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Why aren't we all using Open Source Software?

Listening to Axel Brun’s Podcast on open source software, I began to wonder why we all aren’t using open source software. Why commercial software, in particular Microsoft, has not become redundant?

The first appeal of open source software is that it is free. Why do we pay to use commercial products such as Windows and Microsoft Office when we can use Linux and OpenOffice for free? Rather than waiting extended periods of time for the next commercial software upgrade, we can get continually download open source software upgrades as they occur. And we can download them for free.

Commercial companies are restricted as they can only employ a limited amount of staff to work on their software. Open source has an unlimited number of volunteers working on and improving software for a combination of both altruistic and individual motivations (Feller et al, p.xix). Therefore with the potential of more people working on the software, there is the potential for much faster development. Also, with more transparency, developments occur in direct response to user requests and suggestions.

Open Source seems to good to be true until you consider its limitations discussed by Axel Bruns. Open Source software relies on attracting and maintaining a viable community. If at sometime the community drops off then the software will cease to exist. Similarly, open source relies on maintaining interest in its community of user and redevelopers. If there is no interest in the project then it won’t continue. Open source software evolves to answer developers needs not end users. And therefore many open source projects do not focus on user interface. Commercial software companies can motivate there employees to do tasks that are seen as boring but are vital to the products success. In open source, the necessary and boring parts of project may not be done. Therefore, users may feel reluctant due to a lack of trust with the reliability of such software.

Finally, the point that Axel made that people become comfortable and familiar with commercial products and don’t like the idea of moving and learning new ways of doing things is something that I am guilty of. While this is off the topic of open source software, I am reluctant to change from a PC to a Mac purely because I have only ever used a PC. I know how it works and I am comfortable using it. The Mac seems so foreign to me and so while I can still use a PC, i don’t see a reason to learn how to use a Mac. I feel the same with open source, while it does have its benefits, until there is a real need for me to use it, I will stay put with commercial software.

What is Web 2.0?

There is no question that the internet environment has changed dramatically as we have entered the age of participation. The name web2.0 was coined by O'Reilly and MediaLive International in a brainstorming session to contrast to what was labelled web1.0.


The differences between web1.0 and web2.0 were descibed by examples such as:

• From publishing to participating
• From Britannica to Wikipedia
• From personal websites to blogs
• From page views to costs per click
• From directories to tagging

All of these feature indicate a mover from the collective, passive audience, to an individual, active audience. As Axel discussed in his podcast, the rules surrounding Web2.0 focus on the delivering of software as a service. Google epitomises this service paradigm as it works on "no scheduled software releases, just continuous improvement and no licensing or sale, just usage." This contrasts to Web1.0, which focused on the delivering of software as a product. Web2.0 then focuses on allowing these services to be re -used and re-devloped by others and harnessing collective itelligence.

As Ryan Singel described: Web2.0 is "based on social software where users generate content, rather than simply consume it, and on open programming interfaces that let developers add to a web service or get at data. It is an arena where the web rather than the desktop is the dominant platform, and organization appears spontaneously through the actions of the group, for example, in the creation of folksonomies created through tagging." The Long tail, and DIY communities such as citizen journalism and open source software are all part of the Web2.0 era.

When researching the concept of Web 2.0, i came across this interesting point made by Paul Graham when discussing democracy as a feature of Web 2.0:
"We now have several examples to prove that amateurs can surpass professionals, when they have the right kind of system to channel their efforts. Wikipedia may be the most famous. Experts have given Wikipedia middling reviews, but they miss the critical point: it's good enough. And it's free, which means people actually read it. On the web, articles you have to pay for might as well not exist. Even if you were willing to pay to read them yourself, you can't link to them. They're not part of the conversation."
Does this mean that in web2.0, the quality of information is decreasing? Are DIY communities such as the Wikipedia and citizen journalism sites changing what we view as ‘news’ or information?

This also raises question as to where web2.0 will lead. Will we eventually see a change entirely to citizen and community production that will replace professionals in the industry? This possible threat of participatory users on the entertainment industry has been dismissed by InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller who argued that "There are very few people in very few closets in very few rooms that are really talented and can't get out. People with talent and expertise at making entertainment products are not going to be displaced by 1,800 people coming up with their videos that they think are going to have an appeal." This seems like a overdramatised view, but i agree that it is unlikely.

The Long Tail

"If your goal is to make a hit movie – but not necessarily a good movie – you must follow the Hollywood rules."

The blockbuster has always met the following criteria: big star, big budget and big audience. I have to admit that growing up, i restricted my media consumption to the mainstream. I even believed that the content that made it to cinema or that could be found in stores was reflective of its worth and value. I worked at a cinema for 6 years and can remember believing that if a film didn’t make it to the big screen then it obviously wasn’t very good. Of course I didn’t think that every film that made it to cinema was good, but I naively assumed that if a film deserved to, it would.

Before university, I had never really considered Chris Anderson’s concept of the long tail. Living on campus at university, I was introduced to a computer network where music and films and videos were downloaded and shared at ease and the preconceived ideas I had about media content were diminished. As trendwatching.com (2005) stated “the only reason mass used to equal 'hit', had to do with the now outdated perception that if something sells well, it must certainly be good. Now, with consumers not only being comfortable wandering further from the beaten path, but the beaten path also being much easier to leave (thank you WWW), they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought.”

It is now so easy to access content that was once restricted by its distribution. Previously, our viewing and concept of a ‘hit’ was moulded by what was chosen to be placed in front of us, which was usually determined by funding. If a program wasn’t screened on free to air television the chances of most people even knowing it existed were pretty slim. Physical retailers will only carry content that can generate sufficient demand to earn its keep. But each can pull only from a limited local population (Anderson, 2004). Living away from the city, my film viewing was restricted to the small number of films showing at the local 5 screen cinema and the 3000 or so titles that fit on the shelves at the local civic video.

Step in Amazon.com, iTunes and Netflix. As Anderson discusses Online retailers such as these have provided audiences with distribution medium that doesn’t favor the 'hits ' alone. The internet landscape enables online retailers to service all customers from various geographical locations from a small number of warehouses. The location of fans no longer matters as they don't need to worry about limited shelf space. Therefore more titles are available and easily found, which service a large variety of niche interests. These niche interests are what makes up Andersons Long Tail. The anatomy of the long tail, shows the huge difference in the number of titles and as Alex Iskold (2007) states, "how collectively, things that are in rather low demand can amount to quite large volumes. This is because there is a large number of people who belong to the long tail and they encompass a wide rage of tastes."

While the long tail is certainly becoming an important consideration for business, i doubt it will ever completely wipe out the mainstream. They will continue to co-exist together. Content moves from the long tail into the mainstream and vice versa as it becomes more or less popular. It is important for all productions to be available and i agree that more people will continue to look for niche interests in the long tail. However, i also believe that the mainstream is important as it connects indivduals and indicates wide cultural beliefs and values.

Anderson, C. (2004) "The Long Tail." Wired 12.10. Accessed May 2, 2008 from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

Trendwatching.com. "Nouveau Niche." March 2005. http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/nouveau_niche.htm

Why participate??

As Axel Bruns pointed out in his podcast on networked societies, we are constantly making decisions about how we interact with technology. We choose whether to be passive audiences or participating users. We decide whether we are satisfied with mass media or whether to go hunting for niche interests. We choose how we use media technology and the purposes we give them in our everyday lives and culture.

In the new media age we are witnessing, it is argued that people no longer passively “consume” media (and thus advertising, its main revenue source) but actively participate in them. I agree that we are more engaged and involved with our media consumption but I question the level of participation that is suggested audiences have. I think that over time as new media has developed we have become less trusting of media and more skeptical of what is placed in front of us, leading towards more media and newer forms being introduced. I think a lot of our participation on the internet comes from entertainment or functional aspects and not because we are retaliating against the power of large corporations. We actively participate with the functions and applications that are made available to us, so isn’t that passive consumption??

The passive audience has negative connotations. It implies they can be easily manipulated, vulnerable, placing their wellbeing in the hands of large media corporations. It also implies that they are homogeneous and their likes and dislikes all fall into the category of mainstream media.

Despite the negative connotations, I consider myself to be more of a passive audience then a participatory user. My participation in media goes to the extent of a facebook page and these blogs which I am doing for an assignment. I am quite content in my consumption of media. I would rather come home and turn on the TV or go to the movies rather then create my own or participate in the creation or interpretation of media. Half of the media and technologies appeal is that it is done for me. Now this can be seen as lazy and it probably is, but i don't consider myself vulnerable. I know what i like and what i dislike and feel free to make those decisions whether they are mainstream or niche.

Sure there are people who take their dissatisfaction with media and decide to create their own, but who are these enthusiasts? And how many of them are there? Why spend a lot of time creating additions for computer games or creating videos if you don't receive anything in return? Maybe this is just a pessimistic view, but until there appears to be actual worth in participating to that extent, I doubt many of us actually would.

CouchSurfing around the world

Two nights ago, i had dinner at my friends house. Their friend Scott also came with a guest; a french guy named Batisse who he had met through couchsurfing.com. Scott had recently been overseas and travelled around europe staying in many countries with people he had corresponded with on couchsurfing. The CouchSurfing Project is a free international Internet-based hospital service, and currently the largest hospitalilty exchange network (Wikipedia, 2008). As stated on the registration page of its website:

"CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance and facilitate cultural understanding. As a community we strive to do our individual and collective parts to create a better world, and we believe that the surfing of couches is a means to accomplish this goal. CouchSurfing is not about the furniture, not just about finding free accommodations around the world; it's about making connections worldwide. We make the world a better place by opening our homes, our hearts, and our lives. We open our minds and welcome the knowledge that cultural exchange makes available. We create deep and meaningful connections that cross oceans, continents and cultures. CouchSurfing wants to change not only the way we travel, but how we relate to the world!"

The Fake Relationships of Facebook

The social networking site, Facebook describes itself as "a social utility that connects you with the people around you." However, i believe that rather than connecting us, facebook is disconnecting us and weakening our real world relationships. Whilst barriers that previously restricted communication, such as geographical boundaries, have been broken down by the social networking site, allowing for people to construct and maintain friendships, many relationships that have been formed are superficial, based on false identities and would not survive in reality.

As Hodgkinson argues, Facebook "encourages a disturbing competitivness around friendship." In online communities it seems that with friends, quality counts for nothing and quantity is everthing. I'm positive that most people have friends in their list who they would not speak to if they past them in the street. Yet online, individuals find it necessary to classify these people as their 'friends' and indulge them, with photos and personal information about themselves. These friend requests are likely to be for obscure reasons; they were in your grade 2 class or know someone who used to date your cousin, and are added for the pure sake of building your friend tally as an indication of your popularity. In doing this, individuals are flaunting a constructed identity of themselves and results in constructing imagined relationships between people who do not or can not maintain a relationship in reality.

“Participants in virtual communities increasingly come to view ‘real life’ as simply one window through which a personality is developed and expressed, and that computer mediated communication constitutes a constructive and potentially liberatory space through which the obese can become slender, the beautiful plain, the “nerdy”sophisticated" (Flew, 2005, 64). Facebook like other social networking sites allows individuals to create an identity of themselves and show it off to a wide audience. How can facebook connect you with the people around you, if the identities of the people have been exaggerated or are completely untrue? Without establishing a genuine face to face relationship with someone, it is impossible to know for sure if their virtual identity is truthful.

Facebook has changed the way we communicate. Rather than directly communicate with one another, we now look to the 'news feed' and 'staus' of individuals for gossip and information. Rather then make a phone call, we write on each others wall. Facebook is disconnecting people by allowing their relationships to exist purely online and eliminate face to face contact. Relationships are not defined until they are defined on Facebook and the way they are defined is restricted to a short drop down box you can choose from. I have added an amusing video to my blog page which i found on YouTube. It satirizes the way we interact with each other on facebook, comparing this to the real world.

With applications such as "rate your friends," 'top friends" and "compare friends," facebook is disconnecting people by becoming a source for exclusion and bullying. Facebook allows people to display opinions of each other in a passive, indirect method. Is the point of rating the 'hotness' of your friends, not indirectly to say that others are not as 'hot'? Events are also open for your friends to see who is and isn't invited. Facebook and other social networking sites are providing an arena for people to publicly humiliate one another from the comfort of their bedrooms.

Facebook does provide an easy way to communicate with those around you and in different geographical locations. However, i think its functions have been abused and the result is that face to face relationships are weakening. We no longer go to each other, but rely on what is displayed on our facebook pages for confirmation and self assurance.

Flew, T. (2005). Virtual Cultures in T. Flew, New media : an introduction, Melbourne: OUP, pp.61-82.

How has the relationship between media producers and audiences changed in recent years?

In recent years, the relationship between media producers and audiences has undergone significant transformation. The boundaries and meanings of each have changed as society has witnessed a convergence of consumption and production (Banks, 2002, p.198). Axel Bruns development of the term Produsage, highlights this change which has come about due to the advent of new media technologies, allowing a once passive audience to become actively engage in their media consumption (Jenkins, 2002, p.167).

In the past, it has been argued that audience members simply wanted to watch television and other media, rather than interact with it (Jenkins, 2006, p.59). In the new participatory culture that is taking shape, audiences are no longer powerless against media industries and have taken some control over the media they use. An advertisement for Apple Box Productions Inc, described by Henry Jenkins (2006, p.64), epitomises the new youth audience: “No longer a couch potato (if he ever was), he determines what, when, and how he watches media. He is itinerant – free of commitments to particular series, going where his fancy takes him.”

Audiences now expect and demand that corporations will not only listen to their views but also enter into active dialogue with them (Banks, 2002, p.189). This change from traditional one way communication, to more open ended exchanges between producers and consumers has been argued to have come as a result of the advent of internet based communication tools (Banks, 2002, p.189). These tools are also enabling audiences to archive, appropriate and recirculate media content (Jenkins, 2002, p.157). Video sharing sites such as YouTube and social networking sites, such as Myspace and Facebook, allow audiences the opportunity to create their own media content, share it with one another and receive ratings and feedback from a mass audience (Jenkins, 2006, p.72). Online communities have broken down barriers, such as geographical locations, that once restricted media consumption and communication and allowed for the distribution of user generated content without media industries involvement (Jenkins, 2002, p.158).

An interesting example of produsage is the online game culture also demonstrates the overlapping roles of producer and audience in the emergence of fan-created content. The current trend for game development companies is to release game editing tools which allow skilled and creative players to produce new material for the game (Banks, 2002, p.189). The Sims is an excellent example of the computer game industry ‘enlisting and leveraging the online community fans into a commercially successful network’ (Banks, 2002, p.198). The Sims encourages players to produce and trade new character identities, props and architectural structures. Its creator, Will Wright has predicted that “two-thirds of the games content will come from consumers” (Jenkins, 2002, p.166). But what then do the consumers gain for their efforts? If they are producing content purely for the game production companies and not recieving a part of the profits, then why do it?

Another example of produsage at work is appropriated media content such as fan films. Online media tools allow for audiences to appropriate media content and share their creations with a mass audience. This gives them greater power over producers as they are can selectively choose and modify the media they consume. This represents a potential loss of control over intellectual property for many media producers (Jenkins, 200, p.165). As Jenkins (2002, p.163) states: “Amateur film culture has already made an impact on the commercial mainstream and in the future they may initiate many innovations in popular culture that gain higher visibility as they are pulled into mainstream media, just as the fans appropriate and recirculate materials from commercial culture.”

User generated content does not stop there, we are witnessing it evolve in many other areas such as open source software and citizen journalism. As i write this blog, i am no longer a passive audience, i am actively involved in my media consumption. I am a produser: blending the role between user and producer.


Banks, J. (2002). Gamers as Co-creators: Enlisting the Virtual Audience – A Report From the Net Face. In M. Balnaves, T. O’Regan and J. Sternberf (eds) Mobilising the Audience (pp.188-212). St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.

Jenkins, H. (2002). Interactive Audiences? In D. Harries (ed.) The New Media Book (pp.157-170). London: BFI Publishing.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Buying into American Idol: How We Are Being Sold on Reality Television, Convergence Culture (pp.59-92). New York: New York University Press.

Technologies become cultural technologies in the way they produce and distribute content and in turn create and shape systems of knowledge and social meaning. Technologies are no longer just physical objects and tools that we use, but they now effect the way we interact and live within society and how we produce and interpret meaning.

Tecnologies and culture cannot be defined entirely seperate from one another. Their meanings are intertwined.