INCORPORATING THE DIGITAL COMMONS DIGITAL THE INCORPORATING INCORPORATING THE CDSMS DIGITAL COMMONS he concept of ‘the commons’ has been used as a framework to understand resources shared by a community rather than a private BENJAMIN J. BIRKINBINE T entity, and it has also inspired social movements working against the enclosure of public goods and resources. One such resource is free (libre) and open source software (FLOSS). FLOSS emerged as an alternative to proprietary software in the 1980s. However, both the products and production processes of FLOSS have become incorporated into capitalist INCORPORATING THE production. For example, Red Hat, Inc. is a large publicly traded company whose business model relies entirely on free software, and IBM, Intel, Cisco, Samsung, Google are some of the largest contributors to Linux, the DIGITAL COMMONS open-source operating system. This book explores the ways in which FLOSS has been incorporated into digital capitalism. Just as the commons have been used as a motivational frame for radical social movements, it has also Corporate Involvement in Free served the interests of free-marketeers, corporate libertarians, and states to expand their reach by dragging the shared resources of social life onto and Open Source Software digital platforms so they can be integrated into the global capitalist system. The book concludes by asserting the need for a critical political economic understanding of the commons that foregrounds (digital) labour, class struggle, and uneven power distribution within the digital commons as well as between FLOSS communities and their corporate sponsors. BENJAMIN J. BIRKINBINE J. BENJAMIN COMMUNICATION STUDIES | POLITICAL ECONOMY | MEDIA INDUSTRIES CDSMS CRITICAL DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA STUDIES THE AUTHOR Benjamin J. Birkinbine is Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the Reynolds School of Journalism and Center for Advanced Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is the co-editor of Global Media Giants (Routledge, 2017). uwestminsterpress.co.uk Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software Benjamin J. Birkinbine Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies Series Editor: Christian Fuchs The peer-reviewed book series edited by Christian Fuchs publishes books that criti- cally study the role of the internet and digital and social media in society. Titles ana- lyse how power structures, digital capitalism, ideology and social struggles shape and are shaped by digital and social media. They use and develop critical theory discussing the political relevance and implications of studied topics. The series is a theoretical forum for internet and social media research for books using methods and theories that challenge digital positivism; it also seeks to explore digital media ethics grounded in critical social theories and philosophy. Editorial Board Thomas Allmer, Mark Andrejevic, Miriyam Aouragh, Charles Brown, Eran Fisher, Peter Goodwin, Jonathan Hardy, Kylie Jarrett, Anastasia Kavada, Maria Michalis, Stefania Milan, Vincent Mosco, Jack Qiu, Jernej Amon Prodnik, Marisol Sandoval, Sebastian Sevignani, Pieter Verdegem Published Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet Christian Fuchs https://doi.org/10.16997/book1 Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism Mariano Zukerfeld https://doi.org/10.16997/book3 Politicizing Digital Space: Theory, the Internet, and Renewing Democracy Trevor Garrison Smith https://doi.org/10.16997/book5 Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare Scott Timcke https://doi.org/10.16997/book6 The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism Edited by Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano https://doi.org/10.16997/book11 The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies Annika Richterich https://doi.org/10.16997/book14 Social Capital Online: Alienation and Accumulation Kane X. Faucher https://doi.org/10.16997/book16 The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness Edited by Joan Pedro-Carañana, Daniel Broudy and Jeffery Klaehn https://doi.org/10.16997/book27 Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism Edited by Jeremiah Morelock https://doi.org/10.16997/book30 Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis, and Alex Pazaitis https://doi.org/10.16997/book33 Bubbles and Machines: Gender, Information and Financial Crises Micky Lee https://doi.org/10.16997/book34 Cultural Crowdfunding: Platform Capitalism, Labour and Globalization Edited by Vincent Rouzé https://doi.org/10.16997/book38 The Condition of Digitality: A Post-Modern Marxism for the Practice of Digital Life Robert Hassan https://doi.org/10.16997/book44 Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software Benjamin J. Birkinbine University of Westminster Press www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk Published by University of Westminster Press 115 New Cavendish Street London W1W 6UW www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk Text © Benjamin J. Birkinbine 2020 First published 2020 Cover design: www.ketchup-productions.co.uk Series cover concept: Mina Bach (minabach.co.uk) Print and digital versions typeset by Siliconchips Services Ltd. ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-912656-42-4 ISBN (PDF): 978-1-912656-43-1 ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-912656-44-8 ISBN (Kindle): 978-1-912656-45-5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book39 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This license allows for copying and distributing the work, providing author attribution is clearly stated, that you are not using the material for commercial purposes, and that modified versions are not distributed. The full text of this book has been peer-reviewed to ensure high academic standards. For full review policies, see: http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/ site/publish. Competing interests: The author has no competing interests to declare. Suggested citation: Birkinbine, B. J. 2020. Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software London: University of Westminster Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book39 License: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 To read the free, open access version of this book online, visit https://doi.org/10.16997/book39 or scan this QR code with your mobile device: Contents 1. Introduction: Open Source Software and the Digital Commons 1 1.1. The Argument and Plan for the Book 2 1.2. Situating Free (Libre) and Open Source Software 6 1.3. Open Source Business Models 17 1.4. FLOSS as Digital Commons 20 1.5. A Note on Methodology 28 2. Toward a Critical Political Economy of the Digital Commons 33 2.1. Political Economy of Communications 34 2.2. Critical Theories of the Digital Commons 42 2.3. Summary 46 3. Shifting Toward the Commons: Microsoft and Competing Models of Software Production 49 3.1. The Rise of Microsoft 1975–1990 52 3.2. Microsoft in the 1990s 57 3.3. The United States vs. Microsoft Corporation 61 3.4. The Halloween Documents 63 3.5. Shifting Toward the Commons 66 3.6. Why Open Source? Why Now? 69 4. From the Commons to Capital: Red Hat, Inc. and the Incorporation of Free Software 73 4.1. The Political Economy of Red Hat, Inc. 75 4.2. Red Hat’s Core Commodities and Intellectual Property 77 4.3. From the Commons to Capital 85 4.4. The Future of Red Hat 86 5. Resisting Incorporation and Reclaiming the Commons: The Case of Oracle and Sun Microsystems 89 5.1. The Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems 90 5.2. Protecting the Commons 98 viii Incorporating the Digital Commons 6. Conclusion 101 6.1. Major Findings 102 6.2. Case Studies 103 6.3. On the Benefit of the Commons Paradigm 108 6.4. Political Organisation from Below 109 6.5. Boundary Commoning 112 6.6. Commons Praxis 113 6.7. Concluding Thoughts on Capital and the Commons 118 References 121 Index 135 List of Figures 2.1 Coupling Between Production and Reproduction Circuits 41 2.2 The Commons Circuit of Value 44 3.1 Netscape Navigator Usage Data 1994–2006 60 5.1 Major StarOffice Derivatives 98 List of Tables 1.1 Top Companies Contributing to the Linux Kernel, Versions 4.8–4.13 3 1.2 Types of Open Source Business Strategies 18 1.3 Typology of Property 22 1.4 Social Democratic and Critical Theories of the Commons 28 6.1 Centralised Versus Decentralised Peer Production 110 Acknowledgments This book represents the culmination of more than six years of studying and using free and open source software, which began during my doctoral studies in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. I was first introduced to open source software during the summer of 2011 when a colleague, Jeremy Swartz, took me on a guided tour of the Open Source Con- vention (OSCON) in Portland, Oregon. At the convention, I was offered three different jobs by companies who had exhibits there. I was told, ‘we are looking for people like you’. I was incredibly surprised by this because I knew practically nothing about free and open source software at that time. I had heard of Linux, but that was about it. Nonetheless, all of the exhibitors – including Facebook, Google, the New York Times, and the United States Government – seemed keenly interested in attracting free and open source software programmers to their organisations. That experience piqued my interest in why companies were so interested in open source, and it became the focus of my studies. Along the way, I have had the privilege of discussing the subject with incred- ibly smart and patient people whohave helped me. I thank my dissertation committee for their patience, comments, and critiques throughout the pro- cess.