Re: <nettime> osculture

[Florian Cramer <paragram@gmx.net>]

Am Fri, 31.Mar.2000 um 21:30:25 +0200 schrieb carsten:
> osculture - platform for open culture
> osculture is the first version of a platform which wants to focus on the
> discussion about the open source principle beyond the software context. 

Dear Carsten,

your project sounds promising and could indeed 'scratch an itch' (to use
Raymond terminology) in the net arts. However, some issues/bugs need IMHO to
be addressed:

- The HTML/javascript code of "osculture.de" doesn't work under open
source/free operating systems such as Linux/BSD with free/open source
browsers. (lynx and Mozilla M13 tested.) I would had liked to enter my own
GPLed net poetry project into the database but failed because of that.

- Without wanting to be fundamentalistic, it might be a problem for your
kind of project that your pages rely on non-free/patented data formats like
GIF which can't be legally created with free/open source software.

- Not every net artistic project you list is, I think, compliant to "open
source" as it is defined in the Open Source Definition
<http://www.opensource.org> or in the Debian Free Software Guidelines
<http://www.debian.org>. In many cases, net arts projects make some vague
anticopyright statements without being specific about the terms of reusing
and distributing their code. Even Nettime is _not_ Open Source, because the
commercial distribution of its content is prohibited.

I hope that "osculture" will help to shape both the political consciousness
about copylefting and the mere technical knowledge of what free
software/open source exactly is in the net arts. Both, I think, could be
improved.

Florian

-- 
Florian Cramer, PGP public key ID 6440BA05
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