[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
The phrase "Open Source" is a deliberately meaningless term.
Only when it's used by artists/curators to describe the process of
creating art?
Whenever it is used. It was created specifically as a replacement for
the phrase "Free Software" to avoid mentioning "Freedom".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#History
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.
Can you give any examples of these artists?
Politeness prevents me. :-)
I can't see how it can take a long time to work out. Open source (as you
no doubt know) basically means the source of the work is open to anybody
to make use of without the threat of court action provided claims of
authorship are not abused.
The canonical definition for Open Source is the OSI definition, which is
a file-the-serial-numbers-off copy of the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
The DFSG is a superset of the FSF's Free Software Definition.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
It has been modified to presuppose the BSD licence (the favoured license
of market libertarians) rather than the GNU GPL (the favoured license of
the market). It contains either redundancies or contradictions depending
on how you read it.
http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
(Just don't go making automatic
drawings/writings open source otherwise you've open sourced your
unconscious).
I like this. :-)
The lucky ones get fed up at this point. The unlucky ones discover Eric
Raymond
I've heard he's the butt of many jokes in some circles.
He's kind of a secret handshake. ;-)
http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond
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.
How does this compare with, for instance, the DIWO project? Although DIWO
was not specifically Open Source, it was collaborative which is a
atleast half of what Open Source is about.
Collaboration is encouraged and protected by protecting the right to use
software, which is the ethical core of Free Software. It is a downstream
effect of rights. Without the right to use the products of collaboration
equally, collaboration can quickly become exploitation. Lawrence
Lessig's recent lectures appear to forget this, mystifying the origins
of collaboration in (eg) Wikipedia and trying to induce it economically
rather than protect it ethically.
Collaboration is not in itself a primary goal or an interesting feature
of Free Software. But it is very interesting culturally. In both cases
the term "Open Source" doesn't explain why or help to guide us.
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.
Perhaps you could say more specifically about which sorts of artwork
you're thinking about.
Again manners preclude. I've seen some "Open Source" sculptures and
paintings. The licencing tends to be terrible.
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.
But it's also the institutions promoting it. Free Software strategies
are of little use to the capitalists, they'd rather hide that aspect
and that funny looking Richard Stallman.
Free Software is very useful to capitalists. Apple wouldn't have an
operating system without it, and IBM and Sun wouldn't have strategies
for opposing Microsoft. Copyleft makes this a benefit to pluralistic
society, ensuring that all users are able to use the software that this
creates in order to pursue their own ends (this can be mapped to culture
easily). BSD-style licenses just make it free labour for corporates.
The name "Open Source" was designed to hide Stallman.
- Rob.
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