Free Software Movement and Open Source Communities
Final project social production 1
1. Evolution from Industrial Information Economy to
Networked Information Economy
through Social Production
How social production and collaboration will change the way
we do business
Based on Yochai Benkler’s peer production theory
By tarja kallinen
7. References:
Slide 2: http://twitterbrainstorming.edublogs.org/2011/04/30/the-
wisdom-produced-by-the-industrial-revolution/
Slide 3: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/08/looking-back-at-
ten-years-of-nasas-great-observatories.ars
Slide 4: http://stallman.org/photos/rms-working/pages/7.html &
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linus_Torvalds.jpeg
Slide 5: http://www.londongoods.co.uk/neon-sign-open-neon4-85-p.asp
Slide 6: http://www.pkamk.fi/ebusiness/
Apache Software Foundation. Retrieved May 18, 2011 from www.apache.org
Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: how social production
transforms markets and freedom. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
GNU Operating System. Retrieved May 20, 2011 from http://www.gnu.org/
licenses/licenses.html
Red Hat. Retrieved May 20, 2011 from http://www.redhat.com/
Wikipedia. Retrieved May 18, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
History_of_free_and_open_source_software
Editor's Notes
We are at a moment of great opportunity and challenge; “different technologies make different kinds of human action and interaction easier or harder to perform. All other things being equal, things that are easier to do are more likely to be done, and things that are harder to do are less likely to be done (p. 27)”. \n\nIt is natural for humans to share – they are social beings\n\n\n
http://twitterbrainstorming.edublogs.org/2011/04/30/the-wisdom-produced-by-the-industrial-revolution/\n\nIndustrial Information Economy: focus around capital-intensive production and distribution techniques;\nBenkler, p. 32\n\nOne-way model: “newspapers became means of communication intended to reach ever-larger and more dispersed audiences, and their management required substantial capital investment.” (p. 29)\n\nToday, 2 fundamental facts have changed in the economic ecology: \n1: human meaning and communication have become dominant in advanced economies (culture and information);\n2: basic physical capital necessary to express and communicate human meaning is the connected personal computer;\n- high capital costs that used be required, have disappeared – the means to communicate are widely dispersed in society\n- radical decentralization and emerging patterns of cooperation and sharing.\n
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/08/looking-back-at-ten-years-of-nasas-great-observatories.ars\n\nBenkler states that we live in the midst of a radical disruption that can shift the balance of power and money from the industrial producers of culture and communication to “widely diffuse populations around the globe and the market actors that will build the tools that make this population better able to produce its own information environment... (p. 23).”\n\nThe battle over the relative salience of the proprietary, industrial models of information production and exchange and the emerging networked information economy is being carried out in the domain of the institutional ecology of the digital environment. (p.23)\n\nTo what extent will resources necessary for information production and exchange be governed as commons and or proprietary? (23)\nCommon infrastructure open for all, or proprietary?\n\n
While working at MIT, Richard Stallman began a project in 1983 to build an operating system that was nonproprietary. He called it GNU. According to Stallman MIT had shared software freely for years before he launched his project. It was common for researchers to to share software in academia and by computer scientists in the private sector. Software was not considered a commodity. Richard Stallman was politically motivated: he did not believe in patenting software and extending copyright laws. He wanted people to be able to use software and information freely and share it with others. He created an idea that continues to thrive today: anybody can freely use, copy, modify and distribute GNU software as long as he/she preserve the same licensing agreement. This idea created an atmosphere of collaboration and sharing and promoted innovation and creativity. Stallman’s license became GNU General Public License, or GPL. \nIn 1985 Stallman wrote the GNU Manifesto, which explains the free software philosophy in more detail (http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html). Stallman also created the idea of ‘copyleft’, which is a “general method for making a program (or other work) free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well” (gnu.org). Stallman is still actively involved with the free software movement.\n\nLinus Torvalds, a Finnish computer engineer, began to develop the kernel for GNU software in 1991. He shared his early work as freely modifiable source code under the GNU General Public License. Others began building on Torvalds’ model sharing their ideas liberally. Each person added incrementally, contributing to the whole. The work was all voluntary and decentralized. Linux kernel has evolved into many open source software products and applications that are popular today. Apache HTTP Server is the most commonly used web server software.\n
http://www.londongoods.co.uk/neon-sign-open-neon4-85-p.asp\n\n“In general, open source refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. Open source software is usually developed as a public collaboration and made freely available.”\nhttps://sites.google.com/a/iccns.ca/open-source/home\nThere is a difference between open source and free software\nApache serves 63% of all websites in 2011\n\n
http://www.pkamk.fi/ebusiness/\n\nWhat motivates people to share and collaborate are human psychological needs for companionship, belonging, recognition and self-esteem. The behavior and motivation patterns that we are so familiar with through our social relations, have emerged as “modes of motivating, informing, and organizing productive behavior at the very core of the information economy” (p.92).\n\nLink to Anderson video:\nhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0057wdf\n\nFuture:\n“different technologies make different kinds of human action and interaction easier or harder to perform. All other things being equal, things that are easier to do are more likely to be done, and things that are harder to do are less likely to be done (p. 27)”. People are communicators and social beings by nature. When technology made networking and communication easy across space and time, and when computers became widely available, sharing became commonplace.\nBenkler argues that just because a society is technologically advanced and networked does not mean that it will enhance and improve its democracy, freedom or justice. He does not believe in technological determinism. During a time of economic disruption we have an opportunity to realign our social and economic relationships. Benkler argues that we must choose the path ourselves:\nThe same technologies of networked computers can be adopted in very different patterns. There is no guarantee that networked information technology will lead to the improvements in innovation, freedom, and justice that I suggest are possible. That is a choice we face as a society. The way we develop will, in significant measure, depend on choices we make in the next decade or so (p. 17).\n\nOur current economic structures are based on economic standing: we measure our success or failure by material wealth and level of pay (extrinsic motivations). ). \nThe social production model turns the economic model on its head: in the social production model we are motivated to fulfill our social and psychological needs, not our market-exchangeable needs. Money does not motivate us to share more or less. The rewards are intrinsic. It is vital to understand how these intrinsic motivations can be “mobilized, directed, and made effective in ways that we recognize as economically valuable” (p.99).\n\nIn a networked information economy all necessary inputs for productive activity are under the control of individuals. This enables effective social production (Benkler, p. 99). People are free to contribute within their own capacity and available tools, time and attention. \nMicrotask, \nWikipedia,\n\nAccording to Benkler, there are three characteristics that make the emergence of non-proprietary information production possible; i.e. the production is not profit/market-based. First, in advanced economies, the computers necessary for information and cultural production are almost universally distributed. Second, the raw materials in the information economy are public goods: existing culture and knowledge. Third, people are able to structure solutions to information production problems in a modular fashion. This allows for independent creation of cultural and information products that can be used and recreated by others either in peer-production or independently (p. 105).\nSocial production of information and cultural goods requires social norms and social capital. Social norms, according to Christina Bicchieri et. al, are “...the customary rules thatSome cultures/societies are better equipped to face this disruption due to social capital/trust.\n\n
