This document discusses concepts related to digital sustainability in the knowledge society. It covers key terms like possession versus property, different types of property like intellectual property, and initiatives around expanding the digital public domain. It also discusses "tragedies" related to managing common resources, like the tragedy of the commons and the tragedy of the anticommons. A case study is provided on how Netscape open sourced its browser code to unleash further development and competition in the browser market.

1. Digital Sustainability
in the Knowledge Society
Key Terms & Concepts
Dr. Marcus M. Dapp
Board OKF Germany / IT Strategist, City Government Munich
03.10.2011

2. Think!
• What is the difference between:
• Possession (Besitz) and
• Property (Eigentum)?
• Why do we have the concept of
»property«?
• Effort (John Locke, 1600s)
• Scarcity (William Blackstone,1700s)

3. Possession vs. Property
• »No laws« • »With law«
• Ownership • Property
• Possession • Confiscation
• Innehabung • Eigentum
• Besitz • Enteignung

4. Property
• Legal construct: The right to own
• Defined & protected by state
• Types
• Land: Real property
• Non­land: Personal property
• Non­physical: »Intellectual property«
• Is this really a type of »property«?

5. Roman and Germanic property concepts
• »Dominium« • »Patrimonium«
• Usus • Usus
• Usus fructus • Usus fructus
• Abusus • ­ (!)
• Modify, destroy • Forestry:
Sustainability
• Transfer, sell to
others

6. What about »knowledge« as property?
• Who? • What & How?
• Private property • Knowledge,
• Common ideas
property • Contained in
• Public property artifacts, stored
in facilities...
• Privateigentum
• Allmendeigentum
• Gemeineigentum

7. Knowledge needs a tangible medium
Received as the first woman, the
Source: Elinor Ostrom, Ideas, Artifacts, and Facilities: Information as
Nobel prize for Economics in 2009. a common­pool resource, Law and Contemporary Problems, 2003.

8. »Public Domain«
• »range of abstract materials which
are not owned or controlled by
anyone.« (WP)
• For anyone
• Unlimited access
• Use without restriction
• Basis of cultural heritage
• Music, literature

9. Initiatives around »Digital Public Domain«
• Volunteers digitizing cultural works
• Expired © in all countries needed
• www.gutenberg.org
• Sep08: 25k, Sep09: 30k, Oct10: 33k
• www.cpdl.org
• Sep08: 9,7k, Sep09: 10,7k, Oct10: 12k
• www.mutopiaproject.org
• Sep08: 1460, Sep09: 1600, Oct10: 1672

10. »Commons«
• Finite public good a community has
rights to
• Collective management
and possession
• Responsible use
• Active contribution
• Appropriation, »enclosure«
• Transfer to individual ownership

11. »The Tragedy of the Commons«
• Resource is eventually overused
• Multiple owners
• Everyone: privilege to use resource
• No one: right to exclude others
• »When too many owners have such
privileges of use, the resource is prone
to overuse.» (Heller)
• Can you think of examples..?
Heller, M. A., The Tragedy of the Anticommons, Harvard Law Review, January 1998.
Original term »Tragedy of the commons« is by Garrett Hardin (WP)

12. Tragedy of the Commons – Examples
• over­logging forests on public lands
• over­intensive use of public parks
• over­fishing the high seas

13. Tragedy of the Commons
Privileges of inclusion dominate
land
»The tragedy is that rational individuals,
»The tragedy is that rational individuals,
acting separately, may collectively over­
acting separately, may collectively over­
consume scarce resources.
consume scarce resources. water, fish
oil
Each finds that she benefits by consumption
Each finds that she benefits by consumption
even though she imposes larger costs on the
even though she imposes larger costs on the
community.« (Heller)
community.« (Heller)
Regie:5+1

14. Tragedy of the Commons – The simple solution™

15. »Tragedy of the Anticommons«
• Resource is eventually underused
• Multiple owners
• Everyone: right to exclude others
• No one: privilege of (exclusive) use
• »When there are too many owners
holding rights of exclusion, the resource
is prone to underuse.» (Heller)
• Can you think of examples..?
Heller, M. A., The Tragedy of the Anticommons, Harvard Law Review, January 1998.
ideas.repec.org/p/wdi/papers/1997­40.html

16. Tragedy of the Anticommons – Examples
• Software patents
• Media clips
http://mashable.com/2009/01/14/youtube-mutes-videos/

17. Tragedy of Anticommons
Rights of exclusion dominate
»encryption
functions«
»The tragedy is that rational individuals,
»The tragedy is that rational individuals,
acting separately, may collectively waste
acting separately, may collectively waste »audio
»sorting
the resource by under­using it compared
the resource by under­using it compared
functions«
functions«
with a social optimum.« (Heller)
with a social optimum.« (Heller)
Regie: 5+1

18. Release Property into the Commons
• = Opposite of «enclosure»
• Digital examples
• »Free/open source software«
• »Open Data«
• »Open Spectrum«
• One case study from software world...

19. Mosaic Netscape – The Early Days
• The business model
• Browse for free, sell server software
• The company
• 04/94 Mosaic Corp, Marc Andreessen
• 10/94 Browser Mosaic Netscape 0.9
• 11/94 Name switch to «Netscape»
• 08/95 Historic IPO, start of Internet Hype
• Netscape browser de­facto standard
• (08/95 IE 1.0)

20. «Browser wars of the 90s» – David vs. Goliath
• Success = attention of Microsoft
• Strategy: use market power to stop rival
• Bundle IE with Windows, use monopoly
• Browser Wars
• «This Site is best viewed in ...» (HTML?)
• Marketing > Technology
• Instabilities, incompatibilities, bugs, etc.
• Headache for customers

21. Browser wars – Consequences
• Netscape died
• Sold 1998 to AOL for $4.2bln
• Microsoft got sued
• Antitrust, monopoly status
• IE market exploded
• Peak at ~96% of all PCs
• Competition ceased
• Innovation ceased? (IE6 to IE7: 5 years)

22. Browser wars – Analysis
• Market pressure?
• Win the market vs. satisfy consumer
• Feature­bloat vs. bug­fixing
• Obey standards or not?
• IE lacked compliance with web
standards & had proprietary extensions
• Web designer (had to) stick to IE,
sacrificed web standards

23. So, what happened to the Netscapce browser..?

24. Strategy: »Unleashing the beast«
• Netscape made code ‚open source‘
• 02/98 www.mozilla.org
• »nothing« happened for 4 years
• 06/02 Mozilla 1.0 released
• 07/03 AOL closes Netscape, helps fund
Mozilla Foundation
• deal with MS to include IE in AOL for 7yrs
wikipedia.org, www.holgermetzger.de/Netscape_History.html

25. Mozilla 1.0 Release party...
»dancing programmers« »running source code«
• First time in history that a company
publicly releases software this way

26. ... and today?
• Growing download numbers
• Success, but maybe not financially
• Split of Mozilla in 2 parts (04/03)
• FireFox browser about:mozilla
• Marketing Hype v1.0 (11/04)
• Platform strategy allows competition
• Thunderbird email client
• AOL recommends FireFox family

27. Browser Wars II – What is different this time?
• »Goliath has no David to fight against«
• Competition on different grounds
• Rules of the Game changed
• All that by
• Releasing digital property into the
commons

28. Let's have a break...
Fragen zu Gruppen/Themen behandeln wir in der zweiten Stunde...