Wikimania, the first annual conference on wikis, has just begun in Frankfurt. Wikis are spreading like weeds and there seems to be no end to the potential for the free culture movement. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, is guest blogging at the Lessig Blog and is posting on Ten Things That Will be Free. Gist:
I will be blogging for Larry Lessig for the next couple of weeks, most of which I will be at the Wikimania conference in Frankfurt, Germany. Wikimania is the first major conference of the Wikimedia Community, and my keynote opening talk on Friday will be entitled “Ten Things That Will Be Free”.
The list is inspired by Hilbert’s problems. In 1900, at a conference in Paris, German mathematician David Hilbert presented 10 problems, from a list which ended up being 23. These problems influenced mathematics strongly in the coming years, serving as a focal point for the research and work of thousands of mathematicians.
I hope that my list will serve as a similar inspiration for the free culture movement. Many of the 10 are already well under way but need definition and focus, a coming together of a single coherent community. Others are in the earliest stages.
I started to name the list “Ten Things That Must Be Free” – but this sounded to me too much like an empty political demand. And the point is: this is not a dream list of things which I hope through some magic to become free, but a list of things which I believe are solvable in reality, things that will be free. Anyone whose business model for the next 100 years depends on these things remaining proprietary better watch out: free culture is coming to get you.
I will be presenting the ten things over the next ten days, but I will let you in on a little secret. I haven’t finished the list. In true collaborative style, I want to invite you to participate in the finalization and formation of the list.
Wales’ post for yesterday is a stunning example of the potential of the free culture movement: free educational curriculum. Gist:
The second thing that will be free is a complete curriculum (in all languages) from Kindergarten through the University level. There are several projects underway to make this a reality, including our own Wikibooks project, but of course this is a much bigger job than the encyclopedia, and it will take much longer.
In the long run, it will be very difficult for proprietary textbook publishers to compete with freely licensed alternatives. An open project with dozens of professors adapting and refining a textbook on a particular subject will be a very difficult thing for a proprietary publisher to compete with. The point is: there are a huge number of people who are qualified to write these books, and the tools are being created to leave them to do that.
This is going to change everything.