On June 6th and 7th, many of the thought leaders from the open government community attended Personal Democracy Forum 2011... View Article
Continue readingCarl Malamud for Public Printer
Our friend Carl Malamud, president and CEO of PublicResource.Org, which works for the publication of public domain information from local,... View Article
Continue readingThinking Like a Dandelion
Cory sez:
My latest column in Locus Magazine, "Think Like a Dandelion," came out of a talk I had with Neil Gaiman about the bio-economics of giving stuff away for free. Mammals worry about what happens to each and every one of their offspring, but dandelions only care that every crack in every sidewalk has dandelions growing out of it. The former is a good strategy for situations in which reproduction is expensive, but the latter works best when reproduction is practically free -- as on the Internet.But the disposition of each — or even most — of the seeds aren't the important thing, from a dandelion's point of view. The important thing is that every spring, every crack in every pavement is filled with dandelions. The dandelion doesn't want to nurse a single precious copy of itself in the hopes that it will leave the nest and carefully navigate its way to the optimum growing environment, there to perpetuate the line. The dandelion just wants to be sure that every single opportunity for reproduction is exploited!
Think about government data in just that way.
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