[p2p-research] the issue with forking

[Michel Bauwens]

the following seems an important issue for us,

Phoebe/George, could you eventually explore this and fish for a deeper text
by Nathaniel?

Jussi will most like have the email contact,

Michel

http://www.networkpolitics.org/sites/default/files/netpol10v2%20abstracts.pdf

*

Nathaniel Tkacz: The Politics of Forking Paths
*

Open projects are defined by their forkability. So central is this capacity
(to

fork), software and other content projects cannot lay claim to the beloved

notion of openness without it. While forking is variously celebrated or

discouraged depending on a whole series of factors, all agree that the *
potential
*

to fork is vital for what might be called the political legitimacy of open

projects. That is, such projects might be full of conflicts, have
domineering

participants, too many or not enough rules, trolls, vandals, sock puppets
and

numerous other schemers and nasties, and yet in the last instance each

participant must see the overall organisation of the project as acceptable
and

therefore legitimate. If this was not so, members are free to take the
software

or content from the existing project and continue in a new direction and
with

new governance.

Rather than accept this widely held position, this presentation offers a
critical

reading of forking. I begin by dispelling the ideas that anyone can fork and

that all – if any - projects are forkable. Using examples from the history
of

Wikipedia, I then argue that forking offers a window to the many asymmetries

that characterise collaborative, P2P networks and the open projects created
on

them.


-- 
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:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100322/8eb7dafd/attachment.html>