[okfn-coord] Little book of openness?

Tue Apr 7 20:08:28 UTC 2009

I had an idea that I've been meaning to raise for a few months.

Basically to collect very concise and elegant statements (around a
sentence to a paragraph) about the value and benefits of openness from
across the various communities we have contact with (Peter Suber,
Peter Murray Rust, Tim Hubbard, Cameron Neylon, John Wilbanks, Hans
Rosling, James Boyle, Larry Lessig, Tom Steinberg, Richard Allan, Tom
Watson, Vivek Kundra, Tim Berners-Lee, Tim O Reilly, Jimmy Wales, Cory
Doctorow, ...).

These would be compiled, along with nice pictures
(compelling/innovative visualisations/mashups of open data, collages
from public domain images, visual metaphors for openness, ...) as a
book, which we could publish under an open license, and also aim to
have printed by a small press publisher as a limited edition run (like
a 'gift book') - with a donation to OKF for each copy sold.

It would try to cut to the chase about what excites people about open
knowledge - and present evidence, arguments, anecdotes and metaphors
aimed at the general public.

Obviously this would take a fair bit of time to put together and to
get right (1-2 years?). Do people think this could be worth doing?

(I'm raising it here rather than on okfn-discuss in the first
instance, as I think the best way to do this would be to draft a brief
proposal doc, and contact prospective contributors individually.)

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org