Re: [ox-en] Maussian ideas and Free Software
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:54:45 +0100
Hi Johan, Martin, Casimir, and list!
Last month (38 days ago) Martin Hardie wrote:
I do dasagree that these purposeless things did not support life. They do.
That is my point.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. And I also love it because it is
short ;-) .
But I think there is something more in this discussion when thinking
about Free Software.
Last month (43 days ago) johan soderberg wrote:
I read Marsel Mauss some years ago. His idea is not exactly built on
'exchange due to guilt'.
Ok.
Rather, gift is first and foremost a system
for organising sociability.
Ok.
However, we have to be careful with the terms here. Casimir put it
quite nicely:
Last month (42 days ago) Casimir Purzelbaum wrote:
I'd simply boil this "part of the human mindset" down to
'interaction'. It is, indeed, possible, easy and quite common to
interprete all interaction as exchange, but I doubt that such a
view enhances the adequacy of our picture of the world (or the
'human mindset').
Ok. So interaction seems to be the most general term here and I think
everybody can easily agree that interaction is part of the human mind
set. In which forms these interactions take place is a very different
question and I guess depends largely on the culture / society you are
looking to.
Also the terms "exchange", "swap", "gift" are somewhat dangerous when
talking about digital goods under Internet conditions.
Some excerpts from Webster:
swap
an act, instance, or process of exchanging one thing for another
exchange
the act of giving or taking one thing in return for another
the act or process of substituting one thing for another
reciprocal giving and receiving
gift
something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without
compensation
So to me all these terms only make sense when the giver after the swap
/ exchange / gift does not control the thing given any more. This is
the case for material things but for digital goods this makes no
sense. So I'd say it simply makes no sense to talk of exchanging
digital goods - at least not when you are actually distributing
copies.
However, the time used in creation of digital good is something which
is "lost" in the creation process. So when talking about creation time
these terms above may make sense. This difference is important when we
think of Free Software authors and of Free Software distributors or
P2P type flow of digital goods.
But back to Mauss (thanks Johan for you explanations).
Last month (43 days ago) johan soderberg wrote:
By swapping gifts, personal bonds are
tied between members, families and clans, ensuring stability in the
community.
Ok. I buy this easily. I think this is part of the concept StefanMz is
putting forward of personal-concrete relations dominating societies
based on processing the ground. Gifts are then a part of that
personal-concrete relations.
However, when we think of Free Software how can we imagine this to
happen? I think there is a serious difference here that those
personal-concrete relations were characterized by personal-concrete
people. I have great difficulties to see that in Free Software or P2P
flow. In the contrary the people interacting in Free Software or even
more so in P2P are *highly* anonymous. I tend to call that
personal-abstract because there may be persons but they are really
very abstract.
I believe that in the case of swapping mp3 files and the like,
library model is a more accurate term. No community or bonding takes
place between people exchanging music files via Gnutella.
For P2P type processes I completely agree with you. So no gift economy
in Maussian sense here.
But in the
case of development of software, the gift could be said to be the
free time and inginuity of the partakers, and as strong communities
is built up around development projects, these could qualify as gift
economies.
There seems to be some truth in this but this only applies to the
developers among themselves. If this would be the driving force then
why do they open up their software to the general public?
Also I have difficulties with the concept of giving free time. If I
take myself for instance it may look like I "give" a lot of free time
to Oekonux. But then, *I* do not feel I'm giving anything. I'm just
doing what I want to do - regardless of whether this appears as a gift
to somebody or not. It helps me to sort out my own head when I'm
writing mails. It's just my life - simply being me. I think this needs
to be taken into account also.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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