Code v.2: Collaborative Online Editing

The Code v.2 project has been launched. It is the collaborative online effort to update Lawrence Lessig's 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. You can contribute through a wiki and follow the progress at the CodeBlog. This is what the project has to say:

After five years in print and five years of changes in law, technology, and the context in which they reside, Code needs an update. But rather than do this alone, Professor Lessig is using this wiki to open the editing process to all, to draw upon the creativity and knowledge of the community. This is an online, collaborative book update; a first of its kind.

Once the the project nears completion, Professor Lessig will take the contents of this wiki and ready it for publication. The resulting book, Code v.2, will be published in late 2005 by Basic Books. All royalties, including the book advance, will be donated to Creative Commons.

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Later: Here is the press release from JotSpot, the involved wiki company

And here is a short BusinessWeek interview with Lessig on the project. On what Lessig thinks will happen:

Some parts of the book remain controversial, and they're likely to generate a lot of heat. That will be fun to watch, but it won't be all that useful.

But I hope for more outside views. I've found that people outside the academic environment can be very helpful and insightful. Eric von Hippel [professor and head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management] talks about user-supplied innovation. That's the insight I'm trying to exploit here.