Design. Charity. Life.

This post about Open Source is in response to an essay called What did we learn from Open Source? by a scientist in Finland, Ilkka Tuomi.

Open Source is a philosophy that promotes “free redistribution and access to an end product’s design and implementation details” according to the free, open-source platform Wikipedia.

Open Source software has become extremely important for everyone who uses the Internet. As Canadian designer Bruce Mau asks, “Now that we can do anything, what will we do?” designing for social change, innovation the betterment of society is something to consider.

The Industrial Age has defined needs through laws, industrial structures, business models, professions, and social institutions, which are changing today. While Intellectual Property Rights are important and should be respected, working on such open, collaborative platforms compels a re-design of these rights and principles. When the Open Source movement began, without rights for developers, it was thought that technical progress could slow down – yet this has not been the case. However, because corporate jobs and software fees do not necessarily motivate developers, they may only be interested and inspired to create things that they want to – not necessarily what the world needs.

The idea that developers “do not produce for others; instead, they create code to create themselves” could be detrimental to society’s future. What really motivates designers and developers is the urge to “make a meaningful difference in life, listen to a calling, and to become real by participating in a project shared by others who value the same values”, as Tuomi explains in reference to Aristotle.

People who have no money to spend cannot vote on the market of what is being developed and whose needs are being met, however. This is concerning because developing countries (which house the majority of the world’s population) and individuals with low income are stuck in Tuomi’s “bottleneck” of money being required to pay inventors – cutting off all those that do not have the financial resources. If the inventors are being paid for their inventions, “someone has to find them worth paying for,” Tuomi states. The exception could be in the case of impoverished nations, however, where Open Source products could be extremely valuable despite users not being able to pay for them.

Two years after Tuomi wrote this piece, a report from Boston-based Standish Group stated that the adoption of Open Source software models had already resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers. Ironically, to access Standish Group’s full report “Trends in Open Source”, a fee of $1000 per copy applies. These savings are a positive for consumers, and great news of the success of Open Source products – but neither the developers, nor the existing companies that customers did not pay, benefit financially.

Considering the developer and designer perspective, OCAD University Graphic Design Program Chair Keith Rushton, asks, “how do we design and work in a world, when we’re not thinking about the future of that world?” Rushton states that designers can facilitate change, however, with Open Source, it is completely up to the developers to decide whether they are interested in facilitating positive change or not. Tuomi states that there is “no guarantee that Open Source developers would focus on societally important challenges.”

Today, global information and communication networks have enabled an ongoing socio-economic transformation toward an “expansive economy of meaning, where culture, values, identity, and communication matters”. Tuomi argues that this economy requires a new concept of intellectual property.

There is evidence of hope of developers doing positive things for the online community, however. When it comes to recent successes, there are many – some of which have become extremely popular and mainstream. Namely, WordPress is a huge Open Source platform that hosts over 71,295,000 blogs and websites by individuals and many of the world’s biggest brands and industries (from TechCrunch to TED, CNN, and the NFL). Additionally, MySQL is the most widely used database server in the world and is required to install WordPress; a majority of websites use the Apache web server; and Firefox is one of the world’s top web browsers.

Open Source is part of mainstream society and everyday life, which is a sign that developers can build quality products useful to the world. Evidently, the future of communication depends on cooperation from a variety of groups and users – and today discussion continues on intellectual property rights, which may be transformed dramatically.

This emerging network society will require new institutions, new laws, and new ways to understand intellectual property and Open Source projects are the alternative – as long as everyone is on-board in support of the greater good.

No. It’s a new way of communicating. Any time, any where. Sharing photos, videos, links, thoughts. I think it would be ignorant to say it’s just “hype”. And 96% of Generation Y has joined a social network!

So do you think social media is just hype, or is it the biggest movement since the industrial revolution? Watch this video by Phil Guest below.

Whether you’re a student, designer, developer or user, this is a chance to influence Canada’s national digital media action plan. Be part of the discussion to ensure Canada can not only compete, but also lead the world, in today’s new digital economy.

OCAD President Sara Diamond will also be at the event. My Interview with her is now in OCAD’s student newspaper, Cadmium, for the April issue where you can learn more about digital futures in education.

Learn more about the event at www.canada30.ca. Register to volunteer, so you can come free of charge, via email to lpowers@opentext.com. Deadline for applications is 03.07.2010.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

JESS3 designed and animated this for the JESS3 lecture at AIGA Baltimore in Feb 2010.

The world’s richest man, Bill Gates, has finally launched a website – well, blog, I guess. It’s kind of its own unique thing.

When I was younger I would Google Bill Gates, to learn about his wealth, innovation and personal innitiatives. But the information was always so limited (other than news and a simple profile page on Microsoft.com). I thought it was so crazy that a guy who built up the computer industry and spent years developing for the Internet, didn’t even have his own domain name registered – I would go to BillGates.com and be so confused that nothing was there. Of all people, I thought, he should have a website. At that point I completely forgot about it and gave up.

Recently, Gates joined Twitter and re-joined Facebook. Within only 8 hours of him joining Twitter, he had 100,000 followers! Record-breaking.

Then, one day last week, I see this: Welcome to the Gates Notes:

Since leaving my fulltime job at Microsoft to dedicate more time to our foundation, a lot of people have asked me what I’m working on. It often feels like I’m back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I’m passionate about.

Gates finally decided to put his thoughts out there, online, with a bit more time.

I thought it would be interesting to share these conversations more widely with a website, in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important. So, welcome to the Gates Notes.

Based on the way some things are worded on the site, though, I’d say he had a dedicated team of staff putting everything together. Why wouldn’t you, when you have billions?

The website encompasses a varity of things, like his travels, conversations, questions, etc. Design-wise, there’s even colour and logo branded-sections:

And it’s quite nice, design-wise. There’s an interesting interface, in terms of the site’s navigation. It’s colour-coated and each section moves depending on what you mouse-over.

It will be interesting to see how well Mr. Gates keeps the site updated. Of course he’s a really busy guy. But it looks like they’ve put a ton of work into adding content for the launch, giving it the appearance having been active for years.

Here’s a quick video interview from CNET about his new online presence:

The Official Website of Bill Gates is found at www.thegatesnotes.com.