The Implications of the Open Source and Collaborative Authorship Movement on Society and Education.

Richard Biel
Etec 511 Section 64A
Professors Petrina and Feng
December 9^th, 2008

Abstract

Periodically in mankind's history, significant technological innovations have allowed humanity to undergo fundamental societal shifts. The open source and collaborative authorship movements are two significant forces at work on western information based societies. These two movements are influencing foundational systems in these societies, specifically, the economics of technology related business and how mankind begins and completes complex projects. The paper examines the philosophical foundations of these movements and some of the effects on intellectual copyright law, society and education. This examination of the open source movement and collaborative authorship further considers the impediment to wide spread adoption of these two powerful influences in the public school system.

The currently accepted model of evolution is called punctuated equilibrium (Eldridge & Gould, 1972). This theory is described as long periods of little changed punctuated by periods of massive change over a short period of time. These rapid changes are usually precipitated by a radical alteration to the existing environment. When Guttenberg first invented the printing press the world experienced a rapid dissemination of information that had never been experienced at that point in history. What followed was a veritable tsunami of information that radically changed the social and cultural "environment" that was humanity. Information, in the form of books became widely available to the masses. This was the last "evolutionary explosion" of information and occurred in the 1400's (Drucker, 1999). Humanity is presently experiencing a "punctuated equilibrium event", that is to say, a massive explosion of information that will and is having a heavy influence on every aspect of global society (Loch & Huberman, 1997). Specifically authorship, copyright and education are undergoing massive changes as a result of the increasing influence of collaborative authorship, the open source movement and new media, which all have gained prominence due to the development of the Internet. Collaborative authorship has its roots in the foundational works of Foucault, Kant and others (Stallman, 1985). Many of the original pioneers of the collaborative movement were coming from a radical functionalist perspective (Stallman, 1985). This ethos is in direct conflict with present intellectual copyright laws. Copyright law developed at the same time as mercantilism and was heavily influenced by the metanarrative at the time (Lessig, 2004). These changing modes of interacting and cooperating are and will continue to have impacts on current and future pedagogical practices. In evolutionary theory rapid development and differentiation occurs from a few key species. Collaborative authorship, the open source movement and new media, are those species and from them many new methods, theories of instruction and concepts of authorship will no doubt arise.

In evolutionary history there are species that arise and then due to a changing environment die out (Eldredge & Gould, 1972). It just may well be that we are witnessing the death of a species known as the author. Prior to the open source and collaborative authorship and new media movements there was a hand full of philosophers that sought to define, separate and extinguish the whole notion of an author. In Foucault's famous essay, "What is an author?" he defined the author function. This term is not to be confused with the term author but Foucault sought to define the role that an author plays or their "function" (What is an author, n.d.). One of the key functions of an author is intimately linked with intellectual copyright law. This function is there to punish people who transgress and break copyright (Lessig, 2004). Foucault revealed that the author function changed according to the genre, being different for a poem then for a periodic table. Foucault expounded on the term author and believed that it did not refer to a flesh and blood writer but more to a revealer (What is an author, n.d.)). He added that there were bodies of information such as science and therefore by extension technology, that could not be attributed to a single author due to the fact that there were a limited number of statements. Foucault placed the author in a secondary position and out of centre stage (What is an author, n.d.)). He defined many of the author's functions such as attributing more value, credibility, and quality to a piece of work and argued that those qualities would be lost or eroded if the author were anonymous. Foucault also saw the role of an author as maintaining stylistic uniformity and theoretical coherence (What is an author, n.d.)). The ability to separate the author from the text and to place the author outside of the text itself was the beginning of the end of the author. Foucault did not however go as far as Barthes, stating that the author is in fact dead.

"The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable contrast of culture." (Barthes, 1977, p.43) In this statement Barthes sought to dispel with the notion of the author. In a deconstructionist manner the author was seen as being extraneous and it is the text, which is the reflection of many references, which held prominence. The author was secondary to the ideas and concepts that were revealed and simply assembled these ideas (Barthes, 1977). If this secondary position of the author is the case then this negates the whole notion of an author. If then an author is superfluous and unnecessary then it follows that copyright law protecting authors is an antiquated law developed at a time when publishers were seeking financial security for their investments (Lessig, 2004). The very essence of an author came into being only relatively recently and is by no means concrete and therefore can be changed by societal pressure and therefore intellectual copyright law is also open to change.

This pressure is presently being exerted in the area of digital media as well as peer-to-peer file sharing (Lessig, 2004). The increasingly nebulous nature of the author as seen in the areas of open source and collaborative writing, is allowing society to cooperate in ways that have never been experienced as well as redefining if not extinguishing the very concept of an author (Lessig, 2004). If indeed the author is truly dead then the open source and collaborative authorship movements are quickly burying it. The collaborative nature of open source and wiki's extinguishes the notion of any one individual authoring a text or code. As Kim stated, "Software is a collection of numerous creative algorithms that are rarely created by one single person or group. Software is typically a product of collective work. (Kim, 2006, para.3) Many individuals have contributed to the writing of the text/code in a truly collaborative process. The concepts of the text or ideas being central and the author as secondary as defined by Barthes and Foucault have truly come to pass. The Internet and digital media have allowed individuals to work together and to further the development of knowledge. Humanity is presently living in the age of information; intellectual copyright laws protect the proprietary nature of information (Lessig, 2004). If the author is dead then it is simply a matter of time before laws and institution developed to protect the author will also become extinct.

Benjamin Kaplan also critiqued authorship and copyright law drawing attention to the fact that intellectual copyright law had undergone transformational changes over its brief history (Kaplan, 1977). In fact original copyright law developed in England and had more to do with the protection of publishers then the rights of the author (Kaplan, 1977). This tradition of protecting the publisher in order to protect the revenue generating capabilities of the work is seen today in the legal challenges by Microsoft and other proprietary firms against peer to peer software sharing (Lessig, 2004). Recently a Harvard professor, Charles Nesson, launched a lawsuit against copyright law in the U.S. arguing that copyright law as it presently stands allows a private organization to carry out civil enforcement of criminal law. This is another example of the slow change that is occurring to copyright law as a result of the collaborative and open source movements. Perhaps this slow changed provided the climate to allow "revolutionaries" of open source and collaborative authoring to force intellectual copyright laws to evolve.

Many founding members of the open source movement saw it as their moral imperative, as defined by Immanuel Kant, to enhance and promote the art of the code. As Richard Stallman wrote in the GNU manifesto:

"I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an institution where such things are done for me against my will. So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away." (Stallman, 1985, p.2)

Stallman referred to the golden rule and later revealed that he was referring to the Kantian philosophy called the moral imperative. Kant states, "Always act according to that maxim whose universality as a law you can at the same time will" (Raymond, 2001, p.8). For Stallman, one of the founding members of the open source movement, this moral code meant he must morally develop and produce free software. This moral imperative continues to exist within the open source movement, sealing the fate of the author and in turn intellectual property laws. This radical functionalist imperative continues to drive the motivation of many who develop and use open source in the hopes that information will be free and copyright will cease to exist (Raymond, 2001). "People often see in the open source software movement the politics they would like to see- a libertarian reverie, a perfect meritocracy, a utopian gift culture that celebrates an economics of abundance instead of scarcity, a virtual or electronic existence proof of communication ideals, a political movement aimed at replacing obsolete 19^th century capitalist structures with new "relations of production" more suited to the Information Age." (Weber, 2004 p.7)

When extinction occurs a niche is made available and rapid speciation within that niche occurs (Eldredge & Gould, 1972). So if indeed the author is becoming extinct or in point of fact is dead, then there will no doubt be a proliferation of new ideas and concepts. The proprietary nature of intellectual copyright laws has acted as an impediment to fostering knowledge and thought (Lessig, 2004). Once this intellectually restrictive policy is replaced with a law built on the free sharing and cooperation of ideas there is no doubt that a rapid speciation of ideas will occur. This expansion of ideas will spawn new technologies in the broadest definition of the term and that is an expansion in a whole new way of doing things both technologically and pedagogically.

So what affects will the rapid expansion of ideas as brought on by the open source movement and collaborative authorship have on culture? One of the most significant potential impacts is economical. Intellectual copyright laws are intimately connected with the new economy of western information based society (Lessig, 2004). Copyright and thus intellectual property laws first arose in the 17^th century and arose from the invention of the printing press. As Ronald Bettig remarks in his book Copyrighting Culture, "the printing press was the first invention to be exploited by capitalists". (Bettig,1996, p.155). Prior to the first copyright law, the Statue of St. Anne in 1710, most stories were not owned by anyone but belonged to the commons. It is postulated that the first copyright laws were developed due to lobbying of publishers and printers in order to protect their investment (Murphie & Potts, 2003). Intellectual property came about after the author gained prominence. The centralization of the author came about due to the influence of the European romantic conception of author being divinely inspired (Murphie & Potts, 2003). Intellectual property is particularly lucrative due to its capacity to be duplicated in an unaltered state. The impact that the free culture is and will have on the bottom line of major industrialized nations is significant. If the author is deemed extraneous due to the collaboration of many individuals what follows is a steady erosion of profit. Culturally this is one of the most significant influences of the open source and collaborative authorship movement.

Another significant social impact of the development of the open source and collaborative authorship movement is the encouragement of sharing and cooperation (Raymond, 2001). "This model of development has the social advantage that the developer community can absorb enthusiastic new developers without any great difficulty. The new developers can learn their skills and work practices by developing code that extends the system's functionality but does not interfere with its core functionality. Gradually, the novices can then earn a reputation as reliable developers, and become masters and gurus in the project community." (Tuomi, 2005, p.437)
A new grassroots movement is gaining momentum with the central tenet that 'information wants to be free' (Murphie & Potts, 2003, p.11). No longer are individuals alone and competing against one another for limited resources. But resources, in the form of information, are seen as belonging to no one person or company but are considered as common property that is to be shared for the betterment of mankind (Lessig, 2004). Many media forms such as wiki's, blogs, voice threads are collaborative by nature and are thus developed in an environment of mutual benefit. For the digital natives information and ideas are not seen as belonging to any one person or company but to a wider world. The resulting affect is that society is beginning to move towards a greater sense of cooperation and inclusion. The post modernist movement is contributing this greater mutualistic emphasis on culture. A 'hypertextual consciousness' is summarized by the moto "I link therefore I am" (Amerika, 1985). These collective work projects are gaining not only in prominence but also in frequency with works that are in continuous progress, developed by the accretion of multiple inputs. This deemphasizing of the author marks a return to the way creative works were seen prior to the advent of the printing press and that is works created by the commons for the commons (Lessig, 2004). One could consider open source and collaborative authorship movements as simply being extension of post-modernistic thought. For the post modernist originality is no longer possible. Many post modernists believe that 'all possible styles have been done, and that art now consists of the inventive arrangement of diverse styles (Murphie & Potts, 2003).

"A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionate effect on its environment relative to its abundance. Such species affect many other organisms in an ecosystem and help to determine the types and numbers of various others species in a community. (Paine, 1995 p.3)"

Education is one of the keystone species in any global culture. The collaborative media movement in the form of open source and other forms of collaborative authorship is changing the face of education. In essence educational practices are moving even more so to a social collaborative construction of meaning of knowledge (Wasko & Fraj, 2001). Open learning allows students and teachers to interact in truly constructionist ways. They are forming communities of practice whose end goal is the furthering of knowledge. Students and teachers work in unison to build knowledge from pre existing knowledge basis.

The distributed and user-centric innovation model that underlies many open source projects means that people who have extensive tacit and explicit knowledge of the issue at hand are often able to both define and solve problems. In this process, the articulation of problems and skills that are needed to solve problems co-evolve. (Tuomi. 2004, p.11) This fundamental shift between teacher centered to student centered learning will inform practice as well as allow students to learn in ways previously unavailable to them. Students are becoming more then just readers of information but co-contributors to their learning in inventive and creative ways that are not limited to the written text. By borrowing skills and knowledge from others, the learner is able to do things that still remained outside his or her current capabilities and, through such socially supported action, learn them (Tuomi, 2005). The increasing technological nature of education as influenced by the collaborative media movement, is allowing 24/7 learning opportunities. Students working in communities of practice are not limited to geography and are encouraged to carry on the ethos of the collaborative movement and that is to use their learning as an opportunity to link and contribute to the global community. Constructivist principles provide a set of guiding principles to help designers and teachers create learner-centered, collaborative environments that support reflective and experiential processes. Students and instructors can then build meaning, understanding, and relevant practice together and go far beyond the mere movement of information from instructors' minds to students' notebooks. (Jonassen et al. 1995 p.1). The strategies of assessment are leaving the realms of exams and quizzes and moving more towards authentically assessed works that emphasize contribution and not the completion of a learning opportunity. At the same time mastery of learning is being demonstrated by what is produced sometimes in the form of wikis, blogs and podcasts instead of paper based essays. Given the fact that purely written media is quickly being supplanted by a rich multi media tapestry developed in a cooperative environment teachers are being challenged to keep up with the advancement of collaborative practices. The teachers of the 21^st century must not only have sound classroom and pedagogical practices built on a firm foundation of constructivist learning but they must also be open to slowly integrating more collaborative, media rich, learning opportunities. Teachers are and will continue to be challenged to weave these powerful pedagogical practices into their course delivery. Education and teachers must adapt and evolve to the influence of open source and collaborative education and learn from the successes. Failure to learn and integrate these lessons will risk the educational establishment being left in the evolutionary dust. "Based on our own experience over some thirty years, we can conclude that the only applications surviving over the long term are those that were available in open source." (Nyssen & Cheeseman 2005, p.277)

There are some that say that the medium in which this new methodology is delivered will not necessarily enhance learning. Some teachers believe that the importance of face-to-face interaction with the students is never more necessary then today given the amount of media exposure. With an ever-growing ability to communicate there is a corresponding decrease in intimacy. Studies have demonstrated that collaborative, technological practices alter fundamental regions of the brain. So it follows that pedagogical practices must also shift to meet the changing needs our students.

Despite being very adaptable to change some species encounter impediments to evolutionary expansion (Eldredge & Gould, 1972). As outlined above the open source, collaborative authoring and new media movements are gaining in use and popularity. Given the social justice foundation and the inexpensive nature of the software one is left wondering why these very powerful tools are not integrated more fully into the public school system. One of the main reason cited by Hepburn, is that many in the educational field lack the awareness of what promise the collaborative and open source movement bring to the educational community (Hepburn, 2006). The problem is therefore obvious, without a greater understanding of the potential for open source and collaborative tools administrator and teachers will never entertain making the switch away from proprietary software and traditional educational tools. Another impediment to adoption would be the apparent "politics of payment". Hepburn further asserts that perhaps the most compelling argument for implementing open source and collaborative tools is their potential to reduce a school's software costs drastically (Hepburn, 2006). This argument, however, can sometimes be less persuasive in schools where computing costs are distributed over three levels of school administration (Hepburn, 2006). The complexity of payment leads many school districts to balk at the concept of devoting the time to evaluate the actual switch to open source. Many administrators are very aware of the burden teachers have had to bear regarding implementation of new technologies over the not too distant past. Teachers and administration are hesitant and too often, particularly in the areas of technology, afraid of the unknown and do not want to appear foolish in front of their peers and students (Lapp et al. 1998) One of the key and often forgotten components of integration is taking the time to explain the rational behind the introduction of open source and collaborative media. If this very valuable step is not taken many staff and administration will be resistant to adoption. Technical support staff is often left out of the integrative process. Sometimes support staffs lack the knowledge to properly adopt and support open source and collaborative media. Failure to have all the staff properly supported can also be a hurdle in the integration process.

The open source, collaborative authoring and new media movements are evolving and influencing many aspects of western information based societies. Most significantly the movements are influencing copyright and the way intellectual property is developed and funded as well as cultural foundations like education. Collaborative projects are becoming the norm and are affecting the bottom line of corporations. This radical change to intellectual property development has arisen from software programmers that have become disenfranchised by the intellectual restrictive nature of proprietary software. Driven by a moral imperative, open source software organizations are seeking to develop intellectual property by the commons for the commons. Open software and collaborative authorship are influencing education and affecting pedagogical practices. Impediments to wide spread use of open source and collaborative authorship tools in education is due to a lack of understanding on the part of teachers and administrators. Integration of these powerful tools into society and education will continue to occur and lead to an evolution of global education and culture.

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