Comments on: Why Open Source Software is Social Media

By: What is social media? | The Online Portfolio of Jeffery K. Guin

What is social media? | The Online Portfolio of Jeffery K. Guin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:55:06 +0000

[...] technical terms, the social media phenomenon is a fusion of cross-platform technology, open-source web code and the interactive presentation of audio, photos, videos and text. But at its heart, it’s [...]

By: Preservation Today » Blog Archive » What is social media?

Preservation Today » Blog Archive » What is social media? — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:37:34 +0000

By: Brit Butler

Brit Butler — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 22:17:47 +0000

I realize I’m a bit late to this discussion but oh well. This has been one of the more enjoyable things I’ve read today and on your blog, James. Thinking about points 1 and 5 reminded me of a quote from Steven Weber’s “The Success of Open Source” page 151. Perhaps it will contribute to the dialog here:
“The problem is, computing power is simply not the key resource in this ecosystem…Meaning and value depend on human mind space and the commitment of time and energy by very smart people to a creative enterprise.”

Isn’t that the key to 5? Social Media seems to be exactly the sort of thing that would be spoken about in terms of attention economics. Substitute producers and consumers for publishers and spectators though and you’re back to an economic framework of scarcity in which case the cost falls on the producers in the form of mind space and the consumers get free\libre software. That’s the discontinuity. Social media is using attention economics terms…and I think if you had to force open source users into those categories then the developers are the publishers and the users are the spectators. Just a thought.

By: jgovernor

jgovernor — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:57:11 +0000

Pat and Deb - thanks very much for taking the time to blog on the notion.

By: Pat Patterson

Pat Patterson — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:31:12 +0000

Not sure if my trackback worked, so here’s a manual one:

By Pat Patterson : Superpatterns: Open Source builds communities, not software on 31 July at 10:30 AM PDT

James Governor of Redmonk (I might jeopardize our ranking in the next magic quadrant if I say that he’s the best software analyst on the planet. D’oh!) reckons that Open Source Software is Social Media. I agree wholeheartedly [...]

By: Deb’s Blog » Blog Archive » Warning: Social networking can be addictive

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 07:40:32 +0000

[...] in these types of social networking sites as well. James Governor has some thoughts on how open source is a social media. I definitely agree that open source is very social, although not in the traditional definition of [...]

By: Mike Taylor

Mike Taylor — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:53:43 +0000

I would put forth the point that Open Source Software is primarily about the social aspects of creation. A great project is great because of *both* the code behind the project and the people within it. It’s the sharing (or lack) of knowledge and information in the community of the project that draws in or repeals people to/from the project.

Rarely do I hear of a project being great purely because of the code, it’s always because of the people.

By: Al

Al — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:17:39 +0000

Couple of additions :-

1. You should be able to define the social object your service is built around.
code

+ Code and or software (binaries)

2. Define your verbs that your users perform on the objects. For instance, eBay has buy and sell buttons. It’s clear what the site is for.
source code and version control

+ source code, version control and downloads

3. How can people share the objects?
depends on the license

+ Generally, free access to source and binaries as well as online knowledge base. I would also add peer learning for active participants

4. Turn invitations into gifts.
this will help you too, can you help me improve it for both of us?

+ Things like commit access can also be seen as gifts earned

5. Charge the publishers, not the spectators.
not sure how this maps to OSS

+ This is applicable only when there is a business model, in open source that often means paid for support licenses, hosting and or services

Just figured I would add to your great summary of comparison betwixt these to phenomenas.

I would also add that OpenSource was probably one of the earliest benefactors of the internet, and certainly the first of the social media applications, they in many ways blazed the trail.

regards
Al

By: Luis Suarez

Luis Suarez — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:15:51 +0000

Great post, James, and along the lines of something that seems to be emerging at the moment as well within the area of Knowledge Management or Knowledge Sharing. If you take that social media on its own is one of the areas of focus from knowledge sharing, then I think that open source and KM share a whole bunch of commonalities that not many people have been identifying thus far. However, folks like Knowledge Management Online (KM Online Open Source KM) would certainly provide you with the connection between open source and KM, and with social media, for that matter.
I just wish more people would realise about how closely connected are open source and knowledge sharing in the working environment and how open source has contributed tremendously in changing some of the main key paradigms behind KM, i.e. collaboration, conntent management, expertise location, social media, etc.
So, to me, social media and OSS are very much closely related, indeed! Now we need to keep spreading the message about it!