Considering the pre-history of open source it might be handy to look back to
before computing became a popular medium (pre-1980¹s). Before the
micro-computer, and even in the early days of such systems, most coding was
done in an open source style. People were not writing commercial software
but solving technical problems they had in getting the system to do what
they wanted. Generally this was a community of developers who wanted to
share what they did, using the BBS¹s of the day with FTP and acoustic
couplers, recognising that by sharing their techniques and knowledge they
were more likely to move that knowledge along than keeping it to themselves.
Most of these people were either in academia or were hobbyists. Even in the
early days of certain software companies, that have become monolithic today,
their code was relatively open and you could modify it and share patches
quite freely. You could even do this with earlier versions of what have
become some of todays most popular operating systems. As the software IP
holders recognised the negative hit they were taking on pirating they closed
such loop holes.

With discussions at governmental level (al least in the UK) about requiring
all publicly funded research to be freely published on the internet (instead
of pay to access journals) we might see a move back to a knowledge economy
founded in part on open source like principles. I would strongly support
this ­ and it is an argument that has not yet been won and therefore needs
support.

Open source has come a long way from the pre-80¹s model. However, one thing
which can be observed is that it still exists as a self-selecting community.
People involved in the area make a conscious decision to model themselves as
Œopen source¹ and adopt a certain established ethical framework in the
process. It is an idealistic movement, in this respect. Being an old cynic I
guess that counts me out ;)

Regards

Simon


Simon Biggs

Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
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www.eca.ac.uk

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www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk



From: Armin Medosch <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Armin Medosch <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 16:49:46 +0100
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Open source first steps

Hi all


I follow this discussion with interest but must add that for me the
relationship between free and open source software and art or more
narrowly media art is not new but goes back a long time. The Chaos
Computer Club was invited to the art festival steirischer herbst in 1986
and that was my first direct exposure to hacker culture. It was not
called free software then but public domain and you ended up swapping
floppy disks with strangers in weird comic or scifi bookshops. it was
strange for me because I was 23, 24, they were 14 to 18 but technically
much more advanced than me. and I should never close the gap anymore
after that;-)