1 Introduction

1.1 Knowledge shall set you free

freed.in is the leading community event in the Indian sub-continent and the developing world, promoting freedom in technology, software, personal privacy, and other related fields. For the 2008 event, we felt that it was important to take cognisance of the central role that the free flow of information plays in a modern society, of the added possibilities afforded by the use of digital media, and also of the threats to the free sharing of one's own creations. The idea of an unfettered learning environment has deep roots in both Western, and Eastern cultures, ranging from the tradition of the Western liberal university to the Indian gurukuls. Indeed, the free sharing of knowledge was taken for granted, with information flowing between ancient Chinese, Indian, Arabic, and Hellenic civilisations. The promise of digital media and networks is that such an open environment for exchanging knowledge can now be expanded to encompass everyone in the world, bridging hitherto insurmountable gaps due to socio-economic factors, linguistic differences, geographical locations, and varying levels of literacy and skill. If such a sea-change is to take place, it will have to overcome hurdles posed not only by entrenched interests in the current inequitable system, but also those that arise out of sheer ignorance, or out of a failure to comprehend the possibilities.

Thus, freed.in 2008 invites you to take part in a silent revolution. You should be here whether you are a contributor to knowledge, interested in sharing and collaborating with other people, someone who works on the underlying infrastructure that makes all this possible, or even simply someone who wishes to make use of the available resources. There are no designated leaders in this revolution, except in so far that all six and a half billion people on Earth can be considered to be standard bearers.

1.2 Building the knowledge ecosystem: Inspire, influence, and enable

A knowledge ecosystem worthy of the name must have something in it for everyone, paying attention to all aspects of creating, nurturing, evolving, and adapting the community.

1.2.1 End-user

At the very basic level, each participant will return home empowered with the knowledge of how to use, deploy, and and adapt open-source software as an end-user, with special emphasis on various software applications and technologies that help her become an integral part of the knowledge ecosystem.

1.2.2 Contributor

At the next level, each participant learns how to contribute to the global knowledge ecosystem from any level of competence, newbie to expert. The contribution may take many forms, and each contributor will bring their unique experience, and resulting expertise, to add to the whole.

1.2.3 Empowered Individual

At the top level, every participant will discover how each one of us can make a difference to the policies and adoptions of the knowledge ecosystem that impacts our personal lives, work, schooling and education, and how to participate in the process as citizens of India, as netizens, and as individuals at a global level.

1.3 Tangible goals

Going by the model of successful projects like Wikipedia, such an ecosystem will probably need to be initiated by a few inspirational people that can gather around themselves the larger team required to sustain the initiative, and will seek to enable end users to participate in the process of creating, and sharing knowledge. This process of empowering end users to move from being passive consumers to active participants will lead to the evolution of new forms of pedagogy, where the emphasis shifts from the imparting of cut-and-dried liturgies to the facilitation of learning, at a pace, and in a manner tailored to each individual participant.

2 Freed.in

2.1 Focus of the event: You

If the model of the learning environment is to change from that of a centralised authority to that of a distributed, self-sustaining system that nurtures and evolves knowledge, this provides both a tremendous opportunity, and an enormous responsibility to one individual, namely yourself. In order to make this happen, you will have to play several among the roles of a creator, evolver, modifier, and communicator of knowledge, besides being a consumer. Thus, as a starting point, look upon freed.in 2008 as your event; with its success or failure depending solely on the degree of your involvement. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.

2.2 Overview of the digital commons

We will be concerned with the aspects outlined below in building the knowledge ecosystem. The remaining sections go into detail on each of these topics:

• Creation: The creation of new knowledge.
• Adaptation to context: The tailoring of content to meet the needs of individuals.
• Access: Ensuring open access to all, under terms that allow them to use, modify, reuse, and redistribute the content.
• Delivery: Mechanisms by which the content is to be made available to anyone wishing to access it.
• Communication and collaboration: Tools enabling interaction, and collaborative work between participants, allowing both sharing of existing content, and the evolution of new forms.

2.3 Stakeholders

• Primary
  • Community
  • Students
  • Academia
  • Non-governmental organisations
  • Government bodies
• Secondary
  • Start-up companies exploring new technologies
  • Media

2.4 Format of the 2008 event

As tackling issues spanning the entire knowledge ecosystem is a daunting task, the 2008 event is intended to largely be a brainstorming conclave, from which plans for concrete action will emerge. The formalisation of such plans, and putting them into action will be items for future gatherings. Thus, the plan is to have two days of brainstorming, followed by a one-day session focusing on current work in this area. Freed.in 2008 will be held from Feb. 22-24, 2008, at the School of Information Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India.

• A public wiki that starts before the event to start the sharing of ideas.
• Invited talks through a call for papers.
• Panel discussions
• Serendipitious, on-the-spot talks, but moderated and monitored for management.
• Informal Birds of a Feather sessions

3 The knowledge ecosystem

The Knowledge Economy, powered by technology, fueled by information, and driven by knowledge, has taken off due to the accelerated pace of technological change, and globalisation over the last twenty years. These drivers have led to a paradigm shift in education, changing from learning to know into learning to learn. In the words of the futurist, Alvin Toffler, "the illiterate of the 21st century, will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. "

3.1 Relevance to India, and the world

To leverage this knowledge economy in an inclusive manner, the Government of India appointed a National Knowledge Commission to advise it on five key areas: Access to knowledge, creation of knowledge, knowledge concepts, the delivery of services, and the application of knowledge. The recommendations of the knowledge commission deal with building and better utilising existing infrastructure for the delivery of knowledge through networks and libraries, defining the problems of language barriers and translation, and shaping foundations and facilities for vocational training and higher education. A bigger challenge is to embrace the changing paradigms in education: Can we define systems that provide the new skills required to benefit from the knowledge economy, namely creativity, understanding complex situations and decision making, project planning, along with associated time, communication and stress management skills?

These ideas are equally relevant in other parts of the world, as due to the frenetic pace of globalisation, almost no part of the world can afford to stand aloof from the others. A knowledge-based economy is also something new in that the sharing of ideas adds little marginal cost, and due to the low cost of delivery and reproduction, unencumbered propagation of knowledge is not a zero-sum game. It costs one money to give away a table, but nothing to share an idea, and from the free sharing of one's original idea, one stands to derive indirect benefits from other ideas based on it.

Freed.in/2008 would focus on the systems and tools of information technology associated with building and leveraging the Knowledge Ecosystem.

3.1.1 Report of the Knowledge Commission of India

Repositories of knowledge used to be closed, proprietary systems, and still to a large extent are, especially when it comes to educational content. This was because of what used to be the large cost of creating, storing, and transmitting the content. However, there is an upheaval in this area also, as community-based approaches to creating, maintaining, and sharing content. Probably the biggest success story is the community-built online encyclopedia, Wikipedia which is more extensive, and compares favourably in factual accuracy with the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Likewise, scientific, and academic literature is rapidly moving to online modes of publication due to the high costs of journals, and their comparative tardiness in publication. There are dangers also here, due to the pushing of patents, unreasonable extensions of copyright, and the promulgation of a regime of intellectual property rights in all areas.

From the perspective of the free software communties, where open-source, and CopyLeft have already proven themselves, the four basic freedoms of using, modifying, reusing, and redistributing, should apply equally to the creation of a Knowledge Commons. Innovation today is, and indeed always was, incremental on existing knowledge. In fact, it is the untrammeled extension of the claim of intellectual property rights, and an outdated system of patents and copyright that serves to stifle innovation.

3.1.2 Impact of economic development

The most important economic success stories of the end of the 20th century is the rise of the Chinese, and Indian economies, with the promise of bringing meaningful changes to the lives of a third of humanity. However, they also face unique challenges in bringing what used to be largely agrarian populations into a globalised world driven by dramatically different factors. A system of continuing education, constantly adapting to new needs thus becomes an imperative, especially for India with its young populace. Such economic changes are also happening in other parts of the world, and it is important that education, and social changes keep pace with the advancements in technology.

3.1.3 The global village

It is probably no coincidence that the burgeoning economies of India and China are those of the two nations that most enthusiastically embraced globalisation. In India, the knowledge economy is already a fact of life. The challenge to new economies will be how to adapt to globalisation, open up their systems, and partake of the fruits of a free sharing of information without losing their cultural sensitivities, and without falling into the trap of seeking to enclose, and restricting knowledge.

With modern communication systems, especially the Internet, it is now possible for people to be instant communication across the globe. This opens up extraordinary possibilities, and makes it more difficult for inequities, and abuses to persist even in the most remote areas of the world. It also makes it possible to leverage the shared wisdom of the entire world in a system that benefits of all.

3.2 Access to knowledge

In a system where knowledge is power, it becomes imperative to ensure that everyone has equal access to the clearinghouse of information. Firstly, content needs to be made available under a licence permitting sharing, and secondly governmental policies must ensure open standards.

3.2.1 Licensing

A variety of free and open source licences are now available, ranging from those that permit all rights, to others that ask for attribution, or that one does not restrict others from the freedoms that the licence allowed them. The creation and maintenance of such licences, and an oversight of them is an important activity, and we take note of the role played by organisations like the [http://opensource.org/ Open Source Initiative].

3.2.2 Government policy

Because of their central role in the lives of citizens, governments often are the most important organisations that create, store, regulate, and distribute information. Thus, it is crucial that government policy be in favour of open sharing. While, in our opinion, governments should not mandate all freedoms provided by open-source traditions, they do have a duty to legislate, and enforce open standards that make possible the free flow of knowledge.

4 Systems, and tools

4.1 Creation of knowledge

4.1.1 Infrastructure, and the nitty-gritty

• Hardware
  • Internet
  • Wireless
  • Mobile-based
  • Point-to-point
  • Community radio
  • Physical media

4.1.2 Digital material

• Textual
• Images
• Audio
• Video, and animation
• Interactive media.

4.2 Structuring content, and delivering knowledge

4.2.1 Content management systems

• Learning management systems
• Presentation systems, including blogs
• mind mapping tools.

4.2.2 Collaboration, and communication tools

• Wikis
• Shared whiteboards
• Audio/Video conferencing
• Project management systems
• Ticketing, and issue tracking tools
• Version control systems
• Mailing lists
• Instant messaging systems

4.3 Evolution of knowledge

4.3.1 Customisation to user base

• Language-based: Localisation (translation)
• Skill-based
• Geographical
• Based on literacy
• Ethnic knowledge in the digital age.

4.3.2 Reshaping of content from user feedback

4.4 New forms of pedagogy

Change from imparting factual knowledge to facilitating learning

4.5 New technologies

• GIS, geomapping, and location-based services
• Mashups

4.6 Repositories

• Physical libraries
• Digital libraries
• Local/global
• Source/sink
• General interest
  • Wikipedia
• Professional/specific interest
  • Scientific databases: Astronomy, Bio-Technology, etc.
• Open source maps

5 Potential attendees

• Richard Stallman
• Jimmy Wales
• Chris Di Bona
• Michael Tiemann
• Eben Moglen
• Joichi Itoh CC founder
• CC India (Shishir Jha?)
• Lawrence Liang
• Justice Yatinder Singh
• Sameer Brahmachari
• A. K. Chakravarthi
• Eric Lander (public domain gene sequencing)
• Nicholas Negroponte (OLPC)
• C. N. Krishnan (NRCFOSS)
• Anand Babu
• Sunita Narayan
• Danese Cooper
• Sam Pitroda
• Rishabh Aiyer Ghosh
• Vipul Ved Prakash
• Niyam Bhushan
• Zaheda Bhorat, Open Standards (ODF), Google
• John Philips
• John "Maddog" Hall
• Roblimo
• Mark Shuttleworth
• Blender developer
• Andrew Tridge
• Ardour developer
• Scribus developers
• Moodle developer
• Curriki.Org: Bobbi Kurshan
• Cnx.Org
• MIT Open Courseware
• Kerala folks building open source content, GNU Malayalam Project, IT@Schools
• IIT-B, OSCAR: Sreedhar Iyer
• Skooola Linux
• skoool.com
• US Peace Corps
• NASA
• Shuchi Grover: Niyam
• Harald Welte: Kishore
• IIT-B: Prof. Deepak Phatak
• CACIM: Jai Sen
• Janastu/Servelots: T.B. Dinesh
• Ministry of Finance: Ajay Shah
• MHRD, Joint Sec.: S. Khuntiya
• Dr G Nagarjuna.: Niyam (already held initial discussions with him)
• Atul Chitnis: Raj, Kishore, Gora.
• Indranil: Gora
• Fred Noronha

-- GoraMohanty - 15 Dec 2007