Wider Applications for Open Source?
From the "The Guardian" today, a piece entitled "Secrets Laid Bare" inspired by the recent DEMOS report "Wide Open"
I'm not sure I agree with the statement that "in a strict sense nothing except computer code can ever be open source".
Other electronic media, such a music and eBooks can also be distributed as "Open Source".
But then I realised that some of the largest "Open Source" projects have been running ever since human kind first began to speak.
I am referring to the huge body of oral myths and folktales that have been handed down from generation to generation.
These stories have been heard, embellished and retold, then re-embellished, for hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of years.
Stories were are all very familiar with from childhood, such as Cinderella and Snow White were the product of centuries of oral traidtion and story telling long before the Brothers Grimm collected them and wrote them down for the first time in 1810.
So if the large body of myth, folklore and legend passed down orally by the common folk is "open source", what else?
Folk music is another good example. Once again this kind of "open source" happens when ordinary people get together and make and play music together for entertainment. To celebrate the ordinary mundane things of life: birth, marriage, birthdays, death.
If you listen to all the diferent types of folk music from áround the world you hear will a rich and distinct tradition that is unique to the region that the music originates from.
Before the invention of the modern well tempered scale music wasn't even written down by folk musicians.
They played by ear and learned by rote, sharing techniques and tunes as they collectivly evolved their music into their distinct musical styles. Then those sytles evolved and merged to create new styles as musicians from all over the world collided in the "New World" .. setting off a new explosion of music that lead to categories such as "Jazz", "Blues", "Cajun", "Bluegrass" and "Country & Western", and so many other that I could go on forever.
Sounds pretty "open source" to me ..
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I think there will be "More On This Later" .. now I've started the analogy it looks like most of the development of civilisation relied on the open source model and the free interchange of ideas, music, literature & technology.
I can think of some notable exceptions .. and I will explore them "Real Soon Now" .. right now i want to read the DEMOS "Wide Open" report in full .. 77 pages ...