This abstract is for a presentation being made at the Digital Humanities 2007 Conference in June at UIUC.
Academic progress seems to depend on a person's ability to contribute to society as measured by attributable work such as articles and monographs in areas that are interesting to society. These attributions depend on copyrights and patents, the keys to establishing and protecting intellectual property ownership. The various print journals and publishing houses act as a peer-reviewed intermediary. The academy establishes social interest in a project by the project's ability to attract financial support.
Digital Humanities (DH) relies heavily on what is now being called Web 2.0: technologies that allow nearly seamless cross-platform client/server applications (e.g., AJAX and Comet). Most of these technologies have roots in the Open Source Community (OSC). Much of the talent is also in the OSC. Until this talent is brought into DH, DH is in danger of being a field looking in from outside, watching technology advance as it tries to catch up. Yet, DH is rooted in the academy and must meet the expectations of the academy.
The Open Source Community has its roots in the academy, but has lived for a while in the wild among amateurs in the classic sense. Many people participate in open source because they enjoy doing so, though some participate because of their employment. The OSC is built on a stereotype of the academy: information is free and everyone is able to work on problems they find interesting. Just as professors enjoy working in a University or College with other smart people in their field, OSC members are attracted to projects with smart people. OSC members also value the openness with which they can develop and discuss projects.
The Open Source Community has not abandoned the notion of attribution and social relevancy. The openness of a project's development creates a trajectory along which the project travels. This trajectory is a measure of the talent behind the project and is apparent to most who are interested in the project. Misappropriating a particular release of a project captures only a single point on that trajectory. Because any particular release of a project does not bring with it any of the talent behind the project, `stealing' from the project is worth much less. Attribution in the OSC is much more than just the name beside the copyright or on the patent.
An Open Source project is socially relevant if it is widely used and has a strong community. There are no financial requirements for a project to be successful. Sourceforge.net hosts Open Source projects at no cost to the project not because any particular project is worth the cost, but because the OSC itself is socially relevant. People contribute their time to a project not necessarily because they get paid but because they enjoy the project and, if they make significant contributions, they can become a well known talent in the OSC.
The problem, then, is how to balance the requirements of the academy against the need to create an environment that is inviting to the open source community. By openly involving the open source community, DH can access a wide variety of talent which will be involved in various projects not because they are being paid to help, but because they love the project. At the same time, DH can maintain the attribution required for academic progress.
One academic field of study that is leading the way with technology is Physics with the development of the world wide web at CERN to aid in sharing documents to the electronic pre-print server (http://xxx.lanl.gov/). The Physics community can do this because it is small enough that its members know each other. Reputation is built much as it is in the Open Source Community: by personal experiences between members of the community. Formal peer review plays a secondary role. By reviewing the output of a physicist, another can see the pattern and tell if something new fits that pattern.
If any company represents the commercial potential of Digital Humanities, it is Google. They have been able to attract some of the top talent in the industry by providing a work environment that resembles the Open Source Community in many aspects. Some of the more interesting projects for DH have come from employees' `play time.' Google has brought a lot of smart people together under one roof, much as a University or College might do.
By looking to other academic fields and the Open Source Community, Digital Humanities can create a new environment encouraging rapid evolution of ideas without sacrificing the need for attribution, reputation, or social relevance.
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