[okfn-discuss] How to honor Aaron Swartz

Mon Jan 28 14:05:31 UTC 2013

I wonder if there's a way we could promote libre knowledge (which is freely
licensed and in free formats) over individuals just posting links to their
work.

"Posting our PDFs is all fine and good, but the real way to honor Aaron
Swartz is to combat this pervasive institutional fecklessness and do
everything in our power to make sure no papers ever end up behind pay walls
again."

—
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/01/25/how-academia-betrayed-and-continues-to-betray-aaron-swartz/

How can we promote
 * Public Library of Science <https://www.plos.org/>, BioMed
Central<https://www.biomedcentral.com/>,
and other freely licensed academic journals
 * AcaWiki <http://acawiki.org/> and
Wikiversity<https://en.wikiversity.org/>for collaborative summaries of
and notes on books and academic papers
 * Connexions <http://cnx.org/> and Wikibooks
<https://en.wikibooks.org/>as collaborative course materials and
textbooks

On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 7:15 PM, Students for Free Culture <
webleader+rss-bot at freeculture.org> wrote:

> _Rarely does the name of one person, lacking political office or seat of
> power, echo across the internet so thoroughly as it did in the wake of
> [Aaron Swartz's death][1]. How was the work of one person revered by so
> many, from the front page of every major paper in the US, to radical
> communities working against various axis of oppression?_
>
> **Aaron Swartz recognized something. In his own words, "Information is
> power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for
> themselves." —[Guerilla Open Access Manifesto][2]**
>
> [![Aaron Swartz][3]][3]
>
> Based on an image by [Jacob Applebaum][4] via [Wikimedia][5]. [CC-BY-SA
> 3.0][6]
>
> Many of us have spent time grieving together on message boards, email
> lists, and with friends. While we mourned the loss of a brilliant hero
> to a [broken and backwards criminal justice system][7], an outpouring of
> support for his work roared to life. Almost overnight, recognition of
> the importance of his mission spread across every corner of the web.
> What now?
>
> Aaron understood that the way we experience and interact with the world
> is [inseparable from the media and technology around us][8]. He knew
> that only when they are [free from private ownership][9] can we hope to
> harness their liberatory potential and gain control over our own lives.
> He has been an invaluable force in the free software and free culture
> movements, working against the privatization of information, culture,
> and knowledge.
>
> Aaron fought to tear down the walls that hide big secrets and lock up
> human knowledge for the profit of the gatekeepers. The pressures which
> drove him to suicide — up to 50 years in prison and $4 million in fines
> — were brought against him for a victimless crime. These egregiously
> harsh punishments for [releasing public domain papers][10] locked up on
> JSTOR may have been due to Aaron's support of [ Private Breanna
> Manning][11] and [ties to Wikileaks][12]. Either way, Aaron should have
> been rewarded.
>
> There is already far too much fear in resisting the powers that Aaron
> stood up against. **We can only carry on his fight by turning this fear
> into indignation, and indignation into action, just as he did.**
>
> In efforts to carry on his work, [global hackathons][13] have been
> planned in his memory; a graduate student made [a commitment to free
> knowledge][14] by boycotting locked-down journals; the [Memorial JSTOR
> Liberator][15] continues the task of releasing public domain documents
> by crowdsourcing; [#PDFTribute][16] was started [for authors of academic
> papers to share their works][17]; and Anonymous defaced the United
> States Sentencing Commission website with [a video][18] threatening a
> massive exposure of government secrets  in the style of WikiLeaks'
> [insurance][19] [files][20].
>
> While individual efforts are admirable, Aaron's work involved much [more
> than opting out][21] of the systems he recognized as broken. He targeted
> them. He aimed to uproot them. **Everything Aaron wrote, whether
> vernacular or code, was free, but what he died doing was freeing the
> work of others.**
>
> There are already plenty of places to publish and share [free cultural
> works][22], but this is only half of the battle. The remaining question
> is how to usurp proprietary knowledge sources. The answer, then, is to
> eliminate their value by taking the knowledge they amass and release it
> into the world. **Our own rejection of locking up knowledge should be
> taken for granted.** **To continue Aaron's work, we must create an
> organized movement to take down the gatekeepers which keep hoards of
> information secret and lock our cultural productions behind their
> walls.**
>
>    [1]: http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/statements/family.html
>
>    [2]: http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly20
> 08_djvu.txt<http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt>
>
>    [3]: http://freeculture.org/files/2013/01/Aaron_Swartz.jpg
>
>    [4]: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/44289662@N00/335161549
>
>    [5]:
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aaron_Swartz_23c3_day_0.jpg
>
>    [6]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
>
>    [7]: http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/memories/the-inspiring-heroism-
> of-Aaron-Swartz.html<http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/memories/the-inspiring-heroism-of-Aaron-Swartz.html>
>
>    [8]: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/09/13/digital-
> dualism-and-the-fallacy-of-web-objectivity/<http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/09/13/digital-dualism-and-the-fallacy-of-web-objectivity/>
>
>    [9]: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/09/07/who-fights-
> for-the-users/<http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/09/07/who-fights-for-the-users/>
>
>    [10]: https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6554331
>
>    [11]: http://feministing.com/2011/12/22/why-does-the-media-and-her-
> supposed-supporters-continue-to-misgender-breanna-manning/<http://feministing.com/2011/12/22/why-does-the-media-and-her-supposed-supporters-continue-to-misgender-breanna-manning/>
>
>    [12]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130122/18260621757
> /concerns-raised-about-aaron-swartzs-prosecution-wikileaks-
> connection.shtml
>
>    [13]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130121/14473121743/global-
> hackathons-prepared-to-carry-forward-work-aaron-swartz.shtml<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130121/14473121743/global-hackathons-prepared-to-carry-forward-work-aaron-swartz.shtml>
>
>    [14]: http://alexleavitt.com/oa/
>
>    [15]: http://aaronsw.archiveteam.org/
>
>    [16]: http://pdftribute.net/
>
>    [17]: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414241,00.asp
>
>    [18]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPni5O2YyI
>
>    [19]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-
> file/ <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-file/>
>
>    [20]: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/23/1067565/-WikiLeaks-
> new-65-GB-Insurance-file-following-Spy-Files-release<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/23/1067565/-WikiLeaks-new-65-GB-Insurance-file-following-Spy-Files-release>
>
>    [21]: http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/01/25/how-academia-betrayed-and-
> continues-to-betray-aaron-swartz/<http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/01/25/how-academia-betrayed-and-continues-to-betray-aaron-swartz/>
>
>    [22]: http://freedomdefined.org/
>
> URL: http://freeculture.org/blog/2013/01/27/how-to-honor-aaron-swartz/
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