Open Source for Open Communities: How Participatory Technology can Empower Everyone

I created a shortened URL for sharing this session page. It's:

http://bit.ly/amcopen

When talking to programmers it's nice to have a "Flow Chart" to showcase what the community needs so that the developer can possibly deliver results!

Just wanted to make sure everyone had links to the projects that the panelists represented:

Melissa Pang - Pixelpowrrr

Anne Jonas - Miro Community

Kirk Kimmel - Open Media Forge

Nathaniel James - Mozilla Drumbeat

Here are some (very incomplete) observations from the session from my notes and memory. Please reply and correct/add.

Thanks!

Glossary

Free/Libre/Open source Software (FLOSS) - Somewhat synonomous with the term "open source", although some would vehemently debate this. It's software that gives users the freedom to pick apart, modify and share modifications to the technology. In many cases, this freedom leads to the technology being developed by a number of different people.

CMS - Content management system. Originally, web sites were files where the design and layout of the page was stored along with the content. The files were edited on someone's workstation and uploaded to the webserver. Now, most websites are built with a CMS which is software that stores content seperately from the layout and design of the pages. The content is usually stored in a database and is entered through a web interface that requires little knowledge of web-design languages like HTML or CSS.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) - Many options for hosting a web site are "shared hosting", or getting a certain amount of disk space, network bandwidth and access to other services on one instance of an operating system shared by many different sites and users. A virtual private server is a different kind of hosting where you get an entire server instance all to yourself. You can usually install software and configure it as you see fit. The virtual means that your server isn't actually a separate physical computer, it's a separate instance of an operating system and storage that may be one of many running on a single machine. Wow. I don't know how to make that definition less jargony.

Drupal - a popular open source CMS. It is very flexible so in addition to presenting content, one can build sites that perform a number of functions whether it's a library catalog or social network.

Technical

Is open source software less prone to viruses?

Kirk said that it doesn't really have to do with open source vs. non-free software, but instead whether people/companies making softwar or people using the software followed good security practices. He added that operating systems like Linux and Mac OS X were based on operating systems that had always supported multiple users whereas Windows added multi-user and additional security measures later on.

Melissa said she felt like her experience with security and open source projects was that open source projects were much more invested in trying to fix security issues while commercial software makers often seemed more concerned about controlling perceptions about their reputation.

What hosting service do you recommend for Drupal?

Melissa said she has a VPS (virtual private server) for hosting rather than shared hosting, but that she had heard good things about DreamHost (who does offer free hosting for 501c3 organizations). May First/People Link, which is a membership-based cooperative organization that provides hosting to its members, was mentioned as a cool alternative to commercial hosting.

Sustainability

There were a lot of questions about sustainability. We talked a lot about ones dealing with participatory technology communities that are based on (and value!) the efforts of more people than just developers. A number of people talked about the need for FLOSS projects to be driven by users or organizers and not just by developers. Kirk and Melissa both stressed the need for developers to take time writing documentation.

In addition to building a community that values conversations as much as hacking, one idea that emerged was that of fostering a community with more developers with more diverse experiences. One idea (I can't remember who brought it up) that I thought was interesting was that its important to not just leverage and foster the energy of younger developers in FLOSS projects, but "newer" ones (indepdendent of age).

One question that wasn't really addressed was how to move away from centralized, corporate control in FLOSS or a reliance on proprietary software by activist groups. Nathaniel pointed out that FLOSS wasn't separate from corporate or centralized influence. But, he and a number of folks mentioned that they felt technology should be "appropriate" or pragmatic - people should use the tools that let them achieve their goals fluidly (independent of its openness).

Why open?

Melissa made the observation that she liked FLOSS because of its ability to support or foster "things you don't see coming." Many groups that she works with who had experience with working with the limitations of proprietary software or painful hacks to make the technology sort of do what they wanted to do made them lose imagination for their technology projects, she said. Working with FLOSS was like playing with legos, she said, not assembling a piece of furniture.

Anne shared a cool story about people reacting to content discovered through a Miro Community site. It made me think about how, even as the barriers to producing content are becoming lower, it can still be difficult to discover, forefront and contextualize the media that communities make or that matters to different communities.

A few things I learned from the session:

Anne's discussion about Miro made me realize the pitfalls of big user-generated sites like Youtube - it's hard to find content that's relevant to you, especially if you aren't looking for something in particular. (This is one of the big innovations of Twitter, I think eventually everything will move toward a "feed" structure where the content comes to you, instead of you going to find it). A smaller fishbowl of content can better foster community & connections. Also: love that they can give low-budget communities such a slick design!

James' discussion about Drumbeat was both similar and contrasting to Anne's, for me - kind of taking all these smaller fishbowls (open web projects) and dropping them into a single ecosystem. Reminds me of this current trend in activism where there's less of a bent on having some unifying Borg-like movement, and it's more about forming a cell with fellow "birds of a feather" and then finding ways to connect to each other (via coalition-building for example), shifting into fluctuating formations to accomplish different goals. Also: P2PU sounds *awesome*

Kirk's discussion about OpenMediaForge was neat, especially his line about how the "experts" couldn't see any purpose in it because they already had the insider scoop to find that kind of software. Really highlights some of the communication gaps between various types (I don't want to say "levels") of knowledge. Also dug how he pointed out that security isn't necessarily about commercial versus open-source!

I also really liked the myth-busting about open-source (it's not necessarily more radical or less financially supported, we aren't at the place yet where it's feasible for everyone to use only open-source, you shouldn't feel guilty about using commercial software). And I liked the discussion about open source + community and some of barriers there, like gender, language, race, intergenerational issues, etc. And I liked talking about community love and how a direction I think open-source needs to go in is like, "I don't really like coding X, or writing Y, but I'm going to do it because you need it." ...instead of where it often is, which is more "Open-source means that I'm only going to pursue my own interests and I'm not going to help out my peers".

I liked that Geoff repeatedly mentioned the importance of valuing beginners / users just as much as "experts" / developers, and Geoff did an awesome job of moderating in general - a total role model for moderating being about weaving together threads and illuminating directions (as opposed to clompity-clomping authority). Thanks Geoff, fellow panelists, and awesome attendees who came at 9am on Saturday morning and packed the room with their bodies & ideas!

- Melissa

That's a great achievement right there showing how the shift in the product rationale (as a market concept) can help ease issues of competition and injustice in its use by the People... Western thinking put the latter as the prerequisite for individual salvation, which is dead wrong...

Throughout this US Social Forum we have proven that we need to Open Up new frontiers in interpersonal psychology applied to day in day out living... We should not be confined in just claiming on side of the sociological entreprise (socialism against communism VS capitalism...), but seeing each corner of it as part of the whole fabric leading to mutual acceptation, inclusion, against a culture of rejection and racism worldwide...

The previous generation was one of Fear and fearmongering attitude, Ours remains the one of Openness and Unconditional Love, that's why we were able to build The momentum in Detroit...now the hardest part remains: to follow up on the outcome of this Detroit connection... and actively applying the principles of grassroot mobilization and community organising... Indeed the extent of our commitment dictates the level of support we're seeking throughout this Journey.

Do you Agree?
Either way I'd love to read/ hear from you so we can adjust the follow up issues in need to adress!

Demba
www.comengip.org