Intro.06 Open P2P Communities : openp2pdesign.org

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And what about Open P2P Communities?…

An early definition of Open P2P Communities

Before I reassume shortly the methodological part of my thesis and the conclusions to draw from it, I think that it would be useful to say something more aboute those cases that I have defined Open P2P Communities. The methodology that I have developed in the thesis, in fact, has been developed taking in consideration some existing cases before, and later taking in consideration which design tools and theories were suitable.

Therefore, I searched for cases with a community-based collaborative organizational form, that can build short and long collaborative networks, reaching a potentially high number of participants with an important active role. For sure, this was still a vague definition, therefore I began searching those cases that were inspired by the Free Software / Open Source / P2P phenomenon, as already then (at the beginning of 2005) some believed they had developed organizational forms and principles that could be adopted in other fields with success1.

Collaboration has always existed, but only today its importance has been amplified to such levels that it is now considered more promising than competition. Thanks to the ITC distributed infrastructures, collaboration is being diffused as an organizational form outside of the Free Software / Open Source / P2P Communities.

To all these cases directly inspired by the Open P2P phenomenon2, I have added some cases that, even if not explicitly inspired by Open P2P, share some of its features (and therefore they could have been influenced indirectly)3 . And then I have added some previous cases (and therefore without relations with Open P2P), but that had developed community-based organizational forms able to build long collaborative networks with an active role of the participants4.

The existence of these last two categories is of fundamental importance: community-based organizational forms are not just for Open Source / Free Software / P2P software, but they are very important, and as they tend to develop some common characteristics, they can be used therefore for a wide range of situations and disciplines, independently from the degree of technology used. The Open Source / Free Software / P2P phenomenon is therefore important because it made us aware of the importance of community-based models and inspired us to search for similar cases. Moreover, they have shown own scalable and innovative organizational forms, adapted to face the challenges of a knowledge society.

All these cases represent community-based organizational forms, based on collaboration through the sharing of flows of information and sometimes of material resources. While traditional organizations are based on a vertical hierarchy that commands and controls, the Open P2P Communities are based on a horizontal network in which every participant commands itself and contributes to control the whole network. While in the vertical hierarchies the relationships are defined by power (top-down), in the Open P2P Communities they are defined by reputation (bottom-up). The structure is therefore an horizontal reticular type, where the reputation becomes a centripetal force of infuence towards the other participants. These communities can assume forms that are localized or virtual; they share the ability of self-organization during the development of a main activity for the solution of a specific problem, that the neither institutions neither the market had provided satisfactory solutions. Their community nature allows the creation of social capital,that could generate further processes of improvement of the local dimension, through the connections that they potentially can bring between short networks (the interest for the local dimension) with long networks (that involve a wide number of participants).

A loose definition, between many classifications

This is therefore the concise definition of those cases that I have called Open P2P Communities. For sure, like every classification, there is the risk of excessive generalization and therefore to group cases that represents different things. And as I was approaching to Free Software, Open Source and P2P for the first time, there could be some ingenuous statements. I hope you will understand and help me develop further this ideas collectively!

And as one year has passed from the discussion of my thesis, the definition of an Open P2P Community maybe should be rethought and redefined. Probably in the future it could be convenient or necessary to make a distinction between those cases in which the community risks to be â€œusedâ€ in order to produce value with an activity, and those cases in which is the community itself that directs its activity.

But for the moment I think it is better to continue to observe these phenomena, while they are living and developing, leaving any expectations of exaustive definitions for the future. Even so, this definition has been very useful for me, as it helped me to find a way between the wide number of cases. Let’s remain, at least for the moment, with a loose and adaptable definition.

But maybe it’s time to signal others two phenomena (or, therefore, also categories of definition) that became famous towards or after the end of my thesis, and that share relations with the Open P2P Communities. They are Web 2.0 and Crowdsourcing. I’m going to write something more about them on future posts, but for the moment I will explain what relations they share with Open P2P Communities, as some of these cases can be considered also as Web 2.0 or Crowdsourcing examples.

My research started from existing cases, with a wide and flexilbe classification at the beginning, and its point of departure was the Free Software / Open Source / P2P phenomenon and its diffusion to others fields. At the time (March 2005) the term Web 2.0 already existed, but it had not become so famous (it happened in 2006, according to me, with the success of YouTube) and developed completely. Therefore it seemed to me more useful to focus on the Free Software / Open Source / P2P phenomenon. And the Crowdsourcing term was born in June 2006, when the thesis was already finished.

Therefore, the main reason for the lack of Web 2.0 and Crowdsourcing inside the thesis is mainly due for a temporal factor. The interest towards the organizational forms and the principles developed in the Free Software (and Open Source and P2P) Communities was born end of the nineties. However, we had to wait until 2003 for the first awareness of this possibility, thanks to the Goetz’s article appeared on Wired5. The organizational methodology of the Open Source Communities are seen as the right infrastructure for a knowledge economy, just as the assembly line had been for the Fordist mass-production economy. The interest for Open Source / Free Software / P2P organizational forms was born therefore before the definition of Web 2.06.

Moreover, I think they represent phenomena closely correlates between each other. Web 1.0 has been developed by communities, with bottom-up and P2P dynamics, through sharing and Open Source / Free Software. Therefore it wasn’t Web 2.0 that introduced these dynamics, but they were already present since years in the computer science and programming sciene under the hacker ethic. Web 2.0 represents therefore a phase in which these dynamics have been widened, reinforced and spread further. Web (1.0, 2.0), Free Software / Open Source and P2P therefore should not be considered separately. The classification of Open P2P Communities, can be applied as well also for Web 2.0 services like YouTube.

Although the classifications of these cases are in constant development, it is possible to assume for the moment the partial classification of the Open P2P Communities. It has the advantage to collect cases directly inspired from the Free / Open Source / P2P Software as well the ones that are not recalled directly (but that share some principles and organizational formss), are they recent or antecedent cases. If we want to learn from communities, in order to design with and for communities, it can be useful to maintain such a classification (a loose one but focused on the community dimension).

An Open P2P Communities list (1.1)

Here you can find the list of Open P2P Communities I made during the development of the thesis (2005 – 2006). The number of cases has increased remarkablly since then, especially if we consider those cases that can be classified like Web 2.0 services and Crowdsourcing; for the moment let’s consider this directory, later on I will write about new interesting cases. The cases have been classified by the main activity these communities develop, gathering participants and building collaborative networks.

Collaborative networks that reach a critical mass of participants

Collaborative networks that manage informations and knowledge

Collaborative networks that develop scientific research

Collaborative networks that design

Collaborative networks that organize business activities

Collaborative networks that improve their local dimension

Collaborative networks that help other communities

Open P2P Communities and Participation

I have always said that these Open P2P Communities can self-organize themselves, and this affirmation should be explained better now. These communities are created in order to fix a problem through the development of a collaborative activity. The social relations can already be present but more often, if they develop through time, they rise from the development of the activity. Moreover, we can point out a distinction on the possible types of participation: there are two ways in which Open P2P Communities can self-organize. They can self-organize with:

a bottom-up participation: a community gather independently to fix a common problem (for example: Amul);
a top-down participation: a (public or private) service that allows the formation of a community and bases on it its operation is offered (for example: YouTube).

The fundamental point is: who takes the initiative and looks for persons in order to form a community? And with which goals?

For example: Free Software is bottom-up, Open Source and P2P could be bottom-up or top-down, Web 2.0 and Crowdsourcing are top-down.

Moreover, from this bottom-up and top-down distinction, we can ask another question: how much these communities are Open and P2P? Data, informations, processes, results are accessible in an Open and P2P way? This is a very important issue and should be studied more.

As a consequence, as designers, we could design for a community in two ways: offering our professional capabilities to existing communities, or designing and developing (public and private) community-based services.

Before we can get to the conclusions on my thesis, I should reassume one last thing: how can a designer relate to an Open P2P Community (and therefore towards an Open P2P Design).

How can we design for a community that gathers around a main collaborative activity?

(to be continued)

Mulgan G., Steinberg T., Salem O., “Wide Open. Open source methods and their future potential”, Demos, London 2005, http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/wideopen [↩]
For example: Thinkcycle, OSCar, Open Health. [↩]
For example: BBC Action Network, Neubauten.org, Pledgebank. [↩]
For example: Amul, Dabbawalla, Grameen Bank. [↩]
Goetz, T., “Open Source Everywhere. Software is just the beginning â€¦ open source is doing for mass innovation what the assembly line did for mass production. Get ready for the era when collaboration replaces the corporation”, Wired Issue 11.11, 2003 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/ [↩]
For example, Thinkcycle started on March 2000, 4 years before the Web 2.0 first definition [↩]

There are 9 comments

MrEHQE June 28, 2007 at 12:13

Bellissimo post, sono tutti concetti che avevo in testa e hai avuto la capacitÃ di ordinarli con metodologia ;)
Piuttosto, aprendo una discussione un pÃ² piÃ¹ nello specifico. Io faccio nascere il conetto di open p2p design con thinkcycle, sei d’accordo? Per te instrutables Ã¨ il prossimo youtube? Cosa Ã¨ il crowsourcing(http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing)? o.design Ã¨ bottom-up o top-down?

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Intro.06 Open P2P Communities

An early definition of Open P2P Communities