Free and Open Source Software

Topic Owners: dulles,Ayelet

Back to syllabus.

Precis

Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) appears to not obey the usual rules of market based economies. Many of those who contribute to the codebase of large F/OSS projects, for example, are unpaid amateurs working in their free time. Startlingly, others are paid to do it. We propose that F/OSS is best understood using the mechanics of gift economies rather than market economies. These are economies which value reputation over profit, where value is had in the giving, not in the taking, and where the wealthiest are those who have given away the most. Yet capitalism surrounds F/OSS. Linux distributors such as RedHat operate in the market economy even though their products are free, depending on a services based business model.

In our class we will try to track the economies and motivations that motivate the F/OSS movement, from an insider and an outsider perspective. We will focus of three questions regarding the economies of F/OSS:

1. Motivations: Why contribute to F/OSS as a hobbyist, without payment? Alternately, why contribute to F/OSS as a corporation, without claiming IP?
2. Capitalism: Where and how does F/OSS meet the bottom-line?
3. The Law: Given what we know about F/OSS incentives both in the market and gift economies, how does the American IP regime encourage and discourage F/OSS, and what tweaks would help promote F/OSS?

Although the creative potential of the intellectual commons isn't limited to software, the Internet and computer technology generally enable commons-based creativity in ways never before possible. With F/OSS as an arguable successful specimen of commons-based development ("with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow"), how might the model fail or succeed for artistic creation generally?

Fundemental Question

How is F/OSS created, and how should law be reformed to promote and secure F/OSS?

Guest Wish-list

• Mako - as an insider from the F/OSS movement. (awaiting response)
• Prof. Eben Moglen. (awaiting response)

Readings

• The Gift, by Lewis Hyde. Chapter Five "The Gift Community" (p. 96-120).
• The Gift Economy and Free Software, by Jem Matzan.
• Some Simple Economics of Open Source, by Josh Lerner.
• GNU Public License version 3.

Class Twitter Conversation

We'd like to ask everybody in the class to register for a Twitter account and use the hashtags service to follow and twitter to #iif.

Class members should feel free to twitter their thoughts and questions while we read, tagging their posts with #iif. The idea is that our twitter discussion, which may accompany any listserv activity, will be more conversational, given the strict twitter character limit.

http://thepaisano.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/twitter-hashtags-and-groups/

http://hashtags.org/

(n.b. User:dulles will clear this all up with more details soon)