[Freed] [LONG] Re: [ilugd] Plan for Freed.in 2008

[Raj Mathur]

[Please keep responses to the freed mailing list, CCed in this mail]

Hi Saurabh,

Thanks for the comments.  I'm not trying to answer all your questions 
here, just give my views on the event.  Comments inline...

On Thursday 27 Dec 2007, Saurabh Nanda wrote:
> Hi Gora,
>
> I have attended only one Freed (it was called Freedel at that point)
> and the focus seems to have shifted quite a bit since that time (open
> source s/w focused event to a more "social revolution" kind of
> event). Therefore, please read my comments in that context -- most of
> them may be emanating from the fact that the new direction doesn't
> fit my notion of the event.
>
> 1. How does a focus on the "Knowledge Ecosystem" tie in with open
> source software? It surely ties in with open standards (and file
> formats), but not necessarily with free/open source software.
> However, freed.in may focus on the use of open source software in
> helping create the knowledge system - which is absolutely fine.
> Except that (a) this is not stated anywhere explicitly in the
> document, and (b) not all content can be managed properly with open
> source s/w as of now.

That's actually the crore-Rupee question.  Bear with me through this 
discussion, since it is the one on which the whole new look of the 
event hinges.

If you look at our country (and probably most developing countries), you 
will see that the fundamental issues relate to availability of 
knowledge, not availability of software.  Many of our fellow citizens 
do not have access to knowledge critical to their continued, affluent 
survival.  Whether it is market rates in neighbouring towns (so you can 
decide where to sell your grain), movements of fish schools (so you 
know where to cast your net), weather information (so you know when and 
what to plant), information about social groups helping women (so they 
can make their own lives and not be married off into virtual slavery at 
the age of 11) or simple primary and secondary education, the majority 
of our countrymen (and women!) do not have it.  Posting free CDs of 
Linux to people who don't have the computers to run them on won't help 
in any of these areas -- software isn't the whole solution, it's just 
part of it.

Keeping this in mind, the most critical task for this country becomes 
provision of knowledge to those who need it but do not have it.  You 
and I can sit at ease in our offices and bedrooms, with 256 Kb/s 
connections and have the world at our fingertips.  If we need formal 
education we can access any number of university sites that provide 
course online; if we need the latest stock quotes we only have to push 
a couple of buttons; if we need diversion there is any amount of music, 
video and books available.  Now if only everyone could have access to 
similar classes of information, in a language and format they could use 
and on a device they could afford, India would be a much wealthier 
nation.  Yes, I'm selfish -- the primary reason I want equitable access 
to information is not because I want to raise the living standards of 
our billion-plus people, but because I want to live in a wealthier 
country.  Surely some of that wealth will trickle up/down to me too :)

Now let's go one step further...

Knowledge and wisdom aren't the monopoly of the urban and/or wealthier 
classes.  They exist everywhere, at all levels, in all strata and 
classes of society.  So far the world has been viewing knowledge 
through a producer-consumer tinted lens.  But why should that be?  Why 
should a consumer of music not be a producer of information about water 
resources?  Why should a producer of weather information not be a 
consumer of information about diseases of cows?  Is there really that 
much of a difference?  In my opinion, not today.

I see 2 Internet technologies that have changed the way we look at the 
producer-consumer paradigm:

- Wikis.  The Wiki as a tool completely rewrites the rules of 
authorship, and converts the author/reader combination into a 
collaboration paradigm .  With a Wiki, anyone who has something to say 
about a topic has the ability to say it and add to the global corpus of 
knowledge.  For example, the document you have critiqued is a Wiki 
document, produced through the collaboration of at least 10 people with 
more people contributing all the time.

- Blogs.  Blogs permit an individual to express her views and share her 
knowledge with the world.  OK, so many of us don't have anything 
particularly exciting to say about anything.  Fine -- I may not visit 
your blog, but I will definitely fight for your right to blog :)  BTW, 
I'm including sites like youtube in the blog category -- expression 
isn't just through text, it can be any medium you choose.

So where is that huge fund of knowledge that is lying with the 
individuals of India?  Can I access it?  Can I use it?  Can I enhance 
it?  No, since it's hidden away in the minds and collective wisdom in 
villages and small towns, whose people do not have any means available 
for expressing that wisdom and sharing it with the rest of the world.  
One of freed.in's goals at this event is to discuss ways forward for 
enabling the free collection and dissemination of knowledge, no matter 
where in this country or in the developing world it exists.

To do this we need any number of and any number of varieties of tools, 
infrastructure, localisation, education, hardware and networking.  
freed.in in February will be discussing all these areas of concern, 
with probably more effort on some than on others.  If you believe that 
this is worthwhile, and/or feel that some of these areas are more 
critical than others, please join in and contribute your ideas.

Finally, to answer the question you raised raised at the end of your 
first para, knowledge that is hidden away in a proprietary format, no 
matter how prevalent the format or how high the quality of the 
knowledge, is useless in the new paradigm IMNSHO.  To be really 
effective in today's world, knowledge must be sharable, translatable 
(not just language -- can the knowledge be converted to be used by the 
blind, for instance?), mutable and easily collaborated on.

Enabling these qualities is the function of Open Source and Open 
Standards.  You will see that there is a strong relationship between 
free software and free knowledge, between open standards and open 
content.  We haven't changed the direction of freed.in, we have only 
enhanced and widened the scope of the event to look at the application 
of FOSS to more fundamental issues facing us today.  The event was a 
celebration of FOSS for the sake of FOSS; we hope to make it into a 
celebration of FOSS for addressing a wider set of needs.

I hope this answers at least some of the questions you asked.  Since 
it'd be self-destructive to organise an event that aims to administer 
the death blow to the producer-consumer paradigm using that paradigm 
itself, please keep this discussion going.  Turning the event 
organisation itself into a collaborative effort will be the first test 
for all of us :)

Regards,

-- Raju

> 2. The term "Knowledge Ecosystem" can mean different things to
> different people. I've read the document carefully, it does not
> define what "knowledge ecosystem" means to the organizers of the
> event in clear concise terms. I think that's important. Also,
> knowledge can impact lots of aspects of our lives. It would be good
> to list a few of them, which Freed is planning to focus upon. From
> the tone of the document, education and government seemed to be the
> primary focus, but again, helps to be explicit.
>
> 3. What does section 1.3 mean? How do you plan to achieve the
> tangible goals listed out in this section through Freed.in? Wouldn't
> achieving these goals require a lot more sustained effort than a 3
> day event? Section 2.4 answers this question partially, but I'm still
> a bit skeptical. Also, from a document writing perspective, portions
> of the text of section 2.4 should be contained in section 1.3 to make
> things more obvious.
>
> 4. Pardon me, but IMHO, most of section 3.1 offers nothing concrete
> to the user. It simply adds to the sense of vagueness. It should
> probably be removed and replaced by a succinct definition of the term
> "Knowledge Ecosystem" and be moved to somewhere in section 1 itself.
>
> 5. This might be my ignorance, but what role do open source licenses
> (as defined by OSI) play in creating and sharing knowledge? (Also,
> the link to OSI http://opensource.org opens a website wildly
> different from http://www.opensource.org!)
>
> As an overall comment, the document needs to be more specific.
> Probably you're expecting community feedback to flesh out the
> details. But in my opinion, the overall vagueness (and too many
> buzzwords) hampered my in offering any useful feedback.
>
> Making the document shorter and adding a one line "mantra" (v/s a
> mission and vision statement) about Freed should help people
> understand the overall context. And get the ideas flowing.
>
> Nandz.

-- 
Raj Mathur                raju at kandalaya.org      http://kandalaya.org/
 Freedom in Technology & Software || February 2008 || http://freed.in/
       GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5  0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F
PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/   ||   It is the mind that moves