Re: [ox-en] Re: Free Software is not a gift
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:33:42 +0100
Hi all!
A second comment about the terms used.
BTW: I just changed "Using Free Software..." into "Taking Free
Software..." :-) .
Last week (10 days ago) Gregers Petersen wrote:
Stefan Seefeld wrote:
Gregers Petersen wrote:
and if there is no exchange there
will be no social relationship
How do you come to this conclusion ? Is all relationship exchange ?
I think if you - in a strict sense - follow the basic idea of gift-exchange; as
being the foundation of all social relationships through the building/creation
of reciprocity between partners.
I think I understand what you mean here. Isn't this a rather personal
type of social relationship which is created this way? Isn't, however,
one of the characteristics of modern societies that they don't need
this type of personal social relationships?
Then it implies, that if there is no exchange
there is no social relationship (and no obligations).
On the other hand, if you look at this complex from the point of view of
'transactions' (and not exchange) - there is room for quite a lot of different
forms of "relationships" which include monetary exchange etc.
I typically use the term "flow" here but I mean probably what you just
called "transactions": The transfer of a material or immaterial good
from one person to another. Well, this in turn rings the bells
"property" and "possession". I'm thinking of possession here - i.e.
the observable using relation between a human and some good.
Exchange then would be a pair of transactions explicitly related to
each other.
Also several of the comments to my original posting has put attention towards
'generalized exchange' and so forth --> which leads to the reality that the
terminology which is being used is somewhat "confused" or at least 'fuzzy'?
Yes. Let's try to shed some light on this.
The terms which are being refered to, and who are in need of further discussion are:
- Exchange
- Generalized exchange
See above for a definition attempt. Generalized exchange is still a
bit fuzzy but the relation between giving and taking still applies.
I don't think Free Software and similar phenomenons can be understood
well by assuming such a type of relation. Of course people developing
Free Software benefit and take Free Software as their tools. But this
does not feel like any type of exchange to me but more like some
general infrastructure which simply exists and everybody uses.
- Transactions
See above. May be the best term for some neutral transfer of a good.
- Sharing
Sharing then would be an act where people actively make goods
available so others can take them. Whether or not this creates
obligations, however, is IMHO not implied by the word.
How are these terms understood and how are they related to each other --> and
how can we understand the different forms of relationships and obligations
within the free software reality?
My cent above.
Last week (12 days ago) Michael Bouwens wrote:
Every relationship is an exchange, even every you do, as a relation
to an action or an object; there is exchange of energy and values.
I think this blurs the concept to exchange too much. Do you think it
is possible to say this in other terms? May be from the set Gregers
offered?
Gregers Petersen wrote:
The terms which are being refered to, and who are in need of further
discussion are:
- Exchange
- Generalized exchange
- Transactions
- Sharing
I still don't think these terms capture the entirety of human (social)
relations, in particular things like collaboration.
I don't think that this was Gregers' goal.
Work has always been
about collaboration, and division of labor. The fact that this collaboration
is organized in terms of exchange is a fairly recent development (in a historical
perspective).
Absolutely.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
--
Please note this message is written on an offline laptop
and send out in the evening of the day it is written. It
does not take any information into account which may have
reached my mailbox since yesterday evening.
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de