University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst The ourJ nal of Information Technology and Politics The oP litics of Open Source Annual Conference 2010 Conference Proceedings of JITP 2010: The olitP ics of Open Source Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/jitpc2010 Part of the Library and Information Science Commons "Conference Proceedings of JITP 2010: The oP litics of Open Source" (2010). The Politics of Open Source. 1. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/jitpc2010/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The ourJ nal of Information Technology and Politics Annual Conference at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in The oP litics of Open Source by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 2nd Annual Journal of Information Technology & Politics Thematic Conference “Politics of Open Source” University of Massachusetts Amherst Amherst, MA May 6 – 7, 2010 Conference Chairs Stuart W. Shulman University of Massachusetts Amherst Charles M. Schweik University of Massachusetts Amherst Sponsors Microsoft Google Department of Political Science Department of Computer Science Texifter Open Source Software Institute Qualitative Data Analysis Program Center for Public Policy and Administration National Center for Digital Government Journal of Information Technology & Politics Conference website http://politicsofopensource.jitp.net/ Copyright Politics of Open Source Conference © 2010 Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike Program Committee Ezendu Ariwa, London Metropolitan University M.V. Lee Badgett, University of Massachusetts Amherst Paul M.A. Baker, Georgia Institute of Technology Deborah Bryant, Oregon State University Open Source Lab Andrea Calderaro, European University Institute Mark Cassell, Kent State University Edward Cherlin, Earth Treasury Gabriella Coleman, New York University Robert English, Daystar Computing & University of Massachusetts Amherst Joseph Feller, University College Cork Jelena Karanovic, Rutgers University Dave Karpf, University of Pennsylvania/Miller Center for Public Affairs Andrea Kavanaugh, Virginia Tech Jose Marichal, California Lutheran University Jens Hardings Perl, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Charles Schweik, University of Massachusetts Amherst, co-chair Stuart Shulman, University of Massachusetts Amherst, co-chair Megan Squire, Elon University Krishna Ravi Srinivas, Research Information System for Developing Nations Louis Suarez-Potts, Sun Microsystems, Inc. & OpenOffice.org Anas Tawileh, Cardiff University & Meedan.net Letter from the Conference co-Chairs Welcome to the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst and the 2nd Annual Journal of Information Technology & Politics thematic conference, “Politics of Open Source.” We wish to thank the Program Committee for their hard work in putting together a truly exciting program that highlights the vast diversity of research being conducted on open source software and the FLOSS movement. The conference is generously supported by Microsoft and Google. We also wish to acknowledge the financial support of Andy Barto and the UMass Amherst Department of Computer Science, John Hird and the UMass Amherst Department of Political Science, and the Texifter LLC. We have additionally received support from the Center for Public Policy and Administration at UMass Amherst, the Journal of Information Technology & Politics, the Qualitative Data Analysis Program, the National Center for Digital Government, and the Open Source Software Institute. As always, any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors. Again, welcome to UMass, and enjoy the conference! Sincerely, Stuart Shulman & Charles Schweik Conference Co-Chairs Table of Contents What Can Wikipedia Tell Us about Open Source Politics?...................................................... 2 David Karpf, Brown University Open Source as Practice and Ideology: The 2003-2004 Howard Dean Campaign’s Organizational and Cultural Innovations in Electoral Politics ............................................... 32 Daniel Kreiss, Stanford University Free, Open Source Software Advocacy as a Social Justice Movement: The Discourse of Digital Rights in the 21st Century.............................................................. 56 John Sullivan, Muhlenberg College Promoting Openness by “Patching” European Directives: Internet-based Activism & EU Telecommunication Reform.................................................. 78 Yana Breindl, Universiti Libre de Bruxelles Where the Cathedrals and Bazaars Are: An Index of Open Source Software Activity and Potential .................................................. 104 Art Seavey, Georgia Institute of Technology Collective Ownership in Free/Libre and Open Source Software: The OpenSolaris Case........................................................................................................... 138 Maurizio Teli, Universiti degli Studi di Trento Expanding Open Source into Other Domains: Analysis of Open Source Biomedical Research ................................................................... 160 Shishir Kumar Jha & Amrutaunshu Nerurkar, IIT Bombay Open Source Approach to Public Policy: The Cases of ERT and OLPC in Greece............................................................................... 186 Vasilis Kostakis, Tallinn University of Technology Promoting Open Source Software in Government: The Challenges of Motivation and Follow-Through ............................................................ 200 Andy Oram, O’Reilly Media The Status of Free/Open Source Software among Local Governments: Lessons from Three German Cities ...................................................................................... 220 Mark Cassell, Kent State University Insurgent Expertise: The Politics of Free/Livre and Open Source Software in Brazil......... 238 Aaron Shaw, University of California, Berkeley Participation in Online Creation Communities: Ecosystemic Participation? ...................... 270 Mayo Fuster Morrell, European University Institute Open Source and the Moral Field of Computing.................................................................. 296 Jon Smajda, University of Minnesota Politics of Open Source 1 What Can Wikipedia Tell Us about Open Source Politics? David Karpf Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions Brown University Abstract This paper considers the emergence of large-scale “commons- based peer production” projects such as Wikipedia.org from an institutional development perspective in order to comment on the potential and limitations of so-called “open source politics.” The argument it makes is threefold. First, that that the lowered transaction costs and information abundance found online transform a subset of public goods problems, essentially replacing free ridership with mass coordination as a central challenge. Second, that the boundaries of this subset are defined by a “power law topology” and by existing “interest horizons.” These parameters limit the overall impact of commons-based peer production for the political space. Third, that all such hubs move through a common five-stage institutional development process, directly related to standard models of the diffusion of innovation. The paper concludes by deriving a set of hypotheses regarding the circumstances under which commons-based peer production is likely to be successfully applied to political action. Keywords: Web 2.0, open source politics, diffusion of innovations, user-generated content David Karpf is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University's Taubman Center for Public Policy. He completed his PhD in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009 and will be starting as an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University in September 2010. His research primarily concerns the emergence of "netroots" political associations, including large-scale community blogs, internet-mediated organizations like MoveOn, and the effects of internet communication on longstanding advocacy organizations. Correspondence concerning this article may be addressed to [email protected]. Politics of Open Source 2 Introduction “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” – Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia The rise of “commons-based peer production,” first in the field of open source software development and recently spreading to a diverse array of fields, has produced wide hopes for the emergence of “open source politics.” No consensus definition exists for the term, but it generally represents an amalgamation of hopes and dreams for social transformation from political commentators, consultants, futurists, and open source software practitioners. If clusters of volunteer software developers can group together online and peer-produce a successful challenge to corporate giants like Microsoft, couldn’t citizens likewise group together to mobilize for large-scale political change? Such hopes run inevitably into the challenges of collective action that have long been the purview of political scientists. Has collective action fundamentally been changed by the novel communication patterns found online? If so, just how far do these changes extend?