[p2p-research] intro to p2p theory, the main links

Mon Mar 8 09:41:05 CET 2010

Dear Gordon,

Thanks for the kind words and stimulating visit in Bangkok. I'm now on a
lecture tour until mid-April and won't have much time to engage fully until
that date.

But since you mention our approach, I thought it would be useful to send a
wrap-up of links.

The wiki and blog are of course here at http://p2pfoundation.net -
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Our recent work has concentrated on the new 'open' and 'distributed'
infrastructures for actually making and producing physical things.

This mindmap linked here expresses an integrated vision of the open
infrastructures we are currently constructing, and already using, in the
different domains:

-
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/open-everything-mindmap-and-visualization/2009/09/08

The mindmap is available in a mindmeister version,
http://www.mindmeister.com/28717702/everything-open-and-free, and enhanced
prezi version,
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/open-everything-p2p-presentation-for-tedx-brussels/2009/11/23and
was explained at TED here at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGjQSki0uyg

The logic of the new mechanism, based on  our empirical observations and not
on wishfull thinking is explained here, I'll cop the text below as well, see
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/open-design-communities-entrepreneurial-coalitions-and-the-partner-state/2009/09/04

As you see here, summarized,
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/conditions-for-the-next-long-wave/2009/05/28,
(and longer version, applied to Russia as an example:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/russia-and-the-next-long-wave/2009/07/10 ), I
link these changes explicitely to Carlota Perez, as a new phase of
capitalism but which ultimately prepares a more profound phase transition,
see
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/peer-to-peer-and-the-feudal-transition/2007/09/10
.

The more explicitely political approach that we are taking is explained
here:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/summary-theses-on-the-emergence-of-the-peer-to-peer-civilization-and-a-new-political-economy/2010/02/28(or,
addressed to our friends on the left:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/how-does-real-change-occur-p2p-theory-vs-socialist-theory/2009/04/09
)

Sorry for bombarding you guys, but this is an excellent way to start for
those interested in knowing more.

Here the text mentioned above:

Open design communities, entrepreneurial coalitions, and the partner
state<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/open-design-communities-entrepreneurial-coalitions-and-the-partner-state/2009/09/04>

 To understand the reality or illusion behind projects claiming to practice
co-creation or co-design, one must look at the polarities of power and
control that determine the context in which the co-creative processes take
place, with on the one hand the communities of external collaborators, and
on the other side, the corporate entities. But before tackling this issue in
particular, it may be useful to see the emerging new paradigm of production
that is arising out of the new participative processes.

The new institutional reality could be described as follows:

*
*

*THE FIRST LAYER: COLLABORATIVE PLATFORMS*

- *At the core are the enabling collaborative socio-technological platforms,
that allow knowledge workers, software developers and open design
communities to collaborate on joint projects, outside of the direct control
of corporate entities. *

Interesting questions already arise here: who is the driving force behind
the creation & development of such platforms? They can be initiated by
developing communities, managed and maintained by a new type of non-profit
institution (like the FLOSS Foundations), or they can be corporate platforms
that have been opened up to external participants

*
*

*THE SECOND LAYER: OPEN DESIGN COMMONS*

*- Around the corporate platform is the open design community and the
knowledge/software/design commons ruled by a set of licenses which determine
the particular nature of the property.*

Interesting questions here are: Is it a true commons license like the GPL, a
sharing license like the Creative Commons where the stress is on the
individual sovereignity in determining the level of sharing that is allowed;
or is it a corporate license, giving very limited rights, or even with
outright digital sharecropping, i.e. the expropriation of the totality of
the creative output reserved for usage by the organizing corporation?

*
*

*THE THIRD LAYER: ENTERPRENEURIAL COALITIONS*

*- Around the commons are the entrepreneurial coalitions that benefit and
sustain the design commons, create added value on top of it, and sell this
as products or services to the market. *

Important questions raised here are: how is the coalition itself organized?
Do all parties have equal say, as in the Linux Foundation, or does one big
party dominate, like with the Eclipse Foundation and IBM. How does the
business ecology relate to the community. Is is nothing but a corporate
commons?

*
*

*THE FOURTH LAYER: FUNDING ECOLOGIES*

*- In addition, there is a funding infrastructure.*

What is the process governing the stream of returns from the monetized
market sphere, to the commons, its community, and the infrastructure of
cooperation? Do businesses support the community directly, through the
foundations? Is the government or a set of public authorities involved. Are
there crowdfunding mechanisms?

*
*

*THE FIFTH LAYER: THE PARTNER STATE AS ORCHESTRATOR?*

*- Finally, there is the role of public authorities and governments in
orchestrating the public-private-common triad in order to benefit from the
local effects of the new networked coopetition between entrepreneurial
coalitions and their linked communities.*

In the not so far future, wealth building or sustaining capacity will be
determined to a large degree by the capacity of cities, regions and states
to insert themselves within the global coopetition between different
enterpreneurial coalitions (think drupal vs. joomla, but on a much larger
scale).

*OVERVIEW OF THE MAIN MODELS*

*
*

When we look at this set interlocking triad (community – foundation –
business) or quaternary structure (if public authorities are involved), we
can now distinguish at least 3 main models

- In commons centered peer production, like Linux, the community is at the
core, and a real commons operate, with the community strong enough to
sustain its own infrastructure, and cooperating with market players

- In a sharing environment, where individuals share their creative
endeavour, it is the corporate third party platform which monetizes the
attention space, and may control the platform to a significant degree; the
community does not control its own platform, but is not without power of
influence, since quick and massive mobilizations are always possible.

- In a crowdsourced environment, participant producers are even more
isolated from each other, and the corporation integrates them in the value
chain which they control. Since individuals are here competing for market
value themselves, solidarity is more difficult to obtain, given corporate
platform owners more influence

A good illustration of the various possibilities is Lego. Lego still
operates as a classical producer of toys, selling to consumer; in Lego
Factory, it has its crowdsourced environment, where co-designers can take a
cut of the kits they succeed in selling; the new Lego World virtual
environment is a sharing environment; finally, Lugnet is true
commons-oriented peer production, happening outside the control of the
company altogether.

*Here are ten different co-creation modalities, depending on the polarity of
control between peer producers and the corporate entities*:

The first five are written from the point of view of corporate entities,
wanting to engage with productive communities:

1. Consumers: you make, they consume. The classic model.

2. Self-service: you make, they go get it themselves. This is where
consumers start becoming prosumers, but the parameters of the cooperation
are totally set by the producing corporation. It’s really not much more than
a strategy of externalization of costs. Think of ATM’s and gas stations. We
could call it simple externalization.

3. Do-it-yourself: you design, they make it themselves. One step further,
pioneered by the likes of Ikea, where the consumers, re-assembles the
product himself. Complex externalization of business processes.

4. Company-based Crowdsourcing. The company organizes a value chain which
lets the wider public produce the value, but under the control of the
company.

5. Co-design: you set the parameters, but you design it together For
examples, see here http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Co-Design

In the next set, the control moves towards the communities:

6. Co-creativity: you both create cooperatively. In this stage, the
corporation does not even set the parameters, the prosumer is an equal
partner in the development of new products. Perhaps the industrial model of
the adventure sports material makers would fit here. For examples, see here
http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Co-Creation

7. Sharing communities create the value, Web 2.0 proprietary platforms,
attempt to monetize participation.

8. Peer production proper: communities create the value, using a Commons,
with assistance from corporations who attempt to create derivative streams
of value. Linux is the paradigmatic example.

9. Peer production with cooperative production: peer producers create their
own vehicles for monetization. The OS Alliance is an example of this

10. Peer production communities or sharing communities place themselves
explicitely outside of the monetary economy.

----- Original Message ----
> From: Gordon Cook <cook at cookreport.com>
> To: Economics of IP Networks <arch-econ at cookreport.com>
> Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 8:12:22 AM
> Subject: [Arch-econ] Michel Bauwens profoundly important analysis
>
> Yesterday morning I had an 80 minute interview with Michel Bauwens.
Really
> important in that it encompases in a coherent logical way sustained by
excellent
> historical analysis where the world can be headed to in contrast to the
system
> of capitalism and currently practiced.  For this system as we currently
see or
> at least as I see it is running our civilization in the united states
especially
> into a brick wall and creating a situation where it seems that under obama
very
> sadly little has changed from the BUSH years.
>
> I cannot adequately articulate it yet, but one this for sure because I had
not
> had a good look at michel’s web site in more than a year, I was thinking
that
> his role was global coordination of peer to peer technologies.  WRONG.  He

> describes himself in part as a librarian building like the medieval monk
an
> online eco-system for a global knowledge commons.  Think of yochai Benkler
in
> 2006 describing the beginnings of this.  But then think of some one who
ever
> since then  24 by seven has been organizing a card catalogue of now 10,000

> articles organized into a few dozen  topics and disciplines using media
wiki.
>
> But then think of someone who has traced open source from software into
open
> hardware and all these practices into areas of sustainability in
agriculture and
> manufacturing. Think of what john Hagel says in the shift index and the
question
> of he capitalist machine running into the limits of it ability to extract
> profits based on a short term horizon growing ever shorter.  And think of
the
> tools that moores law has given us which means that one person or a small
group
> of people can produce what 20 years ago would have cost millions in
investment.
> Think of the comments at the last supernova about the fate of the creative

> genius at a large corporation which wants predictability not the
disruption of
> genius.  Realize that increasingly genius can create outside the
corporation and
> that Michel bauwens is documenting how.
>
> It gives cause for some hope to those of us who frustrated art obamas
attempts
> to continue to do the undoable  see the “system” hurtling towards what
could be
> many brick walls.  Being in that situation is very uncomfortable if the
> perception is that there are no alternatives.  What Michel is doing is
very
> important because he logically and in great detail describes a system that
is
> free open and with vey different reward structures than capitalism –
> sustainable.
> _______________________________________________
> Arch-econ mailing list
> Arch-econ at cookreport.com
> http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/arch-econ

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
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