Holmes Wilson Downhill Battle Speech
From Florida Free Culture Wiki
c4tsitlagetl We support free software and loosening control over information. We gave a name to something that needed a name, and are part of the digital commons. Even though we are mostly music, we support cultural participation in other forms. On that note, help Stop the COPE Act.
Students have the maximum point of leverage in activism. The pressure points are through universities. Students held the anti-sweatshop protests in the late 90's.
- Get colleges to do the work for you. Colleges like student activists as a hallmark of an active education system and a preventer of apathy. Be the squeaky wheel.
- Have clear goals and clear accomplishments each semester. Keep people energized.
- Have open access journals: professors will publish, libraries will subscribe.
- Have open coursework.
- Send people places and expose where open source is used, such as Brazil.
- Find out the ITS policy of the campus networks, and make them more open source and free culture friendly.
- Bring attention to a university's privacy policy; only release information with subpoenas, and don't store information.
- Move from specific items to general values or packages.
- Think big
Faculty are a soft target. They prevent open content because the universities are subsidizing their research and writing. Reputation is their capital, which they get from disseminating knowledge in prestigious journals. They are pushing back on digitization, and most aren't interested. They have tenure, and will support the system that got them tenured. They are scared of technology. They are scared of public exposure. The sciences are more embracing of open content; but the humanities don't want scooped.
What is the maximum blue sky gold star that we can reach? What is the grandest goal, the perfect world? Now, where are we now, and what are the barriers to reaching that goal?
Utopia would be that research published at universities are freely available to the world, on the web, and easy to find.
Where is the funding coming from? Count downloads, and pay for popularity.
For campus networks, support free and open source software. Promote Firefox and Linux-friendly policies. Support the reform of drug patents. Support open content, become a dues paying member of the EFF. Trasition to ODF and teach Linux for Dummies. We need information literacy.
Are digital publications equal to non-digital publications? We want faculty to mesh with student activism. "Synchronize conflict into these amorphous Borg-like collectives." Start a whisper campaign, and have students write poor evaluations for teachers who don't use OSS.
