FLOSS as Democratic Principle (original) (raw)
Related papers
Leveraging Software, Advocating Ideology: Free Software and Open Source
Computing Research Repository, 2001
In section I, I review some recent legal scholarship about software and explain why understanding how embedded technical expression works is important given the increasingly large role of software in governance. In section II, I explore software construction as a combination of social and technical practices. In section III, I describe some examples of meaning-making around the software program Linux. In section IV I conclude with a short description of why such analyses are important.
Open Source Societies - On the way to a truer democracy
This paper was written in December 2014 for etec511 Foundations of Educational Technology, a Master in Educational Technology course through the UBC MET program. It is the position of this paper that there is a causal link between the collective development of sociopolitical, psycho-philosophical and macroeconomic values in a society and their relationship with closed source copyright laws or open source copyleft policies. Furthermore, this progressive development is value-laden as embodying the ideals of enlightenment found most clearly in democratic societies. A psychological argument, Maslow’s theory of human motivation, is shown to be scalable to include an entire nation of individuals, particularly in terms of economics and ICT. This extrapolation is then used to frame a moral argument that the movement from a copyright to a copyleft society is indicative of the progression of that populace’s development towards a “truer” spirit of democracy, as described by Aristotle. A brief history of the origin of copyright law is contrasted with the founding and adaptations of copyleft, free culture and “open source” movements. Recent, diverse open source practices, undergirded by ICT and falling within a broad definition of education, are explored as evidentiary for this growth and development. Keywords: open source, democracy, capitalism, technology, motivations
CYBERSPACE AND DEMOCRACY: POSSIBILITIES OF FREE SOFTWARE MOVEMENT
The cyber space as we know is today has undergone far reaching changes since its early days, becoming a critical juncture of molding our economic performance and social welfare. With more than one billion users worldwide, today the internet is poised to become a fully pervasive infrastructure providing anywhere, anytime connectivity. Today the number of people who are not computer users is dwindling all the time, as technology seeps around the globe. With the further expansion of wireless technologies, the number of internet users is expected to jump to 4 billion in a matter of few years. The mushrooming growth of networks reveals the fact about the potential of internet as revolutionizing democracy. The remarkable point about these widely established structural arrangements is cyber space. This virtual meeting place created by computer networks, enables public interaction and information sharing. It is seen as providing the basis for the revitalization of the public sphere and democracy 1 (Dahlberg, 1998). The cyber space itself is a fantastic tool for connecting people together in to an enormous social networking project. Even though it faces various challenges in terms of cultures and values, the hallmark features of openness and connectivity provided by it serves the best. Yet there is pressure now emerging to limit these features so as to foreclose the internet in order to give key investors more reliable streams of revenue. As an arena of information sharing, security and authentication have become issues of great concern for businesses, public administrations and citizens. We need to strike the real balance between different interests as the cyber space expands and deepens its role in our lives. For the past twenty years, the modern landscape of information technology has accommodated competing spheres of software production. These spheres can be grouped roughly around two poles warring for dominance in the field. On one side is proprietary software, which typically provides cash and carry functionality for the end user. Its source code recipe is nearly always hidden from view as a technical matter, and as a legal matter it cannot be used by independent programmers to develop new software without the rarely – given permission of its unitary rights holder. On the other side is " free " software, the recipes of which are open to public view and use. Some free software is further " copylefted " , that is copy righted for the purpose of incorporating license restrictions designed to ensure that anyone who uses and releases the copylefted code as a component of new software must also release that new software under copyleft " s otherwise-permissive terms 2 (Zittrain, 2004). Free Software Movement appears as a democratizing movement in the cyber space for the fulfillment of its democratic and liberal characteristics. Cyber Space Much is currently being written concerning the democratic possibilities of the net, the global collection of loosely interconnected public computer networks. The electronic linking of computers enables the formation of a virtual meeting place, cyber space, whereby participants can interact. People are able to join chat forums online while also being able to play bridge with the help of the internet with somebody geographically far away or just down the street.
Free-Libre Open Source Software as a public policy choice
2011
Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) is characterised by a specific programming and development paradigm. The availability and freedom of use of source code are at the core of this paradigm, and are the prerequisites for FLOSS features. Unfortunately, the fundamental role of code is often ignored among those who decide the software purchases for Canadian public agencies. Source code availability and the connected freedoms are often seen as unrelated and accidental aspects, and the only real advantage acknowledged, which is the absence of royalty fees, becomes paramount. In this paper we discuss some relevant legal issues and explain why public administrations should choose FLOSS for their technological infrastructure. We also present the results of a survey regarding the penetration and awareness of FLOSS usage into the Government of Canada. The data demonstrates that the Government of Canada shows no enforced policy regarding the implementation of a specific technological framework (which has legal, economic, business, and ethical repercussions) in their departments and agencies.
The Divergent Anarcho-utopian Discourses of the Open Source Software Movement
Canadian Journal of Communication, 2006
The discourse informing open source programming is important for many reasons, not the least of which is the way in which its ideological positions are translated into practical actions. It is argued that the initial anarcho-utopian move initiated by Richard Stallman's GNU Project and Free Software Foundation is currently being transformed into an organizational utopia in the form of the largely Linux-based open source movement. The utopian impulse evident in open source software development is therefore addressed from the perspective that the promises of liberation that inform its anarchy-inspired politics may be undermined by efforts to integrate its communal programming practices into existing market hegemonies. Résumé : Le discours sur la programmation libre est important à plusieurs égards, notamment dans la manière dont ses positions idéologiques se transforment en actions concrètes. Cet article soutient que le mouvement anarcho-utopique lancé par Richard Stallman avec son projet GNU et la Fondation pour le logiciel libre se transforme actuellement en une utopie organisationnelle prenant la forme d'un Mouvement du logiciel libre qui se fonde en grande partie sur le système Linux. Cet article adopte la perspective qu'on risque aujourd'hui de perdre de vue l'impulsion utopique qui était évidente dans le développement initial de logiciels libres. On risque en outre d'oublier les promesses de liberté qui sous-tendent les politiques du mouvement originel inspirées par l'anarchie.
Rethinking free, libre and open source software
Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 2006
This special issue includes seven articles that make significant contribution to the literature pertaining to knowledge and public policy around Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS). Focusing on questions in two themes (i) motivation and organization and (ii) public policy, the articles in this volume develop new analytic models and report on new empirical findings, as an important step in bridging the wide gap that exists in public policy literature around FLOSS. Warning against rhetorical pitfalls that have been prevalent in FLOSS research, this introduction starts with a short history of FLOSS development, continues with a brief thematic literature review and review of the misconceptions surrounding FLOSS, and concludes with a first introduction of the articles that follow.