[p2p-research] cessation of open theory project

[Michel Bauwens]

via stefan meretz: http://www.opentheory.org/newsletter/text.phtml#en

Everything has an end, also open theory! [deutsch
oben]<http://www.opentheory.org/newsletter/text.phtml#de>

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*(13) *in 2010, next year, open theory is celebrating its ten year
existence. This is a good date to end the project. -- Oops, why that?

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*(14) *In 2000 there were not many interactive webbased applications in the
internet. The communication predominantly took place in newsgroups and
mailing lists. There were bulletin board somewhere, the Ur-Wiki was an
insider tip, Wikipedia does yet not exist, and Web 2.0 wasn't talked about.
In 2000 Creative Commons does not exist and the GNU Free Documentation
License was only in draft stage (it then became the open theory license).

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*(15) *During this time open theory was an approach to carry the mail
communication into the web. The simple idea to put paragraphs below
paragraphs as you put comments below a text part in email debates was the
core thought of open theory. All texts should be openly available under a
free license. The free software mode should be made fruitful for theory.

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*(16) *Meanwhile some hundred thousend people visited open theory, 1363
members registered, and 1074 projects were born. This is nice, but open
theory hasn't grown really big. An exponential expansion dynamic did not
occur like with other network based projects. It wasn't even intended,
because open theory aimed for supporting of emancipatory debates.
Additionally, theory develops differently compared to free software and
there is no simple criterion like »runs or does not run« (which even holds
true for software, but this a broad field).

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*(17) *Also on the side of programming the project essentially rested upon a
single person, namly: me. There were important support translating the
website. Free software isn't a kind of automatism. Meanwhile the technical
platform is out-dated. Once I took an attempt to renovate the technical
base, but finally enough time and energy to re-develop open theory entirely
new was missing.

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*(18) *As far as I know there is no comparable system in the world.
Obviously this type of application is not necessarily needed. And there are
good alternatives: Wikis, Bulletin Boards, Blogs. I will miss something,
however, I will close open theory step by step.
The end in one year

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*(19) *In order to not affront the many authors I will successive transfer
open theory into an archive status. This is my plan:

   - beginning with may 2009 new pojects can not be created any longer
   - at the beginning of 2010 the commenting function will be switched off
   - around may 2010 the mailinglist function will be stopped
   - finally all remaining pages of active projects will be transfered into
   static HTML pages and all inactive projects will be deleted

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*(20) *The addresses (URLs) of the archived static projects will be
preserved, so that links will further work.

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*(21) *During the period until archiving in may 2010 all project who wish
can move to other platforms. It is not difficult to organize a (cost free)
blog or to set up a website. I for myself will presumably pursue two or
three following projects as blogs for my topics of »critical computer
science«, »critical psychology«, and generally »open theory«.

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*(22) *These three possible new blogs may be a new home for previous open
theory projects which are not from me. Anybody who does not find a good
option for a move can contact me in the next 12 months. However, the
character of these projects will be different than now, because on the new
blogs I decide for myself which texts to publish.

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*(23) *Thank you very much to all users of open theory for manifold support
which was given over the years, particulary for lots of interesting texts
and debates.

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*(24) *See you on another platform!
Ciao, Stefan Meretz


-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
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