Proposal | reboot11
Cooperative Capitalism?
Can we compete and cooperate at the same time?
Our planet and our current-resource-use patterns don't match up. The new world demands a new economy, one in which we get the most out of every investment and do our best to use things up.
Being able to leverage other people's investments, and other people's stuff -- think car sharing, ride sharing, web 2.0, open networks, mesh networking, open source, multi-purposed devices -- can take us a long way toward improving the sustainability of the planet. I'm happy to talk about all of the above, which I've been doing for a while (see a discussion here: networkmusings.blogspot.com/2008/11/time-for-cooperative-capitalism.html)
It is easy to make a convincing argument that government investments should be open and seek to maximize participation. And we can all come up with compelling examples of where closed proprietary products/services are appropriate and drive innovation. But after explaining the idea, I'd love to have a discussion about all the grey areas -- are there any rules we make about when something should be open vs closed? where does the line get drawn? how and why?
