Congratulations Chris. I look forward to reading the book, especially what you have to say about India. I know you spent a lot of time in India a few years ago.
Regards, Venky www.osindia.blogspot.com On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 12:54 PM, Udhay Shankar N <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So, Chris Kelty's book is finally out. I received my autographed dead-trees > version today. Since it's CC-licensed, all of you can read and comment on it > at the URL below. Several of us are featured in it. > > Congrats, Chris, and one hopes we can watch the process of creating the > next book from a similar vantage? ;-) > > Udhay > > http://twobits.net/2008/06/06/its-a-book-two-bits/ > > #[1]Two Bits RSS Feed > > [2]twobits menu > > [3]from Savage Minds... > > So I have an announcement: I have written, and published, [4]A Book. I > know that Savage Minds readers harbor the suspicion that we are all just > doing this gig until someone pulls the curtain back and we have to dust off > our barista aprons and work for a living, but I am actually in this for the > long haul... The book is called [5]Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of > Free Software, and it is produced by the punkrockingest press ever, [6]Duke > University Press. It is now available for purchase, for download and for > derivation and remixing. > > I am extremely happy to finally be able to announce its arrival. I'm also > happy to announce that it is part of a series edited by Michael M.J. Fischer > and Joe Dumit called "Experimental Futures" of which Jeff Juris' excellent > book [7]Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization is > also a part. And as well to thank [8]HASTAC for helping out in its > publication and in marketing it as well. > > Two Bits has taken a long time, and it's a better book for that. In some > ways, it is untimely: the moment of Free Software is over- both the media > and many of the scholars who focused so much attention on it starting in > about 2000 seem to have moved on to some other next big thing. This is a > shame, but predictable given the drive for novelty and for being first in > academia. But I think (and I will throw modesty to the wind here) that > anthropology has a tack on such things that is slower, more coherent, and > more concerned with a certain precision in charting historical changes. I > like to think that the book isn't only about free software, but an > anthropology of knowledge circulation more generally, and I hope that it > interests even those who are too cool for old school. > > Obviously I hope that others think the same thing, and I expect people to > read it in light of the current peak of interest in web 2.0, social > networking and [9]internet celebrities, or whatever, which might be usefully > re-thought through the lens of Free Software. And maybe it might just > convince a few people, scholars especially, that the moment of Free Software > is definitely not over, and that there is some really incredible scholarship > out there by people like Gabriella Coleman, Matt Ratto, Shay David, Casey > O'Donell, Jelena Karanovic, Anita Chan, Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter, Jenny > Cool, Allison Fish, David Hakken and Karl Hakken, Jeff Juris (my > labelmate!), Bernhard Krieger, Karim Lakhani, James Leach, Siobhan > O'Mahoney, Greg Vetter and [10]many others on these topics. Like the > scholarship emerging on gaming (with Rex representing), that on Free > Software constitutes a major locus of scholarly concern and questioning that > should be the basis for understanding much of the recent past and near > future. > > Having been through the process of publishing a book, like [11]oneman, I > wish we could publish our books faster, and try to merge some of the timely > but ill-considered insight of the blog-form with the deliberate and > peer-reviewed caution of the book-form... but I'm nonetheless a committed > modernist in that I think the book-form has a quality that no other form of > communication has, and it has taken centuries for that quality to develop. > Nonetheless, nothing lasts forever, and since this is a book about software, > there are a few special things that I want readers to know about this book: > > * the book is licensed under a [12]Creative Commons (by-nc-sa) license, and > is therefore freely available for circulation and modulation. Duke > generously permitted me to do this both because I (and the audiences of the > book) expect it, and also because I think it is a good experiment (I'd have > preferred to drop the non-commercial restriction, but it's obviously > understandable why Duke might want it). I'm convinced, the way [13]Cory > Doctorow is, that we can sell books and give them away. And though it is > impossible to know how many copies the book might have sold without this > decision, I'm convinced it will sell as many and more (and for those > wondering, the reasonable expectations in our little corner of the world are > more on the order of one or two thousand, not tens or hundreds of thousands > in Doctorow's case). For me, as a teacher and a scholar, openly licensing > the book is primarily a way of getting it in front of people the way it used > to get in front of you in a bookstore. If you are serious about the book, > you'll probably buy it, but if you aren't you might a) read a bit anyways, > and b) not be angry that you bought it and don't like it. In either case: > bottoms up to Duke University Press for taking the risk. > > * The book is online in pdf form, but I also created a site using the > [14]Institute for The Future of The Book's "[15]comment press" template for > Word Press. I think the IFB is the bionic bees knees, and I'm keen to see > people use this version as a place to discuss the book, both as individual > readers, and for classes (btw, Jonathan Zittrain's [16]book is also in IFB > format, and they would make great reading together... hint hint to those > organizing reading circles). I like to think that this is a first step > towards producing living books, books that modify and modulate, books that > respond and transform, but without sacrificing the kinds of permanence and > scholarly apparatus that we value. Thanks in no small part to some work by > people at Achorn International (Joel Ibarra) and IFB, the online version is > correlated with the print version by page number, and includes all the notes > and references as well. Adding and updating links is also something that > this renders possible. > > * The book is beautiful. Duke (and in particular Cherie Westmoreland) did a > fantastic job. The font is an open source font (Charis SIL), the cover is > combination of a painting from the Boston Public Library by the 19th century > symbolist painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes depicting the telegraph (and > called colloquially "Good News, Bad News") and a Hollerith punch card. And > here's a reason to choose a short title: the spine has the title written > perpendicular to, not parallel with the length of the book. Minor, I know, > but how cool is that? > > * Last but not least, I've been thinking about the meaning of "re-mixing" a > scholarly work. Various works on the Internet and free software have > experimented with this... Lessig's [17]Code V2, Benkler's [18]Wealth of > Nations as well as others, scholarly and not. However, I'm not so sure it's > clear what remixing means in scholarly terms. I'd love it if people want to > translate parts of it, or transform it for other media (anyone interested in > doing a version for the Wii contact me immediately), but those are > explorations of the form, and not the content of the book... so what would > remixing scholarly work really mean? One thing I hope it means, in the > social and human sciences especially, is that we contribute to a shared > collection of conceptual tools that are refined by confrontation with > empirical reality. Two Bits contains a couple such concepts (recursive > publics, usable pasts) as well as contributing more generally to research on > the public sphere, on the meaning of making things and making things public, > as well as a substantive field of work focusing on software, networks, > geeks, hackers, entrepreneurs, intellectual property and so forth. So one > key aspect of the future of this book is a project I'm calling > "[19]Modulations" for short, which is an attempt to think about not just > these concepts and problems in particular, but the modes and manners in > which we interact as scholars around the development, refinement and > co-ownership of such concepts. I don't really know what this means yet, but > I'm looking for anyone with ideas. > > References > > 1. http://twobits.net/feed/ > 2. http://twobits.net/2008/06/06/its-a-book-two-bits/#menumap > 3. http://savageminds.org/2008/06/06/its-a-book-two-bits/ > 4. http://twobits.net/ > 5. http://twobits.net/ > 6. http://dukeupress.edu/ > 7. http://www.dukeupress.edu/books.php3?isbn=978-0-8223-4269-4 > 8. http://www.hastac.org/ > 9. http://roflcon.org/ > 10. http://freesoftware.mit.edu/ > 11. > http://savageminds.org/2007/12/06/the-road-to-published-the-making-of-an-edited-volume-part-i/ > 12. http://creativecommons.org/ > 13. > http://www.forbes.com/home/technology/2006/11/30/cory-doctorow-copyright-tech-media_cz_cd_books06_1201doctorow.html > 14. http://www.futureofthebook.org/ > 15. http://www.futureofthebook.org/commentpress/ > 16. http://yupnet.org/zittrain/ > 17. http://codev2.cc/ > 18. http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php/Main_Page > 19. http://twobits.net/modulate > > -- > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) > >
