons not a true commons: boundary conditionsRyan Lanham proposes a set of P2P Commons Boundary Conditions to delineate real commons from weaker versions and even counterfeits: “I think the key boundaries are as follows: Primary Boundaries: 1. A P2P Commons attempt to maximize free, voluntary and open sharing of assets that are engaged in the commons. 2. Assets placed in the commons are irrevocably there and cannot be removed for personal gains. Ongoing participation in a commons implies shared responsibility for its sustaining expenses. When a commons cannot be sustained, it is dissolved so as to maximize reuse and sharing of its prior assets without cost or selfish limitations. 3. P2P (though not necessarily a commons) emphasizes reduced hierarchical control and greater autonomy of the individual. The role of parties, states, churches, co-ops, corporations, shareholding owners and other collective action bodies is intentionally minimized in any form of governance of the commons. Secondary boundaries (many may reject these in individual terms and still claim status as a P2P commons): a. Commons work to avoid free riding by encouraging valid and useful contributions to the commons as a sustainable process. b. P2P commons work to minimize governance interventions. c. Commons work to provide useful and valuable tools, assets and services to participants. d. Commons reject inputs and uses that are applied for gains that are not sustainable or that adversely impact the environment. e. Commons apply open, fair and recognizably democratic means to govern themselves. f. Commons are not owned by a state. They are created out of voluntary participation mechanisms where users and participants continually and freely choose to participate and the right to exit from participation and support clearly exists. g. Commons are not a part of or party to any form of capitalism, communism, anarchism or socialism as a political ideal and may be compatible with any form of government that allows voluntary and free participation in protected sharing schemes that are self-governing within reasonably constraints (e.g. valid safety or environmental regulations). h. P2P commons reject the idea of a single controller, a controller or governor for life, or any mode of control or ownership of the commons that positions one person or one group as a vanguard, protector, trustee or governor acting beyond reasonable terms of a few years and freely chosen by participating members. Organizers and social entrepreneurs who start commons with benign intent and who have imbued a commons with their own personal will have greater latitude under this criterion so long as their actions are reasonably consistent with the long-term goals and boundaries of commons. i. Commons are perpetual and may not be privatized. j. Commons work toward ideals of general public good even if the public good is at odds with most members of the commons.” Categories: News
A Flickr commons of shareable p2p graphicsVia Neal Gorenflo of Shareable Magazine: “I’ve started a Flickr group call Sharing Illustrated to create a pool of Creative Commons images, photos, and videos that anyone can use to talk about sharing, peer-to-peer production, alternative economy, and the commons. The idea is to empower communicators of all stripes with high quality images about sharing. You’re invited to join the group and share your images. It’s really easy. First, join the group here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1365597@N21/admin/ Once you’ve joined, then for any image you’d like to share, click on the “Send to Group” tab just above the image to the left. It’s self-explanatory from there. The group is brand new with no images. I’m reaching out for your help to get the ball rolling. Once the group is seeded with images, I will promote the group through Shareable to gain momentum. And we’ll There are a number of benefits to contributing: advancing your work by creating the pool for others, gaining access to the pool yourself, and increased traffic to your site from link backs. I hope you’ll give this a try! And feel free to pass this request on to colleagues, forums, and lists that might be interested. Thank you, More Information: See also the P2P Foundation Graphics section, with 105 graphics and images so far. Categories: News
“Intellect” as a Component of PriceIn The Tom Peters Seminar, the business guru who goes by that name celebrated the fact that only some 10% of the price of his new Minolta camera resulted from materials and labor. The rest was “ephemera” and “intellect.” That means, translated from Peters-speak into English, that only a tenth of the hours we work to pay for a piece of consumer electronics go to pay the production cost; the rest go to embedded rents on artificial property rights. Now Rob Carlson reports recent information that sheds new light on this contention. He cites Joel Johnson’s inadvertent admission that only 8-10 of the people at Aliph working on Bluetooth headsets are actually necessary to carry out or coordinate the production process. The rest are involved in administration and marketing. And the total cost of manufacturing (outsourced to China) amounts 5% or less of retail price. The proprietary software of the iPhone probably adds around $30 to the price. On the other hand, the material components of a typical smart phone cost around $170-180. So total production cost is a little over $200, and the rest of the $500-600 price is retail markup and rents on proprietary design. The remaining unanswered question, to make sense out of all this, is the cost breakdown of the components themselves. How much of the price of the components reflects the actual cost of producing them, as opposed to rents on proprietary design? How much of it is just administrative overhead from conventional corporate modes of organization (Weberian work rules, job descriptions, mission statements, and all the rest of it)? I suspect it’s a lot, if the efficiencies hardware hackers typically achieve in reverse-engineering proprietary designs are any indication (Factor Twenty cost reductions are not unusual). Carlson himself, in the same post, goes on to describe how Biodesic’s improvements in manufacturing processes and component designs are resulting in radical cost reductions, further blurring the boundaries between physical components and bits. I’d be interested in any light the readers could shed on how much of the price of iPhone components results from proprietary design, administrative overhead, etc. I’m inclined to believe that conventional manufacturing is riddled with overhead costs in a manner comparable to a human body with congestive heart failure, bloated with edema from head to foot. Categories: News
Is Our Monetary Structure a Systemic Cause for Financial Instability?Here is a paper by Bernard Lietaer and others which points to some important parallels between the (monetary) economy and natural eco-systems. The authors come to a rather surprising conclusion: Increased efficiency is not in the interests of a well working economic system. There rather should be a balance between efficiency and resiliency, and one of the characteristics that lead to increased resiliency is greater diversity. An obvious implication is that a proliferation of p2p currencies will lead to a more stable economic system. AbstractFundamental laws govern all complex flow systems, including natural ecosystems, economic and financial systems. Natural ecosystems are practical exemplars of sustainability: enduring, vital, adaptive. The sustainability of any complex flow system can be measured with a single metric as an emergent property of its structural diversity and interconnectivity; it requires a balance in emphasis between efficiency and resilience. The urgent message for economics from nature is that the monoculture of national currencies, justified on the basis of market efficiency, generates structural instability in our global financial system. Economic sustainability therefore requires diversification in types of currencies, specifically through complementary currencies. - - - Viewing economies as flow systems ties directly into money’s primary function as medium of exchange. In this view, money is to the real economy like biomass in an ecosystem: it is an essential vehicle for catalyzing processes, allocating resources, and generally allowing the exchange system to work as a synergetic whole. The connection to structure is immediately apparent. In economies, as in ecosystems and living organisms, the health of the whole depends heavily on the structure by which the catalyzing medium, in this case, money, circulates among businesses and individuals. Money must continue to circulate in sufficiency to all corners of the whole because poor circulation will strangle either the supply side or the demand side of the economy, or both… http://www.scribd.com/doc/26248658/Is-Our-Monetary-Structure-a-Systemic-Cause-for-Financial-Instability-Bernard-Lietaer Categories: News
Innovating through commons use: community-based enterpriseVia Frank van Laerhoven: Editors-in-Chief Frank van Laerhoven and Erling Berge are pleased to Our newest issue contains a special feature called “Innovating through Also, we would like to draw your attention to the special feature on From the Table of Contents: * Innovating through commons use: community-based enterprises (1-7) Fikret Berkes, Iain J. Davidson-Hunt * Community-based enterprises and the commons: The case of San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Mexico (8-35) * Placing the commons at the heart of community development: Three case studies of community enterprise in Caribbean islands (160-182) Sarah McIntosh, Yves Renard On the Microbial Commons: * Self-governance and international regulation of the global microbial * Governing the management and use of pooled microbial genetic resources: Lessons from the global crop commons (404-436) Michael Halewood Categories: News
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From the Regulatory State to Voluntary Certification NetworksI believe that the growing fiscal crisis of the state, and the growing tendency toward high unemployment and underemployment becoming a norm, will have two long-term results: first, the production of a growing share of value in the informal economy in place of its purchase with wages; and second, the decoupling of the social safety net from both the welfare state and wage employment. Getting from here to there will involve a fundamental paradigm shift in how most people think, and the overcoming of centuries worth of ingrained habits of thought. This involves a paradigm shift from what James Scott, in Seeing Like a State, calls social organizations that are primarily “legible” to the state, to social organizations that are primary legible or transparent to the people of local communities organized horizontally and opaque to the state. The latter kind of architecture, as described by Kropotkin, was what prevailed in the networked free towns and villages of late medieval Europe. The primary pattern of social organization was horizontal (guilds, etc.), with quality certification and reputational functions aimed mainly at making individuals’ reliability transparent to one another. To the state, such local formations were opaque. With the rise of the absolute state, the primary focus became making society transparent from above, and horizontal transparency was at best tolerated. Things like the systematic mapping of urban addresses for postal service, the systematic adoption of family surnames that were stable across generations (and the 20th century followup of citizen ID numbers), etc., were all for the purpose of making society transparent to the state. Before this transformation, for example, surnames existed mainly for the convenience of people in local communities, so they could tell each other apart. Surnames were adopted on an ad hoc basis for clarification, when there was some danger of confusion, and rarely continued from one generation to the next. If there were multiple Johns in a village, they might be distinguished by trade (”John the Miller”), location (”John of the Hill”), patronymic (”John Richard’s Son”), etc. By contrast, everywhere there have been family surnames with cross-generational continuity, they have been imposed by centralized states as a way of cataloguing and tracking the population—making it legible to the state, in Scott’s terminology.2 To accomplish a shift back to horizontal transparency, it will be necessary to overcome a powerful residual cultural habit, among the general public, of thinking of such things through the mind’s eye of the state. E.g., if “we” didn’t have some way of verifying compliance with this regulation or that, some business somewhere might be able to get away with something or other. We need a shift in focus toward creating reputational and quality assessment mechanisms on a networked basis, to make us as transparent as possible to each other as providers of goods and services—and not legible to an all-seeing state. In fact, the creation of such mechanisms may well require active measures to render us opaque to the state (e.g. encryption, darknets, etc.) for protection against attempts to suppress such local economic self-organization against the interests of corporate actors. To do this requires overcoming six hundred years or so of almost inbred habits of thought, by which the state is the all-seeing guardian of society protecting us from the possibility that someone, somewhere might do something wrong if “the authorities” don’t prevent it. We need to replace it with a habit of thinking in terms of ourselves creating mechanisms to prevent each other from selling defective merchandise, protecting ourselves from fraud, etc. In other words, we need to lose the centuries-long habit of thinking of “society” as a hub-and-spoke mechanism and viewing the world from the perspective of the hub, and instead think of it as a horizontal network in which we visualize things from the perspective of individual nodes. We need to lose the habit of thought by which transparency from above ever even became perceived as an issue in the first place. This will require, more specifically, overcoming the hostility of conventional liberals who are in the habit of reacting viscerally and negatively, and on principle, to anything not being done by “qualified professionals” or “the proper authorities.” Arguably conventional liberals, with their thought system originating as it did as the ideology of the managers and engineers who ran the corporations, government agencies, and other giant organizations of the late 19th and early 20th century, have played the same role for the corporate-state nexus that the politiques did for the absolute states of the early modern period. This is reflected in a common thread running through writers like Andrew Keene, Joran Lanier, and Chris Hedges, through the occasional offering by Thomas Frank at The Baffler, and through documentary producers like Michael Moore. They share a nostalgia for the “consensus capitalism” of the early postwar period, in which the gatekeepers of the Big Three controlled what we were allowed to see and it was just fine for GM to own the whole damned economy—just so long as everyone had a lifetime employment guarantee and a UAW contract. Paul Fussell, in Bad, ridicules the whole Do-it-Yourself ethos as an endless Sahara of the Squalid, with blue collar shmoes busily uglifying their homes by taking upon themselves projects that should be left to—all together now—the Properly Qualified Professionals. Keith Olbermann routinely mocks exhortations to charity and self-help, reaching for shitkicking imagery of the nineteenth century barnraiser for want of any other comparision to sufficiently get across just how backward and ridiculous that kind of thing really is. Helping your neighbor out directly, or participating in a local self-organized friendly society or mutual, is all right in its own way, if nothing else is available. But it carries the inescapable taint, not only of the quaint, but of the provincial and picayune—very much like the perception of homemade bread and home-grown veggies promoted in corporate advertising in the early twentieth century, come to think of it. People who help each other out, or organize voluntarily to pool risks and costs, are to be praised—grudgingly and with a hint of condescension—for doing the best they can in an era of relentlessly downscaled social services. But that people are forced to resort to such expedients, rather than meeting all their social safety net needs through one-stop shopping at the Ministry of Central Services office in a giant monumental building with a statue of winged victory in the lobby, a la Brazil, is a damning indictment of any civilized society. The progressive society is a society of comfortable and well-fed citizens, competently managed by properly credentialed authorities, happily milling about like ants in the shadows of miles-high buildings that look like they were designed by Albert Speer. And that kind of H.G. Wells utopia simply has no room for the barn-raiser or the sick benefit society. Aesthetic sensibilities aside, such critics are no doubt motivated to some extent by genuine concern that networked reputational and certifying mechanisms just won’t take up the slack left by the disappearance of the regulatory state. Things like Consumer Reports, Angie’s List and the Better Business Bureau are all well and good, for educated people like themselves who have the sense and know-how to check around. But Joe Sixpack, God love him, will surely go out and buy magic beans from the first disreputable salesman he encounters—and then likely put them right up his nose. But seriously, practical questions concerning the feasibility of such a shift from state certification to networked reputational certification systems are entirely legitimate. Reputational systems really are underused, and most people really do take undue caution in the marketplace on the assumption that the regulatory state guarantees some minimum acceptable level of quality. And as Michel Bauwens pointed out by email, the sudden implosion of the state and its certification mechanisms results in disaster unless there’s something in place to fill the vacuum. The corporation and the central state have so crowded out social mechanisms, and so atrophied civil society, that there’s good reason to worry about how people will take up the slack as the old corporate-state system fades away. But I think this seems like more of a danger when we take a static view of society. It also helps to keep in mind that the collapse of the state-corporate system will probably not be sudden or catastrophic, but rather a generation-long process. Given chronic underemployment and the imperative of networking in the social economy to prevent homelessness and starvation, the pressures to develop such networked mechanisms will be steady and consistent over time. At the same time, network technologies are making such organization more user-friendly with each passing year. I think people will be capable of changing their habits quite rapidly in the face of necessity. Because people are not presently in the habit of automatically consulting such reputational networks to check up on people they’re considering doing business with, and are in the habit of unconsciously assuming the government will protect them, conventional liberals assume that people will not shift from one to the other in the face of changing incentives, and scoff at the idea of a society that relies primarily on networked rating systems. But in a society where people are aware that most licensing and safety/quality codes are no longer enforceable, and “caveat emptor” is no longer just a cliche, it would be remarkable if things like Angie’s list, reputational certification by local guilds, customer word of mouth, etc., did not rapidly grow in importance for most people. They were, after all, at one time the main reputational mechanism that people did rely on before the rise of the absolute state, and as ingrained a part of ordinary economic behavior as reliance on the regulatory state is today. In a society with rapid shortening of supply and industrial chains, of community reindustrialization through microfactories, of local production of ever larger shares of food and clothing, it would be remarkable if “friend of a friend” reputational systems didn’t regulate people’s choice of business ties. Fifteen years ago, when even the most basic survey of a research topic began with an obligatory painful crawl through the card catalog, Reader’s Guide and Social Sciences Index—and when the average person’s investigations were limited to the contents of his $1000 set of Britannica pending a visit to the liberary—who could have foreseen how quickly Google and SSRN searches would become second nature? Categories: News
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