Software Freedom Day – the South African way

Filed under: General — kerryn @ 1:32 pm

software freedom daySoftware Freedom Day in Pretoria was attended by a variety of characters, from geeks, to students, to government officials and non-profit organization representatives, to open content advocates like Kerryn McKay and Andrew Rens from the African Commons Project, and myself.

The event was held at the high-tech Department of Science and Technology building. The morning’s proceedings consisted of a variety of presentations. These included Kerryn McKay and Andrew Rens’ presentation on Creative Commons. Kerryn demonstrated the multimedia curriculum ‘Copyright, Copyleft and everything in between.’ The training material has been developed as a pilot project with The Shuttleworth Fourndation, for grade 9 learners, and gives an overview of the history of copyright, the uses of open source software and open content from an African perspective.

Dwayne Bailey from Translate.org discussed the issues around translating software to allow all non-English speakers access to technology in South Africa. Anna Bodimo, chairperson and co-founder of LinuxChix Africa, told the audience about the organization which is one of the fastest growing female networks around the world. Her presentation was titled ‘Cinderella or Cyberella? Why the issue of women in FOSS is relevant in this era’, and advocated that women need to move away from being labeled ‘administrator’ (Cinderellas) towards fulfilling the role of technical developers (Cyberellas).

A Freedom Toaster was in full use at the venue, with people queuing to burn free software onto the CDs they had brought along. ‘Elephant’s Dream’, the first film created with open source software, and ‘Cosmic Africa’, were also screened.

This article has been adapted by the article generated by Daniela Faris for http://www.icommons.org

The commons at Highway Africa

Filed under: Featured Content — kerryn @ 2:40 pm

highway africa logoOn day 1 of the Highway Africa conference, which celebrated its 10th anniversary, a discussion about the ‘commons’ was held which looked at intellectual property rights, access to knowledge, alternative licensing and FLOSS.

The panel that presented the above concepts consisted of Vera Franz from OSI, Tutwane Letshwiti from the University of Botswana, Kerryn McKay representing Creative CommonsSA and Bob Joliffe from the CSIR’s Meraka Institute. The panel was chaired by OSISA’s Ashraf Patel.

IP Maximist versus Back-to-Balance
Vera Franz discussed the importance around the concept of intellectual property and the need for balance in representation when looking at the different schools of thought operating in this arena. She highlighted two main camps of thought, namely, the IP Maximists who believe that the more IP protection there is and the more ‘products’ protected through copyright, the better, and the Back to Balance camp which, whilst respecting IP and IP protection, believe that there is a point where the benefit to society decreases.

Vera also spoke about the two treaties that are currently being debated: The WIPO Casting Treaty, which is a pro-IP Maximist treaty that looks to extend the broad rights to distributors of content rather than just the creators. The other pro-Back to Balance treaty is the Access to Knowledge draft treaty which looks at international law empowering the rights of users.

Access to Knowledge
Tutwane Letshwiti explained the movement of A2K, defining it as the movement that seeks to make knowledge, in its broadest sense, accessible to all people. He, took, called for a balance of rights and representation, most especially in Africa, where there is a need to raise the continent’s ICT standards.

Tutwane spoke briefly about the cable system to which 23 African states have contributed, which will run from Durban in Kwa Zulu Natal, to the port of Sudan. The cable, which will be over 8.000km long, will slash internet and phone costs by a third within the next 5 years. “This means digitisation will be easy. Africa will be able to realise convergence between broadcast, television and the internet.”

iCommons: joining the dots across the globe
Kerryn McKay presented iCommons to the group, explaining that it is the subsidiary organisation of Creative Commons and will aim to hosting, facilitating and highlighting international projects which are being implemented around Creative Commons licences. She explained the importance of the incubation process, and how it will bring connect communities and their various projects so that people can learn from one another, share ideas, replicate projects and build a strong ‘commons’ for issues as diverse as culture, science and business.

FLOSS in Africa: the freedom to innovate
Bob Joliffe, veteran for the Open Source movement, spoke about ‘free software’ rather than open source software and its relation to ICT development. He said that the fundamental question to ask when rolling out ICT strategies is: do these strategies make us more free or less free. Bob listed a number of issues that should be considered, such as transparency and control over systems that control our lives, the freedom to learn through unpicking and playing with software (code) and the freedom to innovate.

Bob raised the warning bells around patents in Africa, and spoke about the hundreds of thousands of patents that are registered in patent offices around Africa. He said that unfortunately in Africa there is little critical analysis around patents and Africa is being used to register patents by international businesses, which simply reinforces the perceptioin that Africa is not a place where innovation comes from. For example in 2002, 150,000 patents were registered in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe alone and all of these applications were non-African. Bob stated: “When we talk about using free software to make us more free, and the infrastructure which can lead to our development, there are dangers that we must be aware of, and patents are one of these.”

Learning the Remix

Filed under: General — kerryn @ 10:52 am

The first ccSalon in South Africa proved to be less of a techno chat-fest and more of a learning experience for all involved.

Richard da III

You never really know what kind of people are going to turn up for a Creative Commons shindig.

It could be a collection of techno-experts (we don’t call them geeks in this community, thank you very much) who will baffle most people with discussions about Linux platforms and embedded systems.

Or you might run into the Cultural Freedom Fighters, who exist on the bleeding edge of the blogospehere and make culture like some people make money. Except, because they like to share their culture, a lot of the Cultural Freedom Fighters don’t make much money. But they do have nice laptops.

The last group you’ll generally spot at a CC party (usually standing very close to the cheese and wine tables) are the lawyers. These guys (and gals) talk about big important things like WIPO and IP and various Broadcast Acts in a way that most people can kind of figure out, but not fully understand.

Usually, the combination of the three is quite pleasant; they balance each other out, and conversation flows rather well. Everyone is generally on the same page when it comes to an understanding of the uses of CC and the various licences, and the potential that Creative Commons has to change the way we work, create and interact. But after a while, it does tend to get a little… self-referential.

Which is why the idea of a ccSalon is so great – it’s a way of bringing people (who don’t necessarily have much knowledge or experiences of CC) together into an informal space where they can learn and share and spread ideas and knowledge. And drink wine and eat little snacky things.

On the 31st of August, the first ccSalon was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. Through a canny mix of the space (the Gordart Gallery in Melville) and people invited (the usual CC suspects, as well as artists, journalists, musicians, remixers and pretty young things who had no knowledge of CC at all) the ccSA team put together an outstanding evening of music, ideas and collaboration that worked extremely well.

The theme for the evening was ‘Remix Nation’, which, in the context of a society with 11 official languages, more than 13 ethnic groups, and a national motto that translates into ‘Unity in Diversity’; the theme couldn’t have been more appropriate.

In fact, DJ and CC user RichardIII, who presented a series of mashups, put it perfectly: “I think there’s more to mashups than just mixing two pop songs together,’ he said, as his mix of Michael Jackson and Felix Laband got people bopping their heads. “It’s kind of a metaphor for living in the world – the extremes that you see in this city – a mashup is a way of taking two completely different things and putting them together. It says something.”

Artist Nathaniel Stern’s presentation on remix art. Focusing primarily on the work that he made during his time as the artist in residence at the iSummit in Rio De Janeiro earlier this year, he explained that, as artists creating work in the modern world, we are all, inherently, collaborators.

This idea of collaboration was also transmitted in an immediate, hands-on way by the décor. Visitors to the salon (can we call them salonistas?) were invited to remix traditional stories in visuals and words, and draw on giant paper cut-outs to create their own collaborative portraits. The value of these types of exercises in showing people how collaborative works are shaped by every one involved is priceless for showing the practical uses of CC as a creative tool.

The evening wound up with duo MtKidu, who mixed beats and visuals as another example of how remixing and reworking creativity can produce unique works. Actually, no, that’s a lie. The presentations may have ended there, but the party really wound up at Berlin Bar, where RichardIII played some more, and the new ccSalonistas learnt that copyright pioneers also know how to party.

words by Rebecca Khan