There are corporate-driven software projects that are free software (what is “open software”?). For example, Java is developed primarily by Sun yet under the GNU GPL. When it comes to software, it’s the licensing that determines whether or not the project is socially beneficial or not. Whether or not “Corporate America” is involved is not directly relevant. Of course, there is a high correlation between corporations and proprietary software – but free software is still business-friendly.

Of course there’s alternatives to that. Jim and others who write these linked up blogs work for colleges and in teaching. In my native UK, at least, that makes it public sector. Higher Ed is paid out of your taxes in the UK. Well, that’s been attacked a bit in the past ten years – but I didn’t have to pay extra on top of taxes for it.

We could simply change publically subsidised, privately profitable into publically subsidized, publically profitable.

New products can be developed in an open source environment then implemented in libraries, community centres and a fully funded free education system. Not to mention in your own home if you have access.

Private business needn’t be in the loop at all. And if they are there – they needn’t dictate the products themselves or the content.

In fact, one of the cheekiest events in history is how (computers and then) the net was developed over years in the military complex on complete public funding – and then awarded to private corps to sell back to us once it became a usable product.

There ARE alternatives. (In your face, Thatcher).

Can you conceive of a corporate, but genuinely open initiative?
How can open software reach mainstream consumers without big business supplying it?

In fact, Brian, it is with you in mind that this post was written, I’m referring to all the unbelievable work you have done with framing the discussion around open resources and lightweight syndication publishing platforms. Your keynote at COSL last year represents my impressions of the term open, and to see it kicked around so loosely by a corporate machine that mows its competitors down with untenable lawsuits made me scared (and I’m glad Mike is finally feeling scared too after your comment here–those New England cats don’t freeze up easy ).

In fact, this will be long-winded, so forgive me, but everything I write is long-winded, and I understand it is a disease I can get help for. My doctor recommended smoking to shorten my breath, still waiting for that benefit to kick in.

Claudia Emerson and I were invited to talk about a Literary Journals class we worked on together for a project called LEAD at the Darden Business School at the University of VA. The project selected a group of top performing high school students from around the country that showed an interest in Business, and was generously funded by Exxon! So, one of the organizers met Claudia at another function and was impressed with her, as anyone would be, and she allowed me to tag along for a much needed payday

If I could cut to the chase I would just tell you it was a blast, which it was. But here are the details, we had three hours to just talk with them about presentation styles, poetry, literary journals, teaching, community, online media, communication, blogs, open source software, whatever we wanted. We just sat with them and had a conversation between us (Claudia and I) and invited them slowly in, then we started asking them what they were doing in this program, and what they were working on. They started telling us about their projects, which were the capstone presentations of this program in which they had to come up with a business proposal for a new, innovative company. They asked us for feedback, presentation recommendations, etc.

And now to the point, one of the projects that was being proposed reminded me of the morphed idea of organic in the face of a new market that you talk about beautifully. The group wanted to start a Green Landscaping and Development Company. The point was that they would both develop and landscape new houses and suburbs that weren’t organized around a sustainable living community necessarily, but rather were built with environment friendly materials, and the heavy equipment was run with bio-diesel fuel and electric powered lawnmowers, etc. The group was thrilled with the idea, and generally excited by the idea that “everyone wants to go green.” And while I didn’t want to discount the potential benefits of such logic—I tried to hold my tongue during their period of sharing—but when they were done both Claudia and I looked at one another and basically asked, “How can irresponsible development be truly “green” if it isn’t thought out at the local level by a community?” (Which is my problem with Sakai, but I’ll save that for another day.)

The push for green developers, builders, and landscape architects is in many ways the same co-option of an idea like “Green,” that has some real thought behind it, being completely gutted of any value, and sold back because it is somehow resonant for a society, and it is believed (and often demonstrated) that people consume accordingly. And seeing a group of smart kids understand this, and present it as a viable business project which might indeed prove successful by capitalizing on the particular buzz of an “environmentally conscious” consumer—and you know I really can’t these statements with a straight face, especially after throwing that lighter on the sidewalk in Brooklyn—made me think this exploitation has everything to do with the absence of a community.

If there is no viable and active community around organic agriculture or green development or educational technology thinking that is local and active, then ultimately the space of capital fills the void and makes you feel somehow righteous in your aloneness, despite the fact that you really haven’t made the true step that this world desperately needs, a space for contact, discussion, and sharing. It is hippie, I know and forgive me, but it is truly one potential antidote to the crimes against our ow humanity this cultural imposed alienation has wrought.

All that said, at the end of the session one of the student whose name was Nicholas came up to me (and he wasn’t from that group) said, you know the point you made about green development (which was a meager point at best) that is exactly what’s happening in open source software right now, and he proceeded to quote Zizek on cooption. This was right after EDUPUNK became a “thing” and I was sitting there listening to this kid talk and wondering why do I think I uderstand what these kids are about or that they are merely going to grow out of their ideas or that I might know more and act accordingly. It was a special moment for within all the talk about language and subverting meanings, the act of being in the room and talking it through with all if them n an all too human style was something special. And something I miss with so many of the people in this comment thread.

This was far too long a response, forgive me, I am feeling sentimental for some odd reason

Perhaps we should move to the “libre” term, like some in the FOSS community?

Or, no — we should do what you do here Jim, and fight to keep this term.

It does seem a never-ending battle with people coming and stinking up perfectly good terms.

Remember the 2006 e coli outbreak in ‘organic’ spinach? Turned out that a widespread and diversely branded amount of the tainted organic spinach all came from the same farm, contaminated by a cattle operation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_North_American_E._coli_outbreak

And at least with organic food there is some set of standards regulating what can be called “organic” (though those standards are under constant pressure from agribusiness producers and retailers, and enforcement is sketchy at best). In our field “open” is just another marketing buzzword. Expect to see a lot of more of this sort of positioning and posturing.

Which leads me to @Patrick’s point, I agree that EDUPUNK as a term is intentionally vague, and touchè on the telepathy comment. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a…more seriously though, the difference for me is that this company, that has been draconian in their definitions of ownership and relentless in their pursuit to crush the competition is offering this term up in a staged press release to announce their relationship to openness and open source tools. It seems like they are running interference on a word that had some meaning within a specific context already, how ever meager as Peter Rock points out.

As for EDUPUNK, as @Jerry suggested, it will be in their Fall press release for sure, which will give my the occasion for another blog post on the subject Yet, as @Andy points out, and I agree with him, it is another term, at least for the moment, that kind of stands outside of the language that has been euthanized to the point where any one can apply it to their business model, no matter how open or closed it is.

@Michael It kind of saddens me to see the term open become a buzzword like it is, and if you follow the link to Mike Caulfield’s blog post below, I think he does a far better job of defining openness usefully, and putting BlackBoard’s untenable position in a far more intelligent and removed perspective. I tend to agree with him, but that said I think what is interesting here that you make quite clear is that this is a struggle of language and marketing techniques. We are not losing sleep or time over this episode as much as we are being deprived of words, which may actually force people to become more creative and trace the different meanings and nuances of terms like free, freedom, and open as @Peter Rock does.

I As @Bill Ftzgerald makes clear, this isn’t all that new, and it has been going on for years, and I don’t disagree with @Peter Naegele that BlackBoard needs to be sorry for making money for what they do, for they shouldn’t feel bad and I respect that they provide a service that many folks want and need. That said, they should just refrain from trying to conflate their practices with the logic of openness, in a rather Shystery way as @Joe suggests, that has had a relatively specific connotation in education.

Finally, the possibility of many tools under various umbrellas for a wide range of different projects and experiments is what @Luke brings together nicely. I think what becomes the dominant, institutional logic for such a promise b is making or we are seeking is some kind of authenticated, single sign-on for all university applications, making integration the key components, although we will never really have two systems tuning.

Wow, my first attempt to make a series of reply comments read like a cogent post response, interesting, but probably not very readable.