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Open Code / Open Content / Open Law: Building a Digital Commons

Strategic Planning Session Paper

Published

Excerpt from summary:

The Internet was born of public spirit out of government and education. It grew in the eighties as an open domain. In the nineties it was discovered by capital investors, who realized that investment in Internet produced exponential return. So began a still-growing rush of capital into the Internet that has produced an unprecedented growth of the proprietary domain. But there has been no balancing growth of the open domain. Rather, we must organize and build it. We need to convince our institutions - government, academic, philanthropic - that the creation of a substantial open domain serves their missions.

Our institutions are largely run by people who do not understand the medium into which they are being rushed. To persuade our institutions to invest themselves in an open knowledge domain, we need to offer comprehensive vision, scalable demonstration, open organization, and a positive business plan.