Talk:Free and Open Source Software

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Crowdsourcing and Gift Economies?

If we managed to bore ourselves with this topic, maybe we can move it along into a discussion of what crowdsourcing can learn from free software. They seems to meet at a philosophical level around the notion of a gift economy, don't they? Dulles 07:10, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I actually don't think we bored ourselves - reading what you wrote, I think we could think (and I'm following Yochai Benkler's class today) of proprietary software - based on an intellectual property regime - as a "clash of civilizations" with f/oss, which is based on a commons-based system. that is, because these both are based on two different sets of assumption: market economy v. gift/reputation economy, hegemony v. grassroots movement.

the interesting question we could consider is, I think, about F/OSS as growing "in the shadow of the IP law" (it is a reference to a classic article about settlement arrangements as being "in the shadow of the law").

Benkler, for one, would think (I think) that IP law and IP-based systems create an infrastructure that stops F/OSS from developing. Lessig, on the other hand, if I understand correctly, as in the Creative Commons idea, thinks that the two can develop at the same time.

I think a very cool idea will be to ask them both (maybe Lessig via video-conference) to debate about the question of the enfluence of current copyright and patent law as to software as a "shadow" for the development of F/OSS. (Ayelet)

Usufruct?

Can we use the concept of usufruct? Dulles 07:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)