Usage
At first sight, it would appear to many that blogs fit within the current meaning of 'open source journalism'. Yet the term's use of open source clearly currently implies the meaning as given to it by the open source software movement; where the source code of programs is published openly to allow anyone to locate and fix mistakes or add new functions. Anyone may also freely take and re-use that source code in order to create new works, within set license parameters.
Given certain legal traditions of copyright, blogs may not be "open source" in the sense that one is prohibited from taking the blogger's words or visitor comments and re-using them in another form without breaching the author's copyright or making payment. However, many blogs draw on such material through quotations (often with links to the original material), and follow guidelines more comparable to research than media production.
Creative Commons is a licensing arrangement useful as a legal workaround for such an inherent structural dilemma intrinsic to blogging, and its fruition is manifest in the common practices of referencing another published article, image or piece of information via a hyperlink. Insofar as blog works can explicitly inform readers and other participants of the "openness" of their text via Creative Commons, they not only publish openly, but allow anyone to locate, critique, summarize etc. their works.
Read more about this topic: Open-source Journalism
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)