Re: [ox-en] New economic model for free technology?
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2005 13:43:25 +0200
Hi Franz and all!
6 days ago Franz Nahrada wrote:
Stefan Mertten schrieb am Dienstag, 27. September 2005 um 17:45 [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED]:
When I think of an Oekonuxian perspective I find this a bad approach
because it reintroduces the alienation of the money system back into
Free Projects. It is the customer / boss who says what is good and
what not. At least for software if this would be the best way to do
things than M$ would need to have no fear of Free Software. In other
words: The quality of things produced without this type of alienation
is higher than with alienation.
Hi Stefan, we have shortly discussed these things and
as we noticed I see that differently. maybe I should explain:
Yeah, let's think aloud about it here. Seems like a chance to enhance
theory :-) .
I see that what Karel is developing is a kind of "self-set-goal".
He sets the goal and looks for people to support it.
You cannot equal that with a situation where
"the boss sets the goal".
And you can hardly compare this with a situation where
"the customer sets the goal".
No, it's not the boss but it's the market. Particulary as you describe
it it is exactly the same as what every entrepreneur does: Set a goal,
produce and look for people to buy it.
BTW: This also is a way to produce for one's needs. But for a couple
of reasons this way of production is very alienated from the needs of
the consumers. In the mode of production seen in Free Software in many
cases there is a less alienated way to influence the production - for
instance by asking for features or reporting bugs.
Frithjof Bergman has rightly called the latter the
"slavery to the market" and I think you are right by
putting it into one category with employment.
I think we agree that slavery to the market is the same for an
entrepreneur and for an employee. The difference is mainly that the
employee can name his/her enslaver while there is no such explicit
entity for the entrepreneur.
But Karels benefactors are not necessarily his customers.
I think this makes a lot of difference.
May be Karel can tell us in some detail what is the relationship
between his benefactors and him.
Indeed there are similar models in Free Software. For instance some of
the big names like Linus or Alan Cox are employed by companies or
similar institutions. At least some time ago Alan Cox said that as
soon as his employer (at that time: Red Hat) starts to command him he
will leave.
Also on SourceForge for some time now there is an option for a project
to receive donations. It would be interesting to know which projects
are open for donations, which actually receive donations, for which
reasons they receive donations and whether there are feature requests
combined with the donations. IMHO this would be a research project
really worthwhile.
As long as there are really no conditions connected to the donations
in a way these models are individual ways to receive some basic
income. However, I think because of the more private relationship
between a donator and a receiver there is more of a moral binding on
the (perceived) conditions of such a donation.
Well, I'm still a little bit sceptical because of the exchange nature
of this. May be the key factor here is whether or not there are
conditions connected to the donations. Then this would mean: The more
anonymous a donation is the better.
Well, that's all a bit rambling ;-) .
I think that possibility should be part of an Oekonuxian perspective....
there might be faster development if we can also live on what we really
really want to do.
Well, let's not confuse things.
One thing is Oekonux theory where one of the basic insights is this
non-alienation / Selbstentfaltung thing in (Double) Free Software.
IMHO this is still necessary to explain the success of Free Software
and thus can not be dropped. If we want to know what furthers a GPL
society most than I think we should strongly consider this piece of
theory.
So from a "hard" theoretical position I'd reply: The sooner the GPL
society is reality the sooner people can live on what they really want
to do. Well, no. It would be more correct to say: The sooner the GPL
society is reality the sooner people can live *and* do what they
really want to. No exchange. Period.
The other thing is what people really do, what they want and - if they
want to further GPL society - what real options exist to do so.
Getting closer to the GPL society is a transformation process which is
hard to predict. As always in such transformation processes there are
*lots* of shades of grey. For instance furthering the idea and culture
of Free Projects in general is certainly something bringing us closer
to GPL society. Or to create successful Free Projects. Or to create
useful Free Products of any kind - regardless on what basis they are
made. For example Simple Free Software is useful because it expands
the mass of Free Software and if it is published may be the basis for
a (more inclusive) continued development. An interesting question
would be: Where are the hard limits?
To me the difference between both looks like the difference between
theory and movement. Never in history theory and movement were the
same and they can not be. Nonetheless I think both of them have their
own right to exist and even they need each other. Each movement needs
theory to reflect and understand what is happening. If a movement
drops theory IMHO it is subject to a decline (which you can see in big
parts of the Left for instance). On the other hand a theory needs the
movement to experiment with the theoretical framework, to challenge
its limitations.
So what Karel and a lot of others do for me is part of the movement.
It is good that these things happen because they certainly further GPL
society. And it is good that these things happen because they give
practice to theoretical thoughts and therefore challenge them. So far
Oekonux has been a framework to reflect on such things and try to
understand and explain them.
The deeper reason is that if you create a good for nothing else than
its use value than you can create the very best thing thinkable. This
mode of production also attracts bright engineers because this is what
they want to do deep down in their hearts.
If you want to create something very good, and you simply
lack the time and resources to do it,
why should it not be logical to publish the request of
support?
Hardware development might mean prototyping, material costs etc.
But the going gets tougher for all people. We all experience the situation
that we do not have enough time and energy to do what we really want. I
personally suffer from that and I would like very much that someone would
buy me time to work even harder on the things that I consider necessary.
Well, that is not necessarily true. There are people out there which
love their paid jobs and even I sometimes really like what I do in my
job ;-) . This is even part of the bigger picture where capitalism
tries to exploit this fun in work.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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