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Re: [ox-en] Translation complete: GNU/Linux - Milestone on the Way to the GPL Society



Stefan,

Were have you worked out the germ theory in most
detail or most understandable form. Is it on the net
somewhere, or if not, could you post it here?

I'm off to the re-activism conference on the political
economy of peer production in Budapest, and will not
respond until the 23rd,



Michel

--- Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Hi Tom and all!

Last week (8 days ago) Tom Chance wrote:
On Sunday 02 Oct 2005 11:56, Stefan Merten wrote:
9 months (293 days) ago Tom Chance wrote:
I couldn't see where to make general comments
on that page, so here are
some thoughts I had whilst reading it.

1) GNU/Linux has exchange value, and that is
significant. You dismiss the
fact that companies have based profit models on
Free Software as being
temporary, something that will disintegrate
when all software is released
under the GPL (what about other licenses?). Of
course for hackers, the
exchange value is irrelevant - or rather,
invisible - to the account of
their mode of production. They are working
outside of the capitalist
paradigm, unalienated.

But is it not significant that a product and a
mode of production that is
unalienated, that isn't created fetishistic
commodities, can also have an
exchange value? GNU/Linux is embedded in a
capitalist paradigm and is, at
the same time, challenging it and making it
irrelevant.

Well, if you take the formulation from the
blotter "Free software is
as worthless as the air to breathe" then things
probably get clearer.
Literally everyone bases its operation on "air to
breathe". Workers
simply breathe it and where you use compressed
air in industry the air
to be compressed is taken from the air to
breathe. In no instance the
simple, plain air to breathe has an exchange
value. But in each
instance exchange value is generated based on
it's existence.

I think there is a fundamental difference here
and this should not be
confused.

I don't understand what you mean here.

Yeah, I was a bit unclear.

Just to clarify, re-reading what I 
wrote, I'm not endorsing exchange value but rather
pointing out the 
quasi-reformist potential of a mode of production
that both satisfies some of 
our requirements, and can fit in the capitalist
system.

Well, I still think that Free Software in most of
it's incarnations
has no exchange value. (I'm starting consider that
it has until the
point it is published but I'm not sure about this
yet.) I understood
that you say the opposite: That Free Software has
exchange value and
this is shown by the fact that "companies have based
profit models on
Free Software". May be I got you wrong here.

What I tried to point out was that production of
exchange values /
profit models can easiyl rely on things which do not
have exchange
value. Thus it is no contradiction to the
non-exchange-value feature
of Free Software that companies base their profit on
it. If not yet
clear I think an example could help.

However, I agree to you that it is somewhat funny
that a new form
which has potential to overcome some older form is
useful for this
older form. This is exactly what is described by the
germ form theory
which describes this type of embeddedness as a
precondition for a germ
form. This is, however, hard to swallow if you
always thought of
autonomy as a precondition for a germ form. I think
the contrary is
true - also because a system can only be changed
from within.

2) Why have you not accounted for paid work on
GNU/Linux?

At the time the paper was written this was not
such a big issue than
it is now. While I'm at it I'd like to emphasize
that much of the
basic work necessary for the success of Free
Software has been done in
the Double Free mode. Only when Free Software
became to be successful
Simple Free modes began to grow in number.

Really? As far as I'm aware people have been
employed and writing a lot of the 
core free software code for over a decade now, and
certainly a significant 
proportion for years. But more on this in a
moment...

Well, what we really need here are good studies.
Back in 2000 Alan Cox
replied to my respective question that the share of
contributors who
shall contribute to the kernel as employees of such
company raised
significantly during the then recent years. To me
this meant that the
success of Free Software attracted companies.

The best study I know of in this regard is the FLOSS
study made some
years ago [http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/].
From "Deliverable
D18: FINAL REPORT -- Part IV: Survey of Developers"

  4.2  Motivations for developing Open Source / Free
Software

  [...]

  All the other motives that were offered to the
respondents reached
  only shares below 10% and will be neglected here.
However, we have
  to except the motive to make money from this rule,
because this
  items gains a lot of importance as a reason to
continue with OS/FS,
  growing from 4% to 12%.

Sometimes I have the impression that the
representation of the paid
people id far too high in people's minds.

I'm not sure why you think that hackers who are
paid to hack are still 
alienated (and presumably also exploited?) I know
several people who are in 
this position and they enjoy almost complete
creative freedom, they work in a 
community of hackers, they don't lose control of
their products, they don't 
produce for exchange value alone (or even
primarily). I think the danger of 
your single and double freedom model is that it
makes a false distinction 
around exchange value, when in fact the reality is
more complex.

I completely agree with you and under different
circumstances I
emphasize that even in proprietary production
aspects of non-alienated
work became more important during the last years.
Nonetheless there is
a hard limit marked by the need to produce exchange
value. All the
room for creativity vanishes if this is not ensured.

Therefore I think the terms Double and Simple Free
Software are useful
in that they make clear some poles. Reality is often
mixed in
complicated ways.

The whole section makes a good manifesto for the
future, but you frame it as a 
description of what GNU/Linux is today (or was at
the time of writing). As 
such it carries no force since it is just
fanciful, like those on the left 
who claim Cuba is a socialist paradise, or those
who say liberal democracy in 
Iraq is imminent. As it stands the paper has some
interesting ideas but is so 
inaccurate that it really doesn't have much merit,
in my opinion.


=== message truncated ===



		
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