-
Oekonux Einführungskladde ohne Nutzungsexklusion
Translation: Oekonux introductory blotter without use exclusion
This is a translation of the original German

"Oekonux" - what does that mean?
The project
- Discussion process about Free Software and society
- Wide range of opinions
Introduction is neither own opinion nor a simple presentation
Something in between - Common interest in emancipation
- Wide range of opinions
- Mainly virtual
- Mailing lists [liste AT oekonux.de, list-en AT oekonux.org]
- Web sites [http://www.oekonux.de/
, http://www.oekonux.org/
]
- Wiki [http://en.wiki.oekonux.org/
]
- Open Theory [http://www.opentheory.org/oekonux/
]
- Sometimes less virtual also (conference, talks)
Fourth Oekonux conference: 27.-29.3.2009, Manchester (UK)
"Free Software" - what does that mean?
-
Aspects, which are important for the Oekonux discussion
Characteristics of Free Software
- Any software can be Free
- GNU/Linux, Apache, Gcc, Perl
Examples for system related software - KDE, OpenOffice.org, Gimp
Examples for applications - Software for router, mobile phones, ...
Examples for embedded system
Shows how deep software is integrated in our every day life
- GNU/Linux, Apache, Gcc, Perl
- The actual product is gratis
However: Price plays a role, but is not crucial - Source code is available
Important for the most of the following four rights, which every user of Free Software has- Software may be used for any purpose
- The sources may be studied and changed
- The software may be distributed arbitrarily
- Changed versions may be distributed arbitrarily
Free in the sense of freedom
Keyword: Free Software Licences
- Licenses are contracts
- Govern under which conditions someone may do something with the software
Proprietary software also uses licenses - Especially: Use, modify, distribute
- Software licenses are based on copyright
Copyright is based on state power
- Govern under which conditions someone may do something with the software
- The genius hack: Use the copyright system against itself
- Copyright creates scarcity by denying rights
- Copyleft creates abundance by granting rights
- Two main license types: GPL and BSD
- Though many licenses exist
Since a license is a contract it's easy to invent a new license
But it's rarely useful - Lists of Free Software licenses by FSF and OSI
- Though many licenses exist
- Main difference: May a licensee close sources again or not?
- BSD: Software may be distributed without sources
- GPL: Sources must be kept open
- More than 50% of Free Software projects use the GPL
Fundamental facility to embed Free Software in the law system
-
Inherits the security from the law system
Inherits the power of the law system
Mode of production of Free Software
-
This is a very important characteristic
- Without money
Developers finance themselves by other means
Similar to other hobbies - Effort ist taken on a voluntary basis
- Necessity of concrete solutions to problems
- Selbstentfaltung of the developers
Programming is fun (for some people)
Other activities may serve the Selbstentfaltung also
- Manifold self-organized in small, independent groups
- International in the Internet
Often a high quality results
-
Quality is a direct result of the mode of production
Keyword: Selbstentfaltung
-
The notion plays an central role in Oekonux
- More than self-realization
Self-realization focuses too much on the isolated individual
Selbstentfaltung understands humans as formed by their relations - Responsibility is part of Selbstentfaltung
Taking necessities into account belongs to responsibility
Responsibility needs to be recognized individually
Responsibility is learned and therefore coupled with the norms of the society - Selbstentfaltung is "autonomy-in-interdependence"
- Dependency is not reduction but extension of own possibilities
Because others from whom I depend create possibilities by their actions I would not have if only by myself
- Dependency is not reduction but extension of own possibilities
- Selbstentfaltung of the single person is direct precondition for the Selbstentfaltung of all
- And vice-versa
- Potential for Selbstentfaltung is essential feature of humans
See critical psychology (Holzkamp)- Content is different for every individual
Particularly it's not necessarily political correct
- Content is different for every individual
In general Selbstentfaltung is a desirable goal
Simply and Doubly Free Software
-
Important distinction of concepts
- Simply Free Software
- Freedom for users
- Standard rights of Free Software apply
- Commercial Free Software
Ordered Software
- Doubly Free Software
- Freedom for users and producers
- Producers are active on non-alienated basis
- No commercial Free Software
Special mode of production only for Doubly Free Software
-
Superior quality only for Doubly Free Software
There are mixed forms
Free Software and commercial influences
- Companies engaging themselves
- Distributors and Linux-Companies (SuSE, RedHat, small ones, ...)
Have an interest in the actual state, because they emerged from it - Hardware and others (IBM, Sun, ...)
Especially for hardware companies GNU/Linux is simply useful
Because of this they have an interest in the actual state
- Distributors and Linux-Companies (SuSE, RedHat, small ones, ...)
- Licenses prevent privatization
- Gnu General Public License (GPL)
- Other licenses
These partially allow re-privatization (BSD)
- Quality accrues from the absence of alienation
Only then creativity can fully unfold - Wage labor contradicts Selbstentfaltung
Is alienated because it is aimed at a third goal (making money)
Free Software can develop only without money
-
This ultimately prevents a drastic commercialization
Otherwise Free Software is destroyed
Perspectives of Free Software
- Free Software is becoming more and more important
- GNU/Linux on the desktop, too
On servers GNU/Linux is already widespread
Public administrations are early adaptors - GNU/Linux on embedded systems
- Tempestuous development
- GNU/Linux on the desktop, too
- Dangers
- Software patents
In Europe: Years of struggle with many people from the Free Software scene
- Software patents
- More and more people are inspired by the idea
- The principles of Free Software in other fields, too
Linux World Domination ;-)
Special features of Free Software
-
Things specific for Project Oekonux start here
Free Software is not a simple hobby
- Has high societal usage
- Direct competition with commodities
After a commodity market has been established
With big success - Very modern product
With very modern means of production - Develops international
- Mainly written by professionals
Hobby, but in a new quality
-
Other hobbies don't combine all of these features
Free Software is not a commodity
- Without exchange
Nothing must be exchanged - Exists in abundance
There is no scarcity beyond technical limitations - Open sources make secrets impossible
- Cooperation instead of competition
- Absolute quality claim
Result of the use-oriented way of production
For commodities it suffices if the buyer believes in quality relative to the competitors - Call to contribute (inclusion model)
With commodities only a small circle may contribute (exclusion model)
Free software is as worthless as the air to breathe
-
Only commodities may have an (exchange) value
The use value is independent of this
Free Software is not a gift
- A gift is based on a personal relationship
May exist before and/or after a gift- For most people Free Software is anonymous as a product can be
- A gift often creates an obligation
- Taking Free Software creates no obligations
- Producers of Free Software do not think in terms of gift
If at all then as a gift to mankind
Calling Free Software a gift is wrong
Keyword: Scarcity
- Deposits
- Determined by nature and unchangeable
- Also products with respect to a certain point in time
- Limitedness
- Portion of the deposits available to humans
- Is changeable by technical and other means
- May occur when need is bigger than offer
- Scarcity
- Is determined by society and can be produced
Mineral oil has not always been scarce
Today for information commodities scarcity must be produced - May occur when offer is bigger than need
Yes, this is insane
- Is determined by society and can be produced
Scarcity is not a law of nature
Keyword: Rivalness
-
Term to classify goods
- Rival: If consumed by one not available for a second
- Example: Food
- Rival goods can be limited
- Abundance of a rival good makes rivalness less important
- Non-rival: Each consumption is independent of each other
- Example: Information, sunlight
- Inherently not limited
- Scarcity must be imposed by external means
- Anti-rival: The good is more useful if it is consumed by many
- Happens through network effects
- Example: Telephone
- Markets of material goods are based on rival goods
Free Software is an anti-rival good
Keyword: Excludability
-
Term to classify goods
- Excludable: Others can be excluded from using a good
- Matching legal concept: property
- Can be cast onto everything
- Can be hard to maintain though
For instance: Information goods in Internet age - Necessary to create scarcity
- Non-excludable: Others can not be excluded from using it
- Anything which can not be private property?
- Non-excludable goods are often public goods
For instance: Roads
- Each market is based on excludable goods
- Free Software made non-excludable by the license
- Chance of contributions rises when more people use it
- Regardless of how many "free ride"
GPL society: Extending principles of Free Software to rival goods while dropping exclusion
Cooperation in Free Projects
- Informal
Roles suited to the project's need rather than a fixed set of roles
No formal qualification needed
Self-appointment as a general tendency
Official appointment as acknowledgment of a existing practice
No votes on people - Self-selected
According to individual liking
No appointed persons - No fixed boundaries
For instance: No clear division between producers and consumers - Voluntary
- Variable over time
People come and go - Variable over intensity
People start and stop contributing as they like - Unequal
Everyone may contribute as s/he likes
Some have more influence than others
Different abilities are appreciated
Cooperation is voluntary, variable and unequal
Keyword: Maintainer model
-
Software development is most of all a social process
- Voluntarism as fundamental pre-condition
- No alienated incentives
- Makes possible and requires personal decision
- Self-organization as fundamental pre-condition
- Without external command or alienated goals
Visible for instance in release dates
- Without external command or alienated goals
- Maintainer keeps the project on course
- Makes binding decisions
- Supervises adherence to internal project standards
- If necessary cares for further development
- Organizes consensus ("Nobody needs to object")
Not: Animosity - Can not command other participants
- Mutual dependence
Participants need the functions of the maintainer
Maintainer needs the participants- On failure: Fork
Maintainer model is a frequent way to organize
Here: Doubly Free Software projects
Balances conflicts in Free Projects in an optimal way
Free Software = Selbstentfaltung + digital copy
- Selbstentfaltung is the central motor for production
- Digital copy as a means of production is
- Lossless
- Available to all by computers
- Possible about big distances (Internet)
- Universal for all (digital) information goods
The content of the information good is not relevant for the copy operation
Analog to electric motors of the industrial era
Possibility of digital copy is a new quality
Keyword: Internet
- Digital copy on a planet-wide basis
Inherits the features of digital copy - Lifts space limitations of cooperation
- No limitation in size
- Globalized and across cultural boundaries
- Lifts time limitations of cooperation
- No fixed time frames
- Makes possible real time as well as asynchronous processes
- As a medium has little inherent limitations
- Makes topic oriented coppoeration possible
- New projects and forks are always possible
- Combines individual use with common access
- Everyone can be active based on individual decision
Also meaning: As producer or consumer - Everyone has access
- Everyone can be active based on individual decision
As a tool the Internet offers a lot new features
Free in the sense of Free Software
-
This freedom is indicated by the capital "F"
- Absense of alienation
- Needs to result from the direct needs of those involved
- Self-organization
Not organized by principles alienated from the project - Voluntary participation
Including voluntary taking over of responsibility - Enables Selbstentfaltung
- Freedom is result of the process
- Results are Free because of the process
Can be used by anyone who needs them
Implies that they are available without payment - I.e. unlimited externally
- Results are Free because of the process
- Freedom is pre-condition of the process
- The process doesn't work without Freedom
Freedom enables contributions from all sides - I.e. unlimited internally
- The process doesn't work without Freedom
- One's Freedom enables the Freedom of others
Instead of limiting it like in abstract freedom
Defines several positive feedback cycles
-
This is where the power comes from
Keyword: Germ form
- Something structural new existing in the old
Not the new in a small version - Features of a contemporary emancipatory germ form
- Global networking
- Absence of exchange value and exchange
- Self-organization
- At the forefront of the development of productive forces
Technical, but also social - Makes Selbstentfaltung possible
Also as part of the development of productive forces
- Germ forms can be assessed only historically
However, one can try to recognize germ forms
Free Software has characteristics of a germ form
Keyword: Five-step
- Germ forms develop in a five-step
Five-step is a general model for development- Formation of the germ form
- Crisis of the old form
- Germ form becomes an important dimension of development in the old form
- Germ form becomes dominant
- Restructuring of the over all process
All phases can take a long time
Free Software is in third step
Criticism: Germ form thesis
-
Exists inside and outside of the project
- Free Software is useful for capital
Only for some sections; more important: useful for non-capital
Points beyond capital structurally nonetheless - Free Software is financed by the value system
Every germ form is in the beginning embedded in the old - Immaterial production is fundamentally different
Yes; important is what is dominant - Just nerds in patriarchal structures
After all nobody can exclude women formally
Interesting question: Why do women don't want to self-unfold in this Free Software? - Free Software works in a meritocratic way
There are no means of force in Free Software, so power has no substance - Assessment of the germ form questionable
Everyone may make up his/her mind
Germ forms and other models and ideas
-
Germ forms can be distinguished from other models and ideas
Dam building vs. ship building
-
Picture to make clear to distinct approaches to politics
- Dam building
- Useful to dam against rising tide
- Goal: Defend the old
- Conservative approach
- Ship building
- Useful to use the rising tide
- Goal: Journey to new shores
- Progressive approach
- Building dams and building ships are totally different approaches
- But they can complement each other
Free Software is ship building
The way to the GPL society
-
The possibilities are outlined
GPL society means a formation of society, which is based on the principles of the development of Free Software
The utopia
-
Until now it can be imagines only in rough outlines
- Means of production make Selbstentfaltung possible
- Useful: Maximum number of degrees of freedom
- Useful activities are Selbstentfaltung
- Societal and individual utility is directly intertwined
In part for this other means of work / machines are needed - Automation makes necessary activities superfluous
- Societal and individual utility is directly intertwined
- Information and goods are Freely available
- Free availability is precondition of the process
So everyone can use all means to self-unfold - Free availability is result of the process
Becaus of openness and inclusion model - This is what the capital "F" means
- Free availability is precondition of the process
- Overcoming of the labor society
- No labor, no commodities
- No exchange, no money
- No alienation
- The most important productive power is the human Selbstentfaltung
The freedom of the single becomes the precondition of the freedom of all
-
And vice versa
Free information goods
-
Which hints are there today?
- Well-known ones
The idea to limit access to information is a historical relative new idea- Science?
Currently there are very different and contradictory developments - Free cooking recipes
- Science?
- New ones
In the Internet a number of things developed- Wikipedia
- Indymedia
- Wikis, Blogs
- Free music
This does not mean copyright violation by P2P - SETI@home (i.e. sharing of computer ressources)
The idea of Free information goods gets more and more friends
Keyword: Creative Commons
- Licenses for "Some rights reserved"
Copyright: "All rights reserved" - Four license building blocks
- Attribution (BY)
Demands attribution of the source on copies - Noncommercial (NC)
Denies permission of commercial usage of the work - No Derivative works (ND)
Denies permission to derive works - Share Alike (SA)
Demands keeping the license on derived works
Copyleft equals SA+BY - Attribution (BY)
- Big, international movement with good "marketing" (http://creativecommons.org/
)
- Adaption of license terms to national law systems
3rd Oekonux conference: Presentation of the Austrian variant - Many million of works under Creative Commons licenses already
- Adaption of license terms to national law systems
Creative Commons further the transfer of the idea of Free Software
-
Transfers idea to arbitrary information goods
Probably no initiative which does this with more success
Free material goods
- Concrete projects
Until now it is mainly a matter construction plans- Free electronic and hardware projects
- Free car projects
- In capitalism information is an important precondition for material production already
- Material production becomes more and more an appendage of production of information
This is analogous to the fact, that today agricultural production is a appendage of industrial production
Information society creates a fundamentally new situation
-
GPL society brings meaning to the notion of information society
Keyword: Fabber / Rapid Prototyping
-
Rapid Prototyping is the more official term
- Fabbers are universal fabrication machines
- Materialize three-dimensional things from digital data
- Typically by "baking" some amorphous, fine-grained material
Allow for constructing things which are difficult to create otherwise - Actually exist
Today: Mostly used for building models
- Fabbers have some interesting features
- Link digital data and material world closely
Bringing the logic of digital data to the material world - Universal for (parts of) material production
Like computers for information: "One machine to rule them all" - Allow material production for individual needs
- Link digital data and material world closely
- Industrial robots are equally interesting
Fabbers transfer important aspects of the digital world to matter
Other successful Free Projects: Wikipedia
- Web-based encyclopedia
- Transnational, multi-lingual endeavor
- Based on Wiki technology
- Produces useful products
Is well-known for this reason - Grows fast
- Attracts "normal" people
- Attracts knowledgeable people
- Free in the sense of (Doubly) Free Software
- Freedom is pre-condition and result of the process
- Voluntary participation
- Unlimited externally and internally
- Challenge: Quality assurance
- Difference to Free Software: No "technical truth"
Software runs or not
An encyclopedia article always reflects an opinion - Actions are on their way
Result of those actions is of general interest
- Difference to Free Software: No "technical truth"
Wikipedia is a very interesting Free Project
Other successful Free Projects: Open Access
- Free access to scientific information
- Growing movement in the scientific communities
More and more acceptance in the scientific communities - Based on Internet technology
- Aligns well with scientific tradition of open flow of thoughts
- Based on established methods of peer review
- Growing movement in the scientific communities
- Produces useful products
- At the forefront of the development of productive forces
Science is a pre-condition for production with ever increasing importance - Free in the sense of (Doubly) Free Software
- Freedom is pre-condition and result of the process
- Unlimited externally and internally
- Challenge: Counter movement to lock away scientific information
E.g. patents
Open Access is a very interesting Free Project
Keyword: Automation
- Today
- Destroys jobs
- Only capital is interested in automation
- GPL society
- Extends possibilities of Selbstentfaltung
By reduction of unpleasant activity
By the creative process preceeding it
By the empowerment of the users - Everybody is interested in automation
- Extends possibilities of Selbstentfaltung
Much more will be automated
-
Today automation is still impeded
Keyword: Need
- Is neither good nor bad but requires satisfaction
- Needs are determined by society
By fashions and (structural) coercion
So this is variable - Way of satisfaction is determined by society
The need for mobility does not not have to be satisfied by cars
Other societies - other needs
Criticism: GPL society
- Some necessary activities will always be done only under (structural) coercion
Nevertheless: They need to be abolished - How to prevent e.g. ecological unsound Selbstentfaltung?
Don't know
Partially this can be decided only historically
Percpectives
The utopian toilet
- By Annette Schlemm and others
- Sketches the satisfaction of a human need ;-)
An excerpts follows
[See http://www.oekonux.org/texts/utoklo/for translations]
Possible actions
-
About this we did not think very much until now
- Support Free Software
- Use it yourself and recommend it to others
- Report bugs to the developers
- Write Free Software yourself
- Use standards
Proprietary standards harm Free Software - Think further together
- Liberate yourself from the thinking categories of the labor society
- Project Oekonux (http://www.oekonux.org/
)
- Make available your products Freely
- Is easy for digital products
- Start your own Free project