December 2015 - JoPP-Public - lists.ourproject.org

CFP: DIGITAL FABRICATIONS AMONGST HACKERS, MAKERS AND MANUFACTURERS: WHOSE ‘INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION’? (4S Barcelona)
by maxigas 16 Feb '16

16 Feb '16

CFP: DIGITAL FABRICATIONS AMONGST HACKERS, MAKERS AND MANUFACTURERS: WHOSE ‘INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION’? (4S Barcelona) We invite abstracts for a track we are organising on the theme of digital fabrications amongst hackers, makers and manufacturers, and which will take place in Barcelona over August 31 to September 3 as part of the international conference of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S). Abstracts can be submitted at this link: http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easst/easst_4s2016/panels.php5?PanelID=3870 More details below. Thanks, Johan Söderberg, Maxigas, Adrian Smith * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Our track brings critical analysis to the plurality of collectives, spaces and futures that are assembling around increasingly accessible digital design and fabrication technologies. Computer integrated tools hold particular historical ironies and contradictions: early introduction threatened skills, livelihoods and identities amongst manufacturing communities – while they are celebrated today as enabling agency, identities and communities for makers. Both processes has been promoted as ’Industrial Revolutions’. STS has much to contribute to understanding, engaging and bridging digital fabrications. Conversely, apparent historical turnarounds in digital fabrication, with tools spilling into new collectives and spaces, offers an opportunity to interrogate STS theory and methodology. Fifty years ago, social ecologist Murray Bookchin, like other commentators welcomed a future in which collectives would own tools and organise production non-hierarchically around ‘liberatory technologies’. Does grassroots appropriation of digital fabrication in hackerspaces, makerspaces and amongst user groups online, mean his future for egalitarian tool-based creativity arrived? Or do digital fabrication futures reinforce the automation, flexible specialisation, and globalised outsourcing documented by David Noble in the 1980s, and that has been a driver for the technology amongst manufacturing strategists since then? How do the collectives and spaces pursuing these different futures intersect, contest, and co-exist? In analysing digital fabrications, we are particularly interested in the critical voices posing unsettling questions: * Who controls the platforms underpinning these activities and their connections, and how does this influence the spaces for peer production, and the terms for private appropriation? * What senses of humanity are invigorated, and which excluded, from the political imaginaries, utopias, dystopias, and ideologies embodied in digital fabrication technologies? * How does the materiality of digital fabrications connect to the values of sustainable developments? * Where does the figure of the hacker – forever opening-up technologies – lurk in these collectives and spaces; and what has hacker culture mobilised and been appropriated by these collectives? * When and where will future industrial conflicts arise: what are the political and economic relations at stake between these collectives, spaces and futures? We welcome papers that provide critical reviews, original empirical study, and theoretical development relevant to digital fabrications. -- maxigas, kiberpunk FA00 8129 13E9 2617 C614 0901 7879 63BC 287E D166 http://research.metatron.ai/ In Solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-hub http://custodians.online Share this letter - read it in public - leave it in the printer. Share your writing - digitize a book - upload your files. Don't let our knowledge be crushed. Care for the libraries - care for the metadata - care for the backup. Water the ❀❀❀❀❀ - clean the volcanoes.

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Call for Papers: Decentralizing the Commons
by Mathieu ONeil 14 Dec '15

14 Dec '15

Call for Papers: Decentralizing the Commons We are witnessing today a steady growth in the impact of user-generated content and peer-production on the so-called sharing or collaborative economy. These emergent practices are an indicator of radical changes in the mode of production in an age of ‘prosumerism’, characterized by two main trends. On the one hand, corporations such as Google, Uber or Facebook are capturing the value created by the actors contributing to the collaborative economy, in a way that has been described by some scholars as an exploitation of free labour. On the other hand, projects such as Wikipedia or GNU/Linux are emblematic of a new model of production that relies on the contribution of many individuals collaborating to a collective project that is not owned by any given entity but rather by the community as a whole (Commons-Based Peer Production or CBPP). These individuals organise themselves without relying on traditional hierarchical and mercantile organisational structures, to produce a set of commons resources which are made freely available to the public for use and reuse. In the last few years, CBPP has expanded beyond the field of software and encyclopedias to also cover the realms of information (OpenStreetMap, Wikihow), hardware (FabLabs, Open Source Ecology), accommodation (Couchsurfing, BeWelcome) and currency (Bitcoin, Altcoins). The concept of decentralisation is a key requisite for the protection of thesecommons — from their governance system, including the allocation of power and functions in the organisation of labour; to the characteristics of the socio-technical means of collaboration, in terms of both the underlying technical infrastructure and the ownership structure of such infrastructure. Despite the original design of the Internet as a decentralized network, with the advent of the Web 2.0, centralized (and often proprietary) platforms — typically driven by corporate interests — have progressively taken over the web. These centralized choke-points can be used by governments to increase surveillance (as disclosed by the Snowden revelations), to blackout the Internet (e.g. Egypt, Syria, or San Francisco’s BART), or to restrict the activities of activist organizations (such as Wikileaks). It has now become clear that it is not enough to develop free/libre/open source (FLOSS)alternatives, if we do not as well endeavor to re-decentralize the Internet. Newdecentralized software tools may ultimately be useful to support the operation and the long-term sustainability of CBPP communities. In view of this, we organised the second FLOSS4P2P workshop <http://www.p2pvalue.eu/2nd-floss4p2p-workshop> (@Fablab London, supported by P2Pvalue <http://p2pvalue.eu/>), gathering a wide spectrum of people working ondecentralized FLOSS projects that could help or support the activities of peer production communities. Given the success of the workshop <http://p2pvalue.eu/floss4p2p-workshop-agenda>, we would like to prepare a book in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures <http://networkcultures.org/> (on the model of the former MoneyLab Reader <http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/moneylab-reader-an-intervention…>) to explore the topic of decentralisation in thecommons sector. We welcome proposals from academics, activists, researchers and practitioners interested in exploring the topic from a wide set of perspectives, ranging from computer science, engineering, sociology, philosophy, organisational theory, cultural studies, digital studies, etc. Contributions can cover a variety of topics, including tools for grassroots communities, commons-based peer production, both online and offline wikis, maker culture, activism, hacktivism, free culture, citizen science and hospitality exchange. Contributions can take a variety of formats, e.g. a story, a sci-fi tale, a comicstrip, a manifesto, a critical essay, an interview, a study, a poem, a conversation, a debate, a combination of the former… we would like you to experiment and surprise us! We invite you to submit an initial abstract (max. 750w; count each image as 200w, if any) explaining your idea by January 30, 2016. Examples of possible topics are: - Dynamics of (de)centralization in CBPP communities - Decentralized software applications for online/offline communities - Decentralized solutions to tackle specific communities concerns - Guidelines for developers and/or researchers - Comparison of centralized/decentralized processes in CBPP (e.g. decision-making, infrastructure ownership, value generation, value distribution) - Practical experiences around centralized/decentralized structures (in the form of stories, research, interview, etc.) The more compelling ideas will be selected to be included in the book. Please upload your contribution using the following Easychair link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=floss4p2p If you have further questions about the expected content, format, etc. do not hesitate to let us know. We look forward to hearing about your ideas! Primavera De Filippi Samer Hassan David Rozas ----

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Deadline for peer production and work CFP extended
by Mathieu ONeil 12 Dec '15

12 Dec '15

Deadline extended to Friday 7 August 2015 CFP - Journal of Peer Production Peer Production and Work Editors: Phoebe Moore (Middlesex University London), Mathieu O'Neil (University of Canberra), Stefano Zacchiroli (University Paris Diderot) Details below. http://peerproduction.net/peer-production-and-work/

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# In solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub
by Mathieu ONeil 02 Dec '15

02 Dec '15

Hi all Reposting from AIR cheers Mathieu -)-)-)-)- Hello everyone, I am forwarding this initiative by Marcel Mars and others following the recent court case initiated by Elsevier against LibGen and SciHub. I am unfortunately not following these developments closely enough but I believe strongly that it is of interest to Air peeps and other academic communities. Please do consider spreading their message further even if you don’t agree but think that this is something we should be discussing and engaging in actively. Best, Seda # In solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub In Antoine de Saint Exupéry's tale the Little Prince meets a businessman who accumulates stars with the sole purpose of being able to buy more stars. The Little Prince is perplexed. He owns only a flower, which he waters every day. Three volcanoes, which he cleans every week. "It is of some use to my volcanoes, and it is of some use to my flower, that I own them," he says, "but you are of no use to the stars that you own". There are many businessmen who own knowledge today. Consider Elsevier, the largest scholarly publisher, whose 37% profit margin[^1] stands in sharp contrast to the rising fees, expanding student loan debt and poverty-level wages for adjunct faculty. Elsevier owns some of the largest databases of academic material, which are licensed at prices so scandalously high that even Harvard, the richest university of the global north, has complained that it cannot afford them any longer. Robert Darnton, the past director of Harvard Library, says "We faculty do the research, write the papers, referee papers by other researchers, serve on editorial boards, all of it for free … and then we buy back the results of our labour at outrageous prices."[^2] For all the work supported by public money benefiting scholarly publishers, particularly the peer review that grounds their legitimacy, journal articles are priced such that they prohibit access to science to many academics - and all non-academics - across the world, and render it a token of privilege[^3]. Elsevier has recently filed a copyright infringement suit in New York against Science Hub and Library Genesis claiming millions of dollars in damages.[^4] This has come as a big blow, not just to the administrators of the websites but also to thousands of researchers around the world for whom these sites are the only viable source of academic materials. The social media, mailing lists and IRC channels have been filled with their distress messages, desperately seeking articles and publications. Even as the New York District Court was delivering its injunction, news came of the entire editorial board of highly-esteemed journal Lingua handing in their collective resignation, citing as their reason the refusal by Elsevier to go open access and give up on the high fees it charges to authors and their academic institutions. As we write these lines, a petition is doing the rounds demanding that Taylor & Francis doesn't shut down Ashgate[^5], a formerly independent humanities publisher that it acquired earlier in 2015. It is threatened to go the way of other small publishers that are being rolled over by the growing monopoly and concentration in the publishing market. These are just some of the signs that the system is broken. It devalues us, authors, editors and readers alike. It parasites on our labor, it thwarts our service to the public, it denies us access[^6]. We have the means and methods to make knowledge accessible to everyone, with no economic barrier to access and at a much lower cost to society. But closed access’s monopoly over academic publishing, its spectacular profits and its central role in the allocation of academic prestige trumps the public interest. Commercial publishers effectively impede open access, criminalize us, prosecute our heroes and heroines, and destroy our libraries, again and again. Before Science Hub and Library Genesis there was Library.nu or Gigapedia; before Gigapedia there was textz.org; before textz.org there was little; and before there was little there was nothing. That's what they want: to reduce most of us back to nothing. And they have the full support of the courts and law to do exactly that.[^7] In Elsevier's case against Sci-Hub and Library Genesis, the judge said: "simply making copyrighted content available for free via a foreign website, disserves the public interest"[^8]. Alexandra Elbakyan's original plea put the stakes much higher: "If Elsevier manages to shut down our projects or force them into the darknet, that will demonstrate an important idea: that the public does not have the right to knowledge." We demonstrate daily, and on a massive scale, that the system is broken. We share our writing secretly behind the backs of our publishers, circumvent paywalls to access articles and publications, digitize and upload books to libraries. This is the other side of 37% profit margins: our knowledge commons grows in the fault lines of a broken system. We are all custodians of knowledge, custodians of the same infrastructures that we depend on for producing knowledge, custodians of our fertile but fragile commons. To be a custodian is, de facto, to download, to share, to read, to write, to review, to edit, to digitize, to archive, to maintain libraries, to make them accessible. It is to be of use to, not to make property of, our knowledge commons. More than seven years ago Aaron Swartz, who spared no risk in standing up for what we here urge you to stand up for too, wrote: "We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access. With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?"[^9] We find ourselves at a decisive moment. This is the time to recognize that the very existence of our massive knowledge commons is an act of collective civil disobedience. It is the time to emerge from hiding and put our names behind this act of resistance. You may feel isolated, but there are many of us. The anger, desperation and fear of losing our library infrastructures, voiced across the internet, tell us that. This is the time for us custodians, being dogs, humans or cyborgs, with our names, nicknames and pseudonyms, to raise our voices. Share this letter - read it in public - leave it in the printer. Share your writing - digitize a book - upload your files. Don't let our knowledge be crushed. Care for the libraries - care for the metadata - care for the backup. Water the flowers - clean the volcanoes. ---- [^1]: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=YA6Bzf5FvZEXftQNxa6EWSFBubL…>, http://svpow.com/2012/01/13/the-obscene-profits-of-commercial-scholarly-pub…<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=GFhRWCsoFBzD3LxVlK5kTpVbdD6…> [^2]: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-p…<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=eVkHLzqXqu0lSg9zbPVx4MmvbQj…> [^3]: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/20121017558785551.html<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=Ic8K-FzH8z9IMOzrQ0m1JElGzd1…> [^4]: https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-tears-down-academias-illegal-copyright-pay…<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=q7iOa2Qyt192uwpLxzi50fMLWDK…> [^5]: https://www.change.org/p/save-ashgate-publishing<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=vAwyvBrGpZt3UUVbfTWaFcZWFXm…> [^6]: http://thecostofknowledge.com/<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=iFkdZNFSBdQQsn5qGx-vCDmQwJa…> [^7]: In fact, with the TPP and TTIP being rushed through the legislative process, no domain registrar, ISP provider, host or human rights organization will be able to prevent copyright industries and courts from criminalizing and shutting down websites "expeditiously". [^8]: https://torrentfreak.com/court-orders-shutdown-of-libgen-bookfi-and-sci-hub…<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=aZVTndiE-tcxxzin8GI-KqWhDeU…> [^9]: https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=Fst_bIATzXq3B-uX1vVQuBzGdko…> If you want to disseminate further: on twitter it says: http://custodians.online<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=_jji_xpuZhESswOBOSCtKPykeDB…> 4LibGen&Sci-hub: share this letter, read it in public, care for the libraries, water the ?????, clean the volcanoes. on facebook: "<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>http://custodians.online In Solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-hub Share this letter - read it in public - leave it in the printer. Share your writing - digitize a book - upload your files. Don't let our knowledge be crushed. Care for the libraries - care for the metadata - care for the backup. Water the ????? - clean the volcanoes." if you want to check few more variations or add your own, please: https://textb.org/t/bullhorn/<https://www.canberra.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=g5kzHEwp9m8wwxvm7f4vXmhdrAr…> -)-)-)-)-

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