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MJ Ray wrote:
> Gavin Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> MJ Ray wrote: [...]
>>> As I understand it, iCommons has anti-commercialism
>>> written into its foundations (thereby closing it off from artists who
>>> need to make money from their free culture creations), uses hum-votes
>>> to makes decisions and doesn't record its meetings.
>> Anti-commercialism couldn't be further from the truth; their 2006 summit
>> was sponsored by Microsoft. They didn't have as-offensive sponsors this
>> year, but commercialism is definitely welcomed.
>
> Let me explain this a bit more fully: last time I checked iCommons
> Ltd, it was only to promote *non-commercial* sharing of creative
> works. Of course, limiting free culture sharing to non-commercial
> activity is attractive to Microsoft - for example, it would mean that
> free-software developers cannot sell their work!
>
> Essentially, non-commercial sharing limits production of free software
> and free culture to those who do other things to earn income -
> employed by Microsoft, for example. It is commercial in one way, in
> that it's very attractive to people who have large amounts of money,
> so they'll give some to iCommons, but it's ultimately anti-commercial
> for free culture and detrimental to society.
Plenty of the topics at the recent iSummit were about making money with
free content. Open Business was a prominent presenter in both 2006 and
2007, IIRC. I think this concern may be misplaced.
[...]
> Have the iCommons foundation documents changed to remove the
> non-commercial requirement and benefit society instead of legacy
> publishers?
Sorry, I am not familiar with this topic.
>> Also, what overhead are we trying to avoid duplicating? [...]
>
> Presumably Students For Free Culture will be doing mundane things like
> filing official returns, keeping accounts, paying corporation taxes or
> maintaining a tax-exempt status, and stuff like that. Those are
> overheads which it's good to avoid duplicating IMO.
You're right that presumably, in the future, we will be. In general,
it's better to avoid duplicating such overhead. But I think the benefit
outweighs the cost here. In addition, it may be possible at times to
share those overheads in ways that are non-rivalrous with other
resources (for instance, to act as a fiscal agent for other charitable
efforts).
Of course, there is already a lot of this duplication: CC is an
independent organization, as is iCommons, EFF, Public Knowledge, FSF --
the list goes on. Each of those organizations has decided it's worth the
overhead to be independent, with their own mission, on their own terms.
Lack of independence (i.e. sharing overhead) can carry its own overhead,
as well. One organization I know of is functionally separate from, but
legally part of, its parent organization. It borrows its corporate and
tax-exempt status, and shares overhead in this way. But as cost, the
executive director is dragged every year to meetings of the parent
organization (from which, as I say, it is operationally independent), on
top of its own steering committee.
There is a trade-off, and we should recognize there are costs and
benefits for either option. Our choice isn't without its costs, but I
think they're worth it.
>> I think we have the domain freeculture.net, which has previously been
>> offered for someone who wants to put it to a non-student use.
>
> If so, could we start an open social network (vCard, FOAF, and so on)
> on that domain?
That sounds like a very worthwhile use for it (among others, perhaps).
Tim Cowlishaw wrote:
> [...] A pluralist free culture movement is far more
> likely to gain momentum than one with a very narrow remit or very
> specific values.
This organization is not, and never was, the free culture movement. We
are a part of it; it is bigger than us. None of us wish the limit the
movement to students. We want a home for students qua students within
the movement.
There can be value in specificity ("narrowness"). To give one example:
Where I went to school, students were significantly more likely to go to
an event on campus than off. Only registered student groups can make
free use of campus locations, and registered student groups can only
have students as members. (Non-students can attend events, but cannot
become formal members.) So to most effectively outreach to students,
from a simply logistical perspective, it is most effective to be a
student organization. This is entirely aside from the identity and
branding of the organization, which may serve to more effectively
recruit students by being oriented specifically to students.
Again, there is a tradeoff, with costs and benefits both ways. For our
purposes, and recognizing our strengths and history, I think we made the
better choice.
Finally, as a general point, this list has always been reserved for the
use of the community (rather than the organization per se), and this has
not changed. I know of no intention to do so. So anyone should feel
welcome to continue using it.
- --
Gavin Baker
Students for Free Culture
http://freeculture.org/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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