Apropos Open Source Methodologies
When we first started to circulate the call for taxi-to-praxi some of the reactions which I got in private email were of the kind "open source methodology, what's that supposed to be?" - "there is no such things", " etc. Since that moment I thought aha, we are on to something and I should write something about it. This is now not the all conclusive article, but a forum posting, improvised and unfinished.
It would be easy now to come up with references to the so called "hacker ethics". you can get the basic idea from this wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic
However, although there is an overlap, the hacker ethics and open source methodologies are quite different things. By using the term open source methodologies I imply that this is something that goes beyong the narrow confines of computer software development, that these are methodologies (I quite deliberately use the plural here) which can be applied in reesearch as well as creative processes. It is maybe more closely connected to 'peer based commons production' a term coined by Yochai Benkler (cf. The Wealth of Networks) than hacking per se
Thus, without trying to be normative, nor prescriptive, nor complete, I would say an open source methodology can be something where
* you would lay open the assumptions which go into the formulation of your thesis or research subject as much as you are aware that there are assumptions
* you would rather than making references because you have to or because you feel you are supposed to be quite happy to reference anything that informs your work, people who helped you, ideas and influences, work done by others, etc.
* you would be happy to discuss your work in suitable public fora without fear of your ideas being stolen (because you trust that you can realise your idea still and if somebody share an interest maybe you can work together)
* you, despite the fervour with which you defend your thesis, are keeping an open mind to the possibility that you are wrong and have to start completely afresh and maybe turn around your mind 180 degrees, you are not just waiting for that person to show up but actively try to assume that other viewpoint
Whereas those points so far have something to do with opennness, I think there are other aspects which have more to do with freedom and autonomy. An open source methodology can also mean that you are seeking to
* preserve an open working space which implies a certain ethical behaviour in relation to the tools that you use and the ways that you communicate what you do;
*choose tools which allow your work to be accessed by as many people as possible
* publish your work in such a way that it does not get locked into some proprietary structrue which takes it away from public scrutiny
And while you are doing all that you would try to answer questions, read the fine manuals, stay economic with words, and be measured with your paprika when you cook open source gulash.
Methodologies?
Doll, firstly I have to say that I love the idea of footprint clouds/clusters and a system that allows us to visualise categories ( I would love to discuss that with you in the future) but I felt that I had to respond to Armin's comments on methodologies because infact, he has not described a methodology atall.
Armin, what you are describing are a list of methods, the methodology of open source has still to be worked out? I keep hearing this word ‘methodology’ in respect of open-source, and I still don’t know what it means. Do other people know what it means? If you do please tell me!
In my mind methodology is a frame work, an management system (not an application) so to speak, a meta-narrative not a monologue. To quote Wikipedia:
Methodology includes the following concepts as they relate to a particular discipline or field of inquiry:
1) a collection of theories, concepts or ideas;
2) comparative study of different approaches;
3) and critique of the individual methods.
The nearest I can describe a methodology for OS, is as a ‘collaboration’. That seems to have the overall framework that ‘Open Source Methodology’ suggests.
So, if an open-source methodology is a Collaboration, the methods can be described by various categorisations such as
* preserve an open working space which implies a certain ethical behaviour in relation to the tools that you use and the ways that you communicate what you do;
*choose tools which allow your work to be accessed by as many people as possible
* publish your work in such a way that it does not get locked into some proprietary structure which takes it away from public scrutiny
(I have ignored the first section as they are human attributes and ways of being rather than methods, sorry to sprinkle paprika. Of course that could also be up for discussion!)
So how do we compare the study of different approaches? Seminars, discussions, deconstruction of other methodologies? This must also hold fast for the critique... this is where perhaps the human attributes come in? Does then an open source methodology have a certain psyche? Nature or nurture? Background or circumstance? Class? Sorry, but in developing a methodology of collaboration, do these factors not have to be taken into consideration?
Where is this methodology positing itself? In arts, science, industry, socially? If it has to cross all these unique boundaries, which in my opinion it does, it has to encompass a deep understanding of all these things! This IS where the collaboration occurs, in the development of a theory. We are at the beginning of a really exciting thing. MORE PAPRIKA Please!
*just opened a text and this nugget popped out at me, 'Sandra harding defines the word 'method' as a pre-determined technique for the gathering of evidence, but she defines the word 'methodology' as a theory and evaluation of choices about how research does or should proceed'
Artists in Labs, Processes of Enquiry, Scott, J, SpringerWein NewYork, 2006
I think the quote is from the book The Science Question in Feminism, Harding S, Cornell University Press, 1986
Lindsay
open paw prints
it's morning and i'm still waking up .. i've read the recent posts by armin and celcrabeels, and noticed there are some new peeps in TNL hood ...
maybe open source methodologies as being explored at TNL .. especially with regards to the circulation of our ideas-in-the-making, and apprehending that we have an audience, even if its just one other sentient being .. could include an open way of sharing that we have read/viewed ppl's contributions, even if we do not wish to/have no head space to ..comment on them via the comments option
in my early morning haze i'm imagining a little semi-transparent stamp, like either an imprint from a ye olde seal ring, or one of those japanese stamps of the characters of someone's name, or the self-stamping cute animal pix that primary school teachers use (ok, i was one in another lifetime)
and these stamps could form into a little visual cloud hovering next to the text/photo/etc that someone has posted...
such clouds could build their own momentum, sticky swarms of digi-paw prints...pleasantly, pleasurefully disrupting the loneliness of the long-distance runners through the nets