Month: May 2006

story link
So it continues.

• Waden [the mother] said she made clear on a consent form at the start of the school year that her 15-year-old daughter was not to be allowed Internet access. But the girl used the school computers to access the Web site MySpace.com, where she met 18-year-old Michael Macbeth.
  

two ways to read it. You can say “damn you my space! What about the children.” or you can take to heart the lesson that kids that are protected from a thing, and not taught how to deal with a thing, a at greater risk. see blog post over at will richardson

I usually don’t plug the show here in the blog, but as it directly relates to the things i was talking about here, I’m gonna break the rule and post a direct link to a show. Tom Raftery was kind enough to show up and give the Irish version of the o’reilly story. His website makes for VERY interesting reading on this whole issue.
a link i’ve picked up in the course of my research for the show.

links added later.

This is the CMP letter to It@Cork

Great post about the issue 

notice the date on this post.

Night all.

I’ve been flying around the internet for the last 24 hours, trying to get my mind around something that is disturbing me far more than it should be. Why should i care if Tim O’reilly’s company filed a trademark infringement cease and desist order to some conference with the name web 2.0 in the title?

Now i have my answer I fear oreillyism. I take issue with the coiner of the word, Dallas (whoever that is), as to the specific definition however. To me, oreillyism is the tendency of very good, socially construted ideas to be ‘owned’ by someone once they become successful and their usage/meaning enters the mainstream.

Let us take a case in point. Webct was created at the University of British Columbia as a collaborative project amongst many different people in and out of UBC. Last year, while trying to incorporate moodle into a school, I was told by the head of IT “listen, we were onboard with webct when it first started, we were asked to be part of the development, and now we pay 27000 dollars a year for the ‘campus edition’. and now you want me to get involved in another ‘free’ open source project. How long before moodle starts to charge us 30,000 dollars for its software?”

Am i saying that Murray shouldn’t have made a company, and they shouldn’t have sold it…? no way. Business is what it is. Schools need money as much if not more than other people. The problem is that oreillyism creates the form of alienation above. When people enter into a socially constructed environment, (like social software advocacy for instance) there is a certain expectation, right or wrong, that all the free work they are putting in will not be directly profited upon by others.

naive? maybe.

But that’s neither here nor there. The truth is that it happens. How many projects that were supposed to be ‘for the community’ have we all worked on, helped edit, playtest or whatever, that are now being marketed.

Again. Marketing is fair play. Situations change. Children need to be fed.

But every instance of oreillyism creates more alienation, makes it harder for everyone to trust that the project that they are working on is not simply going to be sold by the organizers.

So, how do we avoid oreillyism?

1. Please, everyone, clearly identify your trademarks so we can all know what we can and can’t use.
2. If you are going to be, someday, selling your product to google, let us know. Sell shares to your helpers.
3. If you have plans to do new marketing, post it on your website
4. Just let us know what you’re doing. Odds are if we’re working with/for you, we like you, we’ll be happy to see you succeed.

We can all make money together. We can all work together. This is about finding a new way to do business. AN OPEN WAY.

comment added following this post on eschoolnews

I in no way meant to imply that moodle WILL charge anyone anything ever. My intention in using the example was to illustrate how trust is affected by ‘oreillyism.’

Wow…

A rabid man took over my blog and posted a very silly comment… which, for posterities sake, I will leave attached to the end of the post. I must say, a couple of hours later, that i’m still a little concerned about the o’reilly thing. It always seems that someone will send out something trademarkish, demanding and limiting when there’s money involved. I’ve never really understood the reification of ideas.

So much has already been written about this… i really do need to take a day and think it over. for those of you who were forced to read the previous post… my apologies. dave.

Web 2.0 (from tim o’reilley) is a concept that, at its web 2.0 (ftor) heart, is a concept that lives and breathes on its (ftor) openness.

You’ve got to be fcuknig kidding me.

That is officially the first time i’ve ever sworn in this blog. But this is rediculous. A trademark is something that should protect WORK done. I can’t even write.

And now he wants to trademark it.

fine. poop on him.

it’s been a great couple of weeks hanging with Oscar and bon. So far being a dad is pretty cool. But time to get back to work, at least back to blogging.

Second life is not a game. That is the first thing that I came to realize after about fifteen minutes into the virtual reality environment. In order for something to be ‘a game’ there need to be clear defined rules, and, most would argue, a way to win. True, you could measure ‘winning’ by how much money you have, a common path in our own ‘meatspace’ world… and not one I particularly subscribe to. You could play a game IN second life… much like you could in ‘first life’. But, in and of itself, it is not a game.

And it is this potential for creating ANYTHING that both supports all the potential and all the difficulties with using it as a educational platform. At worldbridges we’ve been testing bunches of different ways to use second life.

• we’ve webcasted.
• we’ve met.
• we’ve built stuff.
• we’ve bought and sold.
• i bought a blackjack machine.
• i’ve won a lost money playing it.
• i built some furniture.
• jeff bought and configured an amphitheatre.
• we’re designing a conference environment.
• jeff built a soju tent.
• i’ve met new people

The 3.0ness assuming that makes any sense, comes from the feeling of ‘actually being there’. During our various live, participatory events, we’ve often gotten a great deal of feedback that people felt disassociated from other members, who were confused about ‘where to go’. In second life – you can follow. If someone turns to go into a group, you can follow them… chatting works by proximity, communities of conversation can form naturally, according to the needs of the people involved.

The interactivity of blogs and podcasts still comes from the old ‘expert central’ model. yes, you can respond to a blog and a podcast using your own blog or podcast, but it is still an exchange of expert opinions… and i’ve had some very nice conversations that way. But very little gets BUILT that way. How many projects have actually gotten DONE through blogging and podcasting? Even with live webcasting, there still tends to be a central voice, or voices that control the conversation. A conversation in second life, however, allows for an open conference without the without that central expert opinion.

Now, you might say, sounds life a real life conference, except with less beer. Well, that may be, but in a real conference, the money, the control of the agenda, no matter how open, still has a great deal of effect on the outcome. If Star Macrosystems supports a conference, is it really possible to openly criticise their work? A second life conference takes one call out, and it can begin. It’s completely supported by Linden labs.

The catch? They want your credit card or paypal account. but you can play without paying cash. And the sign up process is long and tedious. Ostensibly, the process assures that you don’t wreck the economy by signing up a million times and gathering the cash. and it does do this. But it does mean that anytime you find something appealing to purchase, you are that much closer to buying it.

Educationally, especially with adults and by distance, this environment is without equal. The opportunies for interactivity and to deal with the alienation that comes from virtual classrooms is amazing. With the K-12 system i forsee many, many more problems. A system of control would need to be very tight in order to stop students from simply skydiving away the whole class. It would be possible, but difficult.

We will be doing a conference there soon, and are in there working on stuff all the time. You are all invited. My name in SL is coarsesalt Warrigall. say hello.