tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53359971546974780932024-02-18T20:00:47.165-08:00GOLPE DE e-ESTADOReflexiones, algaradas y soflamas digitalesThinkerLesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04741162863993572385noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5335997154697478093.post-20234763235018220692010-06-01T04:26:00.000-07:002010-06-18T09:41:12.123-07:00TOWARDS A NEW PRODUCTIVE PARADIGM I: WHEN WALKING MAKES THE PATH<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/EncycBrit1913.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 286px; height: 169px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/EncycBrit1913.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Republished at the <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/towards-a-new-productive-paradigm-i-when-walking-makes-the-path/2010/06/10/comment-page-1#comment-430830">P2P Foundation</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >How can be explained peer-to-peer processes, the growth of Wikipedia in comparison with the Britannica Encyclopedia or the growing importance of Linux in contrast to Windows. Even the success of Google can be hardly explained within the classic economic paradigm.</span></span><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The classic economic paradigm was tailored for industrial economies. Production was explained as the result of a given combination of capital and labour. But, can this two productive factors explain the productive process of peer-to-peer, Wikipedia, Linux, Google? Certainly they can be used in explaining the productive behaviour of a car-factory, a textile-production or a small regular shop of any possible kind, but the explanatory power of that paradigm is much lower when facing the productive processes present in many of the new economic productive entities that have appeared after the disruptive development of information technologies.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>What is different? Highways vs rural paths.</b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />How highways are produced can be easily explained in terms of the two single productive factors capital and labour. But is this explanation useful in explaining how a rural path is created? A rural path appears due to the repetitive use of a given route. The repetitive use of the route progressively eliminates vegetation establishing a marked track on the ground. If the path is not used enough, it just disappears. Obviously labour might have a role: a nearby village might reward a group of people to have some obstacles removed. Capital might also be relevant: a cliff might be avoided through the construction of a bridge. But the radical difference is that its production cannot be explained just through capital and labour.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b> The production of a rural path could not possibly be explained without taking into account its mere use (consumption) as a productive factor.<br /><br />Rural paths, P2P, Linux, Wikipedia and Google: why are they similar.<br /></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;">The so called new information technologies are characterized by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><u>network-effects and network externalities</u></span></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;">, this is, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>"wh</i></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Network_effect.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 90px; height: 199px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Network_effect.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>en the value of a product to one user depends on how many other users there are, economists say that thi</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>s product exhibits network externalities, or network effects" </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">(Shapiro and Varian 1998, p.13)<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5335997154697478093#FOOTNOTE-1"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><sup><u>1</u></sup></span></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. This idea was originally related to the </span><span style="font-size:100%;">economic analysis of communication services, telephone and fax being the typical case studies<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5335997154697478093#FOOTNOTE-2"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><sup><u>2</u></sup></span></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. Indeed the utility of having a telephone is zero if anybody else has one, and utility increases as more people is connected. Similarly, the utility of a rural path increases as more users are connected through it. The argument is also valid for virtual networks such as Google, P2P software users, Wikipedia or Britannica, Linux or Windows and so on.<br /><br />There is however a subtle difference in how an extra user benefits the rest of the users in a telephone network or in a rural path: </span> </p> <ul style="font-family:times new roman;"><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>"classic" network effect:</b> like in the telephone network case, an extra user might benefit the rest of users of the rural path by expanding the network (so an extra user can be reached). </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0.49cm;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>"peer-production effect":</b> unlike the telephone case, this extra user collaborates with the maintenance/creation of the path by walking it. </span> </p> </li></ul> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.49cm;" align="LEFT"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Likewise a search in Google contributes to the production of Google´s searching engine</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5335997154697478093#FOOTNOTE-3"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><sup><u>3</u></sup></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >, reporting a mistake in Wikipedia improves it, reporting a bug in Linux helps debugging it, joining Bit-torrent network forces users to share files (at least those that are being downloaded</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5335997154697478093#FOOTNOTE-4"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><sup><u>4</u></sup></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >). Peer-production process are characterized by </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-rival_good"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><u>anti-rivalry</u></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" > (for a further analysis </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://golpedee-estado.blogspot.com/2009/09/p2p-and-role-of-exclusion-i-beyond.html"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><u>see</u></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >), implying that even free-riders pose a positive effect on production (Raymond 2001, p.15, recasts the term free-riders into </span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><i>"outriders"</i></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >), or more generally mere consumption entails a contribution to production, consumption becomes a productive factor.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><b>"Peer-production effect": Consumption contribution to production as a comparative advantage</b></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />While for a highway to be built capital and labour are strictly necessary, for a rural path it is not the case, users are instead essential. Similarly, for Microsoft and Britannica Encyclopedia to deliver a new version of their product, labour needs to be recruited and capital resources obtained. They both benefit from net-work effects, but there is no "peer-production effect", anti-rivalry is not present. Differently in Linux and Wikipedia case, labour and capital requirements are softened by its ability to use users´ contributions in production</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5335997154697478093#FOOTNOTE-5"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><sup><u>5</u></sup></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >.<br /><br />A rural path and a highway serve the same purpose in different ways, so usually usually there is no competition and each has its niche. However in the case of an encyclopedia (Britannica vs Wikipedia) or an operative system (Windows vs Linux), there is indeed competence</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5335997154697478093#FOOTNOTE-6"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><sup><u>6</u></sup></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >. Open source and some platforms such as Google benefit from user´s contribution while most proprietary platforms don´t.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.49cm;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b> <span style="font-family:times new roman;">Does peer-production pose a comparative advantage?</span> <span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /></span></b></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.49cm;" align="LEFT"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Could this explain the success of open platforms?</span></b></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0.49cm;" align="LEFT"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwtYDebUcVjt4nUQfvxB7yxUISdbPJ7Spp4iHkGPA8CJaY-CkBJb06ui8d1hfLQk4RMvjr7dv5ckF95RDa8MDlLnyTj_hOjOwkRz13JS7vnucj4uxjoHls6P8_s3VyLa6iBBAPbdmpWU/s1600/RURAL+PATH-HIGHWAY.bmp"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 421px; height: 148px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwtYDebUcVjt4nUQfvxB7yxUISdbPJ7Spp4iHkGPA8CJaY-CkBJb06ui8d1hfLQk4RMvjr7dv5ckF95RDa8MDlLnyTj_hOjOwkRz13JS7vnucj4uxjoHls6P8_s3VyLa6iBBAPbdmpWU/s320/RURAL+PATH-HIGHWAY.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477869752995771042" border="0" /></a></p><div style="text-align: center;">...............................<br /></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:times new roman;" >Notes </span> </span><ol style="font-family:times new roman;"><li><span style="font-size:85%;">More literature on the topic is provided by Varian, Farrel and Shapiro (2004, p.35-36). See Liebowitz and Margolis (1994) for some critical views.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">See Rohlfs (1974) for an early approach.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">See Benkler (2006, p.33), for instance.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">See Strumpf and Oberholzer-Gee (2010, p.10) for instance.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Economides and Katsamakas find in <span style="font-style: italic;">"The Economics of Open Source Software Development" </span>(2006) the conditions for which investment in open platforms (Windows vs Linux) is greater than in propietary platforms.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">See Bitzerand and Schröder (2006) in "The Economics of Open Source Software Development" (2006) , for instance. </span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><b style="font-family: Garamond;">Bibliography:</b> </span><ol><li style="font-family:Garamond;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Carl Shapiro y Hal R Varian, <i>Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy</i>, illustrated edition. (Harvard Business School Press, 1998). </span></li><li style="font-family:Garamond;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Hal R. Varian, Joseph Farrell, y Carl Shapiro, <i>The economics of information technology</i> (Cambridge University Press, 2004). </span></li><li style="font-family:Garamond;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Jeffrey Rohlfs, “A Theory of Interdependent Demand for a Communications Service,” <i>The Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science</i> 5, nº. 1 (Spring 1974): 16-37. </span></li><li style="font-family:Garamond;"><span style="font-size:85%;">S. J. Liebowitz y Stephen E. Margolis, “Network Externality: An Uncommon Tragedy,” <i>The Journal of Economic Perspectives</i> 8, nº. 2 (Spring 1994): 133-150. </span></li><li style="font-family:Garamond;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Yochai Benkler, <i>The wealth of networks</i> (Yale University Press, 2006). </span></li><li style="font-family:Garamond;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Felix Oberholzer‐Gee y Koleman Strumpf, “File Sharing and Copyright,” <i>Innovation Policy and the Economy</i> 10, nº. 1 (Enero 1, 2010): 19-55. </span></li><li style="font-family:Garamond;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Eric S. Raymond, <i>The cathedral and the bazaar</i> (O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2001). </span></li><li><span style=";font-family:garamond;font-size:85%;" >Jürgen Bitzer y Philipp J.H. Schröder, </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i style="font-family: Garamond;">The Economics of Open Source Software Development</i></span><span style=";font-family:garamond;font-size:85%;" >, 1º ed. (Elsevier</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Science, 2006). </span><br /></li></ol>ThinkerLesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04741162863993572385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5335997154697478093.post-44550883906623862932010-04-19T17:17:00.000-07:002010-06-22T11:10:02.136-07:00OpenCourseWare: IS OPENNESS ENOUGH?<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Republished at the </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/opencourseware-is-openness-enough/2010/04/28">P2P Foundation</a><br /></span><br /></div><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Neon_Open_green.jpg/800px-Neon_Open_green.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Neon_Open_green.jpg/800px-Neon_Open_green.jpg" style="height: 196px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 366px;" border="0" /></a><br /></div><i><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><b>"Unlocking Knowledge, Empowering Minds"</b> </span></span></i><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">This is the lemma of the </span><a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm" id="fbx_" style="font-family: Times New Roman;" title="OpenCourseWare, or OCW">OpenCourseWare, or OCW</a><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">, an initiative pioneered by the MIT University to provide access to university educational contents for free and ubiquitously. The project started </span></span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" >modestly</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"> in 2002 with 50 courses published online. Now the </span><a href="http://www.ocwconsortium.org/" id="g-nj" style="font-family: Times New Roman;" title="OpenCourseWare Consortium">OpenCourseWare Consortium</a><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"> entails hundreds of universities from all around the world, giving free access to thousands of courses´ material in different languages, English being this the main one, while Spanish is scaling up. </span> </span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br />Last April 16Th took place in Madrid a <a href="http://www.eoi.es/portal/guest/actualidad/agenda/eventos?EOI_id_evento=1045" id="x.33" title="seminar">seminar</a> on Open Educational Resources. The seminar included <a href="http://emadridnet.org/seminario-contenidos-educativos-abiertos#charla-1" id="j0_." title="presentations">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.eoi.es/portal/guest/investigacion/equipo-academico/vicedecana" id="qrrd" title="Tíscar Lara">Tíscar Lara</a> (EOI), <span class="contenido" id="p:ap"><a href="http://www.ocwconsortium.org/about-us/bod.html" id="pyrc" title="Stephen Carson">Stephen Carson</a> (MIT OpenCourseWare Consortium), <span class="contenido" id="v2cn">Edmundo Tovar and Jesús Jara (UPM -<a href="http://ocw.upm.es/" id="csdv" title="Universidad Politécnica de Madrid">Universidad Politécnica de Madrid</a>) and <span class="contenido" id="e.0m">Salvador Ros (UNED-<a href="http://ocw.innova.uned.es/ocwuniversia" id="p1.m" title="Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia">Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia</a>).<br /><br /><br />There is a monthly seminar on the topic organized by the <a href="http://emadridnet.org/es/acerca-de" id="utx1" title="red eMadrid">eMadrid net</a>, a project for the promotion of </span></span></span></span><a href="http://ps.vimeo.com.s3.amazonaws.com/240/240408_300.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://ps.vimeo.com.s3.amazonaws.com/240/240408_300.jpg" style="float: right; height: 71px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 71px;" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span class="contenido" id="mj2c"><span class="contenido" id="ake-"><span class="contenido" id="ol4q"><span class="contenido" id="l2hq"><span class="contenido" id="uskc"><span class="contenido" id="pmki">Technology-Enhanced Learning</span></span></span> publicly funded (Comunidad de Madrid).This time it took place at the</span></span></span></span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span class="contenido" id="c7bf"><span class="contenido" id="w7e7"><span class="contenido" id="g0go"> <a href="http://www.eoi.es/" id="fgzx" title="Escuela de organización Industrial">Escuela </a></span></span></span></span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span class="contenido" id="gonk"><span class="contenido" id="gu9i"><span class="contenido" id="g:oa"><a href="http://www.eoi.es/" id="f:wp" title="Escuela de organización Industrial">de Organización Industrial (EOI)</a> whose strategic plan has been partially inspired by the OCW project. As <b>Tíscar Lara</b> (<span class="contenido" id="ebih"><span class="contenido" id="m2lw"><span class="contenido" id="slmy">vice-dean of Digital Culture at the EOI</span></span></span>) said, <span class="contenido" id="w:8s"><span class="contenido" id="r5x."><span class="contenido" id="t9:7">stating her support for</span></span></span> public, free (not for free) and open <span class="contenido" id="alpl"><span class="contenido" id="phj:"><span class="contenido" id="n714">education</span></span></span>. And in consequence her support for tools, contents and methods open as well (see <a href="http://www.eoi.es/mediateca/video.php?videoid=256&PHPSESSID=1fbe55c5479126abde092992ca2251b3" id="b4sw" title="Whyfloss">Whyfloss</a>).<br /><br /><span class="contenido" id="k-ui"><span class="contenido" id="t0z2"><span class="contenido" id="ugjr"><b>Stephen Carson</b> presentation was focused on the impact of OCW. Originally from the three functions universities have -provision of content, learning/social experience and certification- the aim of th</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://i.ehow.com/images/a04/v6/nv/online-learning-opencourseware-200X200.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://i.ehow.com/images/a04/v6/nv/online-learning-opencourseware-200X200.jpg" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 200px;" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span class="contenido" id="y9si"><span class="contenido" id="l01p"><span class="contenido" id="zvm_"><span class="contenido" id="hehz"><span class="contenido" id="dzfp"><span class="contenido" id="g8k9">e OCW initiative</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span class="contenido" id="u:qa"><span class="contenido" id="iybp"><span class="contenido" id="d1gt"><span class="contenido" id="s.bj"><span class="contenido" id="degq"><span class="contenido" id="sgup"> was only focused on making content accessible so educators could incorporate the MIT teaching materials. Surprisingly from the use of OCW, educators represent only a 9%, and from this percentage those incorporating material to their teaching is a minority (14%): educators use it mostly to improve their knowledge and teaching methods. <b>Against the original expectations self-learning represents the principal use</b>: from all the users 43% are self-learners <span class="contenido" id="fq_b"><span class="contenido" id="eflf"><span class="contenido" id="xvyi"><span class="contenido" id="hxwc"><span class="contenido" id="hx92"><span class="contenido" id="vjf:"> (not involved in official/institutional learning)</span></span></span></span></span></span>, and from these percentage, 41% use it for personal enjoyment. Furthermore, from the students using OCW contents, 44% are self-learners, the rest use it for completing (39%) and for planning their course of study (12%). <span class="contenido" id="ejnd"><span class="contenido" id="qalx"><span class="contenido" id="kh08"><span class="contenido" id="jpm0"><span class="contenido" id="qrbl"><span class="contenido" id="wbio">Stephen Carson </span></span></span></span></span></span>announced that given these unexpected success there are future plans to improve contents in order to make them more suitable for independent learners.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> <span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">In open initiatives there is usually a stress on the distinction between </span><a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html" id="g_53" style="font-family: Times New Roman;" title="“`free´ as in `free speech´, not as in `free beer´"">“`free´ as in `free speech´, not as in `free beer´"</a><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">: in this case the distinction is unnecessary, it means both. Being free underlies both its success and some of the problematics of its future</span></span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" >: <b>since OCW is offered for free it is largely dependant on donors</b>. Even though that it is free, OCW benefits not only users but content providers. For Stephen these benefits include publicity, reputation, international engagement, collaborations, connection to students... From a financial perspective these benefits are translated in donations to the OCW project, greater recruitment for the universities and potential collaborations with funding institutions thanks to the publicity and reputation that the visibility of professors and universities engaged in the project implies. Besides, the success of the OCW has resulted in an increasing governmental support, specially from the Obama administration. However as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/education/31iht-riedopen.html?pagewanted=1" id="bns3" title="NYT">NewYorkTimes</a> puts it <i>"Still, someone must pay for these materials, and with the recession squeezing university budgets, open course programs are vulnerable".</i><br /><br /><b><span class="contenido" id="l418"><span class="contenido" id="q9xw">Edmundo Tovar and </span></span><span class="contenido" id="wa0e"><span class="contenido" id="svg2">Jesús Jara</span></span></b> (UPM)´s presentation was focused on their own experience rather than on </span><a href="http://www.ucm.es/info/dinalaser/images/upm.gif"><img alt="" src="http://www.ucm.es/info/dinalaser/images/upm.gif" style="float: left; height: 100px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 86px;" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" >the OCW users experience, an indication (in my personal view) of the very early stage of the project in Spain (in the UPM it started in the 2006). Even though the UNED project started later (2007) the views of <b><span class="contenido" id="s43c"><span class="contenido" id="w2-3"><span class="contenido" id="xsf4">Salvador Ros </span></span></span></b>were focused on the user perception and perspectives of the future of education. UNED is the national university for distance learning and offering virtual access to educational resources is not a disruptive shift of the educational paradigm, it is as Salvador said their <i>"natural environment"</i>.<br /><br />Salvador agreed with the audience that <b>openness is rather than an economic problem a problem of mentality. </b></span><a href="http://www.geogra.uah.es/simurban/images/logos_nuevos/Logo%20UNED%20verde.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.geogra.uah.es/simurban/images/logos_nuevos/Logo%20UNED%20verde.jpg" style="float: left; height: 96px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 96px;" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Most of the contents taught at university are universal,</span></span> there is no sense in using an appropriation scheme of the educational resources: changes are necessary and inmobilism is not a good policy. Aware that changes are costly Salvador pointed out that more students accessing the resources imply that providing them is -potentially- increasingly cheaper.<br />In many Spanish/Portuguese speaking universities <a href="http://www.universia.es/nosotros/bienvenido.jsp" id="t.ay" title="Universia">Universia</a>, a foundation of the <a href="http://www.santander.com/csgs/Satellite?canal=CAccionistas&empr=SANCorporativo&leng=en_GB&pagename=SANCorporativo/GSDistribuidora/SC_Index" id="h:in" title="Santander Group">Santander Group</a> for the promotion of university education (in Portuguese and Spanish), <a href="http://ocw.universia.net/es/" id="jevz" title="sponsors">sponsors</a> many OCW projects (included UPM and UNED). Nevertheless funding is limited and expansion of OCW projects is constrained and dependant on the donor.<br /><br />The original aim of the OCW was providing content, and Salvador wondered if the time has come to expand its functionality to social/learning experience and accreditation provision. Social nets like Facebook or Twitter could provide the former, it is only accreditation provision which remains out of the scope, Salvador argued. For both workers and employers knowledge is usually not enough, educational <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_%28economics%29" id="ltbe" title="acreditation is used as a signal">accreditation is used as a signal</a> of expected/desired capabilities. Universities are not just educational centers, providing content and learning experience, they are also <i>"credentialing agencies</i>". This was one of the central points of Salvador presentation: <b>access is not enough, for the student, credit is usually a must</b>. In this sense, the data presented by Stephen showing that, unexpectedly self-learners are the main users of OCW, could be an indication that OCW might not meet the needs of other users.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">A solution for the economic problem of open education was offered by </span><a href="http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/881" style="font-family: lucida grande;">David Wiley</a><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"> in </span><a href="http://www.opencontent.org/future/" id="lkdk" style="font-family: lucida grande;" title="OpenCourseWars">OpenCourseWars</a><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">, his </span></span><a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/images/products/books/9780262033718-f30.jpg" style="font-family: lucida grande;"><img alt="" src="http://mitpress.mit.edu/images/products/books/9780262033718-f30.jpg" style="float: left; height: 232px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 157px;" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" >contribution to the book <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262033712chap16.pdf" id="tw40" title=""Opening Up Education"">"Opening Up Education"</a> (via: <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/open-courseware-the-second-generation/2009/05/20?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+P2pFoundation+%28P2P+Foundation%29&utm_content=Google+Reader" id="x6_5" title="P2Pfoundation">P2PFoundation</a>). David Wiley addressed the sustainability of the OCW project and the proposed solution bridges the two claims of Salvador Ros, the economic issue and the accreditation needs of users. <b>Charging for accreditation could solve the financial dependence on the donors making OCW self-sustainable</b>:</span><blockquote style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>“The first generation of OpenCourseWare projects (”OCW 1.0?) had essentially no sustainability plan. These first generation projects were funded by grants and had no means of supporting themselves once the grants ran out (...). A new generation of OpenCourseWare projects are built around sustainability plans. These second generation projects are integrated with distance education offerings, where the public can use and reuse course materials for free (just like first generation OCWs) with the added option of paying to take the courses online for credit (there is no way to earn credit from the first generation OCWs)."</i></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"> <span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Changes are coming in educati</span>on. As </span></span></span></span><a href="http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2008/11/future-of-online-learning-ten-years-on_16.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Stephen Downes</a><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> puts it in his </span></span><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/8208957/Downes-Future-of-Online-Learning-2008" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“ten-year-after” update of his classic essay on The Future of Online Learning</a><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (via: </span></span><a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-future-of-learning/2008/12/28?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+P2pFoundation+%28P2P+Foundation%29&utm_content=Google+Reader" id="lmv1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" title="P2PFoundation">P2PFoundation</a><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">):</span></span> <i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></i></span><blockquote><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Today, much of the value derived from the learning marketplace is based on an artificially imposed scarcity – a scarcity of seats in classrooms, a scarcity of credentialing agencies, and a scarcity of educational publications, for example. These scarcities will disappear as governments prefer to fund education directly, and at cost, rather than support such business models."</i></span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </i></span> <a href="http://www.mcu.es/principal/img/novedades/2010/dest_LibroElect.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.mcu.es/principal/img/novedades/2010/dest_LibroElect.jpg" style="float: right; height: 276px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 165px;" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Similarly to the former Salvador declared that <i><b>"closed educational platforms are about to disappe</b></i></span></span></span></span></span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><b><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><i>ar, </i></span></span></span></span></b></span><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ><b><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><i>technology will overcome them"</i>. Unfortunatedly </span></span></span></span>t</b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><b>hese coming changes will certainly face opposition, and interests different than access to knowledge might be dominant threatening the project.</b> Salvador pointed to the recent publication by the Spanish Ministry of Culture of the inform </span><a href="http://www.mcu.es/novedades/2010/novedades_libro_electronico.html" id="t_sp" style="font-family: Times New Roman;" title=""The Electronic Book"">"The Electronic Book"</a><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">, which has been broadly criticized (see for </span><a href="http://periodistas21.blogspot.com/2010/04/editores-y-autores-olvidan-los-lectores.html" id="mnom" style="font-family: Times New Roman;" title="instance">instance</a><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">). The book encourages property right administration organizations to enforce property rights remuneration upon works even if these have been licenced under copyleft or creative commons licenses (for a more </span><a href="http://derechoynormas.blogspot.com/2010/04/creative-commons-y-la-gestion-colectiva.html" id="ue4h" style="font-family: Times New Roman;" title="detailled analysis)">detailed analysis)</a><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">:</span> </span><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><i style="font-family: Times New Roman;">"Esto significa que las entidades de gestión vienen obligadas por Ley a hacer efectivos estos derechos de remuneración incluso aunque el autor hubiera decidido regalar su obra o no cobrar las cantidades recaudadas a su nombre."</i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"> (p.19)<br /><br /><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" id="utv900895" name="utv_n_610764" height="386" width="480"><param name="flashvars" value="beginPercent=0.0125&endPercent=0.9997&autoplay=false&locale=en_US"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="src" value="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/6221672"><embed flashvars="beginPercent=0.0125&endPercent=0.9997&autoplay=false&locale=en_US" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" id="utv900895" name="utv_n_610764" src="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/6221672" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="386" width="480"></embed></object><br /></span> </span></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Reposted at the </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/opencourseware-is-openness-enough/2010/04/28">P2PFOUNDATION</a></span><br /></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><br /></span></span>ThinkerLesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04741162863993572385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5335997154697478093.post-1772828263845731462010-04-15T10:04:00.000-07:002010-04-22T05:11:55.619-07:00P2P and the Role of Exclusion II: the case of Wikipedia<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://hezkuntza-premiak.wikispaces.com/file/view/wiki.jpg/93563264/wiki.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 259px; height: 195px;" src="http://hezkuntza-premiak.wikispaces.com/file/view/wiki.jpg/93563264/wiki.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><span class="Normal__Char">One of the crucial characteristics of P2P is </span><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Peer_to_Peer"><span class="Normal__Char"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><u>equipotency of its participants</u></span></span></a><span class="Normal__Char">, in consequence it is not </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability"><span class="Normal__Char"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><u>exclusion</u></span></span></a><span class="Normal__Char"> but </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rivalrous"><span class="Normal__Char"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><u>non-rivalry</u></span></span></a><span class="Normal__Char"> or even </span><span class="Normal__Char">"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-rival_good" id="mto1" title="anti-rivalry">anti-rivalry</a>", with free-riders making positive contributions to production ("outriders"), what is essential (<a href="http://golpedee-estado.blogspot.com/2009/09/p2p-and-role-of-exclusion-i-beyond.html" id="g2lh" title="see previous post">see previous post</a>). </span></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><span mce_="" style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family:times new roman;"><b>But exclusion is still present: </b></span><span class="Normal__Char">Wikipedia, one of the mayor successes of peer-to-pe</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">er collaborative projects has included exclusionary policies, as Benkler (2006) already ascertained,</span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> <span class="Normal__Char"><i>"(...) even </i></span><span class="Normal__Char"><i>Wikipedia includes, ultimately, a small number of people with syste</i></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><i>m</i></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><i> administrator privileges who can eliminate accounts or block users in the even</i></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><i>t that someone is being genuinely obstructionist. This technical fallback, however, a</i></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><i>p</i></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><i>pe</i></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><i>ars only after substantial play has been given to self-policing by participants, and to </i></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><i>informal and quasi-formal community based dispute resolution mechanisms." </i></span><span class="Normal__Char">(</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">p</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">. 104).</span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Hh2opHV0P3P9vM:http://berllin.blogia.com/upload/20081217135906-wikipedia.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 121px; height: 121px;" src="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Hh2opHV0P3P9vM:http://berllin.blogia.com/upload/20081217135906-wikipedia.png" alt="" border="0" /></a></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><b>And it is expanding:</b></span><span class="Normal__Char"> The expansion of exclusion in Wikipedia is what <a href="http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1641309.1641322" id="or:w" title=""The singularity is not near: slowing growth of Wikipedia"">Bongwon Suh, Gregorio Convertino, Ed H. Chi, Peter Pirolli (2009)</a></span><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AR-37mr0BEzTZGd6dGY2cTlfMTcyZjUycjNuZmI&hl=en#footnote1" target="_self"><span class="Normal__Char"><sup>1</sup></span></a><span class="Normal__Char">, from the <a href="http://www.parc.com/" id="jp0t" title="Palo Alto Research Center">Palo Alto Research Center</a> have found (they have an extremely recommended <a href="http://asc-parc.blogspot.com/">blog</a>). They find what seems to be <span class="Normal__Char"><i>"evidence of growing resistance from the Wikipedia community to new content, especially when the edits come from occasional editors." </i></span>(sc.5.3). This happens at the same time that Wikipedia growth rates have for first time started to decrease.</span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW75oKywTg4N6OP0hI3j4ruQlzAa5gfIQtUbaSjq4ZAddrHSPVjMHP9OvUkfA4Rrg-N8XWTXyDVYofLAjzP4DcPoAL4MAm9C1h6xau8sgNGCX5LFG9AaC48kP5fgseLPiqdVNAKNPyfF8/s1600/borrar1.bmp"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 394px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW75oKywTg4N6OP0hI3j4ruQlzAa5gfIQtUbaSjq4ZAddrHSPVjMHP9OvUkfA4Rrg-N8XWTXyDVYofLAjzP4DcPoAL4MAm9C1h6xau8sgNGCX5LFG9AaC48kP5fgseLPiqdVNAKNPyfF8/s400/borrar1.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460429968142415586" border="0" /></a></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a id="graphic02" name="graphic02"></a></span></div><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"> </p><p class="Normal" style="text-align: right;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><b>Source:</b></span><span class="Normal__Char"> Suh et al. (2009).</span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><b>Is </b></span><span class="Normal__Char"><b>this slowdown due to the reducing number of contributors? or has the Wikipedia covered such an amount of information that it is increasingly difficult writing new articles?</b><br /></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">Suh et al. (2009, 5.1.) argue that <span class="Normal__Char"><i>"(...) the population of Wikipedia editors is exhibiting a slowdown in its growth due to limited opportunities to make novel contributions." </i></span>Indeed once an article has been written it might be improved, updated, rearranged, but it does not make much sense to write it again. As the article is improved there is less and less room for improvements. More individuals contributing to the same article result in decreasing marginal contributions and increasing overhead costs (see Suh et al., 2009, sc.6). This is interestingly similar to rivalry. As Benkler <span class="Normal__Char"> (2002, supra note 16)</span> points out <span class="Normal__Char"><i>"While the reference to information as a public good is common, the reference to culture is not."</i></span> Wikipedia´s articles are an embodiment of knowledge and culture around a specific topic and <span class="Normal__Char"><i>"Obviously, embodiments of culture, like a specific statue or building, are no more nonrival than embodiments of any other form of information, like a book or a corkscrew."</i></span></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://humanismoyconectividad.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/wiki_universo.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 218px; height: 215px;" src="http://humanismoyconectividad.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/wiki_universo.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><b>Wikipedia is then an antirival process but its product might become rival.</b><br /></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">As the articles become rival, the condition for antirivalry production becomes more relevant: the rate of contributors over free riders increases, until there is no antirivalry any more. </span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 36pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><i>"(...) article growth reached a </i></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><i>peak in 2007-2008 and has been on the decline since then [Figure 5]. Thi</i></span><span class="Normal__Char"><i>s result is consistent with a growth processes that hits a constraint – for instance, due to resource limitations in biological systems. Microbes grown in culture will eventually stop duplicating when nutrients run out."<br /></i></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 6.24pt;font-family:times new roman;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDUGQwEbQnReNLSBDWQRflLIr8yZUFeB1x4TzAjJKFb9GLlZ0rcdJgt54PKGzVTyRLoqO6XlKtLP5cTGe-z6HjZI3TivOnn_lHn5LHBUK5D7zlgsmbFsBQ16iJhfx6uSNXcgllFCvg9U/s1600/borrar2.bmp"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDUGQwEbQnReNLSBDWQRflLIr8yZUFeB1x4TzAjJKFb9GLlZ0rcdJgt54PKGzVTyRLoqO6XlKtLP5cTGe-z6HjZI3TivOnn_lHn5LHBUK5D7zlgsmbFsBQ16iJhfx6uSNXcgllFCvg9U/s400/borrar2.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460435904237882274" border="0" /></a></p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 6.24pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><br /></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 6.24pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">Total percentage of edits reverted are on the y-axis, the figure (11) shows how the <span style="font-style: italic;">"disparity of treatment of new edits from editors </span><span style="font-style: italic;">of different classes has been widening steadily over the years at </span><span style="font-style: italic;">the expense of low-frequency editors. </span><span style="font-style: italic;">[1-9 edits per month]</span><span style="font-style: italic;">".</span></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 6.24pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><b>Source:</b></span><span class="Normal__Char"> Suh et al. (2009).</span></span> </p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 6.24pt; font-family: times new roman;"><br /></p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 6.24pt; font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><br /></span></span></p><p class="Normal" face="times new roman" style="margin-left: 6.24pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">Knowledge requirements to </span><span class="Normal__Char">make contributions becomes increasingly demanding and by analogy to Darwin, Suh et al. (2009, p.1) suggest that<i> "(...) growth becomes increasingly constrained and limited, and under those conditions there will be increased evidence of competition and domi</i></span><span class="Normal__Char"><i>nance."</i></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">This problematic poses a threat on the project,</span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="margin-left: 36pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> <span class="Normal__Char"><i>"If a project cannot defend itself from incompetent or malicious contributions and integrate the competent modules into a finished product at sufficiently low cost, integration will either fail or</i></span><span class="Normal__Char"><i> the integrator will be forced to appropriate the residual value of the common project—usually leading to a dissipation of the motivations to contribute ex ante." </i></span><span class="Normal__Char">Benkler (2002, 379)</span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><b>However antirivalry might remain at three different levels of the process:</b></span><span class="Normal__Char"> first, new <span class="Normal__Char"><i>"events in the world (...) create new possibilities for write-up"; </i></span> second, in the creation of new rules <span class="Normal__Char"><i>"a greater proportion of the overall edits is being devoted to overhead activities such as coordination, policy setting, and governance", </i>these are also contributions to the growth of Wikipedia: it creates the coordination mechanism<i>. </i></span>Third and last, any contribution has a signalling effect pointing to deficiencies, needs of new topics to be covered, or non-solved conflicts. </span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">The issue is relevant because differently from Suh et al. (2009), the objective here is not <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity" id="v3oh" title="technological singularity">technological singularity</a>, the objective here is how the shift in the growth pattern affects the idea of Wikipedia as a peer-to-peer production process.</span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><b>And what is the importance of antirivalry? Can there be equipotency in the presence of exclusion?</b></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">Non-rivalry is a necessary condition for equipotency, but it is not a sufficient condition. Antirivalry implies that any agent by the mere consumption of the peer-produced goods is also collaborating in its production. Thereby <span class="Normal__Char"><b>antirivalry is a sufficient condition for equipotency.</b></span></span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><b>Is this the underlying core characteristic of peer-to-peer?</b></span></span></p><p class="Normal" face="times new roman"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:i0LWG7dXa92A0M:http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/wiki.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 116px; height: 117px;" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:i0LWG7dXa92A0M:http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/wiki.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family: times new roman; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>Reposted at the <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/p2p-and-the-role-of-exclusion-ii-the-case-of-wikipedia/2010/04/22">P2PFOUNDATION</a><br /></b></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>Bibliography:</b></span></p><p class="Normal" face="times new roman"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><a href="http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1641309.1641322" id="dcah" title=""The singularity is not near: slowing growth of Wikipedia"">Bongwon Suh, Gregorio Convertino, Ed H. Chi, Peter Pirolli; "Singularity is not near: slowing growth of Wikipedia" (2009)</a></span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="Normal" face="times new roman"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html" id="r:6:" title="Benkler, Y.; "Coase's Penguin, or, Linux and the Nature of the Firm." (2002).">Benkler, Y.; "Coase's Penguin, or, Linux and the Nature of the Firm." (2002).</a><a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wealth_of_networks/Main_Page#Read_the_book" id="a-e2" title="The Wealth of Networks"><br /></a></span></p><p class="Normal" face="times new roman"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wealth_of_networks/Main_Page#Read_the_book" id="a-e2" title="The Wealth of Networks">Benkler, Y.; "The Wealth of Networks" (2006).</a><br /></span></p><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;" >via: <a title="blog.p2pfoundation" href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-power-shift-at-wikipedia-and-its-deterrent-effect-on-participation/2009/08/20" id="nkeo">blog.p2pfoundation</a></span><br /><p class="Normal" style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Normal__Char">------------------</span></span></p><p class="Normal" style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="Normal__Char"><sup>1</sup></span> <span class="Normal__Char">Suh et al. (2009) for the remaining.</span></span></span></p>ThinkerLesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04741162863993572385noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5335997154697478093.post-33469385007483561152009-09-30T02:57:00.000-07:002009-09-30T03:17:49.583-07:00P2P and the Role of Exclusion I: Beyond the Tragedy of the Commons<p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">Even though that exclusion is present in P2P (e.g. </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Banning_policy"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">Wikipedia</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">) </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">it can be argued that it is not its cornerstone.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> It is </span></span></span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rivalrous"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">non-rivalry</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> rather than </span></span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">exclusion</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> what lies at the foundation of what P2P is.</span> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Weber_%28professor%29"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">Weber</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> (2004, </span></span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ELieXMxR1h4C&lpg=PA154&vq=antirival&dq=Weber%2C%20S.%20%282004%29%2C%20The%20Success%20of%20Open%20Source%2C&hl=es&pg=PA154#v=onepage&q=antirival&f=true"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><u><span style="font-size:100%;">p.154</span></u></i></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">) went further introducing the concept of </span></span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-rival_good"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">"Anti-rival" goods</span></u></span></a></p><p style="margin-left: 34.25pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"Call it a network good, or antirival good (an akward, but nicely descriptive term). In simpler language, it means that the value of a piece of software to any user increases as more people use the software on their machines and particular settings. Compatibility on the standard sense of a network good is one of thee reasons why this is so." </span></i></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></i><span style="font-size:100%;">Interestingly this implies that for any user, either contributor either free rider the mere use implies a contribution:</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 34.25pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"The point is that open source software is not simply a nonrival good in the sense that it can tolerate free riding without reducing the stock of the good contributors. It is actually antirival in the sense that the system as a whole positively benefits from free riders."</span></i></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> There are of course limits to this, </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"This arguments hold only if there are a sufficient number of individuals who do not free ride (...)". </span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">Thereby in as much as there is a sufficient number of contributors free riding results in a positive effect.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><b><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></b><span style="font-size:100%;"> <iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="border:0px" src="http://books.google.com/books?id=ELieXMxR1h4C&lpg=PA154&vq=antirival&dq=Weber%2C%20S.%20(2004)%2C%20The%20Success%20of%20Open%20Source%2C&hl=es&pg=PP1&output=embed" width="500" height="500"></iframe></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> (</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">for a review see <a href="http://www.uoc.edu/uocpapers/dt/eng/megias.html">David Mej</a></span></span><a href="http://www.uoc.edu/uocpapers/dt/eng/megias.html"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">í</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.uoc.edu/uocpapers/dt/eng/megias.html">as</a>)</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">The technological revolution has lowered the transaction costs of cooperation enabling new forms of production of the "Networked Information Economy" (B. 2006, p.106-116) such as P2P. Peer-to-peer is based on collaboration, on the capacity of its architecture to allow cooperation, to integrate and aggregate rather than exclude, it is inclusive rather than exclusive (B. 2006, p.99-116). </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 18pt; margin-right: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"Cooperation in peer-production processes is usually maintained by some combination of technical architecture, social norms, legal rules, and a technically backed hierarchy that is validated by social norms." </span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">(B.06,p.104).</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';">Beyond the </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';">“</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';">Tragedy of the Commons</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';">”</span></span> </p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">Antirivalry has changed the problems that free-riding used to pose on commons enterprises. Free riding is usually considered as a drawback in collective action (</span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">Olson 1965</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> and </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">Hardin 1968</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">). Both Olson</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">´</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">s conjecture and Hardin's classic </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"Tragedy of the Commons"</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> come to say that, paradoxically collective action hinders the consecution of collective aims. Olson (1968) conjecture establishes a negative relationship between group size and the ability to obtain collective goods due to free-riding. These however does not hold in the presence of antirivalry, contrary it happens the other way around, size becomes a positive factor in obtaining the collective good. </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 34.25pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"The key concepts of the argument -user-driven innovation takes place in a parallel distributed setting, distinct forms and mechanisms of cooperative behaviour regulated by norms and governance structures, and the economic logic of `antirival</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;"> goods that recast the `problem</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;"> of free riding -are generic enough to suggest that software is not the only place where the open source process could flourish" </span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">(Weber 2004, </span></span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ELieXMxR1h4C&lpg=PA154&vq=antirival&dq=Weber%2C%20S.%20%282004%29%2C%20The%20Success%20of%20Open%20Source%2C&hl=es&pg=PA225#v=onepage&q=antirival&f=true"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">p. 225</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">)</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">Krishnan et al (2004) argue that free-riding does not undermine P2P processes, </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"free riding is sustainable in equilibrium and in some cases occurs as part of the socially optimal outcome"</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">. The architecture of P2P processes seems to be so that even free-riders might make a "passive" contribution. In </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"</span></i></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_cathedral_and_the_bazaar"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><u><span style="font-size:100%;">The Cathedraal and the Bazaar</span></u></i></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">" </span></i></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">E. S. Raymond</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> recasts the term of free-riders into<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'; font-weight: bold;"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"outriders"</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"Even at a higher level of design, it can be very valuable to have lots of co-developers random-walking through the design space near your product. Consider the way a puddle of water finds a drain, or better yet how ants find food: exploration essentially by diffusion, followed by exploitation mediated by a scalable communication mechanism. This works very well; as with Harry Hochheiser and me, one of your outriders may well find a huge win nearby that you were just a little too close-focused to see." </span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">(Raymond, 2000; </span></span><a href="http://books.google.es/books?id=F6qgFtLwpJgC&lpg=PT56&dq=higher%20level%20of%20design%2C%20it%20can%20be%20very%20valuable%20to%20have%20lots%20of%20co-developers%20random-walking%20through%20the%20design%20space%20near%20your%20product.%20Consider%20the%20way%20a%20puddle%20of%20water%20finds%20a%20drain%2C%20or%20better%20yet%20how%20ants%20find%20food&pg=PT56#v=onepage&q=&f=false"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Calibri';"><u><span style="font-size:100%;">p.15</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">).<br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"><iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="border:0px" src="http://books.google.es/books?id=F6qgFtLwpJgC&lpg=PT56&dq=higher%20level%20of%20design%2C%20it%20can%20be%20very%20valuable%20to%20have%20lots%20of%20co-developers%20random-walking%20through%20the%20design%20space%20near%20your%20product.%20Consider%20the%20way%20a%20puddle%20of%20water%20finds%20a%20drain%2C%20or%20better%20yet%20how%20ants%20find%20food&pg=PP1&output=embed" width="500" height="500"></iframe><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">The condition for this to be so is that there must be a sufficient number of contributors (non-free riders). Benkler (</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">2002, section III,A) </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">lists reasons why there will always be a share of users that behave altruistically. Moreover, there might be non-altruistic reasons that might push users to contribute</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">, </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"(...) sharing could reduce congestion on these networks, which may increase an individual peer</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">’</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">s utility of using the network </span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">—</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;"> providing a rationale for sharing even in the absence of `altruism.</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">´”</span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">(Krishnan et al 2004, p.5). </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">P2P architecture might force users to "passively contribute" as in file-sharing services such as Bit Torrent which </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">"(...) </span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><i><span style="font-size:100%;">forces users to share the parts of files that they already own while they download the remaining bits" </span></i></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">(Strumpf, K and Oberholzer-Gee, 2009, p.10).</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;">In a setting where antirivalry is present free riders make a positive contribution, hence exclusion would have a negative role limiting access and reducing production. There would be then a positive relationship between group size and production of the common good. The set of social norms, legal rules and technical architecture that allows for cooperation in peer-production processes seems to result in a setting which can be characterized by antirivalry.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> In such a setting, where even free riders contribute to the production of the common good, it is inclusion rather than exclusion the most reasonable policy.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><br /><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri';"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></span></p>ThinkerLesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04741162863993572385noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5335997154697478093.post-70763424671153856662009-08-13T04:36:00.000-07:002009-09-10T09:27:20.027-07:00MAGHRIBIS & P2P: ON THE BOUNDARIES OF THE DEFINITION<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>Maghribi traders organization system is similar to current P2P processes, maybe similar enough to consider them P2P pioneers (</b></span><a href="http://golpedee-estado.blogspot.com/2009/07/p2p-state-of-art.html"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><b><u>Maghribis I</u></b></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>). However Maghribis suffered from intrinsic disadvantages that deterred their expansion and success (</b></span><a href="http://golpedee-estado.blogspot.com/2009/08/p2p-pioneers-vs-proto-capitalism.html"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><b><u>Maghribis II</u></b></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>). Maghribis succumbed to history while Genoese, a proto-capitalist society survived stabilising the </b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>foundational stones of capitalism. </b></span></span><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>Maghribi traders organizational system had intrinsic disadvantages that deterred its expansion and success. </b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>How far is this applicable to current P2P?</b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://tramchase.com/images/p2p-network.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 289px; height: 217px;" src="http://tramchase.com/images/p2p-network.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b> </b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>Lets see first which are the fundamental differences between the Maghribis and "modern" P2P.</b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">In comparing Maghribis organization with P2P (</span><a href="http://golpedee-estado.blogspot.com/2009/07/p2p-state-of-art.html"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>Magribis I</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">) there was only one slight divergence: </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>equipotency</b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">, one of the three characteristic of P2P </span><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Peer_Production%20%5C%20Characteristics_of_Peer_Production"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>listed</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"> by </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Bauwens"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>Michel Bauwens</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">. Equipotency</span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">´</span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">s definition required that </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><i>"</i></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>there are no formal rules to prohibit anyone from participation". </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">In defence of the hypothesis of Maghiribis traders as a P2P-pioneers it was argued that most </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>"known P2P-systems also ban/block certain users due to their anti-cooperative behaviour" </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">posing </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Banning_policy"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>Wikipedia</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"> as an example.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">It was however exclusion what undermined Maghribis possibilities of expansion, it was this closure what inhibit the model to expand beyond its ethnical-cultural group. It was also this exclusion what allowed the reputation model that in turn enabled the whole system to be comparable with a P2P. Hence </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>exclusion of non-trustable members is the cornerstone of the architecture of the Maghribis </b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">organizational system. </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">The </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>"principle of exclusion" </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">is also present in P2P:</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i></i></span></span></p><blockquote><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>"This necessity for cooperation requires peer-production processes to adopt more engaged strategies for assuring that everyone who participates is doing so in good faith, competently, and in ways that do not undermine the whole, and weeding out those would-be participants who are not." </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">(Benkler 2006,p.13-14).</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"></span></span></p></blockquote><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">"Standard" P2P also shows a strong dependence on the architecture that enables cooperation:</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i></i></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>"Cooperation in peer-production processes is usually maintained by some combination of technical architecture, social norms, legal rules, and a technically backed hierarchy that is validated by social norms." </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">(B.06,p.104).</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"></span></span><p></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nevertheless </span><b>it can be argued that even though the principle of exclusion is also present in standard P2P processes, it is of a different nature and it is definitively not its cornerstone. </b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">P2P as we know it is based on the capacity of its architecture to allow cooperation, to integrate and aggregate rather that exclude. </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>It is openness rather than exclusion what makes it different. </b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">The relative difficulty to undermine its process does not depend on trust or punishment, It depends on the ability of the architecture to organize, filter and engage individuals into cooperation rather than on its power of punishment, or on the power to exclude.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">Greif (1994) argues that </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>cultural beliefs are the essence of the difference </b></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>between Maghribis and Genoese. </b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">Differently in the case of P2P vs. industrial production, the argument is usually technological,</span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b> it does not belong to the realm of the belief but to the material world:</b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i></i></span></span></p><blockquote><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>"We need to assume no fundamental change in the nature of humanity; we need not declare the end of economics as we know it. We merely need to see that the </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><i>material conditions of production in the networked information economy have changed </i></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>in ways that increase the relative salience of social sharing and exchange as a modality of economic production." </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">(B.06;p.94).</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"></span></span></p></blockquote><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">A broad capacitation of individuals is what enables them for cooperation,</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">"</span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>The declining price of computation, communication, and storage have, as a practical matter, placed the material means of information and cultural production in the hands of a significant fraction of the world's population" </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">(B.06;p.4).</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"></span></span><p></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">Necessarily Maghribis also needed to be able to cooperate, to posses the material means that capacitate them. Shipping technological development facilitated trade, "</span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>shipping was available even to a small merchant, who could rent storage space on a ship" </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">(G.89, p.860) providing the technical capacitation needed for cooperation. Despite technical capacitation is obviously a necessary condition it was not technical capability but cultural beliefs as Greif (1994) defends the responsible of the Maghribis organizational system.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">In the context of the expansion of the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Revolution%20%5C%20Important_people"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>commercial revolution</u></span></a> <span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><i>"</i></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>Maghribis could not overcome the intrinsic limitations that the architecture of their net imposed."</i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"> Exclusion imposed costs that inhibit their expansion and facilitated their disappearance, </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>"we have to take into account the costs involved in operating the various social arrangements (...), as well as the costs involved in moving to a new system." </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">(</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>Coase</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">1969, p.23).</span> <span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>Maghribis cultural beliefs could not deal with material limitations. </b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">The digital revolution has radically altered the <span style="font-style: italic;">"material conditions of production"</span>: while P2P is a result of technology, Maghribis organization is based on beliefs. Maghribis</span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">´</span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"> system is rooted, enabled and limited by exclusion, on the contrary, P2P is based on integration and aggregation. There are underlying fundamental differences in the organizational architecture of "current" P2P processes and Maghribis trading system. </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>In as much P2P architecture is based on integration rather than on exclusion, it will not depend on beliefs but on technology and Maghribis</b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>´</b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b> limitations won't apply to P2P. If the architecture reaches its limits (if there are) and no further integration/aggregation is feasible, cooperation will be sustained by beliefs (instead of technology), there will be exclusion (at least what can not be integrated) and Maghribis´limitations might apply.<br /></b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.intuidex.com/images/technology_p2p.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 303px; height: 227px;" src="http://www.intuidex.com/images/technology_p2p.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b> </b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>Is it possible still to argue that Maghribis where P2P pioneers?</b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Are they just another form of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism">collectivism </a>with no particular relationship with the present beyond that it is collectivist? </span>I don´t think so. Some of the definitory features of P2P are common to the Maghribis as it has been argued. Individualism and collectivism were simbiotic, like it happens now in peer processes, as <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/jaron-laniers-rant-against-online-collectivism-and-its-relational-alternative/2006/05/31">M. Bauwens argues</a>,<br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><blockquote>"(...) this turn to the collective that the emergence of peer to peer represent does not in any way present a loss of individuality, even of individualism. Rather it ‘transcends and includes’ individualism and collectivism in a new unity, which I would like to call ‘cooperative individualism’."</blockquote></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">Maghribis system fits into Benkler definition of common-based peer production,</span></span></p><blockquote><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>"(...) the networked environment makes possible a new modality of organizing production: radically decentralized, collaborative, and nonproprietary; based on sharing resources and outputs among widely distributed, loosely connected individuals who cooperate with each other without relying on either market signals or managerial commands." </i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">(B.06, p.60).</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">It is when other definitions are used that the claim weakens. There is only equipotency among Maghribis, non-Maghribis are excluded. But Equipotency, as </span><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Equipotentiality#Definition_and_commentary"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>defined</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"> by </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Bauwens"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>M. Bauwens</u></span></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">, </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>even when it might not be universal must aim at universality: </b></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i></i></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>"(...) everyone can potentially cooperate in a project, that no authority can pre-judge the ability to cooperate, but that the quality of cooperation is then judged by the community of peers, i.e. through </i></span><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Communal_Validation"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><i><u>Communal Validation</u></i></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i>. In equipotential projects, participants self-select themselves to the module to which they feel able to contribute."</i></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i></i></span></span><p></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">Lets call this definition of the term that entails universality strict-equipotency. </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b>If strict-equipotency is a necessary condition for being considered a P2P process, hence Maghribis are not. </b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">If non-strict-equipotency (no universality) is fine then they are.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">There is a feeling (which I share) that we are witnessing<span style="font-family:verdana;"> </span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">a shift of paradigm, </span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-family:verdana;">a </span>revolution (</span><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Third_Intellectual_Revolution_-_Rudy_Rucker"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>intellectual</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">,</span><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Yochai_Benkler_on_the_Participation_Revolution"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>participatory</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">, </span><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Mass_Amateurization"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>mass amateurization</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Revolution"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>digital</u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';">...)</span><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';">.</span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"> P2P is believed to be one of the new born enterprises of this revolution if not the alma matter, the core of the </span><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Michel_Bauwens_on_the_P2P_Paradigm"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u>shift of paradigm.</u></span></a></span></p> <p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"> </p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Is this aim of universality a defining, necessary characteristic of the network economies resulting from this revolution? Might exclusion have still a role?</span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;">What is at the core of this alleged shift of paradigm?</span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://flowtv.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/banks-6.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 177px; height: 237px;" src="http://flowtv.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/banks-6.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p> <p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;"><br /></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://flowtv.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/banks-6.jpg"></a><a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/maghribis-p2p-on-the-boundaries-of-the-definition/2009/08/20">* Republished at the P2PFoundation.</a><br /></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p>ThinkerLesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04741162863993572385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5335997154697478093.post-71654275035461092422009-08-01T07:54:00.000-07:002009-08-07T04:19:37.214-07:00P2P PIONEERS vs. PROTO-CAPITALISM: MAGHRIBIS & GENOESE TRADERS<span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">There is a tendency to believe peer production to be a better system. Fine with that, the point now is whether it is sustainable or not.</span></b></span><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">As it was argued in the </span></b></span><a href="http://golpedee-estado.blogspot.com/2009/07/p2p-state-of-art.html"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><b><u><span style="font-size:85%;">previous post</span></u></b></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;"> there is at least ground for considering fundamental similarities between our understanding of P2P and the medieval Maghrebis traders</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;"> system. However Maghribis traders succumbed to history meanwhile Genoese survived, created some of the first </span></b></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Saint_George"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><b><u><span style="font-size:85%;">banks</span></u></b></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;"> and shares and thereby established the foundational stones of capitalism. </span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';font-size:100%;"><b> If P2P system is superior/preferable why did it not succeed? </b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;"> -------------------</span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Late_Medieval_Trade_Routes.jpg/800px-Late_Medieval_Trade_Routes.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 528px; height: 296px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Late_Medieval_Trade_Routes.jpg/800px-Late_Medieval_Trade_Routes.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">Lets see first what where the fundamental similarities and differences between Genoeses and </span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">Maghribis.</span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"Genuensis ergo mercator" </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">(Genoese, therefore merchant), says an old proverb. Effectively, large-scale long-distance overseas trade was central not only to Maghribis but to </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoa#Middle_Ages_and_Renaissance"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u><span style="font-size:85%;">Genoa</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">. Both the Maghribis and the Genoese began trading in the Mediterranean in the eleventh century and in similar conditions:</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"The Maghribis and the Genoese faced a similar environment, employed comparable naval technology, and traded in similar goods." </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">(Greif 1994, p.917)</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> They both faced a similar organizational problem: in order to organize overseas trade, agents are needed abroad to handle the merchandise, but without proper institutions to supervise them reliance in their honesty (asymmetric information) was problematic.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;"> So far these are all similarities, where are the differences? </span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">As it was previously </span></span><a href="http://golpedee-estado.blogspot.com/2009/07/p2p-state-of-art.html"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u><span style="font-size:85%;">argued</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> the Maghribis were an ethnical/cultural group (coalition) conforming a net of equipotent members -peers- where cooperation of equals was granted. This coalition solved the organizational problem of overseas trade through a </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_system"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u><span style="font-size:85%;">reputation-mechanism</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">: free information flows from and through any peer enabling identification of cheating members which are punished with the exclusion of the net. Hence there was a stable system based on trust in which trust was enabled by access to information and exclusion of non-trustable members.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">In contrast to this cooperative system with an open approach towards information as a communal good,</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"(...) the Genoese</span></i></span> <span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">seem to have held an opposite attitude regarding information sharing. Lopez (1943) noted the efforts of the Genoese to conceal information and conjectured that the `individualistic, taciturn, and reserved Genoese</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;"> were not `talkative</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;"> about their businesses and were even `jealous of their business secrets</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;"> (p. 168)". (G.94, p. 924)</span></i></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">Maghribis behaved as a </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">common-based peer production</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">,</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"(...) the networked environment makes possible a new modality of organizing production: radically decentralized, collaborative, and nonproprietary; based on sharing resources and outputs among widely distributed, loosely connected individuals who cooperate with each other without relying on either market signals or managerial commands." (Benkler 2006, p.60)</span></i></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">While for Genoese </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">private property </span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">is at the core of their organizational system,</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"The core characteristic of property as the institutional foundation of markets is that the allocation of power to decide how a resource will be used is systematically and drastically asymmetric. That asymmetry permits the existence of </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">`</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">an owner</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">". (B.06, p.61).</span></i></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">This divergence is also reflected on the </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">predominant contractual forms </span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">in each group. While Genoese </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"(...) mainly used commenda contracts, which were, by and large, established between two parties</span></i></span> <span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">one providing capital and the other providing work in the form of travelling and transacting overseas." </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">Maghribis</span></span> <span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"(...) used mainly partnership and `formal friendship</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">. In a partnership, two or more traders invested capital and labor in a joint venture and shared the profit in proportion to their capital investment. In a formal friendship</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">, two traders who operated in different trade centers provided each other with agency services without receiving pecuniary compensation (Goitein 1967, p. 214 ff.; Stillman 1970; Gil 1983b, 1:200 ff.)." </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">(G.94, p.928)</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">Different </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">contractual forms shaped differently each society</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">. Maghribis were a "</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">homogeneous group of middle-class traders" </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">(G.89, p.865), a horizontal net of equipotent peers being any peer both an agent and a merchant. </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">In contrast, agency relations among the Genoese traders were vertical. Wealthy merchants who rarely, if ever, functioned as agents hired relatively poor agents who rarely, if ever, functioned as merchants (De Roover 1965, p. 51 ff.). Byrne (1916, p. 159) concluded that during the late twelfth century, `as a rule</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;"> the Genoese agents were `not men of great wealth or of high position.</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">" </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">(G.94, p.928).</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">Genoese traders are not equipotent at all: either agent (low wealth and social status) either merchant (wealthy and high status), information does not flow (secrecy is predominant) and there is rather competition than cooperation. Genoese's organizational system is basically the opposite of Maghribis.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"><iframe style="border: 0px none ;" src="http://books.google.es/books?id=qM_cJJ5352YC&lpg=PA325&ots=QyBpM6HMn3&dq=THE%20CIVIL%20REVOLT%20OF%20GENOVA&pg=PP1&output=embed" scrolling="no" width="500" frameborder="0" height="500"></iframe><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:'Verdana';" ><span style="font-size:85%;">What is the underlying cause of this divergence? </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Greif (1994) points to </span><span style="font-size:85%;">cultural beliefs </span><span style="font-size:85%;">as the radical difference between both of the groups. </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:85%;">But how can a "bunch" of beliefs account for such a divergent differentiation?</span></b><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">While the Maghribis had a </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">collectivist</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> tradition the Genoese were </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">individualist</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">:</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"(...) Christianity during that period placed the individual rather than his social group at the center of its theology. It advanced the creation of `a new society based not on the family but on the individual, whose salvation, like his original loss of innocence, was personal and private</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;"> (Hughes 1974, p. 61)." </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">(G.94, p.923)</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">The eleventh century witnesses a spectacular rise in commerce, it is the preliminary stage of the </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Revolution#Important_people"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u><span style="font-size:85%;">commercial revolution</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">. It is in this context that </span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u><span style="font-size:85%;">Genoa </span></u></span><a href="http://books.google.es/books?id=qM_cJJ5352YC&lpg=PA325&ots=QyBpM6HMn3&dq=THE%20CIVIL%20REVOLT%20OF%20GENOVA&pg=PA9"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);font-family:'Verdana';" ><u><span style="font-size:85%;">explosively develops</span></u></span></a><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> as one of the main trading Mediterranean ports. This explosive economic growth attracted immigration. Information acquisition and transmission was costly in the middle ages and incentives and mechanisms are needed for information to be shared. As Benkler (20</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">06, p.100) </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">points out, </span><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"core inputs of information production ubiquitously distributed in society is a core enabling fact, but it alone cannot assure that social production will become economically significant."</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">This is in fact the case,</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"If the (...) individual can satisfy his need through self-sufficiency, or through aid from some official source without incurring an obligation, he will do so-and thus fail to add to the social capital outstanding in the community." </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">Coleman (1988, P.S117).</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> In this context of explosive commercial and economic growth with neither previous structures nor incentives for information sharing an individualist scheme triumphed over more communal alternatives.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"Instead of a few dozen traders who had previously been active in each trade center abroad, hundreds of Genoese began trading. At the same time, Genoa experienced a high level of immigration. For instance, Genoa's population increased from 30,000 to 100,000 between 1200 and 1300.</span></i></span> <span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">In the absence of appropriate social networks for information transmission, the individualist equilibrium was likely to be selected. Once it was selected, individualist cultural beliefs discouraged investment in information. In the absence of a coordinating mechanism, a switch to a collectivist equilibrium was not likely to occur"</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">. (G.94, p.924).</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">In the other hand, Maghribis</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> reputation mechanism was based on trust, information access and exclusion. In a context of explosive growth and overseas commercial expansion the conditions for trust and reputation mechanisms are difficult to be achieved. Different cultural beliefs (collectivist/individualistic), accelerated growth and trade expansion yielded the completely opposite solutions to the common organizational problem of overseas trade. </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">Trade expansion and transaction costs: the rise of Genoa and the decline of the Magharebis</span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"Commercially, both groups responded similarly and expanded their trade from Spain to Constantinople. From the perspective of societal organization, however, their responses differed. The Genoese responded in an `integrated</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;"> manner, but the Maghribis responded in a `segregated</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;"> manner. The Maghribis expanded their trade employing other Maghribis as agents." (G.94, p.930).</span></i></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">This difference -</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">integrated/segregated</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">- proved to be fundamental. In order for the Maghribis to maintain their organizational system trust was required. Trust was achieved by establishing commercial relations only within the net, while the Genoese could hire anyone as agent. Genoese were more able than Magherebis in expanding their commercial net.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"As trade with more remote trade centers became possible, a merchant could either hire an agent from his own economy who would sail or emigrate abroad, or hire an agent native to the other trade center. Such intereconomy agency relations are likely to be more efficient than intraeconomy agency relations since they enhance commercial flexibility, and a native agent does not need to immigrate and is likely to possess a better knowledge of local conditions." (G.94, p.931)</span></i><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">Maghribis system radically depended on trust and this one on exclusion. Segregation was the result, and segregation proved to be a constraint for their expansion: the costs of expanding their net would have outweighed the benefits. Benkler (2006, p.59) points out </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">that </span><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">Industrial organization literature provides a prominent place for the </span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><i><span style="font-size:85%;">transaction costs </span></i></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">view of markets and firms"</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">. This is here the case: expanding Maghribis</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> net reported excessive increases of transaction costs, so far that they could not expand the net. The opposite happened with the Genoese: since trust was not essential Genoese could capture the advantages of using native agents.</span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"(...) the primary reason to choose among proprietary and nonproprietary strategies, between marketbased systems—be they direct market exchange or firm-based hierarchical production—and social systems, are the comparative transaction costs of each, and the extent to which these transaction costs either outweigh the benefits of working through each system, or cause the system to distort the information it generates so as to systematically misallocate resources."</span></i></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> (B.06, p.107).<br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">The proprietary scheme of the Genoese was more able to expand than the communal approach of the Maghribis: </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">Genoese had a comparative advantage in terms of transaction costs over the Magharibis</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">Maghribis could not overcome the intrinsic limitations that the architecture of their net imposed. When the net needed to be expanded the structure, the underlying architecture proved to be too rigid</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> The inability of the Maghribis to expand their net limited commercial expansion and prevented the survival of the model once trade was forbidden to the Maghribis. </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><i><span style="font-size:85%;">"That this segregation is endogenous is reflected in the Maghribis' later history, when, toward the end of the twelfth century, they were forced by the ruler of Egypt to cease trading. At this point they integrated with the Jewish communities and vanished from the stage of history." (G.94, p.930)</span></i></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">Even though it can not be ascertained that the disappearance of the Maghribis</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> system was due to intrinsic limitations it is however clear that they had strong intrinsic constraints and disadvantages in the context of trade expansion while the Genoese system did not.<br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Palazzo_San_Giorgio.jpg/250px-Palazzo_San_Giorgio.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 188px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Palazzo_San_Giorgio.jpg/250px-Palazzo_San_Giorgio.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><span style="font-size:78%;">Saint George Palace (Genoa)</span><b><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">How far can this be applied to "modern" P2P?</span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">The underlying </span></b></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:'Verdana';" ><span style="font-size:85%;">architecture </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">of Maghribis</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">´</span></b></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">P2P organizational system had intrinsic disadvantages that prevented its expansion while proto-capitalism appeared, expanded and became the dominant system.</span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;"> Will a similar story happen all over again? Is P2P </span></b></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:'Verdana';" ><span style="font-size:85%;">architecture </span></span><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">different?<br /></span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:'Verdana';"><b><span style="font-size:85%;">------------</span></b></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">References</span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a title=""Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders"" href="http://www.plu.edu/%7E315j06/doc/maghribi.pdf" id="l2m7">Greif, A.; "Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders</a>" (1989)</span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a title="Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies" href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/proto/poldev/grief.pdf" id="yuat">Greif, A.; "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies"</a> (1994)</span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a title="The Wealth of Networks" href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wealth_of_networks/Main_Page#Read_the_book" id="ch-_">Benkler, Y.; "The Wealth of Networks"</a> (2006)<br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a title="Coleman, J. S.; Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital. American Journal of Sociology 94 (1988)." href="http://econ.tau.ac.il/papers/publicf/Zeltzer2.pdf" id="yt60">Coleman, J. S.; "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital" (1988).</a></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:85%;">*For a discussion on the right interpretation of the original sources see:<br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a title="Edwards, J. and S. Ogilvie, 2008. “Contract Enforcement, Institutions and Social Capital: the Maghribi Traders Reappraised.” Cesifo Working Paper No. 2254" href="http://www.ifo.de/pls/guestci/download/CESifo%20Working%20Papers%202008/CESifo%20Working%20Papers%20March%202008/cesifo1_wp2254.pdf" id="svh8">Edwards, J. and Ogilvie, S</a><a title="Edwards, J. and S. Ogilvie, 2008. “Contract Enforcement, Institutions and Social Capital: the Maghribi Traders Reappraised.” Cesifo Working Paper No. 2254" href="http://www.ifo.de/pls/guestci/download/CESifo%20Working%20Papers%202008/CESifo%20Working%20Papers%20March%202008/cesifo1_wp2254.pdf" id="h:e8">. “Contract Enforcement, Institutions and Social Capital: the Maghribi Traders Reappraised” </a>(2008)</span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a title="Contract Enforcement and Institutions among the Maghribi Traders: Refuting Edwards and Ogilvie Avner Greif (2008)" href="http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/9610/1/Greif_July_2008_Contract_Enforcement_and_Institutions.pdf" id="k4ik">Contract Enforcement and Institutions among the Maghribi Traders: Refuting Edwards and Ogilvie Avner Greif (2008)</a></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/p2p-pioneers-vs-proto-capitalism-maghribis-genoese-traders/2009/08/07"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">**Re-published </span>at the P2P Foundation</a><br /></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p>ThinkerLesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04741162863993572385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5335997154697478093.post-73278309938689689412009-07-21T15:59:00.000-07:002009-08-03T04:52:38.343-07:00P2P STATE-OF-THE-ART????<span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Within the digital revolution P2P processes have aroused as something radically new, a new form of production, a new paradigm that could outset more traditional productive models. Is this the case?</span><br /></span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ibnjaldun.com/fileadmin/plantilla/fotos/mediterraneo1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 355px; height: 116px;" src="http://ibnjaldun.com/fileadmin/plantilla/fotos/mediterraneo1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Well, once upon a time, <span style="font-weight: bold;">in the eleventh-century, some Mediterranean traders conformed a peer organization.</span> Members of this organization provided each other with trade-related services creating a net of overseas traders: traders were mostly sedentary, and would <span style="font-weight: bold;">trust </span>other (sedentary) traders to handle business abroad. These agency services would start by agreement and could be terminated by either party at any time </span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >and information (mostly trade related but not only) would flow freely and became public (within the organization)</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Traders were peers within this organization being flexibility the norm. Cooperation was synergistic so all the traders of the organization resulted benefited from cooperation </span>by reducing costs of trade.:<br /></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ibnjaldun.com/fileadmin/plantilla/fotosenr/IJ/35.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 129px; height: 162px;" src="http://ibnjaldun.com/fileadmin/plantilla/fotosenr/IJ/35.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><div style="margin-left: 40px;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>The evidence indicates that eleventh-century Mediterranean traders arranged agency relations </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>through a peer organization that may be referred to as a coalition. Members of the coalition provided each other with agency services that increased the value of a member's capital.</i> Greif (1989, p.859)<br /></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>"Agency relations among the traders were characterized by flexibility. Sedentary traders served as agents for those who traveled, and vice versa. Wealthy merchants served as agents for poorer ones, and vice versa. Usually a trader served as an agent for several merchants, while receiving agency services from them or other traders." </i>(G.89, p.739)</span></div> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />A priory, this sounds like there is a P2P process operative within this <i>"coalition"</i>. Lets see how can P2P be defined:<br /></span><div style="margin-left: 40px;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>"It is a specific form of relational dynamic, is based on the assumed equipotency of its participants , organized through the free cooperation of equals in view of the performance of a common task, for the creation of a common good, with forms of decision-making and autonomy that are widely distributed throughout the network." <a title="Michel Bauwen" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Bauwens" id="i4lx">Michel Bauwen</a> (<a title="Peer-to-Peer Foundation" href="http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P" id="l6ej">Peer-to-Peer Foundation</a>)<br /></i></span></div><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Well there seems to be equipotency among participants (being a merchant or an agent does not depend on wealth or power, any agent is both a merchant and an agent), there is certainly free cooperation of equals (traders provide each other agency services and free information) and it can be assumed that the resulting synergy from the cooperation is a common good. So lets dig deeper into this "primitive organization", who were they and how has this information survived until today?.<br /><br /><a title="Avner Greif" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avner_Greif" id="yg2o">Avner Greif</a> analyzes in several papers a certain group of Mediterranean traders known as the Maghribi trader<span style="font-style: italic;">s </span></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Calif_al_Mahdi_Kairouan_912_CE.jpg/180px-Calif_al_Mahdi_Kairouan_912_CE.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 105px; height: 105px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Calif_al_Mahdi_Kairouan_912_CE.jpg/180px-Calif_al_Mahdi_Kairouan_912_CE.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><i>"These were Jewish traders who lived in the Abbasid caliphate (centered in Baghdad) until the first half of the tenth century, when they emigrated to North Africa (a part of the Maghrib, the Muslim world's West), mainly to Tunisia. This region was prospering at that time under the rule of the Fatimid caliphate."</i> (G.89, p.861).The Mahhribis <i>"were involved in large-scale, long-distance trade all over the Muslim Mediterranean"</i> (G.94, p.917).<br /></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />In his research Greif exploits rich the information contained in the <a title="Geniza Documents" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Geniza" id="tmkw">Cairo Geniza</a> <a href="http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/eresources/imagecollections/university/genizah/#d.en.98702">Documents,</a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://modiya.nyu.edu/modiya/bitstream/1964/163/7/wandrey_-salomon_small.jpg%22"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 252px; height: 176px;" src="http://modiya.nyu.edu/modiya/bitstream/1964/163/7/wandrey_-salomon_small.jpg%22" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><div style="margin-left: 40px;font-family:times new roman;"> <span style="font-size:100%;"><i>"geniza is a place where Jews locked away writings on which the name of God was or might have been written. From about the ninth century on, a geniza room was located in a synagogue in Fustat (old Cairo), where for centuries tens of thousands of documents were deposited. The room and its contents were eventually forgotten until the end of the last century, when the treasure was rediscovered."</i> (Greif 1989; p.859).<br /><br /></span></div><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Greif uses the Geniza documents to reconstruct commercial, economic and social relationships of the Maghribis:</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ibnjaldun.com/fileadmin/plantilla/fotosenr/IJ/jerusalem.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 125px; height: 181px;" src="http://ibnjaldun.com/fileadmin/plantilla/fotosenr/IJ/jerusalem.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Although the emigrants<i> "were musta´ribun, that is, non-Muslims who adopted the values of the Muslim society" </i>and there were Jewish communities in the Maghrib, "<i>although the Maghribi immigrants integrated into existing Jewish communities, they also retained a strong sense of identity and solidarity among themselves" </i>remaining as a separate group. (G.94; p.922).<br /></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />They conformed what Greif calls a <i>"coalition" </i>in which all of them were <b>trading-peers</b>:<br /></span><div style="margin-left: 40px;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>"the Maghribi traders group was a homogeneous group of middle-class traders and each of them operated as a merchant and as an agent at the same time".</i><i> "Whenever a partner utilized the partnership's capital, he acted as an agent for the partnership. Henceforth the term `merchant´ denotes an individual who receives the residual revenue after the agent receives his compensation. The term `trader´ refers to both agents and merchants" </i><i>(G.89, p.865 & 874).</i></span></div> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />In their trading relationships there is obviously asymmetric information (since the merchant is overseas he does not know whether the agent is misreporting the common revenue), besides <i>"in the eleventh century the legal system failed to provide a framework within which agency relations could be organized" </i>(G.89, 866). The Maghribis solved this problem through what Greif calls a <b><a title="reputation system" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_system" id="t1vj">reputation-mechanism</a></b>: </span><div style="margin-left: 40px;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>"the merchant must create a gap between the expected lifetime utility of an agent employed by him and the agent's best alternative elsewhere. To do so the merchant has to provide the agent a premium; for example, he can pay him a wage premium. Of equal importance is the implicit contract established between merchant and agent, under which the merchant threatens to fire the agent and never operate through him again if he discovers that the agent has ever cheated" (G.89, p.867). </i>When a<i> "Maghribi trader wanted to impose social sanctions against another trader, he made a public appeal to the Jewish communities" </i>(G.89, p.863) The cheater punishment would be the <b>exclusion </b>from the community (no agency services, no commercial information). The resulting synergy from this cooperation is that <i>"this implicit contract improves upon the simple reputation mechanism. It reduces the optimal premium that a merchant has to pay an agent to keep him honest" </i><i>(G.89, p.867).<br /><br /></i></span></div><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Basically, agent and merchant share the profits of a partnership at the lowest cost (note that any trader is at the same time merchant and agent). Since information freely flows within the community whenever a trader reports another trader to have cheated the later is condemned to social and commercial ostracism.<br /></span><div style="margin-left: 40px;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Fine with history, coming back to nowadays reality, what does it has to do medieval ships and traders with P2P, what are the <b>characteristics of P2P processes </b>so it can be assessed whether is there really a P2P processes in the Maghribi coalition trading system? </span><p style="text-align: left;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="mw-headline"><a title="Michel Bauwens" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Bauwens" id="ekho">Michel Bauwens</a> in </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;">an <a title="excerpt" href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Peer_Production#Characteristics_of_Peer_Production" id="tud7">excerpt</a> from the manuscript<i> "Beyond Formalization, Institutionalization, Commodification" </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">defines the characteristics of P2P as being:<br /></span></p> <ul style="font-family:times new roman;"><li><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>equipotency: </b>there are no formal rules to prohibit anyone from participation, a characteristic that could be called 'anti-credentialism'. Validation is a commu</span><span style="font-size:100%;">nal intersubjective process.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>de-institutionalization:</b> P2P processes are not structureless, but most often flexible structures that follow internally generated rules.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>de-commodification: </b>with ‘commons-based peer production’ or P2P-based knowledge exchange more generally, the production does not result in commodities sold to consumers, but in use value made for users.</span></li></ul><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >There is <b>de-</b></span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" ><b>institutionalization</b></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" > (flexibility is the norm and punishments are decided by the community), and there is <b>de-commodification </b>as well (a flow of information is produced, this information is free and it creates value for the users creating or/and facilitating trade; besides, the existence of this information allows traders to be both merchants and agents). What about <b>equipotency</b>? The agents are equipotent, however the reputation-mechanism allows to prohibit cheaters (anti-cooperative agents) from participation. The system bans anti-cooperative peers (nothing is said about the free-riders); fine, known P2P-systems also ban/block certain users due to their anti-cooperative behaviour (<a title="Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Banning_policy" id="uk5e">Wikipedia</a>, for instance). Furthermore the reputation mechanism is a <i>"communal intersubjuctive process"</i>. Hence, if my reasoning is not wrong, It does not seem then that this definition of equipotency should deter considering P2P processes within the Maghrebis.</span><p style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="mw-headline"><a title="Don Tapscott" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Tapscott" id="hnn2">Don Tapscott</a> </span><a title="names in Wikinomics" href="http://www.eu.socialtext.net/wikinomics/index.cgi?peer_production" id="pshz">names in Wikinomics</a> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">four <b>conditions for </b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>Peer Production works at its best:</b></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://economiaurbana.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/wikinomics-libro.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 143px; height: 215px;" src="http://economiaurbana.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/wikinomics-libro.png" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><ol style="font-family:times new roman;"><li><span style="font-size:100%;"> The object of production is information or culture, which keeps the cost of participation low from contributors. </span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Tasks can be chunked out into bite-sized pieces that individuals can contribute in small increments and independently of other producers (i.e. entries in an encyclopedia or components of a software program). This makes their overall investment of time and energy minimal in relation to the benefits they receive in return. </span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Benefits of participation are articulated, i.e. content is improved and contributors are compensated. </span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">The costs of integrating those pieces into a finished end product, including leadership and quality-control mechanisms, must be low"</span></li></ol><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Once again these eleventh-century traders seem to meet the conditions, <b>1)</b> a free-flow of commercial information is produced, <b>2) </b>individuals provide information and agency services independently of the rest of traders who do not get directly involved in a specific partnership, <b>3) </b>trading costs are reduced through these system and since any trader is both merchant and agent all traders benefit, <b>4) </b>Information flows easily since traders within the group are interconnected through -inside- common acquaintances, besides control mechanisms are costless and easy to implement (reports on cheaters flows to any trading-peer within the coalition).</span><div style="margin-left: 40px;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><br />"Frequently the associate also had to collect a trader's revenues (a difficult task in many cases) and then handle them according to the trader's instructions. How greatly such associates reduced the cost of trade is suggested by one trader who wrote to his business associate, `all profit occurring to me comes from your pocket´, while another trader remarked that in trade <span style="font-weight: bold;">`people cannot operate without people´</span>.</i> (G.89, 864).<br /><br /></span> </div><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Coming again to our</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" > present time, when wondering why is P2P emerging now, the P2P-Foundation, borrowing </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/17/The_Wealth_of_Networks_Book_cover.jpg/150px-The_Wealth_of_Networks_Book_cover.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 99px; height: 154px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/17/The_Wealth_of_Networks_Book_cover.jpg/150px-The_Wealth_of_Networks_Book_cover.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >from Beckler´s <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Wealth_of_Networks" title="Wealth of Networks">Wealth of Networks</a>, </span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a title="hypothesize" href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Peer_Production#Why_is_it_emerging_now.3F" id="hvb7">hypothesize </a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >that <b>lower capital requ</b><b>irements of information production</b></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >1. reduces the value of proprietary strategies and makes public, shared information more important, </span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >2. encourages a wider range of motivations to produce, thus demoting supply-and-demand from prime motivator to one-of-many, and </span><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >3. allows large-scale, cooperative information production efforts that were not possible before.</span><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Looks like in the eleventh century a bunch of traders in the Maghreb found how make this very same process to succeed: even though there was no apparent change in the requirements of information related capital, information was made freely available. This resulted in publicly shared information, ambivalent trading position (merchant/agent) and large scale information production (reputation system).<br /><br />P2P is thought to be based on digital information, Internet and computers, how could it happen that a system that resembles so much to what we now call P2P could operate a thousand years ago? If it was such a good model, how is it that no one knows about them apart of Greif, some scholars, me and now you. How is it that they did not survive?<br /><br />Avner Greif points to <b>cultural beliefs</b> (G.94) as the underlying reason for "<i>lowered capital requirements of </i></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><i>information production</i>". There was in the same age and area a non-cooperative, non-collectivist (individualist) society, the <b>Genoese traders</b>. The Genoese traders also operated in the Mediterranean, h</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >ad similar </span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >technologies and similar knowledge. They were however completly different from the organizational p</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >oint of view. They were also very different in the sense that <b>they survived while the Maghribi traders disappeared into the vacuum of history</b>.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ibnjaldun.com/fileadmin/plantilla/fotosenr/IJ/Genova1493.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 191px; height: 163px;" src="http://ibnjaldun.com/fileadmin/plantilla/fotosenr/IJ/Genova1493.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Is then P2P such a new thing?</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >What are the limits of P2P production?<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Can it endure now?</span></span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOPEgv91brDxN7Tf2SWDFyXwQBdCyotuvWb5IFQIBPuLy781PdqgZWXav_Szq4YROjcn0yYkLSXgv7d4FuuGqBCDpoxicS44PCFwQ2lGQkli7pgrhoyI3bH0rmsx3-0VCxgXCnVgrVad3h/s400/peer-to-peer_manifesto-id4898831_size485.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 193px; height: 196px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOPEgv91brDxN7Tf2SWDFyXwQBdCyotuvWb5IFQIBPuLy781PdqgZWXav_Szq4YROjcn0yYkLSXgv7d4FuuGqBCDpoxicS44PCFwQ2lGQkli7pgrhoyI3bH0rmsx3-0VCxgXCnVgrVad3h/s400/peer-to-peer_manifesto-id4898831_size485.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /></div><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Quoted papers from Avner Greif:<br /><a title=""Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders"" href="http://www.plu.edu/%7E315j06/doc/maghribi.pdf" id="l2m7">Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders</a> (1989)<br /><a title="Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies" href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/proto/poldev/grief.pdf" id="yuat">Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies</a> (1994)<br /><br />*This post was somehow inspired by the presentation of <a href="http://blog.ulisesmejias.com/">Ulises Ali Mejías</a> (<a href="http://servidor.medialab-prado.es/%7Einclusiva-net/?p=58">Peerless: the Ethics of P2P Netw</a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://servidor.medialab-prado.es/%7Einclusiva-net/?p=58">ork</a>), researching the edges of the P2P paradigm, during the <a href="http://servidor.medialab-prado.es/%7Einclusiva-net/">seminar InclusivaNet</a>.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />**republished at the <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/were-the-medieval-maghrebi-traders-p2p-pioneers/2009/08/02">P2P-FOUNDATION</a>.<br /></span>ThinkerLesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04741162863993572385noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5335997154697478093.post-91778354951936796902009-07-15T04:41:00.000-07:002009-07-15T09:14:25.384-07:00FREEDOM, TOO MUCH FREEDOM, THAT IS THE PROBLEM<span style="font-size:100%;">China´s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Shield_Project">Great Firewall</a> might stop the virus of free information but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder">Internet addiction</a> is another business. It is not surprising that when being a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workaholic">workaholic </a>is the only tolerated addiction scape from reality <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder#Prevalence_of_Internet_overuse">becomes </a>an issue. China is alarmed, the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/21/AR2007022102094.html">Washington Post </a>says: </span><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><alarmed by="" survey="" found="" nearly="" 14="" percent="" of="" teens="" in="" china="" are="" vulnerable="" becoming="" addicted="" chinese="" government="" has="" launched="" nationwide="" campaign="" to="" stamp="" out="" what="" communist="" youth="" league="" calls="" a="" grave="" social="" problem="" that="" threatens="" the=""><alarmed by="" survey="" found="" nearly="" 14="" percent="" of="" teens="" in="" china="" are="" vulnerable="" becoming="" addicted="" chinese="" government="" has="" launched="" nationwide="" campaign="" to="" stamp="" out="" what="" communist="" youth="" league="" calls="" a="" grave="" social="" problem="" that="" threatens="" the="" nation="">"</alarmed></alarmed>Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls "a grave social problem" that threatens the nation."</span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"> What else could <span style="font-style: italic;">"threat the nation" </span>when the nation is the <span style="font-style: italic;">"factory of the world" </span>and the factory is suffering a slowdown, than having its workers wasting their time, actually <a href="http://feeds.boingboing.net/%7Er/boingboing/iBag/%7E3/BVTSG1b8bnI/gold-farming-real-mo.html">China´s time</a>, in a virtual world.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/21/AR2007022102094.html">Bans and clinics</a>, that seems to be China´s recipe. Now one of the "treatments" -electro shock therapy- has risen critics up to the point that it has been forbidden.<br /></span> <blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >"The Ministry of Health announcement followed recent media reports about a controversial psychiatrist in Linyi, Shandong Province, who administered electric currents to nearly 3,000 teenagers in an attempt to rid them of their Internet habit."</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">There is no better therapy than prevention: freedom, too much freedom, that must be the problem.</span></span><br /></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://static.reuters.com/resources/flash/include_video.swf?edition=US&videoId=98123" width="422" height="346"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="movie" value="http://www.reuters.com/resources/flash/include_video.swf?edition=US&videoId=98123"><embed src="http://www.reuters.com/resources/flash/include_video.swf?edition=US&videoId=98123" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="422" height="346"></embed></object><br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;">-----------------------------------<br /></span> </div><span style="font-size:100%;"> And now something -not- completely different:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Duchenne"> a pioneer in electric-clinical application</a> (en español, de <a href="http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/2006/09/el-gabinete-del-doctor-duc_115739916690744340.html">Fogonazos</a>)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7114/258/400/duchenne1a.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 351px; height: 134px;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7114/258/400/duchenne1a.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span>ThinkerLesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04741162863993572385noreply@blogger.com0