Tom Chance wrote:
Ahoy,
I mentioned this already, but now it's published... my article criticising
iCommons with some (in my opinion *very* moderate) suggestions for reform:
http://software.newsforge.com/software/06/07/03/1510252.shtml
There are two things I'm afraid of here. The first is that there is resounding
silence, which lets the board simply ignore the issue. The more discussion we
can kick up, especially any that is visible to the board and the wider CC/FC
community, the better.
The second is that everybody so strongly disagrees with me that iCommons
remains as it is ;-) But from conversations with lots of people I really
don't think that's likely. I just hope everyone will raise their voice and
help force the issue...
Well done for writing this article which makes a lot of good points. I
also found it useful for making it clearer what iCommons is now about as
this is something of which I wasn't really aware.
In my understanding (which may be faulty) iCommons originally was what
now seems to be called International Commons -- i.e. it dealt with
transposing the CC licenses to other jursidictions (this still seems to
be at least one meaning, see e.g.
http://creativecommons.org/worldwide/overview). This was a fairly
low-profile role that primarily involved establishing and overseeing
local *license* projects such as CC-UK.
Then when Paula LeDieu took over as Director, iCommons became more
active in engaging with 'Free Culture' issues. iCommons was still
entirely 'in-house' and seemed focused on building contacts in different
jurisdictions and linking people together but doing little on its own
account (CC/iCommons did not see its role as getting directly involved
in 'Free Culture' activities but rather to focus on the production of
licenses).
However, now, iCommons seems intending to become a global umbrella
organization of sorts. This is born out by the summary from the new
iCommons site which I have just looked at (launched in March this year
it seems to judge from the blog):
"About iCommons: Incubated by Creative Commons, iCommons is an
organisation with a broad vision to develop a united global commons
front by collaborating with open content, access to knowledge, open
access publishing and free culture communities around the world."
<http://icommons.org/about/>
As you point out this change raises several thorny issues. If iCommons
were simply a part of CC (or a sister organization) then it would not be
an issue if they were to adopt statements about open access, the
broadcast treaty, DRM or a host of other matters as iCommons would be
speaking for itself as an organization. However if iCommons is claiming
to represent a wider community then the basis for that claim and the
governance structures that underpin it become crucial_[1].
It would be great to have iCommons more involved in the Free Culture
community and events like the iSummit are really valuable in allowing
different groups to meet up. However, as you emphasize, for iCommons'
participation to be successful its role has to be clarified
(umbrella/coordinator/autonomous NGO ....) along with the associated
governance issues.
Regards,
Rufus
[1] Reading back over the declarations that David sent to the list in
this new light I am now confused and troubled. For example:
"Lessig: iCommons is not a policy-making body, but many think that
issues get reflected upon by iCommoners. There are 3 declarations
provided to you. Let’s open a conversation. We can appoint someone to
head a wiki committee to hammer out final versions so that everyone can
express support or not. One is a directive to the iCommons board to
take action and we’d like a sense of your feeling about."
What's exactly is happening here? The line between attendees at the
iCommons summit, the iCommons organization (part of CC) and the general
community seems to be blurred. On whose behalf are such declarations issued?
Originally my reading of this had been that iCommons (in its traditional
sense as a part/sister of CC) was making this declaration on its own
behalf and was consulting the wider community. Since such a decision
would only come from iCommons (i.e. its board) IMO it did not matter
that the voting rule was fairly imprecise (especially since I agreed
with all the declarations!). However if the idea is that attendees are
delegates of sorts ('iCommoners') then the declaration will be taken as
supported by all groups of which those delegates are part (including
FC-UK) which is a very different matter.
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