Earlier in January, I posted a number of Thoughts on Wikipedia that were really designed to be answers to some of the frequent, too-glib criticisms I was hearing about this “open-source” encyclopedia.

The Progress and Freedom Foundation’s Patrick Ross read them, and he seems to have properly understood that the notion of a counterweight to traditional top-down references might be good (you get more sources that way). But from there he leaps to the conclusion that either I or Public Knowledge is somehow opposed to top-down scholarship. This is news to me. (I probably qualify as a “top-down scholar,” at least when it comes to my own writing and research, and the copyrights I hold.)

Ross then free-associates something about Creative Commons (like Ross, we think it’s a good addition to the mix, but PK has no plans to force the CC model down anyone’s throat) and something more about a “skeptical rights holder.” But of course nothing in my Wikipedia postings (or other writings) should trouble rights holders, skeptical or otherwise. Wikipedia itself, by being an open-source creation, relies on donated contributions of research and writing, not on infringement of anyone’s copyrights.

It would have been more interesting if PFF’s Ross had engaged my Wikipedia postings on their merits, rather than construct an oddball world view and (at least by elision) attribute it to me and Public Knowledge. This isn’t quite at the level of Bill Gates’s extremely, uh, loose use of the word “communist,” but it has the same vibe.

Me, I would prefer to have James DeLong try to lump me with the Cargo Cults. Most of us who have long been interested in the Cargo Cults will already have noted that hardly anyone ever tries to stir up fear, uncertainty, and doubt about them, because they’re not perceived as any kind of threat. By contrast, various corporations (and the occasional affiliated foundation) sure keep beating the tribal drum about the general badness of open-source software, the free-culture movement, and entities like Creative Commons. Surely if the latter were really all that Cargo-Cultish they’d be so irrelevant that no one would propagandize against them.

I should add that I generally believe in markets, property, and liberty. (Heck, my name is even in the Reason magazine staff box — and check out my interview with Neal Stephenson in the February issue!) But I note democratic and market-oriented cultures function well only if they meet a baseline of shared knowledge, values, and cultural resources. The Copyright Act, and Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, which is the Act’s foundation, are ultimately about making sure our culture meets that baseline. And that principle is the real source of the name of my organization, Public Knowledge.

—–