Open Genealogy Alliance

The manifesto posted at opengenalliance.org is something that I can very much support.

As part of RootsTech 2012, I'm going to sign up for an open hour to talk about open content licenses.  Anyone who has an interest in this topic, please get in touch with me and we can collaborate on the presentation.

I wonder what it will take to get some more visible & material signs of support from archives, libraries, societies, museums, or genealogical content companies on that site.

Something like the contributors listed on opencontentalliance.org.

Perhaps a link to the Better Than Free article is in order.  My personal resources are small, but if there is any kind of material support I can give to the opengenalliance.org effort, I want to do so.

Here are a few examples I could find of license information on open content sites (some related to genealogy, some not):

• http://www.geni.com/company/terms_of_use (search for "Proprietary Rights in Content")
• http://www.genealogywiki.org/index.cfm/home/copyrightNotice
• http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Help:FAQ#Can_I_copyright_the_information_that_I_contribute_to_WeRelate.3F
• http://www.sinclairgenealogy.info/creative-commons
• http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_use
• http://openlibrary.org/developers/licensing
• http://www.opencontentalliance.org/faq/#link3
• http://www.opencontentalliance.org/faq/#link4
• http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php#Rights

Playing catch-up

The world is changing all the time, which implies the requirement of constant learning to keep current. In other words, you are always behind.

If you accept the fact that you are always going to be behind, in one way or another, the problem then becomes more tractable. How, in a limited amount of time, can you bootstrap yourself into a learning environment where you can catch up enough to get something working?

The core questions are:

1. What to learn? (because of the limited time, you know you have to be selective)
   
2. How to go about it? (because of the limited time, and the constant churn, you have to be a quick learner/applier)
   

Andy Hunt wrote a book about pragmatic learning. Clayton Christensen wrote several books about disruptive innovation. The Wikipedia contributors wrote an article about the term "learning curve". The ideas in these books can be instructive.

I have my own opinion about the matter.

My answers to the core questions are:

1. Look around and get creative about how you can apply about-to-be-stable newer technology to the software problem at hand.
2. Climb the dynamic learning curve by becoming an "early adopter".

Being an "early adopter" is a productive approach to bootstrapping yourself into a rich learning environment. The key to quality learning is keeping it real & experiential. And trying new technology out and trying to apply it to the task at hand is certainly real & experiential.

The part that makes this whole learning equation possible is that the "innovators" actually need the "early adopters" in order to gain traction and stability. In an open world, that means that you can use early adoption as a means by which it is always possible to inject yourself into a rich and productive learning environment.

After I play this game for a while and become skilled at it, I'm guessing there will be a point at which I will want to have a talk with Paul Graham about a startup. Or maybe I will care about being an innovator in my family more than being famous in a technical sphere. Who knows.

Counterpoint

Donald Knuth is the classic example of someone whose life mission specifically excludes playing month-to-month catch-up. Oh, and by the way, that page returns the following HTTP header (in 2010):

Last-Modified: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 04:39:22 GMT

Even the innovation-encouraging Paul Graham wrote an article about addiction that cautions about blanket acceptance of technical improvements.

Vote with your money

There are prediction markets that people have set up. But those feel like a gimmick to me.

I want a place where I can say:

If you can provide a product that meets the following specifications, at the following price, I obligate myself to buy that product at that price.

I want to be able to state conditions like:

• all software in this product conforms to an OSDL-approved license
• the model of car you build has received at least 3/5 rating by Consumer Reports in such-and-such a category
  
• this cell phone comes with a data-only plan
• the out-of-print book that you publish must be hardback
• the eBook reader you create must be able to display scaled PDFs that can be zoomed and panned
  

I want to be able to have a publicly-viewable, prioritized wish list. I want to put things on my wish list that do not yet exist, but that would be very useful to me. I want to be able to say "Me too" to an item on my friend's list and place it on my list at the appropriate priority. And I want to be able to set an annual spending cap, beyond which I am not obligated to purchase anything further.

And I want vendors to be able to query this site for what kind of demand there is for certain kinds of products. And I want vendors to be able to say: "OK, you said you'd buy it, I'm producing it, and if I give it to you in 6 months, you're committed to buy it." The user who posted his/her desired product can specify how much lead time would be acceptable. For instance, I could say: "I don't want you to require any more than 3 months production time for this item."

And it is a binding contract at that point, as long as the item ends up meeting the stated criteria when it is delivered. After the production process starts, a purchaser would be prevented from re-prioritizing or otherwise adjusting his list in such a way that pushes that item below the "obligitory purchase" spending cap line. And if a user defaults on the contract, then the details are publicly visible; likewise for a vendor.

My intent is to have a system that can create REAL demand for useful, not-yet-existing products without having a bunch of focus groups giving stupid requirements to business execs who work up some product that pins its users into a corner in one way or another.