[FC-discuss] Free Thesis Project Released Today

[Matthew Z]

On 5/4/07, Crosbie Fitch <crosbie at cyberspaceengineers.org> wrote:
>
> Universities are supposedly for the discovery and dissemination of
> knowledge
> - for the benefit of mankind.
>
> Inevitable funding squeezes inspire the conversion of this knowledge into
> IP
> protected by copyright and patent for commercial exploitation. This can
> interfere with 'dissemination'.
>
> Anything that removes such intellectual monopolies from knowledge and
> facilitates its dissemination to the public is going to be good for
> mankind.
>
> If the 'Free Thesis Project' moves in this direction to any extent, it is
> good. If that extent is insignificant (simply facilitates privileged
> access
> by student and faculty subscribers), then it's disappointing.


Yep, this is basically what I was trying to convey. I glibly brought
"nationalism" into the mix, because I disagree with the function of the
university as nationalist proselytizer, but I suppose it was pointless to
mention as much to a "student movement." It's really outside of the scope of
all this and I don't care to get into the can of worms it might blow open at
this point (read this --
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1984/nationalism.htm--
or something). I also used "transgression" in quotes because anything
that would claim to be moving toward a "free culture" should obviously have,
at the very least, hints of transgressive practice here and there. So when I
here supposed advocates confusedly saying things like "I'm also interested
as to why you consider transgression an important component to a FC
project." -- it's kind of worrisome. Obviously the crux of battling IP reign
is a transgressive move to begin with. How could you even possibly try to
separate the word from any actions? I just find this a bizarre choice of
euphemism in description is all. A sort of watering down of connotation in
words that might otherwise be useful and revealing.

'Free' is supposed to be about unshackling the public and removing their
> barriers to access knowledge/art and build upon it, not simply making
> things
> free (of charge) and easy for the privileged.


Yes, this too. I am considering going to university in fact, after a long
refusal, but it will at the very least half to be free. I have absolutely no
interest in a knowledge shopping mall. I responded to this email because I
though to myself, "what the fuck do I care if Harvard students can gain
brownie points for making theses more internally accessible?" When I look to
a university, I want more of an all around outreach. I just think it would
be cool to focus on catering to extraneous needs first and foremost vs.
strengthening internal ones. Then again I'm not hip to all of the buzz words
anyway (I appreciate the "thesis tower" explanation).

Any scholar who has a web site and deliberately provides only abstracts to
> their papers rather than the full text (only available to
> 'members/subscribers'), is demonstrating a lack of philanthropy and
> intellect that can be presumed similarly lacking in their paper.


Yes. Fuck http://www.jstor.org and the likes for things like this. There
have been so many times that I was attempting to research something and a
Google search sent me directly to the closed doors of jstor.org (there are
other pathetic sites like this as well). So when I see proposals like this
one, my mind treats them as synonymous to... lets say the hypothetical
situation of jstor.org making a public announcement about how they are
augmenting their internal database features for subscribers! This is
insulting to a public who can only glimpse at the outside of the alienating
jstor.org citadel. The same goes for the university (although I may sneak in
through the back door yet).

Matt
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