This column is reprinted from the Technology department of the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (JAAL). It contains the following sections:

• Editor's Message
• Issue of the Month
• Literacy Webpage of the Month
• Glossary
• References

What is the Web? Is it a vast library, a repository of texts and images? Is it a shopping mall? Is it a site for collaboration among diverse people throughout the world? Is it the metatechnology that unites fax, e-mail, telephone, radio, television, video, and databases? It certainly carries aspects of each of these and more.

A key factor in what the Web means is the way we conceive of it and use it. This becomes evident when we consider debates such as that surrounding “open source.” For many people the term was not even in their vocabulary until the antitrust suit by the U.S. government against Microsoft in 1999. There, we heard about alternatives to the nearly universal hold that Microsoft has over computer operating systems. One of the most important of those alternatives is open-source software development, such as that which has led to the Linux operating system.

The ideas about open source go well beyond the construction of computer operating systems. They relate to possible shifts in the way knowledge is produced and shared. Are we moving from a centralized model in which authorities produce texts and readers consume to one in which readers become partners in production as well? What does this mean for how we interpret texts and how we write? What does it mean for literacy development? This month I will examine some of the implications of open source for how we communicate and share knowledge.

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From open-source reading to open-source writing

The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 15th-century Europe might seem at first to be a historical curiosity. There were earlier versions of printing in Europe, and several centuries before that in China. Initially, this invention meant only that certain texts, notably the Bible, could be produced more quickly and cheaply. In any case, not many people could read in Gutenberg's time, so the availability of texts affected only a small number of scholars in religious orders and in the few universities.

Thus, the printing press was neither especially useful in the beginning, nor even totally novel. But the combination of elements, including both the press and typography, which Gutenberg used in his “42-line Bible” project, made possible mass printing as we know it today. The possibility of wide dissemination of texts shook the foundations of the church by opening up sacred texts to multiple interpretations. It moved the Bible and other classical texts from the cathedral to the mass marketplace of ideas. Academic knowledge became the province of the masses, not the privilege of certain classes. The ability to represent knowledge in permanent, mobile forms made possible the development of modern science (Latour, 1988). These elements enabled the kind of mass literacy we see today. They are also at the heart of the Internet, including the claims for multimedia, hypertext, and global connectivity. Thus, the case is strong for classifying the invention of the printing press as one of the great events in modern history.

In the jargon of today, we could describe the printing press as a device that made possible “open-source” reading. Where before manuscripts were scarce and held behind locked doors, now they were widely available. Where before a text required a skilled decoder and interpreter, now anyone could acquire those skills and do the decoding and interpreting by themselves. Opening the source code facilitated the transformation of culture of the last 4 centuries, including both the positive and negative effects of that transformation.

Today, the term open source more commonly refers to a method of distributing software, not Bibles. Essentially, it means that programmers make available to all the actual text of their programs, the source code. Doing so means that they reveal its limitations, and also that they allow others to benefit by building upon it. Thus, there is both open-source writing as well as open-source reading. By doing this, the original programmer's work becomes much more widely disseminated. Its influence grows, not by being hoarded, but by being given away. The archetypal case is the development of the Linux operating system as an alternative to Windows.

Raymond (1998, online document) applied the labels “bazaar model” to the open-source method for developing and distributing software and “cathedral model” to the more familiar, corporate-based method. He saw the Linux open-source community as “a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches...out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles.” Yet, he argued that, despite that babbling confusion, the open-source approach would lead to better designed, more useful software.

Recently, these ideas have been extended to scientific inquiry (Kiernan, 1999, online document). As more and more scientists use computer programs to analyze data, many are also beginning to make their source code open. Some worry that their ideas may be stolen or their faulty methods exposed through this openness. But many see that sharing code can facilitate a new mode of collaboration through software. It also becomes a new mode of publication, often more informative and useful than the traditional journal article.

The open-source movement makes even broader claims, namely that it is more democratic and that it will revolutionize the way people communicate and work together in all realms (Bezroukov, 1999, online document; Raymond, 1998, 1999). It also predicts a greater sharing of knowledge and with that a greater sharing of power. Through the bazaar called the Web, people who are geographically distributed can collaborate in making and distributing software, music, photographs, video, artwork, texts, and ideas without any central coordination.

As an example, we now see open-source, or bazaar, ideas percolating through the world of music with the advent of MP3 and other coding schemes. These allow anyone to distribute their own recordings (Samudrala, 1998, online document) directly to listeners. An artist does not have to please the record company, but instead becomes one. People can now produce their own Internet radio as well, thus providing live broadcasts.

In all of these areas, open source has both its detractors and its proponents. Detractors argue that chaos can result, with everyone claiming authority. They see the need for consistency, quality control, and the protection of intellectual property rights. Proponents on the other hand argue that open source does essentially what the printing press did: It opens up participation to all the people. Whatever the costs in messiness, they are far outweighed by the power of many and by extending democratic process.

The greatest invention?

Starting in 1981, the Reality Club has held meetings in the United States in Chinese restaurants, the New York Academy of Sciences, and various other venues in New York. More recently it has migrated to the Web, at the Edge Foundation. This is a Web site designed as a forum for intelligent, thoughtful, and engaging exchange of ideas.

A couple of years ago a distinguished list of participants were asked, “What is the most important invention in the past two thousand years?” and “Why?” (Brockman, 1998, online document). Their justifications -- the answer to the “why” question -- make the Web page (75 printed pages) well worth a visit. But it's still intriguing to know which invention tops the list.

There are several unexpected choices. Freeman Dyson, physicist and author of many works (including From Eros to Gaia, Pantheon, 1993) chooses hay as the most important “invention” of the last 2,000 years. He argues that civilization needed either a warm climate, such as in Mediterranean Greece, or some means for keeping horses alive through a cold winter by grazing. The “invention” of hay meant that in Europe, civilization could move north over the Alps, giving birth to Vienna, Paris, London, and Berlin.

But as one reads through the 100+ entries, it is apparent that one invention dominates the thinking of this group. Some try to think of alternatives to it; some look to future, unrealized effects of current technologies; and some simply acknowledge it. But few can easily dismiss the importance of the printing press. By vastly expanding the range of participation in literate activity, the printing press made possible the work in science and technology, which has led to other inventions, and has had an enormous impact on economic development, religion, art, and culture. At a fundamental level it has made universal literacy a realizable goal.

People or machines?

In researching the open-source movement, I came across an article by Elinor Abreu (1999, online document), in which she provided some good background on what's happening with the Open Directory Project (see Literacy Web Page of the Month), an example of the open-source idea applied to Web search directories. I thought the paragraph at the end was the most intriguing:

“The most significant thing is it's really set off a revolution in terms of search engines,” says Sullivan of Search Engine Watch. “In 1996, of the top six search engines, only Yahoo was human-powered. Today...four out of six are powered by humans.”

So, the “revolution” is that we're replacing machines with humans! Regardless of the extent to which that happens, it is clear that open-source projects such as Open Directory do involve much larger numbers of people.

How you can participate

There are many ways you can participate in the open-source movement, short of developing components of the next operating system. One way I have found to be useful is the Open Directory Project mentioned above. For example, I edit a small corner of the Open Directory called “Literacy in the Information Age” at www.dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Education/Literacy/Literacy_in_the_Information_Age/.

If you go to that Web site, you can see links to many additional sites organized into categories, such as Access, Computer Mediated Communication, Cyberspace Law, Information Media Literacy, Online Communities, and Quantitative Literacy. There is a link for you to “add URL.” You can also send me suggestions for new categories. If you are more than casually interested, you can click on “become an editor” and volunteer to edit or coedit any of the more than 200,000 existing categories. You can also propose to create and edit an entirely new category.

It is also possible to import Open Directory or some portion of it into your own personal or school Web site. There is a free-use license that allows anyone to post on their site any portion of the Open Directory, with attribution.

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Open Directory is a community-produced search directory with organized, annotated links. The Open Directory Project (ODP) maintains the site, but thousands of editors manage specific categories. The search tree is downloaded regularly to Lycos, Hotbot, Netscape, and other major search engines.

The goal of the ODP is “to produce the most comprehensive directory of the web, by relying on a vast army of volunteer editors” (Open Directory Project, 2000, online document). There are currently well over 1,000,000 links, with about 100,000 being added every month.

For the volunteer editor, Open Directory offers several advantages. The ODP provides tools that make it much easier than building one's own Web page. ODP archives the site and manages its export to search engines and other sites. There are also software tools to help the editor check links and maintain consistency with other parts of the directory. The work one does in selecting and annotating links is not buried within one's personal or classroom page, but is immediately incorporated into a larger context. That context also provides the related links that one often needs.

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Bazaar model -- a style of interaction, originally applied to software development, in which large numbers of people contribute, often without monetary compensation, to build some larger whole. Proponents accept and applaud diversity. They argue that people committed to a particular area will produce results whose value far offsets any problems due to lack of uniformity of overall structure. See cathedral model.
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Cathedral model -- a style of interaction, originally applied to software development, in which a dedicated few work within a guiding structure. Proponents argue that the need for consistency and quality control outweigh the advantages of enlisting vast contingents of volunteers. See bazaar model.
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Linux operating system (www.ssc.com/linux/) -- a version of the Unix operating system, which works with a variety of computers, including PCs, Macintoshes, and Amigas. As an operating system, it enables the user to invoke word processors, Web browsers, and other programs, as needed. In that sense, Linux is similar to Windows or MacOS. However, it is unusual in the way it has been created and in its cost. Linux development has been led by Linus Torvalds, but its continuing development occurs through an unusual collaborative arrangement in which programmers around the globe contribute pieces of the system. The software is free and represents the bazaar approach to software development.
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MP3 -- a scheme for compressing audio signals without sacrificing sound quality. This allows a sound file to be small and easily transferred over the Internet. A musician could use MP3 to distribute a performance directly to a listener without need of a record company.
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Open source -- a concept about how knowledge is constructed and shared, with implications for whether it is seen as intellectual property or collaborative inquiry. See the Open Directory category: www.dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/
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Abreu, E. (1999, December 14). Netscape directory making a splash. In The Industry Standard [Online]. Available: www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,8187,00.html?nl=dnt
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Bezroukov, N. (1999, December). A second look at the cathedral and the bazaar. In First Monday, 4(12) [Online]. Available: firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_12/bezroukov/
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Brockman, J. (Ed.). (1998). What is the most important invention in the past two thousand years? Available: www.edge.org/discourse/invention.html
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Kiernan, V. (1999, November 5). The “open-source movement” turns its eye to science. The Chronicle of Higher Education, A51-A52. Available online: http://chronicle.com/free/v46/i11/11a05101.htm.
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Latour, B. (1988). Drawing things together. In M. Lynch & S. Woolgar (Eds.), Representation in scientific practice (pp. 19-68). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Open Directory Project. (2000). In About the Open Directory Project [Online]. Available: www.dmoz.org/about.html
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Raymond, E.S. (1998). The cathedral and the bazaar. In First Monday, 3(3) [Online]. Available: www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_3/raymond/
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Raymond, E.S. (1999). The cathedral and the bazaar: Musings on Linux and open source by an accidental revolutionary. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly & Associates.
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Samudrala, R. (1998, December 5). In The future of music [Online]. Available: www.mp3.com/news/142.html
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