Prospectus: 'The Future Is Open' for Composition Studies: An Alternative Intellectual Property Model for the Digital Age

Why has openness so far been neglected in the field of Composition and Rhetoric? Most likely because until recently, open source has been publicly viewed as the domain of hackers, a fringe movement which has gained recognition as an effective software developmental model only in the last few years; indeed, some in the information technology industry, thanks largely to the success of Linux, now see open source as more effective for creating software than proprietary, closed source production models. The concepts of open access and open content are themselves also fairly new. The open access movement, for example, has gained most of its momentum since the Public Library of Science initiative began in September 2001. Similarly, the latest developments in intellectual property which shape a more gloomy prediction for access to digital texts?for example, the 2002Why has openness so far been neglected in the field of Composition and Rhetoric? Most likely because until recently, open source has been publicly viewed as the domain of hackers, a fringe movement which has gained recognition as an effective software developmental model only in the last few years; indeed, some in the information technology industry, thanks largely to the success of Linux, now see open source as more effective for creating software than proprietary, closed source production models. The concepts of open access and open content are themselves also fairly new. The open access movement, for example, has gained most of its momentum since the Public Library of Science initiative began in September 2001. Similarly, the latest developments in intellectual property which shape a more gloomy prediction for access to digital texts?for example, the 2002 Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act?are so recent that they have yet had opportunity to exit the publication cycle, despite advanced interdisciplinary conversations in electronic venues which have moved beyond the analysis available in Composition and Rhetoric scholarship. —Charlie Lowe —Prospectus: ‘The Future Is Open’ for Composition Studies: An Alternative Intellectual Property Model for the Digital Age (Cyberdash)

This is Charlie’s dissertation prospectus. Sounds very exciting. Charlie is always refreshing and stimulating (except when he’s obsessing about Drupal ;) ) because blogs or wikis or content management systems or individual media objects are, for him, never an end in themselves; they are just one piece in a puzzle that includes multiple different technologies and, most important, the mindset that generates the need for those technologies (and which also generates the resistance to technology that threaten the status quo).