<div dir="ltr">Hello,<br><div><br> The current undertakings of Lt. Col Nathan Wiedenman at DARPA's Tactical Technology Office come to mind (<a href="http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Personnel/Wiedenman.aspx">http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Personnel/Wiedenman.aspx</a>). He has been the program manager for the DARPA grant to SpaceGAMBIT for the Hackerspaces Space Program. He and his DARPA department has worked with the open-source development of various ground vehicles by the Adaptive Vehicle Make (AVM, <a href="http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Adaptive_Vehicle_Make__%28AVM%29.aspx">http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Adaptive_Vehicle_Make__%28AVM%29.aspx</a>) and the open development of software by the DARPA Open Catalogue (<a href="http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2014/02/04.aspx">http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2014/02/04.aspx</a>).<br>
</div><div> He would be a very good candidate to ask of the intersection of the benefits of openness and of central control.<br><br></div><div> - Ethan<br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 10:07 AM, Matt Maier <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:blueback09@gmail.com" target="_blank">blueback09@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>I think I see an unexpected connection and I was wondering if it held up to scrutiny.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Information Age Transformations, David S. Alberts</div>
<div><span style="LINE-HEIGHT:115%;FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri','sans-serif';FONT-SIZE:11pt"><a href="http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Alberts_IAT.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Alberts_IAT.pdf</a></span></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Network-centric warfare, which is the high-falutin' paradigm the US military is using to organize its move into the information age, has four tenets:</div>
<ul>
<li>A robust networked force improves information sharing</li>
<li>information sharing and collaboration enhances the quality of information and shared situational awareness</li>
<li>shared situational awareness enables self-synchronization</li>
<li>these, in turn, dramatically increase mission effectiveness</li></ul>
<div>What I see is a strong conceptual parallel to the open source philosophy. If you think of a technical problem, or a particular capability, as "the enemy" and solving or achieving it as "fighting" then the domain-specific ideas in network-centric warfare suddenly describe open source development.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The core idea is that if everyone knows what the goal is, and everyone has access to the same information, then conversations can flow peer-to-peer, which is far more efficient.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>It seems like the only important difference between these two theories are where they're coming from. Open source has emerged bottom-up, so it only grafts on a "head" when absolutely necessary. Network-centric warfare has emerged top-down, so the "head' isn't interested in actually giving up any significant power. The former wants to know how everyone at the edge (because there is no center) can benefit from knowing what each other knows. The latter wants to know how the center can benefit from having better tools to give to the people at the edge. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>NCW reminds me a bit of Quirky or Local Motors. They absolutely love talking about openness and collaboration, but they are actually strongly centrally controlled. However, they are also relatively successful.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>So, how much of the benefit of open source network effects is it possible to obtain without giving up the benefits of central control? A military, and arguably a (public?) business, can't even consider the possibility of "forking." They have to give up whatever benefits come with maximum freedom of association, but still want to capture whatever benefits are left over. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>The intersection could be studied by asking the corporate/military people how & why they introduced some aspects of openness into their organizations and by asking the libre-open crowd how & why they introduced some aspects of central authority into their collective. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>My guess at the moment is that it will hinge on whether or not there is an accumulation of wealth that doesn't rightfully belong to any one person. I suspect when that exists an artificial entity has to be created to be the "person" to which the wealth belongs. But that's mostly an intuitive guess.</div>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<div> </div>
<div>-Matt</div>
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