COSCUP 2025

This presentation compares Japan's "Doujin" (同人) activities with the Western-originated "Open Source Software (OSS) activities," exploring their origins, backgrounds, developmental dynamics, and the future vision of open culture.

The OSS movement sustains a voluntary community of developers, motivated by contributions and improvements secured through open source licenses. In contrast, Japan's Doujin culture forms highly enthusiastic communities through the creation and distribution of derivative works based on existing creations or original works. These activities are fueled by the love and empathy that fans (i.e., "doujin") share for "narratives".

This session will first trace the origins of both movements. While the OSS movement is rooted in the hacker culture of the American West Coast and European free software ideology, Doujin activities find their early forms in the self-publishing of literary magazines by writers' groups in Meiji era (late 18th century).

Next, we will compare the developmental processes of their respective communities. Doujin activities have built a unique ecosystem for co-creating narratives through offline events known as "Doujinshi conventions" (同人誌即売会). In contrast, we will examine how the OSS movement's stage became globalized and came to pursue productivity within a market economy.

Finally, we will look towards the future of our open culture. We will introduce relatively new Japanese Doujinshi conventions such as "Bunfree Market" (文学フリマ) and "Tech Book Fest" (技術書典), proposing an attractive community model driven by emotional connections.