[Themaintainers] The historical (and ethical) context of the Open Source movement

[Christopher M. Kelty]

Dear All,

I am really not a self-promoter so it pains me to do this, but I 
did once write a book about this [1].  There is also a lot since 
then: I recommend also reading Gabriella Coleman's /Coding 
Freedom/; Sebastien Broca's /Utopie de Logiciel Libre/, Nate 
Tkacz's /Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness/; Anita Chan's 
/Networking Peripheries/; Lilly Nguyen's dissertation on OS/FS in 
Vietnam, Sara Schoonmaker's work; Hector Beltran's dissertation, 
Luis Felipe Murrillo's dissertation; Christina Dunbar-Hester's new 
book on inclusion and openness in FOSS, Morgan Ames /Charisma 
Machine/ (and Benjamin Mako Hill on OLPC before that)... I can 
keep going if people want more).

The central chunk of my book (ignore the first part and start in 
Chapter 3) is a history of the socio-techincal apparatus that 
allowed free software and open source to emerge out of debates 
internal to the software and IT industry about "open systems" and 
standardization--- which is also a story other people on this list 
have told in more detail and better, if not in terms of free 
software per se (eg Andy Russell, Laura DeNardis).

I also want to echo Luis in that it is important to understand the 
difference between Free Software and Open Source historically. 
Part of my argument in that book was that there was no *technical* 
difference between the two movements (as of ~2006), only a stark 
ideological one based in very different philosophies of liberalism 
(Lessig and Stallman are pure Mill; Torvalds and Perens are 
modified Mill with a bit of Dewey; Eric Raymond, Tim O'Reilly are 
Hayek cut with pop psychology---we might damn them all, but the 
differences still matter).  That changed significantly with the 
advent of GPL3 and AGPL debates, and with the eclipse of a 
distributed PC-Server architecture by a centralized cloud-based 
architecture.  Reasonable minds can debate whether the pathologies 
of open source that we have seen in the last decade are examples 
of bad ideology or of some other cause... but one ought to, at the 
very least be clear about the history of both the ideology and the 
technological changes. 

ck

[1] https://twobits.net/





Don Goodman-Wilson <don at maintainerati.org> writes:

> I had NOT seen that, it’s amazing. Thank you!
>
> Don GOODMAN-WILSON
> Maintainerati Board
> mail: don at maintainerati.org
> twitter: @DEGoodmanWilson
> cal: calendly.com/degoodmanwilson/
> On 21 Jan 2020 at 17:46 +0100, Jaime Taylor 
> <jaimetaylor at umass.edu>, wrote:
>> Related, you may have seen Mandy Henk’s post covering the some 
>> of the same ground last week:
>>
>> https://medium.com/@beewithablog/open-is-cancelled-da7dd6f2aaaf
>>
>> Jaime Taylor
>> Discovery & Resource Management Systems Coordinator
>> W.E.B. Du Bois Library
>> University of Massachusetts
>> 154 Hicks Way
>> Amherst, MA 01003
>> jaimetaylor at umass.edu
>> 413-577-3401
>>
>> Proud member of the Massachusetts Society of Professors 
>> (MSP/MTA/NEA), the union representing faculty and librarians at 
>> UMass Amherst, and supporting public education and labor 
>> movements everywhere: umassmsp.org
>>
>> From: themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu 
>> <themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu> On Behalf Of Don 
>> Goodman-Wilson
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2020 11:40 AM
>> To: themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
>> Subject: [Themaintainers] The historical (and ethical) context 
>> of the Open Source movement
>>
>> Howdy everyone!
>>
>> As some of you may know, for the last year or so I've been 
>> undertaking a critical look at the Open Source software 
>> movement. For those at MIII's software track or recap, you'll 
>> be familiar with many of the issues that maintainers 
>> face—insufficient resources, feeling taken advantage of, 
>> burnout—and the infrastructural problems that come with unpaid 
>> labor under these conditions.
>>
>> I've recently argued that there are larger, more fundamental 
>> problems with Open Source as an institution 
>> (https://don.goodman-wilson.com/posts/open-source-is-broken/ — 
>> warning, this essay really wants a lot of heavy-handed editing; 
>> more streamlined version that I presented at a recent 
>> conference should be online soon, and I can share that here 
>> when it's on YouTube).
>>
>> One of the most common responses I've received is that I am 
>> attempting to "inject politics" into OSS, an inherently 
>> apolitical endeavour. I've responded by saying that my 
>> understanding is that OSS was, at least at the beginning, part 
>> of a larger movement that saw the emancipatory potential of 
>> technology, and believed that universal access to technology 
>> would liberate and empower all humans. OSS's goals of 
>> maximizing distribution was a tool used to achieve that aim, 
>> not the goal in and of itself.
>>
>> I've started digging into this history, some of which I knew 
>> from living through it, and some of which is very new to me. I 
>> believe there is an important story to be told about the 
>> origins of Open Source that my peers and colleagues are largely 
>> unaware of, and that understanding this context can help unlock 
>> the answers to questions I'm asking about the path forward. I 
>> want to tell this story.
>>
>> I could use your help! I'm looking for your opinions, your 
>> lived experience, and your insight. (This is also my first time 
>> undertaking an intellectual project of this scale (which isn't 
>> _huge_, but it's not small either) since my dissertation, so 
>> advice and support is also very welcome :D)
>>
>> Don GOODMAN-WILSON
>> Maintainerati Board
>> mail: don at maintainerati.org
>> twitter: @DEGoodmanWilson
>> cal: calendly.com/degoodmanwilson/
>>
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