M/C Journal: 'open'

M/C - Media and Culture presents issue three, 'open' - Edited by Felix Stalder & McKenzie Wark, in volume seven of the award-winning M/C Journal.

Since the rebranding of Free Software into Open Source in 1998, "open" has become the buzzword for all things progressive on and off the Internet. Open Law, Open Hardware, Open Culture, Open Publishing, Open Access or Open Archives are just some of the many concepts which are being retooled to serve the more or less defined public good in the Information Society.

Yet, at the same time, multinational corporations have become major actors in the Open Source Software area and commercial publishers are beginning to seriously look into Open Access models. In the background of the recent enthusiasm with "open" lurks the "Open Society" concept of Karl Popper, whose political preferences for Margaret Thatcher's neoliberalism are well known.

'Open' takes a critical look at this concept of the "open". Is it a temporary buzzword that signifies nothing but an astute sense of salesmanship? Is it an alternative social concept, or just yet another step in making capitalism ever more flexible? What is it that makes something "open" and are some projects more "open" than others? Is "open" always better than closed? How does "open" relate to areas where we might value closure, for example, personal privacy? Can we imagine an even more open concept of social, cultural and economic life?

Feature Article

Biella Coleman and Mako Hill
"How Free Became Open and Everything Else Under the Sun"

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has been adopted as a political tool by leftist activists. At the same time, it has been embraced by large corporations to extend profits and has been criticized as an integral force in late capitalism. It has been adopted by members of the growing Commons movement as a model for limiting the power of capitalism. This essay attempts to confront the variability of these relationships through a cursory analysis of each field and through an look at FOSS philosophy and practice. It argues that Free Software exists as a politically agnostic field of practice - built on and through a broadly defined philosophy. It analyzes the way that this philosophy is well suited for the spread of FOSS technologies and its translation into the terms of radically different, even oppositional, social and political movements.

Articles

Dale Bradely
"Open Source, Anarchy, and the Utopian Impulse"

The utopian impulse evident in the discourse surrounding open source software development is addressed from the perspective that the liberatory promises of its anarchy-inspired politics is undermined by efforts to integrate its communal programming practices into existing market hegemony.

William Thake
"Editing and the Crisis of Open Source"

The Free Software movement that began in 1985 and the newer "open source" movement, represented a serious threat to traditional methods of production and distribution. The idea of a non-proprietary method of cultural exchange was and is a radical departure from traditional models that have come to restrict creativity and free exchange. But contrary to the grand proclamations of some, what we are witnessing is the capture and transformation of elements threatening to capitalism, and a repackaging of open source concepts to be useful in a new flexible labor environment.

Carol-Ann Braun and Annie Gentes
"Dialogue: A Hyper-Link to Multimedia Content"

This paper analyses an augmented chat space entitled Sandscript. The Web- site evokes a world etched on shifting sands, erased with time, uncovered by a process akin to the patient explorations of an archeologist. Key words spontaneously typed in by chatters trigger the appearance of texts and drawings in the chat space as well as in the surrounding frames. Here, dialogue serves as a hyper-link to content. The augmented chat space is a fluid "back bone" around which artistic content is articulated, prompted by unsuspecting chatters.

Joseph Reagle Jr.
"Open Content Communities"

This essay sketches the characteristics of an open content community by considering a number of prominent examples, reviewing sociological literature, teasing apart the concepts of open and voluntary implicit in most usages of the term, and offers a definition in which the much maligned possibility of "forking" is actually an integral aspect of openness.

Tony Sampson
"A Virus in Info-Space: The Open Network and Its Enemies"

Tony Sampson investigates the role of viruses in shaping the digital environment of the last 25 years.

Paul Cesarini
"Opening' the Xbox: Linux, Microsoft, and Control"

Paul Cesarini looks at the possibilites of turning the X-box into a low cost multi-purpose computer.

Source: M/C Journal