[p2p-research] P2P Ideology

[Samuel Rose]

Think about the nature of of online systems like wikipedia, when dogma
begins to rule, or open source software cultures that begin to take on
an ideological direction (we talked about this at Political Economies
of Peer production back in 2007)

When ideological-driven thinking emerges, the nature of the system
starts to favor exclusion over inclusion. This begins to erode the
"commons" that is the participatory culture of the system. The system
is now changing from one state to another, from a "p2p" state to a
system that is ruled by a few.

Luckily, the affordances of commons based systems tend to be able to
survive this co-optation, people have the ability to leave and reform
elsewhere (although forking is not often exercised in the case of
wikipedia). Particularly within the last 2-3 years, when commons
consist of mostly digital content, it has become quite trivial to
expand space, and re-boot the system, so to speak



On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 9:44 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:
> Where what we are calling "P2P" begins to resemble and function like
> an ideology, the culture attracted will begin to disaggregate. What
> will be left is an ideology that is fundamentally not what we are
> calling "P2P'.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Matt Cooperrider
> <mattcooperrider at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm forking this out from the discussion "Is the P2PFoundation a Shill for
>> Proprietary  Software?"  The question of whether P2P is an ideology needs
>> discussing.
>>
>> -----
>>
>> Athina wrote:
>>
>>> It seems this raises again the issue of ideology I think in p2p which so
>>> far has been a bit conveniently thrown under the carpet, especially in
>>> relation to the commercialization and promotion of the open source and
>>> open
>>> products in general.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Kevin wrote:
>>
>> I don't think it's been thrown under the carpet at all.  Upon close
>> inspection, the notion of a general ideology in p2p itself is a nonsensical
>> concept.  P2P is a phenomenon / process.  Participants may have diverse
>> ideologies (e.g. profit-only vs freedom-only), but as long as they agree on
>> the basic principles of production, that doesn't impact the process.
>> Ideological differences can and do impact organizations participating in p2p
>> production, and that has come up regularly (e.g. Wikipedia).
>>
>> -------
>>
>> I don't have much of an argument, but I wanted to invite others to discuss
>> (particularly to invite Athina to rebut, and Kevin to expand on his close
>> inspection).
>>
>> I agree with Kevin that there is no "general ideology in p2p itself", but
>> the notion of "p2p itself" brackets the historical context.  Employing p2p's
>> "basic principles of production" in 2009 has potentially huge political and
>> social implications.  Those of us who work to advance "p2p alternatives" do
>> so because p2p processes (maybe not in every case, but when considered
>> together) privilege certain outcomes that we prefer.  Our preferences need
>> to be examined.
>>
>> Best,
>> Matt
>>
>> --
>> Matt Cooperrider, Consultant
>> SITE: http://mattcoop.com
>> SITE: http://collabforge.com
>> TWITTER: @mattcoop
>> PHONE: 774.487.8152
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Sam Rose
> Social Synergy
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> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
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> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> http://socialsynergyweb.com
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>
> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>



-- 
-- 
Sam Rose
Social Synergy
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
http://socialsynergyweb.com
http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
http://socialmediaclassroom.com
http://localfoodsystems.org
http://notanemployee.net
http://communitywiki.org

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan