Azeem Azhar's article in the February 2004 issue of Prospect magazine is a good review of the open source movement which not only traces the history and potential of open source in software development, but explores open source ideology being applied to non-software development. As described in the article,

Yochai Benkler, a law professor at Yale University, has called this "commons-based peer production." The commons refers to the sharing of the underlying code or the output that is open to all, akin to the public land that farmers once grazed their livestock upon. Peer production means that producers participate for their own varied reasons and in ad hoc ways, not necessarily via legal contract or management fiat. Benkler calls this a third mode of production for the market, distinct from the company and the "spot market" (or, in employment terms, the freelancer). Open source shows that it is possible for part of the economy to function without companies but with many self-employed individuals contracting with each other.

Included in the article are mentions of Wikipedia, open access journals, Open Course Ware and open journalism. Overall, a good review to share with anyone wanting to learn about open source, open content and the public commons.

Came across Wikipedia while reading the Nation. Wikipedia bills itself as:

Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create an accurate and comprehensive free-content encyclopedia. We started in January 2001 and are currently working on 205482 articles in the English version.

and:

Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Wikipedia article used (a direct link back to the article satisfies our author credit requirement). Wikipedia articles therefore will remain free forever and can be used by anybody subject to certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure that freedom.

Well this may be a first. Creative Commons announces,

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Cory Doctorow's first novel released a little over a year ago, has just been relicensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license. Previously the book did not allow derivative works and any "lost chapters" or comic versions were unauthorized. With this change in place, the door is wide open to people writing prequels, sequels, and side stories, you can make a movie, cartoon, or graphic novel, you can write songs for it, rewrite it in haiku, and/or turn it all into one giant flowchart, as long as your new Down and Out-inspired work isn't released in a commercial context or sold.

So maybe someone should take Doctorow up on his generosity to the public commons. Certainly, a brave move for a novelist. Kudos to Doctorow.

Hmmmm...Wonder when our profession will get this brave?

The Mozilla Firefox 0.8 browser, formerly Mozilla Firebird (name change to avoid trademark infringement), and Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 email are available for download. Have Firefox installed and it's running nicely, although I haven't noticed the differences between this and the previous version yet.