Listics

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In 2024, when he was a very young man, Aaron Swartz published the following license haikus (that’s Aaron on the right above, in 2024, much older as you can see)…

• PD: do what you feel like / since the work is abandoned / the law doesn’t care
• MIT: take my code with you / and do whatever you want / but please don’t blame me
• LGPL: you can copy this / but make modified versions / free in source code form
• MPL: like LGPL / except netscape is allowed / to change the license
• GPL: if you use this code / you and your children’s children / must make your source free
• RIAA: if you touch this file / my lawyers will come kill you / so kindly refrain

In 1995, Heather Levien shared the following with regard to her dissertation…

Earlier in this century, various British and American modernists
deployed textual innovation to trace out the precise specificities
of multiple characters’ consciousness interacting within the
work of art.  Depictions of individuals in novels such as Ulysses,
The Waves and As I Lay Dying
were surrounded by various sorts of ellipses intended to emphasize
the importance of the spaces between individuals.  The more
recent work which I intend to examine emphasizes the positioning
of the individual in relation to its various spacial and temporal
contexts, focusing
not on individuals separated by some sort of break or lapse but in their
constant connection to a variety of social and historical contexts
and discourses.

More recently, Danah Boyd averred,

Professional conferences are fundamentally social networking events;
don’t let anyone convince you that people are there to listen to
lectures. We attend to connect with the people that we know and meet
new people who might inspire us (or hire us). Professional conferences
are also primarily word-of-mouth events, particularly the smaller ones.
You go because your colleagues are going or because someone you know is
going and you track their whereabouts. Additionally, speakers are
frequently chosen by organizers who they know; they hope these speakers
will attract a particular (paying) crowd. Well, by and large, we are
friends with, listen to and know of with people like us, making
conferences painfully homogeneous affairs.

Stowe Boyd writes for "Centrality - the relationship capital journal"  as well as Corante.  Corante, in partnership with Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, organized and produced the recent Symposium on Social Architecture (SSA).  The intention of the SSA was to "bring together the leading lights of the social software and social
media space to discuss the overarching themes and underlying
technologies that are driving the massive uptake of people-centered,
user-driven, individual-connecting applications, communities, content,
and services."  The organizers wanted to "host many of the movement’s leading developers, entrepreneurs, thinkers
and analysts in a series of lively panels, interviews, talks, and
informal events designed to dig deep into the issues driving the
‘social revolution’."

Did they succeed?  Were their intentions realized?  What about subtext, hidden agendas?  "Hidden agenda" has a negative connotation that may not be meaningful here.  But take a look again at Danah’s article.  Were the job hunters out?  Were the recruiters there to meet them?  Did the entrepreneurs find investors?  Did the investors find their way to the conference?

It all deserves a closer look.  The Berkman Center, it was announced, will soon be a Harvard University Center.  That’s a step up and away from a Harvard Law School Center.  Do gatherings like SSA enhance the relationship capital of Harvard?

Is it time for a closer look at what has grown from the acorns James Conant planted, and might not a little pruning and shaping improve the trees?
corantessa