Definition

The world is increasingly divided. The world is increasingly bitterly divided. Of all the things I worry about late at night, lying in bed unable to sleep, the almost absolute absence of civility in our nation’s political discourse has loomed largest lately. Everyone on the left seems to think everyone on the right is a moron. Everyone on the right seems to think everyone on the left is a moron. The louder you scream and the meaner the things you say, the greater standing you seem to have in your political group. The recent round of vilifications of “Republicans in Name Only” and “Democrats in Name Only” provides a preview of what may soon come - an America where radicalism (i.e., actions and words showing your allegiance to either the radical right or the radical left) becomes the primary political currency. There is precious little room left for those in the center who put pragmatics before ideology and would rather discuss and understand than accuse and belittle. ...

So, the OKF claim to define the open in open content. I’ve come to terms with the fact that few people actually read what I write. But that’s still no excuse for people coming along six years later (in 2004), co-opting my terminology, and then getting the definition wrong by 180 degrees. If they want to define the open in open knowledge, that’s their business. However, the definition of the open in open content is available at http://opencontent.org/definition/. ...

I’m extremely grateful for George’s recent post, “Open isn’t so open anymore.” It’s thoughtful and thought-provoking. I won’t respond to the post sentence for sentence, but I do want to respond to some of the major points. Hopefully an interesting dialog will ensue (I believe this is George’s goal as well). I’m going to cut and paste pieces from throughout together in order to respond to similar thoughts in one place. ...

I’ve seen a lot of confusion on the interwebz lately about the meaning of the term open - like people linking to copyrighted videos posted illegally in YouTube as examples of OERs. Since I have a keen interest in people understanding the term “open content” the way I originally intended for them to, I will soon be adding a “definition” section to opencontent.org. (I think of the “open” in open educational resources the same way, though I neither have nor claim special authority to clarify its definition.) Here’s a first draft of what will appear there. Your feedback would be appreciated. (You may recognize some of this as material that has appeared on my blog in the past.) ...