Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

3.22.10 | A fuller examination of the issues David Booth raises in his Q&A is available in the MacArthur Series report “Peer Participation and Software: What Mozilla Has to Teach Government” (PDF). Booth argues that the same principles and organizational design that motivate a community of volunteer developers to continually update the Firefox internet browser can be replicated in larger government and civic action.

The report begins with a brief history of the Mozilla Foundation and its open-source business model and summarizes the unique mix of management and volunteer labor that enables Mozilla to operate at scale in developing the Firefox browser. It examines licensing issues in an open-source environment, including which protocols volunteer developers follow, how the Mozilla Foundation governs the redistribution of its source code, and how an open-source license actually legislates the freedom that makes large-scale participation possible.

Booth also applies the modular nature of code writing to a range of nontechnical activities and underscores links between an international community of code writers and civic action in other realms. Finally, he asks what software can teach the government and shows with real examples how the Mozilla model could be applicable elsewhere.

This report is part of the MacArthur Series Reports in Digital Media and Learning. Other reports in the series include:

• “The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age” by Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg with the assistance of Zoë Marie Jones

• “The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age” by Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg with the assistance of Zoë Marie Jones

• “New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and ‘Worked Examples’ as One Way Forward” by James Paul Gee

• “Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project” by Mizuko Ito, Heather Horst, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Becky Herr-Stephenson, Patricia G. Lange, C. J. Pascoe, and Laura Robinson with Sonja Baumer, Rachel Cody, Dilan Mahendran, Katynka Z. Martínez, Dan Perkel, Christo Sims, and Lisa Tripp

• “Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media: A Synthesis from the GoodPlay Project” by Carrie James with Katie Davis, Andrea Flores, John M. Francis, Lindsay Pettingill, Margaret Rundle, and Howard Gardner

• “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century” by Henry Jenkins (P.I.) with Ravi Purushotma, Margaret Weigel, Katie Clinton, and Alice J. Robison

• “The Civic Potential of Video Games” by Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh, and Chris Evans