Twelve things that will be free [WorldChanging.com]
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has been presenting audiences with a prediction and a challenge about the free culture movement: Ten Things that Will be Free. Jimmy’s list is inspried by David Hilbert’s address to the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris, 1900, where he proposed 23 critical unsolved problems in mathematics. This list was enormously influential in shaping mathematical research over the 20th century, and most of the problems have been resolved. Jimmy’s list is, like Hilbert’s, an outline of what we don’t know how to do yet in the world of free culture, and a call to action. It’s also, to a certain extent, a prediction of the future – Jimmy makes the point that it’s 10 things that will be free in the next ten to twenty five years, not should be free.In a recent (September 27th) talk at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where Jimmy is a non-resident fellow, he presented the most recent version of the list, updated since he presented it at the Frankfurt Wikimania conference. The list is a dynamic one – it’s being reprioritized as he receives feedback from colleagues and audiences, and currently includes 12 Things that Will be Free.
