Open Source Literature

Hanway St, Central London, 20th Aug 08

In a recent post I quoted an academic article about Open Source. Even though the author uses the word “literature” to refer to “the academic literature,” I think that we could also discuss open source in the realm of literary (not necessarily academic) creation.

A quick look at the Guardian’s Open Source Webfeed will easily reveal the importance that the UK is putting on the the issue. Open Source is no longer a term for techie geeks, but an essential political buzzword, right there with “global warming.” The efficiency of democracies and political careers, as in the personal cases of Gordon Brown and Barack Obama, is being judged by how well they are adapting to the Open Source revolution. (Just see this and this).

But if one takes a look at the web site of Mexico’s Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información Pública we sadly see that the question of Open Source is not even mentioned. I would need more time to be able to discuss the form and content peculiarities of this web site, and why this absence seriously matters. They assume they are making government information transparently available, but they don’t say why, how and where. There is not even a slight declared intention to make the technology more “neutral,” so people (especially in Mexico) with different levels of Internet connectivity, software and hardware can access equally to it.

Have you seen the FONCA web site? It reads: “Este sitio está diseñado para Internet Explorer 6 y Netscape 7.0 con Flash 8 plug-in.” That explains why I was unable to load the page for months (and, just after the presidential change, they “revamped” the whole site, just to make it even more inaccessible).

In a world where the future of democracy is being discussed in terms of Open Source Democracy, we seem determined to keep spending money Mexico does not have in obsolete technology, most probably designed (even if unconsciously) to alienate as many users as possible. Of course they would think this is not “trascendente para el país,” but I would urge them to read this book. Or at least a quick browse through The Open Source Initiative.

Mexico has to wake up to the fact that the Internet is not only some form of electronic billboard, where people post immobile adverts. It is not some sort of first-world luxury, or an instrument of American imperialism to colonize us even more. The generalized adoption of Open Source (at least in the design of governmental web sites) would allow us to make the Internet ours by using it democratically. Of course, a country’s web sites (like its athletes) are the expression of its culture. An anti-democratic country is very likely to have a very anti-democratic management of information.

This is also reflected in the way most Mexican writers interact in and with the Internet. Well-known, otherwise respected authors dismiss blogging and hardly ever reply to their e-mails. Willinsky’s article teaches us a good lesson: literature needs to be as readily available as possible. Writers need to embrace Internet technologies as soon as possible if they are interested in spreading the word, in giving literature back its power to create communities.

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In other news, in last week’s The Economist, Mexico’s briefing was titled Left Behind. ¡Vamos, México! (*sigh*)