Perversion of Words The Commons, Open Source
When I learned that the new blogging colony Open Source Media, was not open source, at least not in the spirit of the Creative Commons, it got me thinking of a place called the Commons in Marietta, Georgia. It’s a nice little development patterned after a colonial commons, with brick townhouses surrounding an open green. It looks very inviting.
So when I used to jog, I would often cut into that neighborhood. Then one day a car pulled next to me, and a guy rolled down the window and asked if I realized I was on private property. Private property, a gated community, the Commons?
So I pulled a version of the old Woody Gutherie line on him, saying, “Yeah, the sign says Private Property on one side. What does it say on the other?” 
The guy in the car gave me a puzzled look then said, in a most authoritative voice, “You have been warned.” Rolled up his window and drove off.
Maybe someone forgot to look at the dictionary where Commons is defined as:
a piece of land subject to common use: as a : undivided land used especially for pasture b : a public open area in a municipality
I have often thought wouldn’t the inhabitants there be happier, if, in fact, they turned their property, especially that green into a real commons. Open it up, let kids play there, have a public craft show there, an Easter Egg hunt, a weekly farmers’ market, maybe even as a lark have a few sheep graze there. Something to make their little gated community lives more interesting–and more democratic in the spirit of the real Commons after which their neighborhood is patterned.
If they want to have a gated community, that’s their business, but don’t deceive yourself or the rest of us with the name Commons. If Open Source Media, wants to have traditional copyrights, that’s their business, but don’t deceive us with a name that could mean much more.
