Hi Sal,
Yes I fully take on board your statement about making things happen
with gifts rather than requests. In a similar way it could be said
that classing people that contribute to the development of an open
source project, be it software or something else such as the cube
cola - open source cola project http://sparror.cubecinema.com/cube/
cola/ as developers rather than a volunteers also has a significant
effect upon productivity.
Saul Albert raises a number of interesting points on the nature of
gift economies in his paper "open source and collective art
practice". He makes an interesting link between the idea of gifting
and the reputation game that I suppose we inevitably play in order to
have our work seen and valued, "With pressures of the day job
(teaching part time in art schools for the lucky and successful) and
financially motivated pressures from the gallery, a high quality of
work is difficult to sustain. By high quality, I mean quality as
assessed by the gift economy in which the artist functions. This
relies on maintaining a novelty value for the media, satisfying
critics, and impressing the professional art public".
From a personal perspective I am more excited to use an open tool.
In terms of software Photoshop is a very professional and slick
package. I can work very fast with it, however I do feel that from
the moment I run this piece of software I am locked into the use of a
pre existing set of metaphors, the lasso, pen and mask etc. They have
all had teams of people sitting around big tables and discussing
their relative merits. But as an artist I wish to have more control
and initiate my own projects with my own set of more appropriate
metaphors, this is one of the obvious benefits of open source. If I
want to develop my own set of tools, or even just contribute to an
already existing piece of software then the framework is in place to
do so and possibly collaborate with like minded individuals. This in
turn could relate back to the idea of gifting. By contributing to the
development of an already existing project you are also increasing
your reputation and value (if your contributions are accepted as
meaningful and worthwhile). With an increased reputation comes
increased opportunities (teaching, support, commissions etc).
I do have a question for members of this discussion on this matter of
contributing to software development. Do you feel that successful
collaboration on an open project is as simple as members contributing
useful code to a project or are there other factors such as
friendships and geographical location that have an impact?
Dominic
http://ptechnic.org
reference
Albert, Saul (1999) "Open Source and Collaborative Art Practice"
On 2 Apr 2008, at 16:51, Sal Randolph wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> What an intriguing group we have for this discussion!
>
> I come at open source from a slightly different perspective. I'm
> an artist exploring the territory of 'gift' and 'free' because of
> the complex mix of ideas, feelings, politics, and situations I find
> there. Although I do of course use open source software, I mostly
> look at the free and open source software movements as both
> inspiration and a laboratory. I've found as a practical matter
> that gifts anchor and catalyze participation - if you want to make
> something happen, it's much easier to start with a gift than a
> request. I'd be really interested to have a conversation about how
> people here experience both giving and receiving in the context of
> open source (and for that matter, in the context of art). For
> instance, are you more excited to use a tool that's free? Or more
> wary? Does it feel like a gift? Does it create an obligation?
>
> Looking forward to all this,
>
> Sal
>
>
>
> On Apr 2, 2008, at 8:52 AM, Janet Hawtin wrote:
>
>> Hello
>>
>> Started using Linux after living for 2 years in London and
>> participating in GLLUG and Lonix.
>> Have been helping in community groups including ITShare computer
>> recycling and using tools like Inkscape for making designs.
>> We have had a few Barcamp kinds of events in Adelaide which include
>> some Linux work
>> and also some hardware rewangling.
>>
>> Cheers Janet
>>
>
> : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
>
> Sal Randolph
> salrandolph [at] gmail [dot] com
> http://salrandolph.com
>
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