Infrastructure Discussion

This discussion, we hope will not only substantiate the business economic sense of open source but also a general understanding of community infrastructure. In turn, we hope that understanding the why and how of open source may provide us insights into a culture of infrastructure development. Again in Serle's language: "It is wrong to assume, as we have been doing throughout history, that those primarily responsible for the foundations of civilization are its leading figures and institutions. While those leaders are certainly involved, full respect must be given to the invention, as well as the hard work, done by the uncredited many." Open source analogies could make this aspect tractable. "That hackability-support is what gives us infinite varieties of infrastructure. What we need now is to start understanding new forms of infrastructure on their own terms, and to understand more deeply what infrastructure has been all along." "Can we align infrastructure and generativity? Answering these kinds of questions requires examining topics at a depth one cannot plumb just with news coverage, or by framing queries with the parochial interests of categories and factions. We are in new territory here."

Infrastructure:

• Like utilities, roads, etc; basic necessaties for everyday performance.

• Like decentralized activity that develops and sustains necessary depenencies.

• Like assumed as available and developed by a culture.

Cost:

Amortized cost for community in the large; (like tax)