Wizards of OS 2
-- Open Cultures & Free Knowledge --
at the
House of World Cultures Berlin
October 11-13, 2001
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Wizards of OS 2
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Conference language is English. Simultaneous interpretation for German presentations will be provided, unless marked otherwise.
Free Software
Free Software Between Movement
and Business Where does free software stand today, after its adoption by big corporations and public administrations, and after the roller-coaster ride on the stock market? Representatives of IBM and others explain what is still a mystery to many: how can you make money with free software? What is the relation between community and commerce today?
Software as Culture
Software has become fundamental to much of contemporary life yet it is rarely that we stop to think about how it is constructed, how it shapes the possibilities that it generates, and how it might be invented otherwise. Until now the discussion of software has been seen as primarily a technical matter. There is a neglect of close attention to the multilayered structure and materiality of software. Why has a 'software criticism' comparable to that of film or literature not emerged? The panel presents a series of speakers and projects that are directly involved with new visions of the culture of software. Here the strict division between programmer and theorist does not exist. Instead you will hear from technicians, programmers, artists, writers, theorists whose activity cannot be reduced to any one of these categories. The thread will include a panel, a workshop, Richard Wright's CD ROM, 'Hello World' A Case Study of Production Culture and Media Technology in the Digital Moving Image, and a mass 'Human Cellular Automaton'.
P2P: Collaborative Writing
Some online news sites don't get their content from a paid staff of writers, but rather from the users themselves. The visitors also separate the junk from the "stuff that matters" using sophisticated filtering tools. Essentially, such news and discussion sites can "run themselves", with barely any commercial involvement. The resulting stories are often of astonishing quality. How can you run such a site, which degrees of "peer-to-peer journalism" do exist, and what makes the whole idea interesting? Is there a true media revolution on the horizon?
Open Source Content Management
Systems Professional processing of web content on the Internet, intranet or extranet can today hardly be done without a Content Management System (CMS). Among the main advantages of CMS software is the separation of content and layout and the optimization of the work-flow using browser-based interfaces. During the conference, we present seven projects developing CMS solutions based on open source software: Campsite, Midgard, MMBase, OpenACS, OpenCMS, Open Meta Archive, and Zope . On the panel, representatives will introduce their projects and discuss similarities and differences. The discussion will continue in an accompanying workshop. During the conference, a workspace by the project "Free Online Systems" offers opportunities for exchanging experiences with CMSs and testing some of them "live", using content produced during the conference.
Security A must for any conference on software-based infrastructure.
Digital Signature: (Legal)
Security or the Ende of Privacy? The German language panel is organized by the Heinrich Boell Foundation and the Netzwerk Neue Medien. Electronic communications at today's IT level harbors various security risks. If it is running through the network unencryptedly, it can be intercepted at many points, and is therefore at the center of governmental and commercial interests in surveilance. On the other hand, law enforcement agencies fear that cryptography might hamper the struggle against terrorism. The introduction of the Digital Signature with the Signature Law recently passed in Germany is an example of this ambivalence: hailed on the one hand as a decisive step toward creating secure, legally binding and confidential communications, the digital signature could also lead to a restriction of the right to anonymous and free communications. Security politicians are already thinking about equipping every netizen with a "passport for the net", thereby making them traceable at every click. The technology of the digital signature in itself is therefore ambivalent: Through the mechanism of encryption, it can hide traces on the net, as well as serve as a means for unequivocal identification. Against this backdrop, "privacy" and with it the basic right to informational self-determination of the citizens through data protection and data security has to be re-defined. The decisive element is the social and political way of dealing with an in itself neutral technology that will have to be discussed on the panel.
"Intellectual Property"
Software Patents and their
Economic Usage What actual significance does the trade in patent licenses have? What is the ratio of defensive and offensive uses of patents against competitors? From the viewpoint of economic theory, where do patents actually achieve their aim of furthering innovation and in which ways do they hinder innovation? An as yet unpublished empirical Fraunhofer study of the use of patents by German software companies will be introduced. IBM, one of the biggest Linux supporters, has tripled its income from patent licensing during the last three years to $1.5 billion.
Rights Control and Fair
Use The recent EU Copyright Directive, like earlier the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, introduces a prohibition on devices for and acts of circumvention of copy protection systems. Since -- as every hacker will tell you -- no technical means can completely protect digital works from unauthorized use, technical protection receives an additional legal protection in a class all by itself. That's nice for the rights industry, but what does it mean for the right to make private copies, for public libraries whose task it is to provide access to works and for the knowledge commons?
Information Diversity: Ownership
of information in science and business Brings together experts from diverse fields of science and commercial research to discuss information sharing and ownership in the manifolds of business and science. Should all information be open source? Should all knowledge? Is the Human Genome open source? A single person's genome? Is a scientific system of knowledge sharing compatible with commercial interests? Particular topics in biological and medical information will be addressed. Background text by Christopher Kelty: Bio-medico-agro-eco-technology
The Politics of Treasure:
Information, Contractual Relations, and North-South Equity A panel exploring information sharing, stealing and sale by nations, individuals and corporations. Examples will include bioprospecting, informed consent, and genetic databases in places such as Mexico, Iceland, America, Europe, and India. Background text by Christopher Kelty: Bio-medico-agro-eco-technology
Free Content Licenses
A Free Content License that has the same status for free content (texts, images, music) as the GNU General Public License (GPL) has for software has not yet emerged. Prior to the WOS 2, a project started surveying the existing free content licenses (OPL, OpenMusic License, ifrOSS's Free Text License, etc.), question them with respect to their usability in transactions and transformations of content and their applicability with regard to the authors' rights and copyright law systems <to join subscribe lizenzen-admin@post.in-mind.de>. The result may be the modification of an existing license or the drafting of a new one. At the WOS 2, the results of the preceding discussions on FCLs will presented.
Public Knowledge
Open Source Schooling Education is about the open
sharing of knowledge. In the same way free software is produced collaboratively,
teachers in Public Education are increasingly creating open class materials
together. At the same time, the school book industry has begun to complain
that this cuts into their vested field of interest. The market for software-based
teaching materials for class as well as for home is potentially very lucrative.
Will the general trend towards privatization destroy this user-driven
innovation or will the empowering nature of the network triumph?
The University as Public
Service Provider or as Profit Center? The same opposing trends as
in the schools are visible in education and research in universities.
Institutions encourage their researchers to take out patents on their
results. Projects like MIT's OpenCourseWare and pre-print servers show
that open sharing in academia is still alive.
Moderator: Volker Grassmuck,
conceptor of WOS, does research in the framework of the joint research
project "Bild
Schrift Zahl" at the Helmholtz
Center for Cultural Technology of Humboldt University Berlin
Public Knowledge Provision of Public Knowledge
is the task of archives, libraries and other institutions for conveying
information. What will they make of the possibilities that the digitalization
of content and of the processes of its conveyance hold? How
much open / free knowledge do we need in order to realize an education
for everbody? Where will it take place and under which conditions and
regulations (e.g. closed user groups)? Which role will public archives
and libraries play in the future? Will the German Library start collecting
reference copies of German language online-publications? Which classification
standards are emerging? What content may not be utilized in commercial
"value chains"? Where are the alliances between the open source
and the open content movements?
Moderator: Thorsten Schilling,
Head of the Multimedia & IT Department, Federal
Office for Political Education, Bonn Public Broadcasting The German Constitutional Court
defined the task of Public Broadcasting as the "basic provision of cultural
information." What does this mean in the context of digital media? What
does it mean for the archives? Moderation: Volker Grassmuck,
conceptor of WOS, does research in the framework of the joint research
project "Bild
Schrift Zahl" at the Helmholtz
Center for Cultural Technology of Humboldt University Berlin Freedom of Information:
A Deep Look into the Filing Cabinet Under the guiding vision of
the "transparent state" the information of public administration and institutions
is to become part of the public domain. The US Freedom of Information
Act was established as early as the 1960s. In the German federal states
of Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin and Brandenburg, an information access law
is now in effect. Federal and EU laws are slated to follow. What experiences
have been gained so far? Who uses this freedom, for what purposes? Does
it really mean the end of official secrecy? Which conflicts with privacy
issues arise and how are they solved? What does free access to information
mean for the way state and citizens, journalists and politicians perceive
themselves? Which role does the digitalization of the administrative apparatus
play in this? Moderator: Jeanette Hofmann,
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin
Standards Standards are conventions
that allow an exchange among a multitude of participants. By definition
they aim at a wide acceptance. They are not patchable. Therefore the development
and harmonizing process leading to their finalization is decisive. Technical
Standards (TCP/IP, HTML,
MPEG) as well as classification standards (Dublin Core, Computing Classification Scheme,
Open Archives Initiative) can be either open or closed, according to the
knowledge culture of the constituency that creates them.
Open_Money Money is not simply
a "capitalist tool" but a medium of communication, a cultural artifact
that facilitates exchanges among people. The characteristics of the exchanges
depend on the types of money available. The Open_Money session brings
together researchers and practitioners to discuss the types of money that
could help to turn the great promises of the Internet -- decentralization
and personal empowerment -- into a reality and examines the challenges
on the way. In addition to the panel, a workshop will focus on the Openmoney
Project as a way to create such new types of money.
In addition to this session,
a workshop will look into the Openmoney Project as an example of such
new forms of money.
Background text by Ippei Hozumi on Winds, a CGI system created with WEBMAKER for the on-the-web settlement of local currencies: WEBMAKER and Winds, 5 August 2001 Background text by Makoto Nishibe, On LETS, June 23, 2001
Open Music -- Open Licenses,
Free Software, Open Structures Open Music is not only an initiative by LinuxTag, but also title of a panel addressing the means and legal conditions of open sharing of sounds and songs.
Collective Intelligence
Knowledge is not a spectator sport. The modern idea of a singular author and his works is being replaced again by the notion that each individual creation stands on the tip of the iceberg of shared knowledge. The collective intelligence forms the before and the after of the author. Background presentation by Pierre Lévy: Meditations on COLLECTIVE
INTELLIGENCE (HTML | PowerPoint)
Strategies What to do? Where the free flow of information, the right to informational self-determination and the possibilities of free cooperation are threatened, intervention is needed. How and with whom? The panel collects issues from the whole range of the conference that call for action -- defensive as well as constructive action. Free software is not mainly an anti-movement. Also the possibilities for improving collaboration and developing the knowledge commons in the long run will be discussed.
What else? Thoughts
on Societies and Capitalisms on the Net and Elsewhere Now more than ever, it is important to continue to pursue possible approaches to free societies. Three of these are to be presented and debated: the GPL Society, the New Associationist Movement (NAM), and the multitude.
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last updated 2002-02-26
