[Commons-Law] open source history?

[martin pichlmair]

dear list,

as this is my first posting i should note as an introduction that the  
commons-law mailing list is the one i usually read first when i  
finished my regular inbox. i really appreciate the high quality of  
topics discussed and brought to surface here.

i am teaching at the technical university of vienna. my main area of  
interest is media art, yet i also have to teach some courses that  
stretch the borders of this topic. in the next semester i have to give  
a course on "community networks". in this course the notion of commons  
naturally plays a significant role.

as an entry point i want to give open source software an extensive  
treatment. the problem is that most histories of open source software  
that i find begin in the arpanet realm of the 1960ies. open source code  
is perceived by most authors (erich raymond being the most popular  
example) as a pure technical situation, whereas i strongly believe that  
the social phenomenon has roots that stretch further back into history.

my question to the list is:
does anybody on this list have knowledge about historic (or maybe even  
contemporary) examples of open source code beyond software?

any help, tips, directions are welcome.

lg
martin


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martin pichlmair                                      phone ++43 1  
58801 187 -33
design & assessment of technology institute      vienna university of  
technology
http://igw.tuwien.ac.at/igw/         favoritenstrasse 9-11  1040 vienna  
  austria