In particular, during discussions, arguments and planning processes, there’s a sense of concern that any given decision made today may turn out to be the wrong decision, or may in the future be made in a different way. Obsessive archiving mitigates the possibility that future decision-makers will be perplexed by the outcome of the process, and will remind them (if they care to read) of the rationales we had in mind when we were coming to terms with the decision we were making. If the context of the decision turns out to be no longer relevant in 5 years, then reversing the outcome of the decision is no big deal. But if there were subtle nuances in rationale that are still relevant, an attempt to reverse the outcome can be more easily rebutted.

Also, obsessive archiving (along with an explicit or implicit faith in the power of mechanized search) is seen as a time-saver — if we can have the discussion with each other in the public, then no one needs to spend any extra time writing or fact-checking minutes, summaries, etc.

This doesn’t work out all the time, so summaries are still needed for some monstrous discussions, or particularly high-bandwidth topics (see, for example, Jon Corbet’s ongoing summaries of Linux kernel development). But for smaller discussions and projects, the original archives themselves are a more effective use of limited collaborator hours than preparing and publishing synopses.

“bias it to their advantage” might be better, or maybe “tilt it to their advantage” (which keeps the metaphor alive a bit longer).

Absolutely. Second Life and fan fiction are both great examples to explore in this context. With second life, the key difference is that Linden Labs has absolute authority over what happens there… but beyond that, certain elements of free software practices are central to second lifers understanding of what they create.

Fan fiction is an even better example because of the way it liberates not just texts or material copies, but characters, plots, situations. Fan-subbing in anime i another good example. Here the key difference is the quasi-legality of it. Free software has figured out a way to create a legal commons that opts out of corporate provision of software… fan fiction and fan subbing exist in uneasy relation to that same corporate provision: they need it to feed their understanding and inhabitation of their worlds, but they deconstruct it and make it public at the same time. I hope it’s clear that I think using free software as a template for asking about the practices involved in either case is a way of trying to make more precise what makes a public, and what makes publics valuable.

I am thinking about how one would apply your concept of recursive public to other groups who may, like free software geeks, be difficult to frame. A key concept for recursive public that you set forth is the generation and modification of infrastructure of the group. To what extent can one be liberal with concepts of infrastructure? Thinking about modifiability reminds me of many groups who play with the world they are in, be it a literary world or a virtual world such as second life. Building infrastructure for free software geeks at times literally means coding their world, but can we say that fans who write fan fiction are also crafting their world through the modification of literary canon? Are residents of second life who work to build virtual products and building structures and thus create the second life landscape also maintaining their infrastructure? In this sense can we apply the recursive public framework to these groups as well?

What’s worse though is that it is illegal for you to do something productive and valuable, like add english subtitles to a spanish program and re-distribute it. Free Culture advocates would argue that this kind of consumer participation should not be criminalized, and I would agree.

re: culture… not sure I can answer your question here. I tried to avoid using the term as much as possible, but when I do use it, I use it to refer to the former definition you give–that of a totality of economic, behavioral, technical, aesthetic and so on, rules and norms that produce a sense of affinity or kinship.

What’s more, the ability to apprentice and to develop the elite skills necessary to carry forward such a project is also supposed to be open to anyone (i.e. there is no authority that decides who will be the FOSS elite or the Connexions elite), so this lay reading public has the option to become expert if they choose. Contrast that with science, or newspaper-writing/reading or other activities constituted around closed groups.

Wikipedia, or better Facebook and MySpace, are examples that might stand up better to this question, because they are not really that elite… and yet only Wikipedia would qualify as Free Software in my terms. So yes, the public is divided here, and will continue to be so… but it isn’t because of technical access or elitism per se a la Robins or Webster… it is because of technical and legal choices that were made by Facebook and MySpace… or to put it differently, there are simply more and less public forms of technology, and it matters when people choose to participate in a less public one, even if they don’t personally recognize that they do so.

Lippman’s phantom public was something else though: it was a public that elites claimed existed, in order to justify their actions, but which Lippman argued did not and could never exist. The so-called omnicompetent individual who is a member of The Public and participates in all political decision making is a fantasy. The alternative is multiple publics, each addressing its own issues… which is where Dewey took this debate. So in terms of FOSS, its similarly dangerous to assume that everyone who participates in a recursive public needs to be a programmer with wicked hacking skills… that’s a repeat of the myth of the omnicompetent citizen.

In particular, during discussions, arguments and planning processes, there’s a sense of concern that any given decision made today may turn out to be the wrong decision, or may in the future be made in a different way. Obsessive archiving mitigates the possibility that future decision-makers will be perplexed by the outcome of the process, and will remind them (if they care to read) of the rationales we had in mind when we were coming to terms with the decision we were making. If the context of the decision turns out to be no longer relevant in 5 years, then reversing the outcome of the decision is no big deal. But if there were subtle nuances in rationale that are still relevant, an attempt to reverse the outcome can be more easily rebutted.

Also, obsessive archiving (along with an explicit or implicit faith in the power of mechanized search) is seen as a time-saver — if we can have the discussion with each other in the public, then no one needs to spend any extra time writing or fact-checking minutes, summaries, etc.

This doesn’t work out all the time, so summaries are still needed for some monstrous discussions, or particularly high-bandwidth topics (see, for example, Jon Corbet’s ongoing summaries of Linux kernel development). But for smaller discussions and projects, the original archives themselves are a more effective use of limited collaborator hours than preparing and publishing synopses.