In 43 minutes I will get in a taxi and start my journey toward the Open Source for Education in Europe 2005 conference in Heerlen, The Netherlands. Consequently, the Weekly is being delivered a day early, and there will be no Daily on Friday. At the conference, issues such as software patents in Europe will once again be raised, along with questions about open content, patents, digital rights management, and more. These are of course all issues that have concerned me as we have faced over the last few years an ever-increasing encroachment of the private domain over what used to be a commons: our language, our culture and our ideas.
As I prepare to board my flight this time, I am thinking of Andy Carvin, who, after he returns from WSIS in Tunis, will be looking for a new job. "Funding for the activities of the Center for Media & Community will not be continued," he writes, "including support for the Digital Divide Network." It's sobering, and important to recoignize, that there is often very little reward, and very little security, in working for the common good. There has always been more money and prestige on the side of enclosure, more political points to score, more book deals (copyright surrendered, of course) to sign. And yet - still people create content and software, still fight legal battles, still put their jobs on the line, for open content and open source. Because there is a good to what they are doing - a good that should be recognized and supported.
As I prepare to board my flight this time, I am thinking of Andy Carvin, who, after he returns from WSIS in Tunis, will be looking for a new job. "Funding for the activities of the Center for Media & Community will not be continued," he writes, "including support for the Digital Divide Network." It's sobering, and important to recoignize, that there is often very little reward, and very little security, in working for the common good. There has always been more money and prestige on the side of enclosure, more political points to score, more book deals (copyright surrendered, of course) to sign. And yet - still people create content and software, still fight legal battles, still put their jobs on the line, for open content and open source. Because there is a good to what they are doing - a good that should be recognized and supported.
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