Reblog: we need a better lexicon to talk about collaboration

The word "open" is frequently used in a vacuous way. So for example,
"Open Access" essentially just means "Access". We need to use a
richer lexicon to describe the dimensions of productive,
collaborative, and educational projects.

The terms "NC", "ND", "SA", "By", and "Zero" from Creative Commons
provide a limited way to talk about rights (or, rather, restrictions)
attached to resources, but they don't say very much. For the sake of
comparison, there are 82 tags used on Slashdot, and although most of
them aren't relevant to us, there are probably more than 5 that are.
It seems that as a movement we are stumbling around in the dark,
without even a shared taxonomy (much less a theory or practice) of
sharing.

The four freedoms are somewhat more descriptive, but they are by now
fairly obvious. Like, duh, of course we should be able to run
software for any purpose (anyone who thinks otherwise is actively
seeking to be repressed). Of course we should study and change
software if we're interested in that (but not every software project
has documentation that makes learning curves effective). We learned
about sharing on Sesame Street. The bit about derivative works follows
directly from the above.

But in the words of Jonathan Swift: "Let no man talk to me of these
and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope,
that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them
into practice."