Free and Open Source Software
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Fundemental Questions
Why is free software created? Why does it succeed? How can we secure and promote free software?
Precis
Gift Economics
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. We propose that F/OSS is best understood, in part, 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.
Market Economics
On the other hand, 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. Furthermore, not all developers are unpaid amateurs, but some are actually paid to do it. It's not uncommon for a commercial software developer to dedicate part of his work-time to developing free software, especially when their companies depend on that software and have an interest in it's development.
Planned Evolution
In addition to the usefulness of gift and market economies as tools for understanding F/OSS, it may be useful to consider the movement as a planning or staged happening. Prof. Eben Moglen of the Software Freedom Law Center asserts that F/OSS as a movement is part of a larger planned development of the way we will interact in a digital future. Certainly this is represented in the philosophy of the Free Software Foundation. Yet GNU/Linux, arguably the most successful F/OSS project, was founded by a man not particularly fond of ideology, whose initial motivations seemed to relate more to hobby than philosophy.
Breaking Down the Investigation
- Motivations: Why contribute to free software as an unpaid hobbyist or as a corporation? Gift economics? Market economics? Planned evolution?
- Success: Free software is successful - why?
- The Law: Given what we can discern about free software's success, how can the American IP regime alter to protect and encourage free software? How do these tweaks highlight the three motivations outlined?
Guest Wish-list
- Mako - as an insider from the F/OSS movement. (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.
Supplemental (non required) Readings
- Philosophies of Free Software and Intellectual Property, by The Famous Brett Watson.
- Homesteading the Noosphere, by Eric S. Raymond.
- The Cathedral and the Bazaar, by Eric S. Raymond.
Class Twitter Conversation
In addition to the listserv, which will doubtlessly allow us to communicate our thoughts between classes and develop our discussion, we propose to use Twitter to create a simultaneous mode of discussion designed to be informal and strongly conversational. Because Twitter limits entries to 140 characters, the service should naturally lend itself to such discussion.
In order to tie our tweets together, we can use the @hashtags system. Documentation 1 2. We propose to use the #iif tag. Students may read the hashtag using the hashtags.org system or at the Twitter search page. However we recommend that students follow the #iif hashtag using the RSS feed available at hashtags.org. The RSS feed from search.twitter.com unfortunately drops the username originating the tweet. Students are encouraged to investigate other Twitter client applications and RSS readers in order to make it exceptionally easy to read the #iif tweets and to post updates, making the whole endeavor something akin to a chatroom without requiring that we all log in to IRC.