Most of my recurring anxiety nightmares emerge straight out of work experiences. A common dream I had, for years, was basically being slammed with a deluge of like 25 customers/tables while waitressing. Yes, I have waited tables for many years.

Now, I have a new dream which reflects new working conditions. Basically I show up on the first day of class with NO syllabus and it is horribly embarrassing. Thankfully that scenario is easily avoided.

I am teaching two classes this fall, one called Impacts of Technology, the other Human Culture and Communication. I had to come up with the Impacts of Technology syllabus from scratch (Culture and Comm is somewhat standard for the Department I am teaching in) and here is a first version of my syllabus.

I am sure it will change but it is nice to have most of it done as I hope to avoid any work-related nightmares this summer.

Tonight, instead of minding my dinner, which did burn, I was drawn into and extended a pretty fiery IRC conversation on debian-devel on a topic that does not like to die: the merits and demerits of Wikipedia.

It is not worth summarizing the conversation here for it followed a pretty predictable arc. There were those who thought Wikipedia was novel and valuable, others who saw it as a pit of bad facts, and inaccuracies and a few others who saw it in ways negative and positive. I found the conversation somewhat ironic, because I usually find myself defending free software to outsiders much in the same way I was defending Wikipedia to free software developers.

I tend to be in the camp of admirers, and for many reasons, although, of course, I also was arguing that it is too early to judge the value of Wikipedia as it is in its infancy. Like Debian, since Wikipedia is an institution that has changed *a lot* in its short history, it is hard to make any hard and fast conclusions about its worth, impact, etc, although more modest and qualified claims are certainly in order.

The only reason I feel like I can argue anything about Wikipedia is because I am currently reading a dissertation on Wikipedia by Joseph Reagle. He not only has really insightful things to say about the collaborative culture driving the online encyclopedia, but also about the prolific commentary that has closely followed the heels of Wikipedia in the last few years.

Just today, he wrote a blog entry entitled, Punditry and The Web 2.0 debate, which so hit the nail on the head on the problems–not with Wikipedia–but with the peanut gallery (commentary) on Wikipedia.

As he notes, the problem is often not with the so called correct or incorrect judgments on Wikipedia (or other Web 2.0 phenomenon) but with the very debates themselves, because many of them are built on a shaky foundation of sand, but this punditry, as Joe rightly calls it, is nonetheless worthy of critical examination:

.. while I follow the discussion with interest, I actually don’t find it substantively engaging. Many of the arguments, particularly Gorman’s, tend to be characterized by unsubstantiated claims and the purposeful construal of nuanced issues as extremes — propping up strawmen for subsequent potshots. As I’ve already indicated, while it might bring pundits a sense of righteousness and attention, in the end “Time, not arguments, will utlimately tell.” (And, for this reason I appreciate Larry Sanger’s continuing efforts to implement his vision.)Why, then, do I find this discussion of interest? Punditry, communicative disorders, and history. First, I’m trying to come to an understanding of “punditry,” and I think Gorman’s recent bloggings is an exemplar. My sense is that sometimes people argue for arguments’ sake. That is, even if they genuinely believe the thing they are arguing for, attention, not persuasion, is the goal. (In a sense, perhaps it is a high-brow, and perhaps more genuinely held, form of trolling — another interesting phenomenon.)

While punditry has always existed, there is no doubt that the Internet has accentuated and facilitated this form of (often male) communication and it is great to see someone tackle this topic. Because let’s face it, there is a lot more “garbage” spewing from Web 2.0 or Wikipedia commentary compared to than the actual Wikipedia articles themselves.

I am finally catching up with the remarkably thick goulash of email and blogs entries that comes from traveling for well over a month and today I read one in particular When is Open Source not Open Source? that captivated my interest for it compellingly addresses the dangers that follow from diluting, or one might say hijacking, the term open source.

When people learn that I study “free software” one of the most common questions I get asked is: “why did I chose free software over open source?” The answer is quite simple: given that the bread and butter of my research covers ethics, freedom, and liberalism, free software is the obvious path to follow, yet I also feel like a lot of my work is still relevant to the open source camp because of the affinities between the two.

I have long maintained that the ideological gulf between open source and free software is not so great nor impassable, but more modest. As most know, both share a certain strong commitment to access and in a strict technical sense they refer to the same set of licenses. Philosophically there is agreement that openness and, especially, non-discrimination are essential for the quality of software and often by close extension, the vibrancy of community responsible for the software.

Of course, when pontificating the ramifications and implications of openness, they do part company and enter into different territories. Free software tends to flag rights and freedoms, while open source meanders into a discussion of markets, business, and competition and in this regard they do craft different visions of the social world and human behavior, etc.

But the case that Karl Fogel writes about, where OSI is strongly opposing the use of the term open source for licenses that don’t adhere to the definition demonstrates where the two positions join. As Michael Tiemann from the OSI succinctly put it:

“The FSF may have got the orthodoxy wrong, and the OSI may have got the interpretation wrong, but we both agree that prohibition of commercial use without special permission is antithetical to both positions.”

There is a unmistakable kernel of agreement and it is great to see the OSI taking such a strong stance in this regard.

Now, David Richard’s response, who seeks, I think, to essentially dilute the term open source, is as (or perhaps even more) fascinating for in a nut shell, and using a lot of florid religious imagery, it accuses the OSI of being too rigid! In his own words:

“I believe the OSI has a wonderful opportunity to continue being relevant and helping to lead the movement forward. If, however, y’all choose to define your denomination of this religion in a way that we don’t fit in, that’s fine. No hard feelings. It’s your choice. You’ll ultimately be excluding a large congregation and we for one will continue trying to build a church made up of others like ourselves.”

In response, I would say that the goal of F/OSS is not to be inclusive of anyone who wants to release bits of source code, but to create the conditions under which software, as it has been defined by the community, can be created. Join the “church” if you would like to make free/open source software as defined and you can go elsewhere (i.e., create a different term) if you are creating something different, even if it is only slightly different.

Integrity matters.

And again inclusiveness, if it comes at the expense of the main goal, is not a boon but a danger to F/OSS. The OSI will remain relevant by halting the dilution of the term OSI, not by expanding the definition so that it is left with no substance.

And in contradistinction to what David Richard maintains, however, there is a great degree of flexibility within this domain but it does not lie in the strict definition of F/OSS but in the realm of interpretation. You are also free, as Mako and I have argued elsewhere to interpret the significance of F/OSS in multiple ways.

And I think this is where the political strength of free software lies. There is interplay between a well-defined goal (in this case for creating free software) and a more flexible realm of interpreting the significance of these technical practice.

And we wold lose—and I might add, a lot—if we became flexible about the strict definition of F/OSS and inflexible about its political significance.

I get irked with folks like David Richards who would like to bend open source rules to meet their (often commercial) interests and I find it pretty naïve when folks say the political significance of F/OSS is just x (or worse should be x) for in reality its political significance lies in the fact that it has spawned multiple types of political and economic projects.

And there is something almost playfully ironic, (or at least it makes me smile) in this fact. Though there is strict definition contained withing F/OSS, this strictness has, at least to some extent, encouraged by an extreme and very healthy form of political proliferation and promiscuity.

More than anyone else I know, Mako has most passionately and thoughtfully argued for the importance of what I would call political clarity and integrity. That is, the importance of having a well articulated definition for social movements, for they act, as he says “a rallying point” to realize a social movement. Urging the Creative Commons to learn from F/OSS and dare to simultaneously narrow and more clearly define their goals, he states it quite nicely in the following terms:

“Free software advocates have been able to use the free software definition as the rallying point for a powerful social movement. Free software, like the concept of freedom in any freedom movement, is something that one can demand, something that one can protest for, and something that one can work toward. Working toward these goals, free and open source software movements have created the GNU/Linux operating system and billions of lines of freely available computer code.”

In essence, a definition that people can abide by, respect, and perhaps eventually cherish is the condition of possibility to make “working political code.” And given how hard it is to make social change happen (at least in comparison to build computer code), we should learn from what F/OSS has to offer.

And at the same time there is another lesson embedded in F/OSS. The Free Software Definition is well defined; but it must be emphasized, narrowly so. It does not try to do everything and have everyone pledge allegiance to an inordinately complex set of commitments.

Clarity, narrowness, and well-defined goals –> these three attributes have powered it far and wide and I hope it remains so.

Now, since the term open source is not trademarked, we are left with the problem of how to challenge the current hijacking of the term. For the solution, I will leave you with Karl Fogel, who I think proposes a good solution:

Note that the OSI’s objection is not to the Zimbra license per se. The objection is just to Zimbra’s calling that license “open source”. They can use any license they want, but they shouldn’t call it open source unless it actually is. Freedom is freedom, and no amount of spin will change that.

So what should we do about this?

The term “open source” isn’t trademarked. Years ago, the OSI tried to register it, but it was apparently too generic. …But there is public opinion. What Danese and Michael are proposing doing is organizing a lot of open source developers (and I mean “open source” according to the traditional definition, the one the OSI and I and most other open source developers I know adhere to) to stand up and, basically, say “All of us agree on what the definition of ‘open source’ is, and we reject as non-open source any license that does not comply with the letter and spirit of the Open Source Definition.”

Here are three somewhat different takes on the politics and economics of web 2.0.

In the last two weeks, life has been jam packed, full of movement and travel and a bit of sensory overload. I went to San Francisco to visit friends from the past but also took a trip to NYC to help set things up for the future. Logistically, it certainly was not enjoyable to travel from Edmonton to SF to NYC and back to SF before heading back to Edmonton, which was only made worse by the fact that I was sick flying back from NYC to SF. But taken from an aesthetic point of view, there was something that made sense about going back and forth between cities that in reality connect my past with my future. For it was my time in SF when I did my research that more or less made possible my future life in NYC.

I had not been back to SF since I had left in the summer of 2003. My mom’s illness kept me away from the west, pulled instead toward the east. In fact, right before I left SF was also the time when my mother’s condition took a turn for the worse and I started to travel only for work or to visit my mom PR (or Debconf, which is, well, somewhere in between work and play). Because of my relatively long absence and the many memories of the area, my return hit vividly. You may leave a place, but when you return you are reminded of how much a place always leaves some imprint in your body and soul, which resurface upon your return.

Feelings and memories of the past flickered to consciousness when my eyes first absorbed the stunningly beautiful (but also vulnerable) geography of the Bay Area: the pale blue sky, the colorful bridges and houses, the ridiculously steep hills, the wispy and thick fog. San Francisco is a city, it seems to me, that has made a Faustian pact with nature. Nature and the geography have not been completely conquered. They seep right into the man-made environment, which is why it is so beautiful here. But it comes at a price measured in ways small and large. Daily battle with the hills is a small reminder and the larger reminders come in the form of terrifying earthquakes.

It was really great to see many friends, many of whom I have stayed in constant touch with on IRC, but of course, from time to time, a little flesh and blood goes a lot further than the bits and bytes. While SF does not have a high retention rate (apparently 30% of the population changes every 2 years), many of my techie friends have faithfully remained and other techie friends have since made their way to Bay Area.

As much as I find this city amazing, I was reminded of how much I find San Francisco’s weather completely objectionable, disliking it even more than the cold Canadian north (really).The damp cold and constant wind are impossible to escape, only made worse by lousy indoor heating like the “cozy” heater I already blogged about (and apparently, this is how you can fix it).

I am staying in the outer Mission district, which is where I lived for a while, and I do love the slightly warmer temperatures, flatness of the streets, and very colorful murals. While Valencia street has moved up a few notches on the gentrification scale, it does not seem out of control. And of course, the city is brimming with a particular mixture of youth and tech. In the many coffee shops, youthful faces are illuminated by Shiny New Laptops and it seems like at least every third person you meet works in the technology industry.

I had not planned on heading out to the east coast but since I was given the option of seeing a couple of apartments courtesy of NYU housing, I decided it was well worth my while to make the cross country trip, given that it may be my future home for many years. Spring in NYC is one of its more flattering incarnations for there is a slight touch of nature that drapes the city, a touch that is absent during the height of the summer when the hot concrete jungle overtakes the flowers and trees.

Heading to NYC briefly also reminded me that moving to NYC feels like a really BIG move. And not because the distance between Edmonton and NYC is 3900 KM but because of what it represents. It sort of dawned on me recently that becoming an assistant professor is not unlike the grueling period real doctors go through once they graduate medical school: residency. Even though by the time you start your job, you have been bequeathed with the title of a “doctor,” and are prepared to teach, advise, etc., in reality you are only half-baked and there is more cooking for you to go under. You need to go through a few more years of somewhat intense training to seal the deal and that is what is awaiting me starting this fall.

I am in SF now and saw that the local weekly just published a really good article on those who steer clear of psychiatric drugs, called Just Say No. It is quite good, check it out.

Thanks to a Mr. Kandinski, I just learned about what looks to be like a really useful (and pretty) guide for graduate students and young professors.

Blogging Feminism: (Web)Sites of Resistance

As blogging has more widespread interest, especially vis-á-vis electoral politics, feminist activity on the internet has remained marginal to the mainstream. Thus, we were thrilled when Gwendolyn Beetham and Jessica Valenti proposed “Blogging Feminism: (Web)sites of Resistance” as a Scholar and Feminist Online journal topic, as well as a theme for a Barnard Center for Research on Women panel discussion. As Beetham and Valenti point out in their introduction, all too much feminist activity exists in the blogosphere invisibly. This theme runs through many of this journal’s contributions, and is taken up directly by Clancy Ratliff and Tedra Osell in the section entitled “Women and Politics in the Blogosphere.”

Academics in the humanities and social sciences often struggle with their writing. I just figured that as you did more and more, you got better and better. Well this recent post by Radical Tenure was pretty eye opening because she confesses about losing her writing groove (in part because of sh*t going down at her university) and then she gives a fascinating account about how blogging “saved” her. Now I am stunned because her writing is pretty darn succulent. Really. I love reading her( and am proud that she is a lady blogger too given how many males dominate the “famous” scene).

Now I am more inspired because I think indeed writing, especially in very competitive environments, can be a torturous and fraught task. And while it may get easier, there are circumstances that may derail even the strongest of writers.

It is great to see this confronted head-on, in ways positive, honest, inspiring.

Here are the relevant bits:

Another reason being anonymous didn’t work for me is really internal to Zen – er, Wesleyan, stultifying features of which I was trying to escape following the Unfortunate Events. Like being watched and talked about all the time and treated like yesterday’s news for having done the teaching and institutional work I was asked to do while struggling to find time for my scholarship even as other people were chosen to be groomed as “the scholars.” What happened to me during the last three years nearly destroyed me as a writer and an intellectual (I am actually not joking about this), and I had to start all over again, recreating a literary voice for myself and a confidence that I could command an audience with my thoughts and prose, from the ground up. It was either that or quit. ….
Do not dare feel sorry for me about this, and let me underline the point: I am a highly privileged, senior faculty member at a very wealthy institution, and many other bloggers are not. Furthermore, regardless of this messy coming-out period, my strategy actually worked. Because of this blog *and its audience*, I was able to start writing again, to finish articles that were lying about undone, to write a book review for the Village Voice, to write a book proposal, to get going on revising the book that various people and committees eliminated all over during the Unfortunate Events, to do a ton of research on a new project and to begin speaking about some critical reforms that might really help faculty – on the right and the left – enjoy their work as academics again. In other words: I Saved Myself. And I have been transformed into something more powerful as a result of my trials.

Eugenics is considered to be a technology and social practice of the past, swept away in our closest of all things ugly and bad. But the past is, in fact, quite recent, especially in the Alberta region in so far as forced sterilization was only outlawed in 1972–yes 1972.

If your physical body is here in Edmonton and are interested in the ways in which science and technology can has been placed on a truly “mad path” in the name of progress and how we are in danger of repeating the past via new genetic technologies, do check out this conference Eugenics and Sterilization in Alberta
35 Years Later .

Free and open to the public, it kicks off tonight and continues all day tomorrow. The line-up of speakers is great and most important is that it includes talks by some of those who were caught by the very unfortunate web of eugenic laws.