The Cultural Significance of Free Software

Two Bits EXPERIMENTAL FUTURES Technological Lives, Scientific Arts, Anthropological Voices A series edited by Michael M. J. Fischer and Joseph Dumit 2008 duke university press durham and london THE CULtURAL SIGNIFIcANcE OF FREE SOFtWARE Two Bits 2008 duke university press durham and london CHRIstOPHER M. KELtY © 2008 Duke University Press Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞ Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Charis (an Open Source font) by Achorn International Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data and republication acknowledgments appear on the last printed pages of this book. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike Li- cense, available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or by mail from Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, Calif. 94305, U.S.A. “NonCommercial” as defined in this license specifically excludes any sale of this work or any portion thereof for money, even if sale does not result in a profit by the seller or if the sale is by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit or NGO. Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support of HASTAC (Humani- ties, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory), which provided funds to help support the electronic interface of this book. Two Bits is accessible on the Web at twobits.net. To my parents, Anne and Ted Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Part I the internet 1. Geeks and Recursive Publics 27 2. Protestant Reformers, Polymaths, Transhumanists 64 Part II free software 3. The Movement 97 4. Sharing Source Code 118 5. Conceiving Open Systems 143 Contents 6. Writing Copyright Licenses 179 7. Coordinating Collaborations 210 Part III modulations 8. “If We Succeed, We Will Disappear” 243 9. Reuse, Modification, and the Nonexistence of Norms 269 Conclusion: The Cultural Consequences of Free Software 301 Notes 311 Bibliography 349 Index 367 Preface This is a book about Free Software, also known as Open Source Software, and is meant for anyone who wants to understand the cultural significance of Free Software. Two Bits explains how Free Software works and how it emerged in tandem with the Internet as both a technical and a social form. Understanding Free Software in detail is the best way to understand many contentious and confus- ing changes related to the Internet, to “commons,” to software, and to networks. Whether you think first of e-mail, Napster, Wikipedia, MySpace, or Flickr; whether you think of the proliferation of da- tabases, identity thieves, and privacy concerns; whether you think of traditional knowledge, patents on genes, the death of scholarly publishing, or compulsory licensing of AIDS medicine; whether you think of MoveOn.org or net neutrality or YouTube—the issues raised by these phenomena can be better understood by looking carefully at the emergence of Free Software. Why? Because it is in Free Software and its history that the issues raised—from intellectual property and piracy to online po- litical advocacy and “social” software—were first figured out and confronted. Free Software’s roots stretch back to the 1970s and crisscross the histories of the personal computer and the Internet, the peaks and troughs of the information-technology and software industries, the transformation of intellectual property law, the in- novation of organizations and “virtual” collaboration, and the rise of networked social movements. Free Software does not explain why these various changes have occurred, but rather how indi- viduals and groups are responding: by creating new things, new practices, and new forms of life. It is these practices and forms of life—not the software itself—that are most significant, and they have in turn served as templates that others can use and transform: practices of sharing source code, conceptualizing openness, writing copyright (and copyleft) licenses, coordinating collaboration, and proselytizing for all of the above. There are explanations aplenty for why things are the way they are: it’s globalization, it’s the net- work society, it’s an ideology of transparency, it’s the virtualization of work, it’s the new flat earth, it’s Empire. We are drowning in the why, both popular and scholarly, but starving for the how. Understanding how Free Software works is not just an academic pursuit but an experience that transforms the lives and work of participants involved. Over the last decade, in fieldwork with software programmers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, artists, activists, and other geeks I have repeatedly observed that understanding how Free Software works results in a revelation. People—even (or, per- haps, especially) those who do not consider themselves programmers, hackers, geeks, or technophiles—come out of the experience with something like religion, because Free Software is all about the practices, not about the ideologies and goals that swirl on its sur- face. Free Software and its creators and users are not, as a group, antimarket or anticommercial; they are not, as a group, anti– intellectual property or antigovernment; they are not, as a group, pro- or anti- anything. In fact, they are not really a group at all: not a corporation or an organization; not an NGO or a government agency; not a professional society or an informal horde of hackers; not a movement or a research project. Free Software is, however, public; it is about making things public. This fact is key to comprehending its cultural significance, its preface appeal, and its proliferation. Free Software is public in a particu- lar way: it is a self-determining, collective, politically independent mode of creating very complex technical objects that are made pub- licly and freely available to everyone—a “commons,” in common parlance. It is a practice of working through the promises of equal- ity, fairness, justice, reason, and argument in a domain of techni- cally complex software and networks, and in a context of powerful, lopsided laws about intellectual property. The fact that something public in this grand sense emerges out of practices so seemingly ar- cane is why the first urge of many converts is to ask: how can Free Software be “ported” to other aspects of life, such as movies, music, science or medicine, civil society, and education? It is this proselytizing urge and the ease with which the practices are spread that make up the cultural significance of Free Software. For better or for worse, we may all be using Free Software before we know it. preface xi Acknowledgments Anthropology is dependent on strangers who become friends and colleagues—strangers who contribute the very essence of the work. In my case, these strangers are also hyperaware of issues of credit, reputation, acknowledgment, reuse, and modification of ideas and things. Therefore, the list is extensive and detailed. Sean Doyle and Adrian Gropper opened the doors to this project, providing unparalleled insight, hospitality, challenge, and curios- ity. Axel Roch introduced me to Volker Grassmuck, and to much else. Volker Grassmuck introduced me to Berlin’s Free Software world and invited me to participate in the Wizards of OS confer- ences. Udhay Shankar introduced me to almost everyone I know, sometimes after the fact. Shiv Sastry helped me find lodging in Bangalore at his Aunt Anasuya Sastry’s house, which is called “Sili- con Valley” and which was truly a lovely place to stay. Bharath Chari and Ram Sundaram let me haunt their office and cat-5 cables during one of the more turbulent periods of their careers. Glenn Otis Brown visited, drank, talked, invited, challenged, entertained, chided, encouraged, drove, was driven, and gave and received ad- vice. Ross Reedstrom welcomed me to the Rice Linux Users’ Group and to Connexions. Brent Hendricks did yeoman’s work, suffer- ing my questions and intrusions. Geneva Henry, Jenn Drummond, Chuck Bearden, Kathy Fletcher, Manpreet Kaur, Mark Husband, Max Starkenberg, Elvena Mayo, Joey King, and Joel Thierstein have been welcoming and enthusiastic at every meeting. Sid Burris has challenged and respected my work, which has been an honor. Rich Baraniuk listens to everything I say, for better or for worse; he is a magnificent collaborator and friend. James Boyle has been constantly supportive, for what feels like very little return on investment. Very few people get to read and critique and help reshape the argument and structure of a book, and to appear in it as well. Mario Biagioli helped me see the intri- cate strategy described in chapter 6. Stefan Helmreich read early drafts and transformed my thinking about networks. Manuel De- Landa explained the term assemblage to me. James Faubion cor- rected my thinking in chapter 2, helped me immeasurably with the Protestants, and has been an exquisitely supportive colleague and department chair. Mazyar Lotfalian and Melissa Cefkin provided their apartment and library, in which I wrote large parts of chapter 1. Matt Price and Michelle Murphy have listened patiently to me construct and reconstruct versions of this book for at least six years. Tom and Elizabeth Landecker provided hospitality and stunningly beautiful surroundings in which to rewrite parts of the book. Lisa Gitelman read carefully and helped explain issues about documen- tation and versioning that I discuss in chapter 4. Matt Ratto read and commented on chapters 4–7, convinced me to drop a useless distinction, and to clarify the conclusion to chapter 7. Shay David provided strategic insights about openness from his own work and pushed me to explain the point of recursive publics more clearly. Biella Coleman has been a constant interlocutor on the issues in this book—her contributions are too deep, too various, and too thorough to detail. Her own work on Free Software and hackers has been a constant sounding board and guide, and it has been a pleasure to work together on our respective texts.

Load more