FOSS Notes

STAGE ONE

• Motivations
  • We have these three ideas of the movement. Gift econoimcs. Market economics. A cultural movement. Let's get Mako talking on this.

• Proposition: writing free software and working for a proprietary software company is analogous to doing academic research and working R&D for a corporation.

• Proposition: All of the grand ideas of gift economics really just collapse into market economics. Lerner. (In the beginning, this was *the* explanation. Has it been subsumed by a cultural analysis of the movement?)

• Proposition: Despite Moglen's insistence, Kelty implies that FOSS took off only because Eric S. Raymond turned FOSS into a non-ideological movement.

• Consider these issues in the FOSS world

• • Stallman's ideology v. Raymond's practical approach
    • Do Stallman and Moglen represent a generational difference in views of FOSS?
  • Inclusive movement v. Elitist scene

STAGE TWO

• What are the characteristics of a (1) successful FOSS project, (2) successful FOSS process?
• CATB: Comparing the "bazaar" (FOSS) model to the "cathedral" (proprietary) model, the main advantage of FOSS is the maxim, "with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"

• Isn't it bizarre that a movement that, in some sense, attempts to destroy IP in software, is so heavily dependent on IP law? It seems pretty interested in the law -- can we speculate as to why this is so?
  • Kelty says, "free software hacks IP law". Ch. 6.

STAGE THREE

• Regarding open source governance, what are the characteristics we've learned about projects and processes that make open source development successsful?

• Mako on the GPL v3 development process

• If we wanted to create an open source law project, how would it work? Can we learn anything from Wikipedia on this?

• Regarding CATB, open source law complicates matters because law inloves questions of policy choice?

• Kelty says that unlike other "movements", FOSS is held together and progresses by the practices not the ideologies. How does this translate to open source law?

• Do either of these statements translate to open source law?
  • ESR: Open source is an evolutionary necessary outcome of the natuarl tendancy of human societies toward economies of abundance.
  • Stallman: Open source is a defense of the fundamental freedoms of creativity and speech.
    • law as a "speech act" ?
  • Dulles: Free software is about self-determination.

• Maybe open source law is destined to fail as a concept because law is too entrenched in society as outside the reaches of laymen, who don't believe they have any place to dictate its maxims.