[okfn-advisory] Open Knowledge positioning

Daniel Dietrich daniel.dietrich at okfn.org
Mon Mar 2 18:01:40 UTC 2015


HI Hannes, all,

no reasons to disagree. I was not arguing that OKF as global network should have a position on everything and engage equally in all struggles of humanity ;) In fact I wrote that I am in favour of having a clear focus - as most others that have contributed to the debate so far. 

Her is the addition: There are "several digital rights issues that have significant affect on the work" (this argument is similar to what Peter said). 

While OKF should remain having a clear focus it should also have a clear position to those issues that have potential to undermine our work for open data and open knowledge. This could be done with relatively low recourses by signing/or joining campaigns (that are mainly driven and organised by partner orgs). This has actually happened in the past. I think there is no dissent here, really.

Shell we do more dedicated political campaigns or engage in lobbying activities?

While I agree that political lobbying makes most sense in a local or national context, I think there are issues that affect many of us at the time. For example EU copyright reform or TTIP. Why not join forces here?

By the way "Politburo" is a misleading term, as it refers to something very different. I think a good example for what we could do is what Wikimedia does in finally paying one person for monitoring and lobbying on policy issues in Brussels. Although it enables only one lobbyist in favour openness against 100 of lobbyists against openness, I think this is well invested money and has little to do with "paying another suit going to fancy international conferences". It has also little to do with building more central structures. 

However, I agree that acknowledging that professionalised lobbying activities could play an important role to our work, just as other activities, is not at the core of this debate. Lets keep this for later.

I am interested hearing more voices!

All best
Daniel




> On 1 Mar 2015, at 18:35, Hannes Gassert <hannes at gassert.ch> wrote:
> 
> Daniel, everyone,
> 
> Let me take a different position here. I strongly favour the approach of doing one thing and one thing well. We are not the EFF, we are not the CCC, and we should not become try to become an organisation with such large a scope without need. You say that doing so "doesn't mean losing focus", but it does certainly mean losing energy and time. Our own mission is at a critical point on the hype curve in many countries, so we need all our time and energy there.
> If you want to be in a political organisation that has a position on everything: join a party (as I did as well recently, btw). If we want to have relevant impact, must focus. If in your country you made so much progress (and have so much money) that you now need to find new goals: help the slow, before diverting resources to find new playgrounds for the fast.
> 
> That said: of course we should have close relations horizontally, to other organisations with similar goals, making sure we support each other. I don't think we're doing that as well as we could currently - also, of course, because we lack the time and energy to do so.
> 
> Regarding fundraising for a politburo: that needs to happen locally, with concrete causes affecting people's local situation. Go do that in Berlin, please! Or go to Brussels, if you must, but paying another suit going to fancy international conferences will not help anyone. So let's make sure we empower the local organisation as much as we can, before building more central structures, please!
> 
> Kind regards etc,
> Hannes
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 6:18 PM, Daniel Dietrich <daniel.dietrich at okfn.org> wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I totally agree with Glyn that there are current struggles around several digital rights issues that will have significant affect on the work Open Knowledge foundation is focussing on at this times.
> 
> I also agree with Laura, that we should remain having a focus on "our core" topics/expertise. But this does, in my view, by no means mean that we could/should not have a clearly expressed position on these other important topics. Although we might not wish to nor be able to take a leading role in each particular struggle (the later, I think, I agree with Hannes who made a point for focus).
> 
> Again I think having a voice on other related digital issues doesn't mean losing focus. At this point I think, not all the issues have equally "direct affect" on our work/mission, e.g. privacy and surveillance perhaps have a little less direct affect than copyright reform, DRM or net neutrality (although I am aware that this is a terribly simplistic approach).
> 
> At the end of the day the main question will be, how much resources we will be able and willing to dedicate to each of the topics. Why does the OKF not have a dedicated policy person on pay-roll? I think we should seriously think how we could cross-finance such a position to drive the agenda forward and have an adequate visible voice in those important debates.
> 
> My2ct
> Daniel
> 
> --
> Daniel Dietrich, co-founder & chairman
> Open Knowledge Foundation Germany
> www.okfn.de | info at okfn.de | @okfde
> Office: +49 30 57703666 0 | Fax: - 9
> Mobile: +49 176 32768530
> 
> 
> 
> > On 22 Feb 2015, at 18:33, Laura James <lbjames at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Glyn,
> >
> > Thanks for starting this discussion!
> >
> > I'm quite torn on this topic, and look forward to hearing what others think.
> >
> > I agree the various 'digital rights' issues you mention are greatly important at the present time, and do intersect with Open Knowledge topics. There would be value in, say, advocacy work combining such issues, which would help raise the profile of the open knowledge piece with specialist campaigners in related areas.
> >
> > However, open knowledge remains a less well known issue than, say, surveillance, FOSS, and DRM. These other issues take (almost total) precedence for groups like EDRI, EFF etc, which is fine and understandable; but there are far fewer (civil society) groups pushing for openness. If we believe open knowledge matters in and of itself, then this is a message which needs spreading effectively and clearly. Open data, open access, etc, remain niche topics, little known or unknown or misunderstood outside their own communities. The misunderstandings include intentional openwashing, accidental misuse of the term 'open', and odd interpretations such as 'open data' being just about government data, or about economic growth.    Broader understanding of the power and benefits of openness in a civil society context is essential to achieve our goals, and focussed communications will help here.
> >
> > Open Knowledge remains a fairly small organisation, undoubtedly with more limited resources than would be desirable. Focussing effort on open topics is likely to achieve better impact than trying to cover many topics with limited resource (especially as to be effective in each issue requires a level of up to date knowledge and expertise, which is challenging for a small team to maintain).
> >
> > On balance, then, I would look for focus on open knowledge topics day to day, taking advantage of opportunities with related fields when they arise and the capacity to do so is available. Longer term, with (anticipated) greater capacity and with wider comprehension of the basic message of openness, this could shift to more active engagement with and advocacy of related digital rights issues.
> >
> > Laura
> >
> >
> >
> > On 22 February 2015 at 10:47, glyn moody <glyn.moody at gmail.com> wrote:
> > During last week's Advisory Council call, one issue that came up was
> > to what extent OK should be taking positions and engaging with areas
> > that affect its work, but which are not directly part of it.
> >
> > For example, currently there are important discussions taking place
> > around the world concerning copyright reform, DRM, Net neutrality,
> > surveillance, privacy, encryption, open source adoption etc.
> >
> > My view is that these are so far-reaching in their impact that it is
> > clear their outcome will affect OK in crucial ways.  I therefore
> > believe that it is legitimate and even necessary for OK to join the
> > debates, rather than to hold back from expressing its views, and to
> > risk seeing policies being adopted that are detrimental to OK's aims.
> > However, others feel that this kind of engagement is not appropriate
> > given the overall mission of OK.
> >
> > This is to invite others on this list to give their views on this issue.
> >
> > --
> > Best wishes
> >
> > Glyn
> >
> > http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com
> > http://twitter.com/glynmoody
> > http://identi.ca/glynmoody
> > https://plus.google.com/+glynmoody/
> >
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> Hannes Gassert  |  http://gassert.ch  |  +41 78 663 11 09




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