DefectiveByDesign.org

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DefectiveByDesign.org is a broad-based anti-DRM campaign that is targeting Big Media, unhelpful manufacturers and DRM distributors. The campaign aims to make all manufacturers wary about bringing their DRM-enabled products to market. DRM products have features built-in that restrict what jobs they can do. These products have been intentionally crippled from the users’ perspective, and are therefore “defective by design”. This campaign will identify these “defective” products, and target them for elimination. We aim to make DRM an anti-social technology. We aim for the abolition of DRM as a social practice.

About DefectiveByDesign.org

I like this idea of identifying attempts to technologically corral new forms of property ‘defective by design.’ It’s both rhetorically savvy and true. It’s not just music where this ought to apply, though, it’s also knowledge of all kinds.

There’s a fight brewing over creative writing students who do not want their work available online. “I don’t necessarily want people to go back and read my thesis,” says Jeanne M. Leiby, an associate professor of English at Louisiana State University, in a Chronicle of Higher Education story.

Others report that the problem is just the opposite, that a freely available thesis cannot be published. Something tells me that the implicit end of that sentence is “for profit.” I sympathize with the embarrassment, though; with a little work you can read my thesis on Paul de Man from 20 years ago.

I think some of this pressure is coming from ill-paid professors hoping to make it big with their novel or screenplay. It’s a sign of the times, though, that the public missions of universities is ignored in favor of a so-called ‘right’ to self-aggrandizement. There’s more than a little vanity in that notion, too.

I have to agree with West Virginia’s electronic thesis director, quoted in the same story: “All theses and dissertations should become open access,” says Mr. Hagen. “It’s important in terms of being able to trace the cultural and historical aspects of academia.” He won’t say it but I will: it’s public property.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Economics, Online Places, Professional, Writing

The More Things Change…

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The economic experts and college administrators gathered Friday to discuss how to manage higher education “in uncertain economic times” joked a few times about the debate over whether the United States is in a recession…

The general consensus was that the combination of conditions facing higher education right now — flat or diminished government support, more scrutiny of tuition rates and endowment spending (see related article today), changing student demographics, an unpredictable stock market — add up to making this period one that will be challenging colleges for some time. Many of the solutions discussed weren’t entirely new – outsourcing and merit pay, for example, are hardly revolutionary concepts in higher education. But officials said that colleges may need to push these ideas further than they have in the past — and to extents that they may be controversial.

Scott Jaschik, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 12,2008

If it weren’t so predictable and depressing it would almost be funny. No matter what happens– economic boom or bust– university administrators say the exact same things. In the 1990s, when the economy was flush with the dot com bubble, everything from janitorial services to student unions had to be privatized to keep the university solvent.

Professors had to understand that merit pay– rewarding the ‘most talented’–was the only way to ensure that students received the best education possible. Then, at the turn of the last century things went sour and what was the solution? “Outsourcing and merit pay.” And now, almost a decade later, after years of Bush-neglect and an approaching recession? “Outsourcing and merit pay.”

Posted in: Economics, Professional

A Million Penguins

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A Million Penguins is an experiment in creativity and community – it will only work if we work as a community and leave our egos at the door, next to the coat-rack. Above all, remember always that all contributions may be edited, altered or removed by other contributors. Below are a few guidelines which we hope will make this collaborative exercise as harmonious as possible – but treating other users and their writing with respect will be key to producing a successful wikinovel.

Ethical Guidelines, A Million Penguins

This is one of those ideas that are more interesting as ideas than as actual practices. I just don’t have the time or the energy to work up all that enthusiasm. It’s also much less original than it seems– fan fiction has been doing similar things for decades. It’s more stunt than experiment, more marketing campaign than viral idea.

I think the most interesting section is the Ethics page, where the editors (for lack of a better word) twisted themselves into relativistic knots trying to be as tolerant as possible. “Remember that contributors to the wikinovel may come from different cultures and countries,” they tell us, ‘and might express different views or perspectives – be respectful of these differences.”

So far so good. “Including the idea,” they continue, “that other people may not be respectful of differences. Be respectful of disrespect, except inasmuch as you cannot be, in your difference.” Derrida laughs is his grave every time he hears that passage. There are some interesting typos too.

“Value consensus and discussion.” The editors say. “Do not upload copyrighted material or material that you have not personally created yourselfs.” Is that an inadvertent ‘s’ or is this the new Wiki-pronoun for the collective writerly ‘you’? There’s a similar phenomena a bit further on, as the authors again warn against egotism.

“A Million Penguins is not a forum for submission of entire novels or short stories – Penguin are not doing this to find new talent.” In some strange fashion the singular Penguin, the book publisher, has grown into the plural Penguin, encompassing all of us, one supposes. There’s a certain irony to the wisdom of this crowd.

Posted in: Language, Miscellaneous, Online Places, Writing