Re: <nettime> the next layer or the emergence of open source culture

[lotu5 <lotu5@resist.ca>]

Kimberly De Vries wrote:
> On 2/17/07, Armin Medosch <armin@easynet.co.uk> wrote: 
> Later on you acknowledge the historical root, which I think enriches
> your discussion.  Here though, it sounds like you are saying that Open
> Source sprang forth in the 90s, without precedent, which I think you
> don't mean.  So you might want to add some line that foreshadows your
> historical discussion.  --But on the other hand, this is me
> deliberately reading as an impatient American, who expects everything
> to be laid out step by step with absolute explicitness.  So clarifying
> this small point may not be very important, depending on the intended
> audience.
...
>> Open Source Culture got a big push forward with the emergence of Linux
>> and the Internet but we shouldn't forget that it has much deeper roots.
>> History didn't start with Richard Stallmans problems with a printer
>> driver. The historic roots could be seen as going back to the free and
>> independent minded revolutionary artists and artisans in 19th century.
>> More recently, it is based on post-World-War-II grassroots
>> anti-imperialist liberation movements, on bottom-up self-organised
>> culture of the new political movements of the 1960ies and 1970ies such
>> as the African American civil rights movements, feminisim, lesbian, gay,
>> queer and transgender movements, on the first and second wave of hacker
>> culture, punk and the DIY culture, squatter movements, and the left-wing
>> of critical art and media art practices.


I would also add, in response to both Armin and Kimberly that the
idea of sharing knowledge and tinkering with it yourself can even be
evident in pre-western traditions of storytelling. The oral tradition
of storytelling itself, which seems as old as language, can be seen as
a mirror of the ideas of sharing information and supporting derivative
works.


>> by alliances between new and old tycoons. The Next Layer emerges at a
>> time when capitalism is stronger than ever before and it emerges at the
>> very heart of it. This is the beauty of it. It cannot be described in a

Really? Stronger than ever? I think that's a big claim, but maybe
being so involved with global anti-capitalist struggles, namely
the diy media movement, the squaters movement in europe and the
anti-capitalist struggles in mexico makes my view skewed. It seems to
me that with the general collapse of the WTO and the failure of the
FTAA, colonial globalization and the neoliberal project seem to be
waffling in my view.

For some support for this idea, see my article

CAFTA - The Last Free Trade Agreement?
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/07/110255.shtml

and the narconews article about oaxaca entitled

The Popular Assembly Movement Advances While Neoliberalism Stalls
http://www.narconews.com/Issue44/article2491.html


ciao,

  lotu5


-- 

blog: http://deletetheborder.org/lotu5

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