Differences between revisions 1 and 23 (spanning 22 versions)

1. Introduction

Source codes, or rather algorithms and algebra, are the tools of the digital craftsman in the modern age with over a thousand years of mathematical theories behind them. Only for little more than a quarter of a century have they acted as software. Software is a means of creating art and communicating. It is a metaliterature which defines how meaning can be carried and (re)produced by multiplying the possibilities of communication.

Just as software is a means of metacommunication, so it represents a Parole, deriving its execution from a Langue: the grammatical and linguistic universe of the code. Although many see the source code as merely an obscure cryptogram, it has an indirect effect on the way we communicate and even more on the efficiency with which we do so.

Developing software means developing digital architectures: their inhabitants have the right to adapt them to their needs.

The growth of the network rendered the non-propertarian alternative even more practical. What scholarly and popular writing alike denominate as a thing ("the Internet") is actually the name of a social condition: the fact that everyone in the network society is connected directly, without intermediation, to everyone else. The global interconnection of networks eliminated the bottleneck that had required a centralized software manufacturer to rationalize and distribute the outcome of individual innovation in the era of the mainframe.

Software - whether executable programs, music, visual art, liturgy, weaponry, or what have you - consists of bitstreams, which although essentially indistinguishable are treated by a confusing multiplicity of legal categories. This multiplicity is unstable in the long term for reasons integral to the legal process. The unstable diversity of rules is caused by the need to distinguish among kinds of property interests in bitstreams. This need is primarily felt by those who stand to profit from the socially acceptable forms of monopoly created by treating ideas as property. Those of us who are worried about the social inequity and cultural hegemony created by this intellectually unsatisfying and morally repugnant regime are shouted down. Those doing the shouting believe that these property rules are necessary not from any overt yearning for life in Murdochworld - though a little luxurious co-optation is always welcome - but because the metaphor of incentives, which they take to be not just an image but an argument, proves that these rules - despite their lamentable consequences - are necessary if we are to make good software. The only way to continue to believe this is to ignore the facts. At the center of the digital revolution, with the executable bitstreams that make everything else possible, propertarian regimes not only do not make things better, they can make things radically worse.

2. History

Dyne.org appeared online in 2000 when Jaromil published his first free and open source project: the Hasciicam software, setting up a video stream made of letters and playing it out from the website. His creation has been widely appreciated both for its artistical value and for letting possible to broadcast live video using old hardware from a slow network connection.

Since then Jaromil, collaborating with a growing network of inventors, offered to the public new elaborated software for media production, configuring dyne.org as a free software atelier, a portal to Digital Creation and Media Art.

Ranging from radio makers, humanitarian organizations, video artists, medical researchers, media activists and educators, a large amount of people employed and redistributed dyne.org software worldwide, free of charge, echoing to the freedom spirit of this autonomous initiative.

Openness, knowledge sharing and freedom of creation: these have been the philosophycal principles guiding the evolution of dyne.org, hosting creations that have been conceptualized not for a profit, but for their role within society.

In 2003, Jaromil started collaborating with the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NMAI) focusing on video streaming and being supported for the development of the vision mixer software FreeJ. As a result of this activity a new video syncstarter technology has been co-produced, released as free and open source, and succesfully employed in a growing number of sync-started video installations.

In that respect a long lasting relationship was established between NMAI and dyne.org organisations, resulting in a patronage for the dyne.org foundation which now starts to formally exist in 2005.

3. Definitions of terms

With the definition of Free and Open Source Software we refer to all software licensed and distributed under the GNU General Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation. In fact, free has to be intended as "Libre", free as of speech, not simply gratis, coming with all possibilities to redistribute, modify and adapt the software without any fee. From now on we'll refer to it with the acronym FLOSS (free libre open source software).

FLOSS implies 4 fundamental freedoms:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

With dyne.org foundation we describe a non-profit organisation which developes, employes and distributes FLOSS based software and hardware solutions.

With non-profit we specify that all the revenues are reinvested in research, development, employement and distribution of dyne.org software and hardware products. The NMAI garanties that the overhead never will be more than 5% of the turn over.

4. Mission Statement

DYNE.ORG stands

To promote the idea and practice of open source knowledge sharing within civil society: by fostering research, development, production and distribution of FLOSS based solutions.

To open the partecipation to online and onsite communities, leveraging the democratical and horizontal access to technology, lowering the economical requisites to its accessibility.

To foster employement of FLOSS in artistical creation: exploring new forms of expression and interaction, disseminating new languages that can be freely adopted and re-elaborated by everyone, insuring the long term conservation of digital artworks.

To insure sustainability of FLOSS development, also when non-profiteable: being software a socially relevant media it should not be ideated and mantained only on the basis of its merchantability.

4.1. Strategic missions

The community of FLOSS users still consists mostly of insiders, while the potential of the developed software has reached a state of high compatibility with license based programs, offering solutions of higher quality in a growing number of cases.

FLOSS solutions offer a wider degree of freedom: software that can be adapted to specific needs and can evolve following the needs of the community of its users and developers.

4.1.1. free software for the freedom of speech

Given the social relevance of software, it's an important strategical goal for dyne.org to provide FLOSS based solutions, especially where software gets employed for communication.

4.1.2. free software for net ecology

Development should be aware of all environmental issues connected to it and, as such, keep the research focused, whenever possible, on recycling technical equipment that is already existing, develop environmental friendly systems, find ways to optimize the use of energy sources employed.

4.2. Operational missions

4.2.1. Development of software

Development of software is a core activity for dyne.org, the foundation seeks ways to make the activity of developers sustainable.

Conform to the protocol of FLOSS, the software developed will be made available online with its entire sourcecode.

4.2.2. Deployement of software

Compilations of open source software will be brought together on hardware (CD-ROM, computer boxes etc.) as well offered as plug and play products and ad-hoc setups.

To compile, produce and distribute hardware, commercial calculations will be charged.

The profit will be reinvested in research and development, production and distribution and is excluded from any private profit.

4.2.3. Donor and Patron membership program

The Foundation will offer a Donor program for individuals and a Patron program for organizations willing to financially support the development of FLOSS based solutions.

-  ⇤ ← Revision 1 as of 2005-08-30 12:54:30 → 
  Size: 5488
  Editor: jaromil
  Comment:
+   ← Revision 23 as of 2005-10-14 09:41:17 → ⇥
  Size: 8947
  Editor: jaromil
  Comment:
-Deletions are marked like this.
+Additions are marked like this.
 Line 1:
+#acl DyneGroup:read,write,admin,delete,revert All:
#pragma section-numbers on
-Line 2:
+Line 4:
-#acl DyneFoundationGroup:read,write,admin,delete,revert All:
+= Introduction =
-Line 4:
+Line 6:
-.              Introduction
+Source codes, or rather algorithms and algebra, are the tools of the digital craftsman in the modern age with over a thousand years of mathematical theories behind them. Only for little more than a quarter of a century have they acted as software.
Software is a means of creating art and communicating. It is a metaliterature which defines how meaning can be carried and (re)produced by multiplying the possibilities of communication.
-Line 6:
+Line 9:
->I would first describe dyne org
Dyne.org ...... etc etc
+Just as software is a means of metacommunication, so it represents a ''Parole'', deriving its execution from a ''Langue'': the grammatical and linguistic universe of the code.
Although many see the source code as merely an obscure cryptogram, it has an indirect effect on the way we communicate and even more on the efficiency with which we do so.
-Line 9:
+Line 12:
-The Netherlands Media Art Institute has focused since the year
2002 on the development of free and open source software.
> In that respect a long lasting relationship was stablished with this
> organisation resulting in a patronage for the dyne.org foundation
(Description of this history, from the begining up to the working together
with Jaromil)
+Developing software means developing digital architectures:
their inhabitants have the right to adapt them to their needs.
-Line 16:
+Line 15:
-.              Mission Statement
+The growth of the network rendered the non-propertarian alternative even more practical. What scholarly and popular writing alike denominate as a thing ("the Internet") is actually the name of a social condition: the fact that everyone in the network society is connected directly, without intermediation, to everyone else. The global interconnection of networks eliminated the bottleneck that had required a centralized software manufacturer to rationalize and distribute the outcome of individual innovation in the era of the mainframe.
-Line 18:
+Line 17:
-To promote the idea of open source and knowledge sharing
communities by research and development, production and distribution.
+Software - whether executable programs, music, visual art, liturgy, weaponry, or what have you - consists of bitstreams, which although essentially indistinguishable are treated by a confusing multiplicity of legal categories. This multiplicity is unstable in the long term for reasons integral to the legal process. The unstable diversity of rules is caused by the need to distinguish among kinds of property interests in bitstreams. This need is primarily felt by those who stand to profit from the socially acceptable forms of monopoly created by treating ideas as property. Those of us who are worried about the social inequity and cultural hegemony created by this intellectually unsatisfying and morally repugnant regime are shouted down. Those doing the shouting believe that these property rules are necessary not from any overt yearning for life in Murdochworld - though a little luxurious co-optation is always welcome - but because the metaphor of incentives, which they take to be not just an image but an argument, proves that these rules - despite their lamentable consequences - are necessary if we are to make good software. The only way to continue to believe this is to ignore the facts. At the center of the digital revolution, with the executable bitstreams that make everything else possible, propertarian regimes not only do not make things better, they can make things radically worse.
-Line 21:
+Line 19:
-To provide new comunication tools, opening the partecipation to
online and onsite communities, leveraging the democratical access to
technology, lowering the economical requisites to its accesibility.
-Line 25:
+Line 20:
-To foster artistical research and creation with open source technologies,
exploring new forms of expression and interaction.
+= History =
-Line 28:
+Line 22:
-To insure sustainability of free software development, also when
non-profiteable: being software a socially relevant media it should not
be ideated and mantained only on the basis of its merchantability.
+'''Dyne.org''' appeared online in 2000 when Jaromil published his first
free and open source project: the ''Hasciicam'' software, setting
up a video stream made of letters and playing it out from the website.
His creation has been widely appreciated both for its artistical value
and for letting possible to broadcast live video using old hardware
from a slow network connection.

Since then Jaromil, collaborating with a growing network of
inventors, offered to the public new elaborated software for
media production, configuring dyne.org as a free software atelier,
a portal to Digital Creation and Media Art.

Ranging from radio makers, humanitarian organizations, video artists,
medical researchers, media activists and educators, a large amount of
people employed and redistributed dyne.org software worldwide, free
of charge, echoing to the freedom spirit of this autonomous initiative.

Openness, knowledge sharing and freedom of creation: these have been
the philosophycal principles guiding the evolution of dyne.org, hosting
creations that have been conceptualized not for a profit, but for their
role within society.

In 2003, Jaromil started collaborating with the Netherlands Media Art
Institute (NMAI) focusing on video streaming and being supported for the
development of the vision mixer software FreeJ.
As a result of this activity a new video syncstarter technology
has been co-produced, released as free and open source, and succesfully
employed in a growing number of sync-started video installations.

In that respect a long lasting relationship was established between NMAI and dyne.org
organisations, resulting in a patronage for the dyne.org foundation which now starts
to formally exist in 2005.
-Line 34:
+Line 57:
-.              Definitions of terms
+= Definitions of terms =
-Line 36:
+Line 59:
-.1 With the definition of free and open source software we refer
+With the definition of '''Free and Open Source Software''' we refer
-Line 42:
+Line 65:
-FLOSS (free libre open source software).
+'''FLOSS''' (free libre open source software).
-Line 44:
+Line 67:
-.2 With dyne.org foundation we describe a nonprofit organisation which
+'''FLOSS''' implies 4 fundamental freedoms:

 * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
 * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
 * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
 * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

With '''dyne.org foundation''' we describe a non-profit organisation which
-Line 46:
+Line 76:
-solutions, especially related to art and comunication practices.
+solutions.
-Line 48:
+Line 78:
-All the revenues are reinvested in research, employement and disribution.
+With '''non-profit''' we specify that all the revenues are reinvested in research,
development, employement and distribution of dyne.org software and hardware products.
The NMAI garanties that the overhead never will be more than 5% of the turn over.
-Line 52:
+Line 84:
-.        Strategic and operational goals
+= Mission Statement =
-Line 54:
+Line 86:
-To open up new not for profit markets and to create and distribute open
source software to a wider audience.
+DYNE.ORG stands
-Line 57:
+Line 88:
-.1        strategic goals
+To promote the idea and practice of '''open source knowledge sharing within
civil society''': by fostering research, development, production
and distribution of FLOSS based solutions.
-Line 59:
+Line 92:
-      To open up new not for profit markets
+To open the partecipation to online and onsite communities, leveraging
the '''democratical and horizontal access to technology''', lowering the economical
requisites to its accessibility.
-Line 61:
+Line 96:
-      The community of open source users still consists mostly of insiders,
      while the potential of the developed software has reached a state of
      high compatibility with license based programs.
      To enforce general customers to make use of free software we want to
      offer easy to use packages of applications at affordable prices.
+To foster employement of '''FLOSS in artistical creation''':
exploring new forms of expression and interaction,
disseminating new languages that can be freely adopted and re-elaborated by everyone,
insuring the long term conservation of digital artworks.
-Line 67:
+Line 101:
-.2        operational goals

      To create and distribute FLOSS to a wider audience.

      To guarantee the continuity of FLOSS creation and development we have
      to generate resources: money, people, infrastructure and knowledge.

      To distribute the software we have to create communication strategies,
      attractive products, marketing and distribution channels.

2.3 With dyne.org foundation we describe a nonprofit organisation which
distributes all research and creations for free, but also offers the most
easy acces to all members of this community, even to those that do not
contribute to research, at political prices.
+To insure '''sustainability of FLOSS development''', also when
non-profiteable: being software a socially relevant media it should not
be ideated and mantained only on the basis of its merchantability.
-Line 83:
+Line 106:
-.4 Donor and Patron membership program
+== Strategic missions ==
-Line 85:
+Line 108:
-      The dyne.org foundation will offer a Donor program for individual and
      a Patron program for societies and institutions willing to financially
      support the development of free software.
      These programs will include the provision of simple internet services
      aimed to tie up the community of donors as well to publish their
      benevolent support: email aliases, forums and online social games will
      consitute the online specular realization of a social club.
+The community of FLOSS users still consists mostly of insiders,
while the potential of the developed software has reached a state of
high compatibility with license based programs, offering solutions
of higher quality in a growing number of cases.
-Line 93:
+Line 113:
-_______________
Contract between dyne.org and NIM
is about specific projects currently:
* Workshops - hour based
* Sync Starter (co-production)
* Video network (co-production)
* FreeJ (support by NIM)
______________
+FLOSS solutions offer a wider degree of freedom: software that
can be adapted to specific needs and can evolve following the needs of
the community of its users and developers.
-Line 102:
+Line 117:
-The Netherlands Media Art Institute garanties that the overhead never
will be more than 5% of the turn over.
+=== free software for the freedom of speech ===
-Line 105:
+Line 119:
-.         products and combinations of markets (PCM's)
+Given the social relevance of software, it's an important strategical
goal for dyne.org to provide FLOSS based solutions, especially where
software gets employed for communication.
-Line 107:
+Line 123:
-.1 Products
+=== free software for net ecology ===
-Line 109:
+Line 125:
-.2 Production of open source software
+Development should be aware of all environmental issues connected to it and,
as such, keep the research focused, whenever possible, on recycling technical
equipment that is already existing, develop environmental friendly
systems, find ways to optimize the use of energy sources employed.
-Line 111:
+Line 130:
-      In the ArtLab - the research centre of the Netherlands Media Art
      Institute (NMAI) - a long term development program for open source
      software will be established and connected with the Artists in
      Residence program. This program will be defined by the dyne.org
      Foundation and  the NMAI and financed by both partners.
-Line 117:
+Line 131:
-.3 Release of software - free of license.
+== Operational missions ==
-Line 119:
+Line 133:
-      Conform to the protocol of the free libre open source movement
      the developed software will be made available online with its entire
      sourcecode.
      Next to it, compilations of open source software will brought together
      on hardware (CD-ROM, computer boxes etc.) as well offered as plug
      and play products. To compile, produce and distribute the hardware
      commercial calculations will be charged. The risk and profit is divided
      between both partners.
      The profit has by both to be reinvested in research and development,
      production and distribution and is excluded from any private profit.
+=== Development of software ===
-Line 130:
+Line 135:
-.7       Marketing
                  To be sure of a break-even or profit result we have to
      investigate the market.
+Development of software is a core activity for dyne.org,
the foundation seeks ways to make the activity of developers sustainable.

Conform to the protocol of FLOSS, the software developed will be made
available online with its entire sourcecode.

=== Deployement of software ===

Compilations of open source software will be brought together
on hardware (CD-ROM, computer boxes etc.) as well offered as plug
and play products and ad-hoc setups.

To compile, produce and distribute hardware,
commercial calculations will be charged.

The profit will be reinvested in research and development,
production and distribution and is excluded from any private profit.


=== Donor and Patron membership program ===

The Foundation will offer a Donor program for individuals and
a Patron program for organizations willing to financially
support the development of FLOSS based solutions.