The Massive Minority

What is open source?

In the software environment, historically the first environment to receive this predicate, it is a tenfold means to enable evolution. The open source concept has extended well beyond the creation of software. It is now a growing, and as yet incomplete, set of principles designed to enable the evolution of the creative instinct of humanity. It is a libertarian document that, if successful, will unite us all in a collaborative effort to link the world’s knowledge and human interest into a single, instantly accessible, complete whole.

This article will briefly explore what it means for creative work to evolve in a technology environment that is being increasingly likened to a community. In the process I hope to alert the reader to some disturbing aspects of the open source assumption. I also hope to provide an alternative foundation for further research and inquiry into the open source phenomenon.

An Evolving Community

When I think of evolution in this context, I have in mind a kind of improvement. It is not about adding more for the sake of more. Nor is it a minimalist, ‘less is more’ attitude. It is about allowing the end-user to decide how to use a creative work, and providing the opportunity to assimilate it to some extent; to make it one’s own. But assimilation is not the final part of the process. The user is free to make modifications on the proviso that he or she returns the results to the community for further development. So we can say that a creative work becomes better when it serves the community; and it serves the community best when individuals make their own choices about how to use it and how to change it. Importantly, it requires the open and transparent sharing of ideas.

Wikipedia is currently among the most popular examples of a so called community that is dedicated to knowledge creation. Mitch Kapor (2005), for the UC Berkeley School of Information, gave a passionate defense of Wikipedia in which he introduced the online encyclopedia as an example of massively distributed collaboration. Kapor held, in this presentation, that Wikipedia is admirable not only for its values and principles. It also demonstrates an actual community of volunteers who somehow manage to maintain an encyclopedia that “works”. Despite the fact that vandalism, false claims and non-notable posts do occur on Wikipedia, it still manages to maintain a high level of quality. All this is possible, says Kapor, in a community with no stereotypical leader and with no claim to authority or expertise.

The Open Source Community is not so massive

There is of course a problem with this outline. The contributors to open source knowledge are a fairly small bunch, compared to the global community as a whole. Those who can freely access open source creative works are not limited merely by the restrictive laws of nations and states, or by the demands of publishing companies and authors that seek to maintain an income. Many are restricted by the simple circumstance of having little or no access to, or interest in, technology. Open source, in its current form, is limited to the service of a community; a particular kind of community. There may be those in this particular community who volunteer their hours developing software or critiques to analyze social, political and psychological affairs. They may seek answers to questions like “How do we reduce the numbers of homeless?” But if the homeless can’t assimilate the work or even get access to the technology medium, they obviously can’t contribute to the project. At best, the homeless are reduced to data in a minority community of technology holders.

Even the active members of first world countries are not necessarily a part of the online technology community. There are surprisingly few of my own friends, co-workers and family with an online presence. I will grant that online open source mediums are larger and more interactive than television and print journalism ever were or could be, but they are not yet massive. They may eventually become massive if the project succeeds.

What is needed to make the project succeed?

First, I suggest that we analyze the meaning of open source philosophy. Philosophy has always been a collaborative project between thinking individuals; individuals who perceive a problem or an issue and seek to provide solutions. In that sense we can surely agree that Philosophy IS open source. The practice of philosophy is founded upon principles of engagement, critical evaluation and discourse.

Second, those of us who have access to technology can contribute our opinions and ideas freely in our blogs, in online encyclopedias and in open access journals. These are all valuable contributions for sure. But we must remember that there exists a much larger community outside of the World Wide Web. We will severely restrict our engagement with the world if we think for one moment that we can engage with it fully in this medium alone.

Having recognized that a truly open source project ought to include everyone in the process; it would seem to be incumbent upon us all to contribute our creativity and our skills in the physical realm. There are many potential ways that we might achieve such a free dissemination of knowledge, and I have little doubt that we can succeed with or without the aid of technology.