Author: | Benjamin Mako Hill |
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Contact: | mako@atdot.cc |
Date: | Tuesday, 5 July 2005 |
Affiliation: | Ubuntu Project / Debian Project |
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This talk was delivered at Libre Software Meeting (LSM/RMLL) 2005 in Dijon, France. More information on this talk my other talks is available at http://mako.cc/
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SLIDE 1: Title
I first talked about these ideas at LSM two years ago in a theme that was about taking libre software outside of IT. This theme made me consider what it was about free software that could be applied?
Rather than try to theorize, I looked around. What I saw was many people working on FOSS from many perspectives.
What we can learn from libre software is not that a particular set of ethics, values, or politics is necessary to a practice but that certain social structures and practices encourage the cultivation and growth of productive ethics, values, and politics.
Broadly Defined Freedom, based around the idea of radical non-discrimination is one extremely productive aspect of free software.
Many (perhaps most) social critiques of libre software approach libre software in a reductive fashion.
Here are three example that I'll come back to at the end of my talk:
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SLIDE 2: Reductionists says libre software is inherently anti-capitalist.
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SLIDE 3: Reductionists says libre software is inherently capitalist.
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SLIDE 4: Reductionists says libre software is inherently a system about limiting capitalism.
No two of the above claims can be correct. But the fundamental flaw is not in that each group is wrong but that the way they trying to approach free software -- as reductionists -- is wrong.
Rather than creating an answer through reductive or essentialist analysis, I prefer a sociological/anthropological method.
I believe that Free Software is broadly defined. But "broadly defined" is still defined.
There exist definitions of Libre/Free/Open software to which everyone who does free software is committed...
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SLIDE 5: Broadly Defined Freedom / The FSD
OSD and DFSG are just re-articulations -- checklists -- around the same concepts. OS and FS are different terms around a single name.
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SLIDE 6: Radical Non-Discrimination
At the center of each of these freedoms is a concept of radical non-discrimination.
In turn, what this leads to is the idea that ideas can be easily translated from one field to another both inside and outside of the projects.
While there is significantly different emphasis on the meaning and/or importance of this freedom within different groups, a concept of freedom (that includes radical non-discrimination, uninhibited use and re-use, transparency, among others) plays a central role.
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SLIDE 7: Political Division in Developer Communities
Within the larger libre software community, broadly defined freedom is interpreted very differently by:
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SLIDE 8: Political Division in User Communities
Had libre software been codified as "left" or "right" it would not be as easily approachable by a diverse group of users.
The same pieces of libre software are put in use by those groups I alluded to earlier with their quotes:
e.g., Software written by Indymedia (a radical left media organization) software with general uses, is unused outside of the political left.
Software that is identified strictly with a particular political community is more difficult to take out of that community.
This is where things get fun.
Each of the three organizations mentioned earlier see libre software as a model on which they can base their philosophy and actions for the purposes of contradictory goals.
We briefly can walk through the list once again:
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SLIDE 9: Indymedia
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SLIDE 10: I.B.M.
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SLIDE 11: The Commons Movement
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SLIDE 12: Problems
Fears / feelings of cooptation
Effectiveness toward specific goals within a heterogeneous political community can come at the price of clarify of message
i.e., You will accomplish more and your message will get further but it will be less clear and in competition with other, potentially conflicting, messages.
Working "with" or for those with different political aims, especially when there are significant power and economic imbalances, can prove prohibitively problematic.
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SLIDE 13: Conclusions