Blob
>the personal blog of david n wallace
[aka Dave the Lifekludger]

My friend Biff from Naked Yak wrote something ages ago I’ve wanted to reiterate here as it’s very important:

Naked Yak 27/01/08 8:04 AM NakedBiff

Nurturing

The more we share the more we know each other, the more we have in common. In this sense, how we use the technology that is available to us is key – we should use it to share. And we are!

From Boston Now:
“People may make fun of blog or Twitter posts about what someone had for breakfast or how they like a certain video game, but it is all part of how humans build a cooperating society that works. It can’t be rushed, and it can be nurtured, even with simple text messages.”

In the long run, sharing technologies may just help bring about World Peace, by making us more aware of each other.

Not us and them, but we. (kudos to Father Bob)

Dave

Today I got in my delicious “for” bookmarks a link with a note that a site has appeared called Photodropper (purposely not linked to here) had appeared on the scene and is pushing a WordPress plugin that aside from a few changed variable names appears is the exact code ripped off from a plugin called Flickr Manager which my colleague and programmer at the place I work wrote and released back in November 2007.

The Flickr Manager was released prior under a GNU General Public License. The Photodropper plugi has been released as Copyrighted. Even to my basic level of understandig this appears to contravene the GPL.

Wikipedia states:

“The GPL is the most popular and well-known example of the type of strong copyleft license that requires derived works to be available under the same copyleft. Under this philosophy, the GPL is said to grant the recipients of a computer program the rights of the free software definition and uses copyleft to ensure the freedoms are preserved, even when the work is changed or added to.” (emphasis mine)

But as wrong as that might seem, this get’s me angry for reasons that transcend pure legality. Let me try to elaborate why.

My colleague Trent is a talented programmer, he’s also a fast learner and a mate. When I hired him last year to work for the place I work and be a part of the small IT team he was just finishing Uni. He’s now starting his Honours. He hadn’t heard of WordPress much less participated in any wide open source endeavors or dipped his foot into the Web 2.0, read/write online world. His first task was when we had to rework a project that had been put together hurriedly prior to his starting that documents the History of Disability in SA. I had conceived and built that site using as many Web 2.0 and collaborative techniques I had absorbed in the prior year and the time and our budget could afford and done so with the emerging nature of online interaction in mind. I rapidly threw everything I had learnt about the emerging Web 2.0 technologies and the culture of cooperation, sharing, collaboration and openness I’d been immersed in. And Trent picked it up quick, very quick, soaking it in like a sponge then mixing in his own thoughts and ideas. Right there he embraced the re-mix culture of ideas.

In no time we quickly were exploring all kinds of ideas and rapidly developing tools and techniques focused around building a kick-ass back-end infrastructure on WordPress that we could implement for our redevelopment of the History project and ensuring the things we built were suited to our longer term vision of redeveloping the centre’s information systems framework, which we had decided was, and is, to be based on wpmu.

One of the key tools Trent made was a plugin for WordPress that could better handle the images we used on the History project site. You see, the project uses images on Flickr that we put there. It was planned that way – use tools already existing that do the job we need and build a site using data that is actually distributed. So we used Flickr as the centre’s and projects photo manager. To better allow staff to easily control the integration between the images and the other associated text (stored locally) Trent developed what became Flickr Manager plugin for WordPress.

Encouraged by me he released it into the WordPress community under a GPL license. And started a blog. Our desire to be part of the culture that we exist in – the Web 2.0 space online – and to support the WordPress community was blossoming. The Flickr Manager plugin, released onto the WordPress Extend plugin site got fast take up and rapidly Trent developed more features and made heaps of bug fixes. A lot of time went into getting it just right, aided by a lot of messages from users of the plugin and helping them when they had problems with it. The community was working. It turns oput that his Flickr Manager was the first WordPress plugin to actually allow uploading to Flickr from the WordPress dashboard, not just retrieval of images from Flickr..

I managed to convince the Director that getting Trent and myself to WordCamp in Melbourne was a good investment in the future – no mean feat in the climate of funding cutbacks and total upheaval we were in, are still in, trying to regroup the way we operate and fight for survival.

All this effort and passion that goes on behind what the end user, the world sees, is where the real heart of Web 2.0 anmd the collaborative, participative, sharing and caring nature of open source culture exists. It’s openness of people at their most human, fundamental level. People connecting with other people.

So to have some un-appreciative, un-creative leach come and claim something they ‘badge engineered’ as theirs is like introducing a vacuum back into culture. And it makes me sick. And if you love anything thats good about humans, culture and this online place we share – it should make you sick too.

It’s anathema to everything we are trying to achieve as a connected people.

Dave

In light of the article in Wired and its’ call to action for a “Open Social Net” and the long discussion on this topic that Laurel, Mike and I had on our latest podcast, this quote by Doc Searls over on the Project VRM blog is very timely.

Earth to walled-garden builders: You can’t own customers for the same reason you can’t own slaves: they’re human beings, and they want to be free.

Prediction: in Web 3.0, the best wall-less gardens will win.

Dave

Image from Flickr by tarotastic

[tags]doc searls, mike seyfang, laurel papworth, web 3.0, walled gardens, social net, vrm, wired, openness[/tags]

JP picks up on my “Walled Hearts” post and points to the Generation factor. He writes :

The median age for Too Open is probably Generation X. The median age for Too Closed is probably Generation Y.

Ay, there’s the rub.

It occurred to me that from the Enterprise standpoint Facebook looks very open yet really there’s a further level than that, one which predominately the Gen Y’ers live in and are after. That must scare the pants off them Enterprises if they were to see that level without having a sense of vision for the future.

Certainly, in these rapidly changing times many long held positions are challenged and it can be like peering into a long, dark tunnel. Just yesterday at work, where we are going through massive change anyway – not specifically due to changes in the Webspace – I was challenged inwardly over decisions about service provision and business models. And we are talking tiny scale. Still, my mind went straight to the tension of closed v open and sustainable business development.

JP has had a lot of talk in comments about the generation thing being a furphy. However what I think JP is hinting at, regardless of the labels you put on it, is attitude. As Mike hits on – the stance has been a CLOSED default, the switch is being flipped to OPEN default and Gen Y, M onwards are flipping it. What are you as a participator in technology (and in Enterprise) going to do about it?

Just like the 60′s again…the individual is the new centre of gravity. Linda Stone‘s spot on. So was Bob Dylan.

Read this as a cry to people and Enterprise (of all size) today :

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Might be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

Dave

[tags]jp rangiswami, linda stone, bob dylan, gen y, closedvopen, mike seyfang[/tags]

*Dylan Lyrics, “The Times They Are A-Changin” : Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

I’ve never read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Tipping Point” but something inside me feels on the edge. Some kind of epidemic at that intersection of technology advance and human desire seems to be going down.

Facebook is all at once touted as saviour and villan. Dave Slusher points out what others are thinking. Cam’s talking about Telstra and being pinged by Techcrunch.

Mike’s trying (very well) to explain what it is we’re feeling as Stephen Downes echos similar sentiments and Laurel explains definitions and points us to where in Facebook the RSS is hidden.

It appears everywhere there’s a (natural) tendency to want to put things in neat boxes and try and grab some stability (sit down in the boat folks!)

JP is writing the Facebook Enterprise Epistles in parts 1, 2 and 3, with 4 soon to come (which will be my favourite as he is going to tie it into Four Pillars). Doc’s staying away (wise man is Doc, well, busy man too). There’s two very interesting juxtapositions right there from two people I admire immensely.

Certainly, to the Enterprises which see Facebook as a villan, it’s a villan that represents OPEN – even though to the people in the masses formerly know as the audience, Facebook and Web 2.0 still doesn’t seem to be as open as it ought. Showing open means different things to different folk in different spheres.

Of course, I think it’s all very interesting, even if I do feel a bit twitchy. The one thing it is, no matter where you sit or view it from, is OPEN. The discussions need to be had and aired. And we need to be patient and listen and not shoot ourselves in the foot, or anyone else in the midst of it.

Facebook or no Facebook, my friend Roy still seems to me one of the most open people I know.

Change is all around. Even this morning in Second Life, my favourite Elf had turned into a Nun. Seemed stangely odd hugging a Nun with the name Silkcharm.

However in the midst of it all, I’ve had one main thought for the last few days – Where’s my friend Kent?

I guess that thought echoes on what community really means.

Don’t worry about the technology people – the walls on that will come down with the walls around our hearts.

Peace.

Dave

Image ArtistsHeartMechanicsBrain by dkart.

Technorati Tags: doc searls, malcolm gladwell, tipping point, mike seyfang, laurel papworth, dave slusher, roy blumenthal, facebook, open, openness, closedvopen, stephen downes, jp rangaswami, kent newsome

Openness is one of my pet things that’s been on my heart heavy for a few years and I’ve written about before. I read two things this week that conspired me to write some more.

One was JP talking about his ‘self-editing’ actions when posting a list of songs he has been listening to and his feelings about revealing to us all he listens to Boney M!

On our “social media” culture and the implied transparency he writes:

When I scanned the list I was very tempted to take out the Boney M song, but I didn’t. It felt like cheating. It felt like the equivalent of quietly kicking your golf ball out of the rough when no one’s watching. You don’t do that. It felt all wrong even though nobody was watching. So anyway I didn’t do it. And it made me ponder about the cultural and social implications of the renaissance of transparency that we’re all experiencing.

(emphasis mine)

Beyond the traditional idea of transparency, as a means of holding some external entity like public officials accountable and fighting corruption, the way we are all becoming more interconnected in different ways means that we are being called upon as individuals to hold ourselves accountable.

The focus has been turned inwards. More inversion.

If you think about the concept of Doc Searl’s ‘giant zero‘, we’d be standing on the inside of it pointing inwards with no wall between us. Or at least that’s where we seem to need to be.

Transparency assumes something in the way, a wall, a fence that, if not completely blocking the view, is somehow nonetheless a barrier. Openness means the way is clear – not just ‘see through’, but ‘go through’.

But while we might be experiencing something of a renaissance that starts with transparency, and I suggest is moving beyond it, social change never comes easy and we will need to find ways to adapt. This thought was bought home to me by something on the Naked yak blog.

Social Networks In The Limelight
Wherever there is change there is conflict. Maybe we are seeing the consequences of becoming more open.

Openness has consequences…and conflict, even if it’s within ourselves where we experience it. Certainly there’s signs on the interweb of this wrestling in regards to privacy, business ideas and personal experiences.

But opportunity is also a consequence of openness – a because effect. Opportunity for all kinds of things – connection, business, trust, markets, meaning…life.

I think it’s worth the risk.

Dave

[tags]openness, transparency, doc searls, giantzero, jprangaswami, change, shift, inversion[/tags]

Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

Couldn’t sleep last night and so read this essay by Danah Boyd

This sentence stood out to me:

“The division around MySpace and Facebook is just another way in which technology is mirroring societal values.” – Danah Boyd

There exists in society too much division already – based on things like age, gender, ability, income, race, looks.

We don’t need to be building things technologically that serve as platforms to strengthen divisions – or create new ones.

I’ve said it before – openness is more than an API.

Dave

{Photo from Flickr by mondoagogo}

Technorati Tags: signal, danah boyd, openness, Generous+Web, class

Over on her blog, Laurel does as brilliant job of expanding on a very important penny that was dropped and jelled at the Connecting Up Conference earlier in the week.

It’s reflected in the comment I jotted down here while liveblogging. During his keynote, Daniel Ben-Horin from Compumentor made reference to the emergence of a fourth platform. Mike Twittered it at the time as this : “May 14, 2007 Mike Seyfang: Now it gets interesting – Daniel Ben-Horin: the fourth platform (the terrain has shifted)”

This whole “Social Sector”, as Laurel terms it, encompasses all the elements of ‘Free as in Freedom’ and is an economy of sharing that builds with relationship and thrives on openness and connection. All the things that amplify an individual’s life ‘signal’.

Here’s a snippet from Laurel’s post “dotSub and the fourth Social Sector”

Social Sector is destroying companies and doesn’t even notice. Government – watch out, Social Sector is only about activism, without even realising it.

Get over there and read it all. Go on…you know you want to.

Dave

(Photo by 4MAX, via flickr)

[tags]cu07, social sector, activism, fourth platform, openness, freedom, signal[/tags]

One days take-aways from one days reading and listening crammed inbetween one days travel and one days work.

Bruce Sterling @ IDEA 2006

* architectures of participation
* mass dis-intermediated production
* participative information architecture
* If you cut up the present, the future bleeds through. (William Burroughs)
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000698.php

Bruce Sterling @ SXSW 2007

socially motivated commons based peer production
* granular
* modular
* integratable

* self-selectable
* in/out mechanism – membrane of differentiation
* communication
* trust construction
http://audio.sxsw.com/podcast/interactive/panel/2007/SXSW.INT.20070313.BruceSterling.mp3

Right on!

Well it seems too much is happenning in my life at present. Which annoys me. It annoys me because I desire connection and in the world of connection sharing is key….another word I spin on that sharing meme is openness.

But it takes time to share. And right now I don’t have time to share. So I’m making time to share a little bit, show the overlap and the connections from that.

Mike, my mate, brother in munge and podcast co-host is in Sydney at the Unlimited Potential conference where Hugo is who is also a mate and was the first guest on said podcast. Hugo leant me a Tablet to review after hooking up with him on a podcast on TPN, a hookup which Mike is going to play the audio of upconf2007. I see Mike is thinking of a UMPC which reminds me. Hugo, isn’t it time a UMPC got a Lifekludger going-over? Meanwhile Beth Worrall, a friend of Mikes, appeared on her first podcast and gives the shoutout to Mike and I.

Remember…connections happen when stories overlap!
Stories need to be shared for the overlap to occur.
Share or die!

Dave