[AktiviX] Open source and anarchism: What can anarchists learn from the Free Software movement?

Nick Hill nick at nickhill.co.uk
Wed Oct 15 23:22:28 UTC 2003


Robin Green wrote:

> Personally I'm not an anarchist and I don't think free software projects are
> necessarily good examples of anarchist successes either. Two points:

You have chosen to show what does not happen in the Linux kernel project 
to deomonstrate what does not happen in free software per se. This is 
flawed reasoning. Although what you say is to a certain degree true for 
the linux kernel, the same is not necessarily true, at least to the same 
degree, in other free software projects. If you take a view of the free 
software world, things look different than they do when looking at a 
particular project. The whole does not resemble each of it's parts.

I think it would be counterproductive to publicise GNU/Linux as having 
an anarchist aspect to the wider community as anarchism is clearly 
misunderstood.

However, many in the anarchist movement can rightly identify many 
aspects of the value production process in free software as being a good 
approximation of their ideals.

Regarding de-facto standards. The standards are open. The implementation 
is open, the code used to implement the standard is free to be 
re-purposed under the same copyleft license. That is a lot of freedom. 
No-one has ownership of the entire code base, the standards or the 
implementation. Anyone can use them. You can't buy them, you don't have 
to go to the government to get permission to use them, you don't have to 
pay anyone for a license to use them. No-one can stop anyone else from 
using them. The content industries are trying hard to close the freedoms 
to put these freedoms under the control of money. As it stands, we have 
freedoms. Anarchists appreciate freedom. There is a lot for anarchists 
to appreciate in the free software model of production and distribution.


Anarchists would appreciate free software because:
1)Free software gives a lot of freedom and we need to defend freedom to 
keep the model of production working.

2)You can develop free software and use free software without needing to 
buy into information ownership. Acapital and without permission.

3) Free software levels the field in terms of information control. It 
takes control out of the few hands and puts it into many.

4) Free software structurally abhors systems of code control such as DRM 
and TCPA.

5) Free software counters the tendency in software to concentrate wealth 
into the hands of a few (eg Bill Gates).

6) Free software in total exhibits a relatively devolved structure of 
control, where in total, people co-operate rather than being subject to 
coercion.

7) The control which does exist in structures to do with free software 
tends to be of a meritocratic nature as ownership is not absolute and 
those without merit will either loose control of the project or the 
project will fork, or another project will take code, then become 
predominant. (This is a weak case for the linux kernel, however, not for 
free software. Linux is trademarked and has a strong brand following). 
Free software on the other hand, is a method rather than a product. It 
is essential the free software aspect is promoted to keep the system 
free. Calling the system GNU/Linux helps.

If you want to promote freedom, it is important not to promote 'Linux 
tm' or 'Opensource' but to promote GNU and 'Free Software'.




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