July 18th, 2007
Open source content moves forward
Right now I’m enjoying a sort of open source novel.
1634: The Ram Rebellion has a standard, proprietary license on it. But it was produced through an open source process, a Web site where fans of Eric Flint’s novel 1632 expand on the alternate history universe he created.
Many popular books have fan sites. My daughter is a big fan of fanfiction, where ordinary people create their own stories based on popular characters.
What makes Flint stand out is how he has accepted extensions to his original work, and even, as in this case, co-sponsored them for the book market. By accepting the open source process he has extended his franchise in many directions, both financial and artistic.
I mention this because Solomon Rothman now plans to adopt the same process to a film called Jathia’s Wager. Rothman wants users to pick apart his short script, and will also film alternate versions chosen by readers. Once the work is done its files will be uploaded for re-editing and re-use.
Critics may say this is not open source, because we’re not talking about BSD or GPL licensing of the results. But in both these cases we’re talking about using an open source process to involve people before work is created, and adapting their best ideas in the finished product.
Amazon reviews on Ram Rebellion are, at best, uneven. But the book would not exist without the online process which created it. Rothmann can only hope to do as well.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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