This link has been bookmarked by 7 people . It was first bookmarked on 24 Apr 2008, by Ted Perlmutter.
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26 Sep 11
Charles van der HaegenFree downloads by Chapter of Jonathan Zittrai's book
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16 Mar 11
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physical layer,
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application layer
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social layer,
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protocol layer
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Tinkerers can work on one layer without having to understand much about the others, and there need not be any coordination or relationship between those working at one layer and those at another
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Layers facilitate polyarchies, and the proprietary networks were hierarchies.3
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s a technical matter, anyone could become part of the network by bringing a data-carrying wire or radio wave to the party
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: the Protocol embodied so few assumptions about the nature of the medium used that going wireless did not violate any of them. The large variety of ways of physically connecting is represented by the broad base to the hourglass.
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they were built to allow users to install new code written by third parties. Such code could entirely revise the way a computer operates, which gives individuals other than the original designers the capacity to solve new problems and redirect the purposes of PCs
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generativity
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Generativity is a system’s capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences
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openness
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“free”
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commons
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(1) how extensively a system or technology leverages a set of possible tasks; (2) how well it can be adapted to a range of tasks; (3) how easily new contributors can master it; (4) how accessible it is to those ready and able to build on it; and (5) how transferable any changes are to others—including (and perhaps especially) nonexperts.
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Leverage makes a difficult job easier
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Leverage is not exclusively a feature of generative systems
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Leverage
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A typical PC operating system handles many of the chores that the author of an application would otherwise have to worry about,
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A little effort can thus produce a very powerful computer program
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Adaptability
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daptability refers to how easily the system can be built on or modified to broaden its range of uses.
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electricity
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plastic
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And so are the PC and the Internet: they can be endlessly diverted to new tasks not counted on by their original makers.
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Ease of mastery
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broad audiences to understand how to adopt and adapt it.
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various types of people might deploy and adapt a given technology, even if their skills fall short of full mastery
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easier it is to obtain access to a technology, along with the tools and information necessary to achieve mastery of it, the more generative it is.
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Accessibility
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expense
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regulations
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secrecy
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Transferability
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Appliances are often easier to master for particular uses, and because their design often anticipates uses and abuses, they can be safer and more effective.
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the absence of one of these factors may prevent a technology from being generative.
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“four freedoms”: freedom to run the program, freedom to study how it works, freedom to change it, and freedom to share the results with the public at large
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If an action were objectively possible, the environment was said to “afford” that action.
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the available options are as obvious and inviting as possible to the intended users.
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A hyperlink that is not underlined may be “poorly afforded” because it may impede users from realizing that they can click on it,
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adverse experiences cause less-skilled users to become distrustful of all new code,
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Generativity considers how a system might grow or change over time as the uses of a technology by one group are shared with other individuals, thereby extending the generative platform.
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Creative Commons
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licenses so that authors can clearly declare the conditions under which they will permit their technical or expressive work to be copied and repurposed.
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Creative Commons licenses are a boon for content-level generativity because the licenses allow users to build on their colleagues’ work.
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infrastructure without gatekeepers
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Generative systems can encourage creativity and spur innovation, and they can also make it comparatively more difficult for institutions and regulators to assert control over the systems’ uses.
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virus
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If people use a generative system to produce software that allows its users to copy music and video without the publishers’ permissions, those supportive of publishers will rationally see generativity’s disruptive potential as bad.
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ne deriving from unanticipated change, and the other from inclusion of large and varied audiences.
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Non-generative systems can grow and evolve, but their growth is channeled through their makers
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When users pay for products or services in one way or another, those who control the products or services amid competition are responsive to their desires through market pressure.
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But they also had a natural desire to act as gatekeepers
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to validate anything appearing on their network, to cut individual deals for revenue sharing with their content providers, and to keep their customers from affecting the network’s technology.
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boasting content provided by subscribers in public conversations with each other
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without prescreening and could choose to take up whatever topics they chose
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But they were not generative at the technical layer. The software driving these communities was stagnant:
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so too can the incumbent firms in a given market fail to seize opportunities that they rationally ought to exploit
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exercise control over the endpoint mobile phones that their subscribers may use, those phones will have undesirable features—and they are not easy for third parties to improve
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deploy a new technology, but rather that their managements choose to focus on their largest and most profitable customers, resulting in an unwillingness to show “downward vision and mobility
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This advice might be reflected in choices made by companies like Google, whose engineers are encouraged to spend one day a week on a project of their own choosing—with Google able to exploit whatever they come up with.29
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(McDonald’s might be forgiven for allowing someone else to register mcdonalds.com before it occurred to the company to do so; even telecommunications giant MCI failed to notice the burgeoning consumer Internet before Sprint, which was the first to register mci.com—at a time when such registrations were given away first-come, first-served, to anyone who filled out the electronic paperwork.)32
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free Web-based e-mail, hosting services for personal Web pages, instant messenger software, social networking sites, and well-designed search engines emerged more from individuals or small groups of people wanting to solve their own problems or try something nea
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niche applications for obscure interests
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user-written software
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firm-based industrial information economy can kick in after an idea has been proven, and user innovation plays a crucial role as an initial spark.
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The reinvigorated PC/Internet grid makes such applications seem like a small corner of the landscape, even as those applications remain important to the people who continue to use them.
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We have thus settled into a landscape in which both amateurs and professionals as well as small- and large-scale ventures contribute to major innovations
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juxtaposition of sweepingly ambitious software designed and built like a modern aircraft carrier by a large contractor, alongside “killer applets” that can fit on a single floppy diskette.
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Many companies are now releasing their software under a free or open source license to enable users to tinker with the code, identify bugs, and develop improvements.52
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ig firms can produce software when market structure and demand call for such enterprise; smaller firms can fill niches; and amateurs, working alone and in groups, can design both inspirational “applets” and more labor-intensive software that increase the volume and diversity of the technological ecosystem
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is its invitation to outside contribution on its own terms.
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there is a unique joy to be had in building something,
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Many jobs demand intellectual engagement, which can be fun for its own sake
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John Stuart Mill
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but he was also a champion of the individual and a hater of custom
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to be part of a team driving toward a worthwhile goal—is one of the best aspects of being human
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The more there are prescribed ways to do something, the more readily people fall into identical patterns
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regularity needed to produce consistent sandwiches and talks can actively discourage or prevent creativity
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ascendance of engineering and information technology is making sheep of us.
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originating elsewhere, and then imposed (or even eagerly snapped up) by everyone else, who then cannot change them and thus become prisoners to them. It need not be that way
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The divide is not between technology and nontechnology, but between hierarchy and polyarchy.
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In hierarchies, gatekeepers control the allocation of attention and resources to an idea. In polyarchies, many ideas can be pursued independently
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21 Mar 10
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Generativity is a system’s capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences.
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23 Jun 08
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26 May 08
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hierarchies
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principle at work
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Generativity is a system’s capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences.
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consumers
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f code.
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specialized
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training
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accessible
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generative
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frequently generativity at one layer is the best recipe for generativity at the layer above.
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generates
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Free software satisfies Richard Stallman’s benchmark “four freedoms”: freedom to run the program, freedom to study how it works, freedom to change it, and freedom to share the results with the public at large
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generative
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platform
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detail
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Generative systems facilitate change.
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breakthrough
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compete
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market model.
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initial spark
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They represent tinkering done by that one person in a hundred or a thousand who is so immersed in an activity or pursuit that improving it would make a big difference—a person who is prepared to experiment with a level of persistence that calls to mind the Roadrunner’s nemesis, Wile E. Coyote.
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The genius behind such innovations is truly inspiration rather than perspiration, a bit of tinkering with a crazy idea rather than a carefully planned and executed invention responding to clear market demand.
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Web service
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Generativity, then, is a parent of invention, and an open network connecting generative devices makes the fruits of invention easy to share if the inventor is so inclined.
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He then noted the innate value of being able to express oneself idiosyncratically
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We are seeing the possibility of an emergence of a new popular culture, produced on the folk-culture model and inhabited actively, rather than passively consumed by the masses.
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makers
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policy issues
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innovation
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The divide is not between technology and nontechnology, but between hierarchy and polyarchy.72 In hierarchies, gatekeepers control the allocation of attention and resources to an idea. In polyarchies, many ideas can be pursued independently. Hierarchical systems appear better at nipping dead-end ideas in the bud, but they do so at the expense of crazy ideas that just might work. Polyarchies can result in wasted energy and effort, but they are better at ferreting out and developing obscure, transformative ideas. More importantly, they allow many more people to have a hand at contributing to the system, regardless of the quality of the contribution.
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contribution
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eccentric
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Internet
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disruption
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economic harm.
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But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences.
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The generative Internet and PC were at first perhaps more akin to new societies; as people were connected, they may not have had firm expectations about the basics of the interaction. Who pays for what? Who shares what? The time during which the Internet remained an academic backwater, and the PC was a hobbyist’s tool, helped situate each within the norms of Benkler’s parallel economy of sharing nicely, of greater control in the hands of users and commensurate trust that they would not abuse it.
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- An idea originates in a backwater.
- It is ambitious but incomplete. It is partially implemented and released anyway, embracing the ethos of the procrastination principle.
- Contribution is welcomed from all corners, resulting in an influx of usage.
- Success is achieved beyond any expectation, and a higher profile draws even more usage.
- Success is cut short: “There goes the neighborhood” as newer users are not conversant with the idea of experimentation and contribution, and other users are prepared to exploit the openness of the system to undesirable ends.
- There is movement toward enclosure to prevent the problems that arise from the system’s very popularity.
This is the generative pattern, and we can find examples of it at every layer of the network hourglass:
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surfing
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01 May 08
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three layers
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three layers.
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24 Apr 08
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In hierarchies, gatekeepers control the allocation of attention and resources to an idea. In polyarchies, many ideas can be pursued independently. Hierarchical systems appear better at nipping dead-end ideas in the bud, but they do so at the expense of crazy ideas that just might work. Polyarchies can result in wasted energy and effort, but they are better at ferreting out and developing obscure, transformative ideas. More importantly, they allow many more people to have a hand at contributing to the system, regardless of the quality of the contribution.
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In hierarchies, gatekeepers control the allocation of attention and resources to an idea. In polyarchies, many ideas can be pursued independently. Hierarchical systems appear better at nipping dead-end ideas in the bud, but they do so at the expense of crazy ideas that just might work. Polyarchies can result in wasted energy and effort, but they are better at ferreting out and developing obscure, transformative ideas. More importantly, they allow many more people to have a hand at contributing to the system, regardless of the quality of the contribution.
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Most of Mill’s passion for individuality was channeled into a spirited defense of free speech and free thinking, not free building—and certainly not free programming.
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