[p2p-research] member managed web service

[Patrick Anderson]

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 4:17 PM, Matt Cooperrider
<mattcooperrider at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Patrick,
>
> I think I follow your argument.  What about when we are dealing with a
> commons (as many wikis can be understood)?  There is no owner, and no sale
> of goods, as far as I can see.  How would you interpret that situation
> within your theory?

No wiki can exist without the Physical Sources (Material Means of
Production) required to 'host' it.

Just as with every other kind of 'thing', software requires Space,
Time, Mass and Energy.  That may sound ominous, or somehow too strange
to consider, but please think it through*.

So the person(s) in control of hardware end up being the owner(s) of
any wiki instance.

For simplicity I usually say that controlling group must be the
literal property owner of the computer, keyboard, monitor, buildings,
etc. needed to keep that wiki operating, but it is also true that
those controllers may be renting or leasing those Physical Sources
from other owners.

But either way, the problem we strangely resist confronting directly
is that control finally rests in property ownership of Physical
Sources required to 'host' any virtual thing (such as software,
movies, mechanical designs, DNA, medicine formulas, etc.).  [[This is,
of course, assuming we are using virtual things that are either Public
Domain (unlocked), or - even better - under the GNU GPL (locked
open)]]


As for "the sale of goods", there is something to be said about
advertising being a fee that the user/consumer pays, but I don't know
how to say it.

(*) See these papers for further elaboration and hopefully more clarity:
http://Blog.P2PFoundation.net/one-loaf-per-child/2007/06/14
http://SourceFreedom.BlogSpot.com
http://Oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg04253.html