A discussion of hybrid open source and proprietary licensing models.

["mykljonzun" <mykl AT mykljonzun.com>]

My name is Mykljonzun.  I’m hoping that you all can help me evaluate a unique Internet idea I have that plans to use Creative Commons licensing in its core functionality.  I’ve envisioned what can best be described as a conceptual model of a universal exchange of ideas called ideologi (pronounced “ideology”).  As exaggerated as this sounds, let me assure you that this is the proper description of its capabilities.  I believe that this may be a much-needed “Killer App” for the Creative Commons community.

 

Here's a real-world scenario of how ideologi would work...

 

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Ten thousand registered users from around the globe are ready to participate in a contest to "Design the Next-Generation MP3/PDA."  There's a $100,000 pot to be split by the winners of the contest.  The online entry form allows participants to enter their submissions in a variety of formats (text, image, mp3, spreadsheet, etc).
 
At a designated time, participants are alerted to the start of the judging phase of the contest.  By logging into ideologi, contestants see that they have been given access to ten anonymous submissions from other contestants.  They now have three hours to score all of them.  They are also allowed to attach an anonymous comment to explain the reason for their score.  Once finished, they await the next phase of the contest.

A sorting engine retires the lowest scoring submissions, leaving 1,000 submissions within reach of the prize money.  The "losers" of the first judging phase are NOT notified of their failure.  Like everyone else, they have one day to "upgrade" their own submission, if they were inspired by one of the submissions they scored earlier or think of a new addition to their idea.

The next day, participants get to review and score ten anonymous submissions that they haven't seen before.  Once the sorting engine retires the next batch, only 100 submissions remain.  One more "upgrade" and one more judging period will complete the contest.

A payment engine takes the $100,000 and breaks it into units equal to the total number of points given out during the contest and then deposits the proper amount into the account of each participant – “payment on a curve" by a jury of their peers. Participants get to see how they scored, as well as how everyone else ranked in the contest…

 

The design that achieves the highest score is astounding.  A contestant was able to produce the winning entry by cleverly incorporating her own work with several design elements she discovered while judging other submissions.  The organizer of the contest is ecstatic.  Not only do they have a design concept superior to anything proposed by their R&D team, but they now own an enormous digital library of design concepts which have already been evaluated and ranked by their own volunteer smart mob.  In addition, the company's marketing department now has a 10,000 person guerilla marketing army.  Not a bad trade for the price of an engineer's yearly salary...

 

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As you may imagine, Exchanges in ideologi could serve as high-speed ad hoc intellectual property development incubators for almost anything!  At the same time, it would also be a useful tool for decision-making among ad hoc groups and networked organizations.  For non-profit organizations with proactive memberships, a participation fee ($1) to enter an exchange for them to make decisions on directions that the organization takes in the future.

 

A more detailed description of ideologi’s capabilities, as well as links to some of the materials used in my research, is posted on my blog at www.ideologi.com.  My hope is that I can first generate consensus from leaders throughout the Internet community that the concept itself is an elegant idea.  If so, then it is my intention to create an open source development project around it and run it as a self-sufficient non-profit organization to help build it.  So far, the feedback I’ve received has been very positive.  In fact, a few individuals have contributed their own ideas as to how it could be used.  For example, a musician is interested in using ideologi to produce compositions via group collaboration.  Others have suggested that ideologi serve as a mechanism for true for participatory democracy and organized political consensus.

 

What I need now is assistance by someone that can spend a few minutes with me walking through the concept to make sure that CC licenses will work in the way proposed on my site.

 

Thank you very much for your consideration.

 

 

 

MYKLJONZUN

mykl AT mykljonzun.com