Comments
Feel free to add any comments below!
I have not read the document with a view to correcting grammatical, typographical or formatting errors (such as the inconsistent number formating at the bottom of page 1, which is the only example I'll mention for illustrative purposes). My comments are substantive instead.
There are a few minor points in the document where I was confused. for instance, at the bottom of page 2, you refer to the decreasing cost of digital content, partly attributed to p2p. I'm unclear about your point here. Do you mean the cost of production, distribution or acquisition by end users? I think you mean production and distribution. But I don't think these are overly significant, so I won't go through all such instances in detail.
I do, however, have a fundamental question that I think needs to be addressed in order to make sense of the proposal. I have to admit that I cannot follow the explanations offered in section 2.3 about what openness is not. I understand that you don't want to get dragged into an ideological debate about the role of property (i.e. the right to exclude others from a tangible or intangible valuable resource).
But I simply don't see how it is possible to extricate these two concepts: commons/private property and openness. Yes, I appreciate that openness connotes more than just the applicable regulatory regime (i.e. private property, public goods, commons or a combination of the above). But that regulatory environment — the institutions (in a broad sense, meaning the legal system, the economic context, the technological infrastructure, etc) — is what constitutes openness.
I think; I think maybe all you're trying to say is that your proposed study of openness is not simply a study of various conceptions and applications of property systems applied to ICT issues. If so, that is great. I agree, and I think that holds great promise. You can and should go beyond the narrow, often dogmatic discussions of the benefits and drawbacks of property (including IP), or the banality of promoting the commons as a universally preferred manner of social or economic organization.
But I think you have to acknowledge more clearly that the concept of property, meaning fundamentally rights of inclusion or exclusion, is integral to openness. These ideological controversies you seek to avoid are, unfortunately, inbred into and inextricable from the broader issues. All of the concrete examples you give in section 2.2 are build on a foundation of a property system designed or exploited in particular manner. Let me give you another example: the Creative Commons, or the GPL. Neither would be possible without a underlying legal framework of clear IP rights, as well as economic practices and socio-cultural conventions build on that framework. The genius of CC and GPL is they leverage these institutions in an unorthodox way.
I tackle this in an article I've recently published (though not focussed on "development" per se), called "Legal Strategies to Profit from Peer Production." Long and short versions are available at:
http://www.jeremydebeer.ca/images/stories/de_beer_-_peer_production_cblj.pdf
http://www.jeremydebeer.ca/images/stories/de_beer_-_peer_production_tech_law.pdf
I encourage you to take a quick look through those, if you can. They're directly relevant to the discussion in your document sections 2.1 and 4.1.2 especially.
So, back to my point, you can't really be "agnostic" about organizational or proprietary regimes. Those regimes are the basic determinants of how open or closed ICT4D will be, as you say explicitly at the outset of section 2.4. You implicitly or explicitly acknowledge this elsewhere in the document, as well. Even in this section, at the top of page 8 you say that you want to investigate what types of legal-institutional arrangements are best for development outcomes.
You can and should say that you have not prejudged which organizational or proprietary regimes are best suited to achieve the project's vision or goals for ICT4D. But that's not quite the same as being "agnostic." And, I don't think you can legitimately state that you aren't at least somewhat ideologically biased; if your goal is "openness" that necessarily implies preference for particular sorts of proprietary and organizational regimes. The truth is that you can't have effective open ICT4D without a certain legal, social, economic, etc. context. I understand that what you're looking for is how to shape that context, but if so, you've got to have at least a sense of what the norms and institutions will probably have to look like.
Anyways, I'm not sure I'm making my concern crystal clear here. That may be because, as I stated up front, I don't quite understand this section 2.3. I think of all of the parts of the document, that is the only one that requires at least rewording, if not fundamental rethinking.
Ok, on to other things. I think, for example, you can get more mileage from the work of Sen and others like Nussbaum in section 3. Reference to Sen's work in section 3.2 is excellent; I totally agree. You should consider looking more carefully at her book "Women and Human Development," or any of her other publications.
In 4.2.3.3. I think you can and should mention the work of ACA2K, and how this new direction might flow from or complement that project. Wouldn't that make a lot of sense to IDRC to draw these linkages between programmes and projects?
In 4.2.3.5, I think you really should separate the knowledge/science components. They're related, but distinct. The knowledge aspect is I believe related to access to e.g. open-access publishing of scientific research results.
But you've left a whole other realm of "openness" untapped. Are you familiar with Richard Jefferson's CAMBIA http://www.cambia.org/daisy/cambia/home.html, his "Initiative for Open Innovation" and his "BiOS" (meaning "biological innovation for open society" or "open source" or "open science") http://www.bios.net/daisy/bios/home.html? If not, you really really must look into this seriously. Jefferson's vision brings all of the ICT ideas regarding openness to the biotech industry, with particular emphasis on plant science, nutrition and food security. It might be a challenge to bring this specifically under the umbrella of "ICT" strictly speaking, but from my view, any holistic project like yours professes to be can only benefit from looking beyond the ICT sector to other areas of society where the concept of "openness" is being deployed successfully to advance development and promote social justice.
Ok, one more thing. I think your sections 5.2 and 5.3 needs to be bolstered substantially. If those were the only threats and downsides, I don't really see much need for your project. I mean, these don't really seem too serious, and based on the way they're articulated here, one is left wondering why open ICT4D isn't just inevitable? In reality, I think the challenges are serious, and in fact that is why your project is so very important — to investigate the challenges and generate strategies to overcome obstacles and seize opportunities. I think this can be a part in the document where you really justify why this project is so necessary; and the reason is that because unless objective research is conducted and applied on these issues, we just don't know what will happen, and the outcome is possible if not likely to be less than optimal for development.
Well, I'm sure I've said enough!!! You can take or leave the advice: I've tried to be as candid as possible, because I believe that is most valuable to you. I hope there's no offense taken to the suggestions.
I have to close by emphasizing that this is truly a very strong idea. In principle, I think this is fantastic. Yes, I absolutely think you can orient a programme around this. I would be more than happy to look at another draft, or speak in person, or do anything you think I can help with.
Cheers,
JdB
What the paper, in our view, achieves
The relationship of ICTs with development is stuck between the extremes of techno-fascination and techno-skepticism. Both sides have some valid points (which may be 'the' problem). Those in the techno-fascinated camp are right that the impact of ICTs on development is (or should be) so structural that one cannot 'keep doing business in the old ways'. New ways of doing things and new frameworks at looking at things are needed to be found. The traditionalists, techno-skeptics, are also right in holding that frameworks and new thinking around the new technologies cannot be allowed to completely upstage development theory and practice, which have evolved over so many decades, closely tuned to the realities on the ground. The deadlock between the two sides has severely compromised the realization of new – probably transformational – development opportunities in the current times.
The present paper on 'Open ICT4D' addresses this most important development challenge. It picks from the most important 'essential' characteristic of the new ICTs, which gives them such social transformative force - 'openness'1. New ICTs are unique in making possible a massive communication system which is open and equal at all its, unlimited, ends. This is unlike, say, telephony which is constrained in terms of massiveness or the numbers that can simultaneously be on, or broadcast technologies, which while reaching mass numbers are 'closed' to interactivity. The paper then seeks to transpose this characteristic of 'openness' of the new ICTs to areas and perspectives in development where this 'value' finds immediate echo – like participation, transparency etc. Through this process, it seeks to develop a new development paradigm which fully considers the fact that the new technologies are the central triggering factor and the underlying force of much/most change, but the basic imperatives and values of the desired change and activity need to be firmly entrenched in the 'traditional' space of development. In this manner it attempts to break the above mentioned deadlock in the ICTD space, and provide a strong framework for moving forward effectively. It is in this respect that the paper is a path-breaking work, which can be expected to have great influence on the future direction and trajectories of ICTD.
In the ICTs space, there already is a growing appreciation that the 'openness' of new ICTs cannot be taken for granted, but has to be actively cultivated. Also that this has to be done not in narrow silos, but under an overall rubric that recognizes the 'social value of openness' whereby different techno-centric movements of 'openness' collaborate and derive strength from each other. This underlies the recent accent on, and the vocabulary of, 'open ICT ecosystems'. The present paper takes this process a very significant step forward, whereby the openness with regard to social processes, and not technology, is framed as the central element.
What the paper stops short of
The paper while taking some important steps in negotiating the complex techno-social terrain of the emerging information society from a development viewpoint , during times which are admittedly characterized by befuddling change and uncertainty, however does not go far enough. Importation of the 'openness' paradigm from the technology space to the social/ developmental space is a fine innovation, however it still leaves unaddressed some avoidable burdens of a techno-centric worldview which can have important repercussions.
Openness, unlike, say participation, is a concept/ value primarily oriented to – as in being essentially the property of – an artefact (in case of technology) or institution (in case of an organizational system), and not to the involved people. This may appear to be mere hair-splitting were there not demonstrably important implications of this distinction.
Movements in the 'openness' space – be it open content or FOSS – typical treat people as users, whereby, evidently, the focus is on the 'used' – technology, system, or any other artefact. The main aim is to seek empowerment of the user, vis a vis the central artefact. This is no doubt important. However, the main problem about this construction is that it considers all people/ users as ab initio equal. This makes them all faceless users, in some strange (unreal) ways equal to one another, even if diverse2, at least for the purpose at hand. It is the basics of development discourse to asset that this is just not true, and, in fact, a very dangerous assumption. This is why the accent in development is not so much on equality as on equity and social justice (which so often requires unequal treatment, termed as positive discrimination).
An 'openness' paradigm very often assumes this false 'baseline' of equality among all people, who then are to be expected to seek, and/or to be given, their rights and power vis a vis systems and institutions. It is easy to appreciate how misleading such a framework of social analysis can be, especially in the field of development. Openness of technologies, social processes, organizational systems and institutions is indeed important. Such openness however by itself does not not address the issue on inequity among people and groups.
It is this context that it is suggested that the proposed framework be extended to include the 'equity' aspect, clearly and visibly, to give it a complete and solid 'development' mooring. It will be appropriate to have its central slogan as 'openness with equity' which address both the artefact side (technology/ social process / organizational system/ institution) as well as the people's side (in their differentiated reality3). We appreciate that it is will be inelegant to use two adjectives before ICT4D in the main theme, whereby we suggest that the proposed framework/ paradigm be titled, more descriptively, as 'Open ICT4D – Openness with Equity'. The paper does already pull in and consider equity issues at many places. However, this aspect may need to be in there squarely as a part of the heading, and developed more systematically throughout the paper.
We can exemplify the kind of concerns implicated in the above discussion by considering the all-important issue of 'content' in the digital space. This issue is briefly considered by the present paper, and the possibilities of commons-based production vis a vis market or state based production are discussed. While an 'openness' paradigm will mostly (at least apparently) seek out new ICT enabled systems and processes that allow (without specifically enabling) all users to contribute and produce collaboratively, an 'openness with equity' paradigm is likely also to look at how public funds can enable and support commons-based production in an equitable manner, without undue influence on the 'product' or the 'content'. The equity aspect therefore brings in the role of public as well as community (real and extant, as opposed to only virtual or those emergent around ICT based possibility) action which are important issues in development.
In some ways, the 'openness' versus 'openness with equity' discussion may also parallel the debates concerning freedom of expression and communication rights. Freedom of expression in itself only equates to an open and (nominally) uninhibited process, and is therefore a negative right. Communications rights, on the other hand, bring in the issue of equity, adding the angles of positive as well as collective rights.4
As important angle that accent on 'equity' will add to the proposed new framework is the need for analyzing the crucial element of 'power' in all information society and ICTD based changes. Such an accent is badly needed to correct the theoretical inadequacies owing to the largely apolitical nature of current ICTD discourse, with relatively unbridled enthusiasm for win-win situations.
Is it not pragmatic to move a step at a time?
'Openness' as a theme for social change may still be appropriate for developed societies, and advocating an 'open society through ICTs' is a good slogan in this context. However, since IDRC specifically focuses on 'development', it is important for it to take this progressive ideal/movement of 'openness' forward by associating the 'equity' aspect to it – clearly and visibly. There are a lot of well-resourced, or at least better resourced, groups and organizations propagating 'openness' in developed countries, and even in developing ones. It is important to use scarce development funds to shape the specifically 'developmental' aspects of the 'openness' movement. This, in our view, is done best by strongly emphasizing the 'equity' complement of 'openness'.
We posited the original ICTD problem as the deadlock between techno-skeptics and techno-enthusiasts in this space, which this paper seeks to address, in a path-breaking manner. In the process it offers an innovative framework to use new ICTs for addressing some key development problems. One may argue that in the face of the importance of this original problem, it may be advisable to move one step at a time, and make the paradigmatic transition to 'open ICT4D' as attempted by the paper before attempting too strong a break from the present techno-centric framework of ICTD. The latter attempt, it can be reasoned, may fail because of the inertia of the entrenched models, even if we discount the vested interests. .
It must, however, be kept in mind that such times of theoretical reconceptualization also have deep implications of shaping and concretising discourse, giving it new, and often renewed, legitimacy. It is therefore important at such crossroads to consider all critical issues and implications throughly, with the responsibility associated with a a path-breaking theoretical work. In this context, one has to be very aware of how the dominant ICTD discourse has contributed significantly to neo-liberalise development activity, vocabulary, and, increasingly, theory as well. Where would a new ICTD framework get located in this intensely contested landscape is an important question to consider. The political responsibility of such location, and influence on overall development practice and theory, cannot be over-emphasized.
Conceptualization of a new ICTD framework therefore may need to be seen as an opportunity to align ICTD more closely to 'mainstream' development theory, addressing the significant distortions set in by the currently dominant ICTD discourse. At the same time, such is the social-transformative impact of ICTs that, there can be no doubt that the 'mainstream' theory will itself be changed significantly by new 'realities' and understandings.
'Openness' for (undue) political legitimization
An extension of the above point, on the responsibility associated with discourse forming, is the issue of how discourse and new concepts can provide new political legitimacies. It is our experience in our almost daily interactions with many information society related civil society groups that a new ahistorical conception – of the 'end of history' kind – in relation to most structural social inequalities is becoming a very entrenched notion, which is increasingly more difficult to break through. It is as if that the open communication platform of the new ICTs have suddenly rendered all such 'old' conceptions based on old technologies, and the ensuing social structures, irrelevant. It is now between 'the individual' and the usurping systems and institutions. Correspondingly, it is supposed to be not so much about structural inequalities among people and groups, nor about engaging with and building and sustaining new empowering institutions - which are perhaps the two 'central' developmental concerns and issues. Such a discourse is clearly anti-developmental, and needs to be countered strongly.
Any new ICTD framework therefore has to pro-actively confront such wrong, and dangerous, conceptions. Other than, and often forming an insidious alliance with, these techno-fascinated notions are the neo-liberal shadows on development – which also attempts at a similar individuation of the development discourse. There are other parallels and conceptual alliances between the new techno-centric and the neo-liberal discourse, but to go into that here will be a detour.
Ill-informed (if not deviously deliberate) notions of new forms of 'openness' are already being used for undue political legitimacies. Problems concerning legitimacy and representativeness of many multi-stakeholder forums and processes is one such area, though this may not be the place to elaborate on them. One may however use one particular example, that of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), to illustrate the point. ICANN has a very elaborate 'open' participation structure which is quite helpful in its task of managing many technical governance issues by obtaining the benefit of widely distributed expertise. However, it has repeatedly sought to use the 'apparent openness' of its structure as a basis of global 'political' legitimacy for deciding political issues that impact people across the world. While ICANN's 'at large' structures, promoted to enlist 'open' public participation, work through open email lists that are easy to join, a cursory look at the elist postings over a month will show that less than 5 percent postings are from people from developing countries. But ICANN, and its supporters, would like to believe that all who care to participate do participate, and that their participation system is completely 'open', and, perhaps, also that distinctions of developing/ developed, north/ south are no longer relevant. This shows the limits of the concept of openness, even as a social process, and the strong need to consider the complementing aspects of equity in all social analyses and frameworks.
Some sundry issues, and some connections to ongoing work at IT for Change
As we read the paper, and absorbed the analysis of the multiple ways in which the openness of the new ICTs can promote openness of social processes, the issue of the reverse impact kept coming to our mind – the way existing social, economic and political process are influencing the openness of the Internet. We found the last sentence/ question of the paper partly address this issue. However, this issue may need to be discussed more directly and centrally, because it will have a great impact on the emerging possibilities of greater openness of ICTD related social processes. Moreover, some very crucial decisions on the openness of the new ICTs, as also noted by the paper – for instance, regarding network neutrality – are going to be taken very soon. (The fact that these decisions will largely be taken by the new administration of a single country itself is a sad comment on the 'openness' of the political decision making process in the information society paradigm.)
The paper mentions that a basic constituent of 'openness' is egalitarianism. Coincidently, about exactly the same time that this paper was released, IT for Change coordinated a campaign for 'protecting the publicness and the egalitarian nature of the Internet' at the IGF (Internet Governance Forum), Hyderabad. We were deliberately employing these two terms from socio-political and developmental discourse to a technical arena, because merely speaking of the 'openness' of the Internet had become either largely meaningless in being too broad, and/ or otherwise missed some crucial and important aspects of the issue. More importantly, the concept was not adequate to meeting some urgent policy issues, like that pertaining to network neutrality, and the growing monopolization by Google of many aspects of the Internet.
It is quite interesting that while the present paper attempts to use a concept and value from the technology discourse to improve the egalitarianism of development space, our campaign tried the opposite tactic. Concerned about the threats to openness of the new ICTs, it sought to use a concept and value from social and development discourse in speaking about political shaping of new ICTs. This dialectic is important to keep alive, and invest in.
On another count, IT for Change recently hosted a workshop on 'ICTs for participatory local development: Exploring a systemic approach'. The workshop, and an associated detailed roadmap/toolkit document that is being developed, sought to wed a systems approach, more associated with a techno-managerial world-view, to values of local-ness and participation, typical of development discourse. The planned outcome of such a composite framework is to develop new models of 'local development ecology'. Relatively technical issues and concepts like information systems, telecentres, technology platforms like sms, etc, were examined at the workshop from a strongly social and developmental viewpoint ((for instance the examining the new techno-social possibilities of bottom-up 'people's information systems' in contrast with management information systems used in governance), to understand the various emerging possibilities of new techno-social underpinnings for local development activities.
Our, recently established, 'Centre for Community Informatics and Development' in Mysore, near Bangalore, is also based on such an intermediate/ composite framework that attempts to bridge the big gap between the new technological possibilities and development practice. This Centre works with grassroots NGOs and CBOs for helping them appropriate new, and often innovative, techno-social processes in their development work. This is sought to be done in a manner that is closely controlled and owned by these organizations, with traditional development thinking and practices, and the communities they work with. These activities of IT for Change are being mentioned here because they are motivated by a similar purpose as drives the present paper; to bring the world of new ICTs and that of development closer together in order to shape new possibilities of effective development practice, and enabling policies. And to do so in a manner that while appropriating the best qualities and possibilities of the new ICTs remains firmly anchored in development ethics, imperatives and theory.
Here are a few initial thoughts - not very structured and perhaps not useful, but in summary the paper strikes me as a very timely one and I have no negative comments.
I have not previously seen openness defined in the way that you have defined it - incorporating access, participation and production - but I like how parsimonious this is. In my previous work I have used seven terms to describe similar concepts (decentralisation, interactivity, openness, anonymity, cosmopolitanism, egalitarianism and resilience) but your definition stretches to cover most of these.
Your continuum from access to collaboration also puts me in mind of the OECD's work on "Engaging Citizens in Policy-Making: Information, Consultation and Public Participation" which distinguishes between three levels of citizen engagement in governance: information provision, consultation, and active participation. You probably know it, but if not see http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/24/34/2384040.pdf.
Regarding your section on the social and digital environments, I note that the legal-institution factors of the social environment are limited to IP law, and that open government is only discussed as part of the content layer of the digital environment. Perhaps you should also include a section on open (multi-stakeholder, etc) governance within the section on the social environment, using the IGF as an example.
Per Ben’s suggestion I am addressing this email to you as the lead author of this really interesting paper, but please feel free to share with colleagues or whomever you consider. I understand I only read the shortened version, and look forward to the longer one. In any case I found the paper fascinating and provocative, as it is one of the first attempts that I am aware of to link these two insofar separate fields, ie, organizational theory and ICT4D. My comments are intended to contribute to building this new framework which hopefully could help not only to orient grantmaking but also to advance the ICT4D field in general. The comments below stress points of weakness which I think if addressed would strengthen the new framework. I also suggest areas to which the openness concept could be extended.
- at the more theoretical level, I think it would be helpful to disentangle various things that are associated with the openness concept. In particular, at times it seems to signify better coordination through markets, while at others it signifies a novel way of organizing the production of good and services different from markets and hierarchies (as in peer production). A more thorough review of the literature on ICTs and collective action might help disentangle the concept and better substantiate the arguments made. While Rheingold and Shirky stress the potential for cooperative action brought about by ICTs, one could well think that the main impact of ICTs is to lower transaction costs and thus improve the functioning of markets (which as Coase shows is why hierarchies exist in the first place). Some of my favorite authors on this subject are Woody Powell and of course Ostrom, but as you know there are many more. The general point is to better articulate the openness argument with the collective action and transaction costs literature, since it is obvious that the fundamental problems identified by these fields (free-riding, monitoring and sanctioning costs, coordination problems in complementary goods, etc,) do not disappear with new ICTs, though they can certainly be addressed differently and possibly more effectively, leading to different forms of social organization.
- in connection to the above point, I think it would be useful for the paper to recognize the limitations of the argument, or in other words, to attempt to identify the conditions under which ICTs allow for new forms of social organization that are more desirable and when ICTs allow better functioning of the traditional forms of markets and hierarchies. Also, the arguments made about openness clearly work well for the production of intangibles, but when one moves to other goods and services that have rivalry components the argument is not so straight forward. As Benkler himself recognizes openness works for intangibles because they are non-rival and the production can in most cases be modularized into small contributions (ie., why not contribute to wikipedia since, other than the opportunity cost of time, I am not worse off in any way, and my contribution is small but is integrated into a meaningful whole). When you move to rival goods the story is quite different. Of course the concept can still work and has been tested repeatedly. In fact I did a piece several years ago about the condition under which broadband could be provided cooperatively under an open spectrum regime and public-private cooperation in infrastructure building. But the more general points is to identify the conditions under which cooperation is the most desirable form, and acknowledge its limitations. In short it seems obvious neither markets nor hierarchies will go away with ICTs, but rather will be transformed by ICTs in terms of the incentives that actors face to resolve collective action problems through these alternative mechanisms. Development inputs such as good governance combine both intangible and tangible components, so it gets tricky there, but that is something to be further worked out in the argument.
- Following up on this, there are two areas where there has been lots of discussion in telecom regulation which fit your arguments quite nicely: the first is open or rather unlicensed spectrum, and the second is open infrastructure models where a non-replicable part of the network is built and shared openly by downstream providers (ie. submarine cable). Incorporating more examples from beyond intangible goods would really strengthen the argument and provide a more general vision (otherwise the discussion may end up along the obvious lines of IPR reform etc., and I think the paper could a lot more ambitious than that).
- Finally there is the issue of how applicable this is to developing countries, since these theories were developed with developed countries in mind, and the authors recognize that basic problems of democratic government, rule of law, basic connectivity and so on are essentially resolved. Of course I share the notion that these theories do have something interesting to contribute to the development debate, though several caveats should be considered. Access is the most obvious one, and not only in the binary sense of connected vs. not connected but in varying degrees of connectedness, which point to the second and most fundamental issue: human skills. I think the key differences in developing countries are related to 1) the uneven distribution of the basic skills required for meaningful participation in a more open network environment and 2) a related scale problem, ie, since only a few people possess these skills, cooperative initiatives never reach the scale where network effects kick in, and so those skilled are less motivated to contribute (eg, think of the differences in size and quality of the articles found in wikipedia in English vs. other languages). In short, meaningful change may only happen when the opportunities allowed by open access are complemented with initiatives that promote the related skills that are necessary to take meaningful advantage of such opportunities.
I have a few general comments:
1) I think that a quick reading of Jonathan Zittrain's book on the Future of the Internet might be useful, as it addresses several aspects of openness that you talk about, and rather crucially.
2) In some sections, there could be perhaps a more interesting round-up of examples. I know you cannot possibly be complete and are not aiming to be, but for instance, I think some mention of these could be elucidating:
- In the sections on open education, perhaps it might be useful to reference www.fhsst.org<http://www.fhsst.org>?
- In the section on open business models perhaps a roundup of successful internet biz models such as magnatune.com, and Bloomsbury Academic?
- In open government perhaps a mention of the Obama-sponsored US "Google for government" bill?
- In open health, perhaps the idea of research prizes ("the R&D prize") as floated by KEI (www.keionline.org<http://www.keionline.org>)?
Only one specific comment:
In the section that discusses Creative Commons licenses, I would suggest two changes.
(a) Some mention of the fact that CC is one of several alternative licenses (or open licenses) - prominent among them but not the originator of the concept - that would be the GPL devised for Linux - and perhaps the most prominent, but alongside GFDL, etc.
(b) The CC Developing Nations License has been killed, as it was found to be difficult and potentially unworkable (at least until the emergence of a better alternative) - it is referenced as though it exists currently.
Hope this helps!
Just finished sifting the document. Section 4 needs additional work. At least on lower layers where some facts are just wrong. The authors are not deeply rooted in the engineering/commercial side of things I guess.
That I don’t necessarily share lots of statements or see the same causalities as the authors, well, there are different ways of looking at things I guess… They also stray away into deep water on some policy issues, the relation between the Internet and PSTN and common carriage etc.
No doubt it will gain from open access and peer collaborate work cutting it back and straightening it up. Good starting point on open access philosophy though.
