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ISummit 2006

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[edit] Final Session, June 25: Open Mike with iCommons Board of Directors

Heather Ford, Joichi Ito, Christiane Henckel, Paul Keller, Ronaldo Lemos, Lawrence Lessig, Tomislav Medak, Jimmy Wales

Scribe's notes

Heather Ford, Executive Director

iCommons' mission statement: foster the digital commons.

iCommons' strategy: incubate and connect

1. Incubate: by encouraging and facilitating the sharing of technical knowledge around implementation.

  • a. public domain digitization: sharing best case practices. Framework will be posted on the wiki: 24 July
  • b. framework for open science. Resource kit (CC licenses, SC author addenda, archiving and publishing software, marketing materials, empirical evidence for open science). Draft release of implementation plan: August 15.
  • c. Freedom Toaster video and audio. A framework for selecting, compiling and distributing video and audio for local communities. Framework to be posted on wiki.icommons: 31 July.
  • d. Indigenous knowledge licensing. Alexandria Institute. Proposal for comment: 1 Sept.
  • e. iSummit 07 committee. Dubrovnik, Croatia. June 2007. Date to be determined in next 2 weeks. Website, scholarships, logistics, website, media, bags, DVDs, booklet, artist in residence. Framework on wiki.icommons: 24 July. Come and bring 2 more commoners.

2. Connect: Profiling iCommons individuals, projects, events and activities

Joichi Ito, Chairman of the Board

Organizational structure: This is an incredibly diverse group. Our purpose is to support diversity. Feedback from participants included requests for more structure. The board has suggested organizing in terms of "nodes" (not chapters). There are lots of different communities that want to interact in more structured way. A node needs a purpose and a leader. We’ll have suggestions for bylaws, but content can be about anything, e.g. local CC group, or a particular project. Need traction, community and momentum. We’ll help coordinate communications, perhaps incubate and prepare for next meeting. We want to figure out way for nodes to communicate on this.

Lessig: Nodes are self-organizing on any relevant topic. The critical thing is that they focus on projects. Identified project must exist, not just an identity. There must be a logical reason to gather with us at the next Summit.

Ito: What do you, the participants, think about this or anything else that has been proposed? We would like you to have this opportunity to speak up.

Responses from the floor

Q: Claudio: Congratulations on a great event. We propose a traditional culture program on culture hot spots as a project.


Q. Do you envision some form of membership by individuals or organizations?
A. Ito: We’re envisioning organizations that have a purpose. Members can gather and form organization. We don’t want iCommons to build a huge infrastructure to run a large membership. The node is self-organizing. iCommons will have its own projects also and that’s another way to interact with nodes.


Q. What can we offer to existing organizations? Why should they bother joining?
A. Ito: The Summit is a valuable thing that is offered. There is a benefit to participation in the Summit itself.
A: Wales: This is like the Wikipedia community. We do this in isolation outside of the movement. Our people don’t necessarily know each other. iCommons can draw communities together to function as a group.
A: Lemos: most of our Brazilian projects also started in coordination with other iCommons groups. Richest thing about the community is the potential inside this room. It will get bigger and bigger. A huge generator of new projects. We see it happening already.


Q. This was a great experience. It costs money to do this. Also requires scare time. There are many formats to do these projects. As a board, how will you prioritize what you do?
A. Keller: We haven’t really discussed that yet. Growth has been tremendous. Yearly events are clearly important. Too many people might be excluded if we wait every 2 years.
A: Ford: I've thought about this a lot. If it was just an event for people to talk and go away, that would be wasteful. So the first goal is to make it more than just a summit and make it a working meeting that solidifies what we’ve done all year and where we start planning development for the coming year. Another part of the strategy is to enable the rest of the community to share the expense burden. By letting you know well in advance, then you can help us by raising money so that we can sustain this.
Q. We should do it in Second Life.
A. Ito: That's a good suggestion. We’ve committed to Dubrovnik for 2007, however, so it’s like not having a board meeting every year.


Q: The node is a brilliant idea. New kind of network linking up on the planet. Agree there is value in physical meeting. We support continued physical meetings.


Q. One thing a node could do is to help the connection bit. Apart from IO gatherings. Look at SourceForge approach. Look for a degree of functionality. They show the top 10 projects that work. Don’t be too restrictive, but think of the metrics we need so that we can tell in 3 minutes which project is of interest, how it has performed, etc.
A. Ford: That’s exactly what we want to do. The incubator is a Source Forge for open content. Producing a set of tools that will help anyone start their own project.


QopenDemocracy: CC and iCommons have a lot of good will from many nations. But they will have to make tough choices as they grow. It is important for iCommons to meet physically to maintain that good will. Message behind iCommons has to be super clear. Would like to hear reactions to the message Heather has presented. How would one determine if someone is furthering the digital commons? Tools need to go both ways. How will you be listening to your communities?
A. Ito: This is open to discussion. We originally thought that SourceForge model would be bottom-up. If it isn’t useful, we want to know. We’ve started a process within the iCommons about how we will design these things. You’ll be on our discussion list.
A. Lessig: There are 2 separate organizations. Joi, Jimmy and I are common to both, but iCom board will grow. CC doesn’t want to manage iCommons. Principle is the same for both: humility. Some people have a clear idea of what freedom is. Jamie Boyle articulated this. I respect that. But that’s not how we worked. We want to hear, ask, listen, and modify based on what we hear. The iCommons node is an invitation, not a command. We ask openDemocracy to be a node, but we don’t tell them that they must join. If a project doesn’t work, it will fail. This organization is a free software project. We invite you all to participate and see how far it will take us.
A: Ito: almost all SourceForge projects fail except for a very small number. They want to lower the costs of failure and we do, too. Most tools will come from nodes communicating directly with each other.


Q. The educational initiatives we saw at this event showed commitment and collective idea of what to do, but with lots of local variation on how it’s been applied. Sometimes divides are highlighted, not overcome. Do you have plans to allow people who share node goals but who don’t want to join. Maybe they can serve as ambassadors. They have no mandate to represent you, but some kind of impetus to go out and get others involved.
A. Ford: One of the first project proposals we wrote, helped by Jamie Boyle, was about building capacity in the south to support this movement and run these projects. I love the idea of ambassadors. It's a great concept. It’s not an easy problem to solve. Problems arise when we forget that it’s everyone’s responsibility. An annual meeting forces us to come together and work with others. We didn’t do as much as we could around this issue this year. What would you advise?
Q. In educational sector, we can connect people building a project with a local bank that might help them out. Need to think outside the commoner box and make compelling connections without necessarily joining the node.


Q. Shuttleworth: I love the SourceForge idea. We hold IRC Town Hall meetings. Over 600 people involved. Low bandwidth and low cost. I sometimes feel like I’m coming to a great club, but lots of people have no idea what we’re doing. We need to break out of that ethos to encourage other people to attend the meeting. (Applause from audience.)
Q. Croatia: We need to make some kind of decisions. We've agreed that we want as big a community as we can get, but with as small an organization as possible behind it. Representation and legislation are important. We all agree that the current board represents the best of the “commons man” and what’s going on. Later, we’ll need voting to decide who is here and why they get to come. What is the process of making decisions?
A. Lessig: This organization needs to mature and grow into its own. Lots of trust is needed that we have a common purpose. We don’t have to agree on what the purpose is (laughter), so we keep working on this until we have a clearer idea. The idea of nodes is to invite. We are looking for a sense from you of whether this is the right way to go.

[Free Culture invites everyone to go to the beach and party. (laughter)]

Q. Berkley: I like NodeForge. The tools packet for Science Commons mentioned by Wilbanks is great. Lots of resources here. Can you facilitate record-keeping, or best practices, or failure alerts, etc.?
A. Ford: We’re talking about fund-raising kits, etc. Sharing successes and failures on various topics has been an idea for a while.


Q. Poland: Many communities work with names and brands. There is a "Creative Commons" movement going on. I feel like I’m in the CC movement, not the iCommons movement. We need a transfer strategy to shift the meme/brand. Should we start naming ourselves differently?
A. Ito: In JP, we have Dominique (iCom) and Yuko (legal). They've been approached by a commercial firm to do JPMixter. It's too risky for the legal side, so we need something different. We may end up with 2 nodes in JP: an iCom node and a CC node (that handles the legal licenses).
A. Lessig: I love that you’re part of the movement, even though you’re not a lawyer. iCommons is about facilitating a lot more than the CC movement. I don’t want to be in the game to tell you what words to use. We have to let this grow a bit before we get a clear sense. Please be the CC movement. Keep doing what you’re doing.


Q. Where does the money come from? We would like to see some transparency put in place to know what the boundaries are in regard to fund-raising and how the organization is spending money.
A. Ito: As a UK charity, iCom must publish financial statements annually.


Q. OSI: I’m surprised that you define yourself as an organization when I always thought of you as a movement. There are advantages and disadvantages. It's easier to discredit you if you’re an organization. I’m more comfortable joining a movement than an organization. Can’t iCommons just be a movement?
A. Wales: I think of iCommons as something that supports the movement (such as the free culture movement). We need an organization that is separate from the CC community. CC is just a bunch of lawyers working on licenses.


Q. Shuttleworth. I think its good to have various movements able to join under a single banner to stay focused.
A. Ito: Digital Garage is a public company that tries to make money. I keep hearing the word “fund-raising” and getting donations is one way to get money. But making money is also a way to get money. Microsoft didn’t do the plug-in because they like Larry, but because it will make money. [Video demonstration of dotsub.com.] With Dotsub, we struggled to make a complete video that was BY licensed. DG sponsored this and broadcast it on TV where it was treated as a regular show. We need to find a way to compile works with cleared rights. If you have connections with local video and broadcast contacts.

[Ito offers the video server for free to anyone in need of the equipment.]


Declarations

Lessig: iCommons is not a policy-making body, but many think that issues get reflected upon by iCommoners. There are 3 declarations provided to you. Let’s open a conversation. We can appoint someone to head a wiki committee to hammer out final versions so that everyone can express support or not. One is a directive to the iCommons board to take action and we’d like a sense of your feeling about. Use IETF humming approach. If humming establishes sense of going forward, then we need a volunteer to head it. Any questions?
Q. Let's calibrate to get the baseline. [Everyone hums.]

A. Declaration on Broadcast Treaty

Lessig: Ask Cory Doctorow to speak about Broadcast Flag declaration. Is it appropriate for iCom to talk about this?
Doctorow: WIPO creates a new copyright for people who transmit stuff; it's a different right from those who create the stuff. Broadcasters can override authors’ rights. Our proposal is to take declaration to WIPO by August to address this in the treaty. We don't want it to override CC licenses.
Lessig: Does this need clarification? Any comments? A hum will mean that you support opening a wiki discussion on the final language of this declaration. All those in favor of beginning the conversation, please hum. [Audience hums unanimimous consensus.] Any volunteer?
Doctorow volunteers.

B. Declaration on DRM

Doctorow: We’ve had DRM vendors that identify themselves as CC vendors. We want to encourage vendors to use CC-compatible language. Would prefer to require them to use DRM that doesn’t circumvent fair use.
Lessig: Any questions?
Boyle: A key plank is that “CC is an alternative to DRM”. That's like cats and apples.
Lessig: Agreed. Let's address that in the wiki redrafting phase if this goes forward.
?: DRM as we know it now includes restrictions that always favor big enterprises. But a management restriction is not necessarily evil if it favors the individual artists. We can discuss this on the wiki. Don’t be prejudiced just because it's DRM. We might find a way to make DRM work for you and not always work against you.
?. DRM v. TPM? If this is a no-DRM declaration, it could alienate those who are doing things that we might want to support. Seems a bit broad.
Lessig: This isn't about CC licenses. The vote is only about taking the declaration to a wiki for discussion. Your issues are for the wiki. Shall the conversation proceed? [Audience hums unanimous consensus.]

C. Open Access Declaration

Lessig: Do you want to direct the board to sign the Berlin and Budapest Declarations?
Powers: This should include non-peer reviewed journals such as law reviews.
Wilbanks: All 3 of these were written after samba night and before this morning's session. Don’t get hung up on details. It's just a simple statement that all scholarly work should be online, copyable and free. Give me any suggestions for changes. We're only asking for a directive to the board to sign the B and B declarations.
?: So this vote has a different purpose from 2 other hums? I haven’t read it. Let’s do this as a wiki discussion.
Hall: This is for the board. They’re asking for our direction. It's a form of representative democracy. Does it matter whether we vote when only a few of us have read it or if we defer it to a wiki where maybe 4 people will devote time to it. The outcome is probably the same.
Croatia: I would propose to vote now. You don’t like it, don’t hum. These declarations have been around for a long time and are supported by many organizations. Let’s go forward.
Lessig: Rules of Order. We'll vote on the proposal for an amendment. If it passes, we’ll wiki. If it doesn’t pass, then we'll vote on directive to board. [Amendment fails.]
Lessig: All in favor of asking the board to sign the Berlin and Budapest Declarations, please hum. [Audience hums unanimously.]

Ito: Obrigado to everyone who worked on the Summit. Adjourns meeting for Free Beer party on the roof.

[edit] yeter

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