? Why are more and more artists turning to open source strategies?
The phrase "Open Source" is a deliberately meaningless term. Time and again I
see artists decide that Open Source is 1337 cool and they want to apply Open
Source principles to their work. They then spend ages trying to work out what
Open Source principles are.
The lucky ones get fed up at this point. The unlucky ones discover Eric
Raymond
and decide that Open Source is a more efficient means of production. Which is
an empty and exploitative "set of principles" on which to base art, unless
you're going to ironise it. They then spend some more time trying to
understand
how they can apply this to their work. The lucky ones decide that they cannot,
and get on with their art while volunteering for community projects where they
can help out. The unlucky ones try to keep their authorial oversight while
getting some of that Open Source secret sauce, and end up as robber barons
creating toy "Open" projects that read much better in conference notes than
they look to the free labour that doesn't get to share in the value.
If more and more artists could turn to Free Software strategies, that is to a
language of rights and freedoms rather than to the fetishisation of downstream
economic effects of those rights and freedoms, we might get somewhere.
- Rob.
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