[Reader-list] Oct 8: Internet and the culture of openness

[Subramanya Sastry]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 07:57:05 -0500 (CDT)
From: Subramanya Sastry <sastry at cs.wisc.edu>
To: S Subramanya Sastry <sastry at cs.wisc.edu>,
     T.B.Dinesh <tbdinesh at servelots.com>
Subject: Oct 8: Internet and the culture of openness

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                       Invitation to a discussion
                                   on
                 "Internet and the culture of openness"

Date       : Oct 8th, Saturday
Time       : 3:30 pm
Venue      : 3354, K.R.Road, Bangalore
Phone      : 26762963
Directions : http://pantoto.com/p/UpLoad/tmdb/bhairava/f/Directions.gif

You are also welcome to stay on and join another "open-space" event at
the same location (For details, visit http://liveit.in)
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The World Social Forum (WSF) first made its appearance on the global scene
in 2001 and it seems that it is here to stay. The WSF means many things to
many people, but, one of the more prominent conceptions of the WSF is as an
'open space' where individuals, organizations, and movements come together,
share, exchange, build bridges, relationships, strategize, etc.

Yet, the idea of an 'open space' is not peculiar to the WSF.  One could
perhaps trace this idea of 'WSF as an open space' to the various trends and
practices of "openness" that are now prevalent on the Internet -- starting
with the open source movement, which in turn has spurred various other
endeavours from open access journals, open maps, open knowledge,
open content, open design, open publishing, open encyclopedias (wikipedia),
open politics, open democracy, and so on.

Clearly, most of these endeavours in "openness" appear rooted in the
potential and promise of the Internet -- the new-found zeal for openness
in most endeavours could be seen as an outcome of what the Internet is.

With this extremely brief background and context, we invite you to
a discussion to take a critical look on the theme "Internet and the culture
of openness", the promise, potential, and practicality of it.

            Theme: Internet and the culture of openness
            Date : Oct 8th, Saturday
            Time : 3:30 pm
            Venue: 3354, K.R.Road

We encourage submissions from you before the meeting (at least an idea
or a question that you would like to bring up during the meeting) so that
it can help us facilitate a logical flow during the discussion.  Even if
you are not from Bangalore, and/or cannot be part of the discussion, we
encourage you to write in -- your contribution will be shared with the
group.  We also hope to put up some of this material on a website (open to,
participation of course!).

Here are some questions to consider:
- Is the underlying idea of openness particularly new to the Internet era?
  Or, what is the history of this value of openness?  What can we say of its
  appeal in the future?
- How much of this practice of "openness", so prevalent in the domain of
  the Internet, carries over to the domain of interactions in the world
  of flesh-and-blood?
- Seen another way, if found desirable, how does one translate the practice
  and culture of openness from the electronic world to the "real" world?
- How stable and robust are these practices of openness in the electronic
  world, dependent as strongly as they are on technological enablers?
  [ The recent case where Yahoo! helped the Chinese Government convict
    a Chinese journalist is a case in point. ]
- Seen another way, what are the weaknesses of the Internet-driven
  cultures of openness?
- Are we now entering a world losing control over our commons in the
  real world and getting enraptured by the commons of the electronic
  world?

We look forward to an interesting discussion, even if this email is going
out at short notice!

Subbu (sastry at cs.wisc.edu) and Dinesh (dinesh at servelots.com).