commons

The cultural significance of Free Software

Finding new books is always exiting and I am looking forward to reading Two Bits: The cultural significance of Free Software by Christopher M. Kelty

Free Software is a set of practices devoted to the collaborative creation of software source code that is made openly and freely available through an unconventional use of copyright law. Kelty shows how these specific practices have reoriented the relations of power around the creation, dissemination, and authorization of all kinds of knowledge after the arrival of the Internet. Two Bits also makes an important contribution to discussions of public spheres and social imaginaries by demonstrating how Free Software is a “recursive public” public organized around the ability to build, modify, and maintain the very infrastructure that gives it life in the first place.

My only concern so far was that in the beginning of the book I found the sentence: This is a book about Free Software, also known as Open Source Software, and is meant for anyone who wants to understand the cultural significance of Free Software.

It is always disconcerting when people mix up free and open source software – to many the difference may not be important but when someone writes a book about the subject they should know that these are not synonymous terms. Despite this after browsing through the book – it looks very promising.

The book is available under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-sa) and can be downloaded from the book website.

Posted on by mklang

The importance of failure

Via Boing Boing I came across J.K. Rowling’s Commencement Address at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. Her address was entitled The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination (online with video here).

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

We focus much too often on success, believing that it will teach us something we study success. Unfortunately we are too quick to ignore failure, despite the fact that failure would probably teach us more. Even on a personal level failure teaches us more than success. We learn more from unpleasantness.

Photo: band – failure is not an option by Leo Reynolds (CC by-nc-sa)

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Creative Commons Norway

Norway has launched its Creative Commons (CC Norway) licenses – Congratulations Norway!

The CC Norway team is headed by Project Leads Gisle Hannemyr and Peter Lenda, who with Haakon Flage Bratsberg, Thomas Gramstad, Tore Hoel, and Vebjørn Søndersrød, coordinated the license porting process with Creative Commons International and conducted public discussion with local and international legal experts. Check out the press release (in English and Norwegian).

The launch of the licenses will be celebrated on Friday, June 6th – which happens to be Sweden’s national day!

Posted on by mklang

The fashion commons

Intellectual property and fashion – now there is a minefield. To those who are fashion oriented the look and feel of favorite labels goes beyond the property debate and enters into the realm of defining personality. People who wear Nike are…, Paul Smith is…, Billabong shorts are…

You get the idea. Never really thought too much about the connection between Creative Commons and fashion copyright but I read on the CC blog that the Berlin-based fashion label Pamoyo have decided to release the designs for their clothes under a CC BY-NC-SA license, allowing people to recreate Pamoyo’s styles at home as long as they don’t sell their creations. Similarly, someone can build upon one of Pamoyo’s existing designs – if they release the new design publicly they must do so under the same license, continuing the process of reuse and creativity.

What is the correct attribution on a swimsuit?

Posted on by mklang

I am spreading

So I was looking at Slideshare which is basically a site where lots of people upload and download powerpoints. Besides avoiding other work the reason for me being there was to see whether this would be a good tool to use. Or maybe it’s enough already with the whole 2.0 thingy.

Anyway while looking at all the slick (some are very slick) presentations I saw something I recognized. The first slide in a presentation on How to Describe and Improve your Business Model (not my area at all!!) was one of my photo’s from my Flickr account.

The ppt maker (Alex Osterwalder) has even followed the CC instructions when he used my original image of a silver spire in Dublin (original photo here) and attributed me in the notes section of the slide. Very nicely done. I was surprised to run across myself like that, after the initial surprise I must say I really like it. Wow, Creative Commons works 🙂

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Ingelfinger rule

The policy of considering a manuscript for publication only if its substance has not been submitted or reported elsewhere. This policy was promulgated in 1969 by Franz J. Ingelfinger, then the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. The aim of the Ingelfinger rule was to protect the Journal from publishing material that had already been published and thus had lost its originality.

I knew about the practice but not that it had a name. You learn something new every day – even on Fridays…

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Photo Absolutely Nothing is Allowed Here by Vicki & Chuck Rogers (CC by-nc-sa)

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Now, Can You Picture Me?

About time too! Fredrik Jonasson, a Swedsh artist form Jönköping, has released his new album Now, Can You Picture Me? You can download the album from (download it here) under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-sa).

Fredrik has been making music in different constellations all his life. The past 4 years he has been focusing on Phace O.S. a, as Fredrik himself puts it, “band of different and strong personalities”. But now, he figured, it was time to put 100% of him into a project and the result of it is his new album. It is his first solo album, but over 5000 downloads in just over a week say it will probably not be his last.

About the style of his music the artist says: “My only concern is to find my personal expression and I don’t care that much for fitting into a given genre. If I have to describe it, then I’d say it’s some kind of electronica with strong melodies. At least I’d like to think that.” And in the true spirit of Free Culture Fredrik says: “After all, isn’t that what it’s all about? To write great songs, regardless of which clothes you present them in?”

This is not the first Swedish musician to release under creative commons but it is a bit strange that Sweden has not produced many more than we have…

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Why Nietzsche bores me…

Finally I found the reason. Here is a quote from Nietzsche’s sister:

The days of his youth — of his carefree, merry gamboling — were over. Hereafter he was all solemnity and all seriousness. ‘From these early experiences,’ says his sister, ‘there remained with him a life-long aversion to smoking, beer-drinking and the whole biergemütlichkeit …’ He maintained that people who drank beer and smoked pipes were absolutely incapable of understanding him. Such people, he thought lacked the delicacy and clearness of perception necessary to grasp profound and subtle propositions. (via Noniclolasos)

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The Quite Pint by Monster (CC  ATT-NC-SA)

Given the choice between being bored by Nietzsche or a beer I choose a beer anytime.

Posted on by mklang