Open Source Covers the World

One of my regular themes here is how the open source process and Internet values encompass far more than even their advocates are willing to suggest.

That is, they cover the world.

In line with that, let me put two columns together (sort of a mashup).

First we have Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus complaining about bloggers who don't like Joe Lieberman:

While Lamont and the bloggers who back him devote their energy to defeating Lieberman, Connecticut has three competitive House races where Democratic challengers have a chance of beating Republican incumbents and helping take back the House. Wouldn't those be a more productive way for Democrats unhappy about Bush and the war to channel their anger?

We'll pass for a moment on how Marcus is, in effect, telling Goldwater Republicans to support Jacob Javits. What's most wrong here is the assumption that "the bloggers" are a unitary "movement," with "leaders" who tell all the other "bloggers" what to do. Markos Moulitsas is the poster child here, but he's not a blogger -- he runs a Community Network Service (Scoop). To call Moulitsas a blogger is to call Slashdot a blog.

Then we have Doc Searls, writing about a completely different topic, TPFKATA or The People Formerly Known As The Audience:

First, I don't think of my readers as an "audience", or as a "community". They are readers, and some of them communicate with me. Most of them communicate with others, sometimes through their blogs. There is zero sense of "mass" about any of it, nor a sense of alone-ness there.

Second, if there is a "there", it's the category of publishing we call the blogosphere. Yes, communities do arise within it. Some are stronger than others. At Bloggercon a couple weeks back I was impressed by the very real sense of community among the organizers and participants in BlogHer. And I deal every day with development communities through my work as an editor for Linux Journal. I have even become involved in some, such as the development communities involved in moving Independent Identity forward,  These communities are very real, and also very productive, in constructive ways.

That is, unless you don't consider technological progress constructive.

 

Doc and I are both attacking the same thing. TPFKATA are also TPFKATV (The People Formerly Known As The Voters). The idea of absolute top-down control in any area -- entertainment, business, technology, politics -- is simply non-optimal. Technology has enabled us all to be participants, in any way we wish to be, as well as audience.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women on it really players.

You can react to this fact in many ways. You can try to take advantage of it. You can try to fight it. You can just go with it.

But one thing you should no longer do is deny it. This is the new reality, this is what must be understood. Your place on the stage must be continually earned, and continually shared if you're to earn your keep there.

This is true for newspaper columnists, for entertainers, for bloggers, for all of us. And it is, in fact, a very good thing indeed. Because we are all, sometimes, the audience. And we all want to be, sometimes, on the stage. And we all deserve to be, sometimes. We should contribute where we want, earn from that what we can, and collaborate instead of just compete.

Get your arms around that, and you've gotten your arms around something very big indeed.