A presentation about open knowledge in 4(ish) acts.

1. “From Free Software to Open
Source”
A presentation in 4(ish) acts.
by: Brett Neese

2. act 0: prelude and warnings

4. “How does open
(knowledge, information, data, etc) change the
conversation about ideology and what might
the positive and negative effects of this shift
be?”

5. act 1: wherein I roughly deconstruct
Berry but not really

6. "In this chapter I want to pick up some of the
themes that have been discussed in the
previous chapters and examine them through
the optic of the free/libre and open source
software movement (FLOSS)… in particular I
am interested in the way in which FLOSS
groups have come to represent collectively a
certain post- Fordist model of production."

7. “I have no idea what that means.”

8. So let’s examine it a bit.

9. "In this chapter I want to pick up some of the
themes that have been discussed in the
previous chapters and examine them through
the optic of the free/libre and open source
software movement (FLOSS)… in particular I
am interested in the way in which FLOSS
groups have come to represent collectively a
certain post- Fordist model of production."

10. "In this chapter I want to pick up some of the
themes that have been discussed in the
previous chapters and examine them through
the optic of the free/libre and open source
software movement (FLOSS)… in particular I
am interested in the way in which FLOSS
groups have come to represent collectively a
certain post- Fordist model of production."

11. "In this chapter I want to pick up some of the
themes that have been discussed in the
previous chapters and examine them through
the optic of the free/libre and open source
software movement (FLOSS)… in particular I
am interested in the way in which FLOSS
groups have come to represent collectively a
certain post- Fordist model of production."

12. “free as in speech, not as in beer”

13. "In this chapter I want to pick up some of the
themes that have been discussed in the
previous chapters and examine them through
the optic of the free/libre and open source
software movement (FLOSS)… in particular I
am interested in the way in which FLOSS
groups have come to represent collectively a
certain post- Fordist model of production."

15. "In this chapter I want to pick up some of the
themes that have been discussed in the
previous chapters and examine them through
the optic of the free/libre and open source
software movement (FLOSS)… in particular I
am interested in the way in which FLOSS
groups have come to represent collectively a
certain post- Fordist model of production."

18. OK, but why is this important?

19. Namely, it completely disrupts the structure of
production constructed over the past 150+
years.
(and with it, introduces a bunch of really sticky
and complicated legal problems.)

20. Namely, it completely disrupts the structure of
production constructed over the past 150+
years.
(and with it, introduces a bunch of really sticky
and complicated legal problems.)

21. So, how’d we get here?

22. ACT 2: a brief history of computers and hacker
culture!
(starring: me and a bunch of nerds)

23. (This is a computer.)

24. (This is a computer.)

25. (This is where most computers used to be.)

26. (These folks also had some good machines.)

27. (These folks also had some good machines.)

28. Most early computer programmers were
academics and much of the early work was
informed by science and academic processes.
(hence, computer science)

29. Most early computer programmers were
academics and much of the early work was
informed by science and academic processes.
(hence, computer science)

30. "During the early days of the computer
industry, people identified themselves as
craftspeople.Their culture was very much one
of artisanship rather than pure engineering."

31. Meanwhile, (also) in California…

37. The tech industry was built by
academics, anarchists, scientists, and hippies.
We built systems and a culture informed by
the social movements at the time… which
still survives today.

38. Plus, it kinda made sense to share.

39. “the principle of sharing resources amongst
themselves – the ‘commons’ was understood as
the amount of processor time and software that
was available that had to be shared equitably
between different users”

40. "In fact the anti-corporate and anti-managerial
feeling of much of the free software and open
source movement discourse can be traced back
to these early freedoms and to the
experimental practices of the first software
coders being contained and blocked by
employers. "

41. That’s never gone away.

42. that’s great, but what does it mean?

43. "Managing a technology project continues to
remain very much an art of balancing often
eccentric and individualistic programmers, who
will seek exit with their knowledge and
skills, with the collective needs of a
corporation, which needs to centralize and
control knowledge and information.”

44. act 3: a new model is formed

46. "He had a history in the open shared
programming environments that were the norm
in early computer science labs, where he began
to envisage a computer system that was not
held in proprietary hands."

47. RMS wanted to build an OS of his own.
(that was everyone’s to own)

48. RMS wanted to build an OS of his own.
(that was everyone’s)

49. unfortunately, that’s a bit more complicated
legally than it first sounds.

50. so, like any good hacker, he hacked the legal
system itself.

51. Preamble
The licenses for most software and other practical works
are designed to take away your freedom to share and
change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public
License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share
and change all versions of a program--to make sure it
remains free software for all its users…
When we speak of free software, we are referring to
freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are
designed to make sure that you have the freedom to
distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if
you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if
you want it, that you can change the software or use
pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you
can do these things.

52. "The legal space that is created by the GPL is
generally held to be a ‘commons’ that is
brought into existence through a clever legal
‘hack’.GNU is held to be owned in common… it
bears the structure of commons on the inside
and of property on the outside.”

53. “It might therefore be more accurate to view
the GNU project as a guild-like or co- operative
structure that gives the right to share and use to
others but retains ownership within the Free
Software Foundation.This move centralises the
copyrights in the non-profit FSF organisation
and clearly designates both ownership and
intention should legal problems arise."

54. “It might therefore be more accurate to view
the GNU project as a guild-like or co- operative
structure that gives the right to share and use to
others but retains ownership within the Free
Software Foundation.This move centralises the
copyrights in the non-profit FSF organisation
and clearly designates both ownership and
intention should legal problems arise."

55. “It might therefore be more accurate to view
the GNU project as a guild-like or co- operative
structure that gives the right to share and use to
others but retains ownership within the Free
Software Foundation.This move centralises the
copyrights in the non-profit FSF organisation
and clearly designates both ownership and
intention should legal problems arise."

56. "This new form of software sharing was soon
christened ‘copyleft’, which Stallman claimed as
‘all rights reversed’, and it has proved to be a
remarkably stable base for this form of peer-
produced software."

57. "This new form of software sharing was soon
christened ‘copyleft’, which Stallman claimed as
‘all rights reversed’, and it has proved to be a
remarkably stable base for this form of peer-
produced software."

58. "This new form of software sharing was soon
christened ‘copyleft’, which Stallman claimed as
‘all rights reversed’, and it has proved to be a
remarkably stable base for this form of peer-
produced software."

59. act 4: some bad news

60. obviously software isn’t the only things humans
create that might want to be free.

62. wikipedia provides a nice case study to the
potential problems with “free” and open source.

63. anyone can editWikipedia. if everyone can edit
Wikipedia, then it should become the
ultimate, canonical, correct database of human
knowledge.

64. anyone can editWikipedia. if everyone can edit
Wikipedia, then it should become the
ultimate, canonical, correct database of human
knowledge.

65. anyone can editWikipedia. but not everyone
does.

66. anyone can editWikipedia. but not everyone
does.

67. “only 16% ofWikipedia’s editors are female —
which is puzzling in that women outnumber
men on Facebook,Twitter, Pinterest, and even
in online games.”

68. “only 16% ofWikipedia’s editors are female —
which is puzzling in that women outnumber
men on Facebook,Twitter, Pinterest, and even
in online games.”
source: freakonomics radio

69. why?

70. after all women tend to be more
altruistic, volunteer more, and are more likely to
participate in social media sites and even online
games.

71. Lam (et al.) suggest many problems, but the
most interesting one is systemic.

73. democracy is messy.

74. democracy is full of conflict.

75. females are systemically discouraged from
contributing.

76. here again is a situation where the system has a
different, intrinsic, flaw.

77. can it be fixed?

78. act 5: conclusion

79. in this presentation, we covered open source
software, a bit of hacker culture, the GPL, and
the dearth of female editors onWikipedia.

80. we learned that computer systems and the
“hacker way” were developed at a time of very
interesting social movements whose beliefs
were embedded into the systems themselves.

81. we learned that the GPL is a neat legal hack to
software freedom that grants everyone the
right to share, distribute, and change software
(that is licensed under the GPL, of course.)

82. and we even learned that even under
“ideal”, inherently powerless and purely
democratic systems of knowledge
(Wikipedia), there are still huge flaws in this
system.

83. “How does open
(knowledge, information, data, etc) change
the conversation about ideology and what
might the positive and negative effects of this
shift be?”

84. Thanks to:
flickr user: klaserfilms
flickr user: quinndombrowski
flickr user: savidgefamily
Wikipedia/Wikimedia
Freakonomics Radio
http://www.amazon.com/Copy-Rip-Burn-Politics-
Copyleft/dp/0745324142
http://web.archive.org/web/20120425130022/http://wikisym.org/ws20
11/_media/proceedings:p1-lam.pdf