Re: Definition of peer production (was: Re: [ox-en] Peer-to-peer Electricity and p2p theory [u])
- From: Michael Bouwens <michelsub2003 yahoo.com>
- Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 23:47:53 -0700 (PDT)
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See my comments interspersed,
I send the peer characteristics in a separate message
Michel
Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:
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Hi Michael!
2 weeks (18 days) ago Michael Bouwens wrote:
I would like to offer my own definition:
- when do you have peer production?
Am I right when I think that `peer production' is the term you use to
describe modes of production similar to those seen in Free Software?
If so only in Double Free Software or in Single Free Software also?
My peer to peer definition has different levels of generality, a little bit like your Single and Double thing:
1) most generally, peer to peer is the social dynamic at work in distributed systems. It can take alienated or non-alienated forms (think of Marx's analyis of capitalism vs. the struggles of the labour movement to create alternatives)
2) this then gives rise to various p2p implementations on various levels (infrastructure, content, logical layer, etc..): filesharing, grid computing, open source definition, etc... You could call that 'diffuse' or non-integrated peer to peer
3) in its full flowering however, when integrated, it becomes a third mode of production, governance, and distribution/ownership
Item 2 can be integrated in capitalism, it is immanent to it, but item 3 transcends the limits of the market, of corporate hierarchy, and private property distribution. Your Double Free Software is one of the implimentations of item 3, as is Wikipedia, spiritual peer circles
if the production takes the form of free cooperation
What is a free cooperation? If partners are not forced to cooperate by
alienated/external reasons? So Simple Free Software would not fall in
this category then because cooperation partners are structurally
forced by money.
Free, not forced, not directly forced, as in the feudal system, or indirectly forced through dependence on monetary survival, as in capitalism.
and has a number of precise characteristics
(holoptism, anti-credentialism, etc..)
THIS IS A long one, so I'm going to separately post the sections on this.
Could you please list these characteristics and describe them a bit? I
can not imagine what holoptism means for instance.
with the aim to
achieve maximum participation of equipotential
producers
This is what puzzles me a bit. In Free Software it is usually not the
aim of a project to maximize participation. Often some participation
is seen as useful probably but participation is not an aim in the
sense of an end in itself. I guess we need to be more precise here.
ARE YOU SURE about his? In my understanding: free software wants to open up cooperation to all with the right skills and inclinations, without credentialist limits (i.e. scientific peer review selections, diploma's, etc..). And, as non-propietary distribution, it is open to all as well. So, in my view, it is definitely about maximum participation.
Also I'm somewhat sceptical about the equipotential. It's probably
true that bright contributors are welcomed but on the other hand there
usually is a governance structure where not everybody has the same
rights. Also equipotential only makes sense in an abstract way because
the potential of a web designer can not be compared to a programmer
for instance.
AREN'T FS PROJECTS very modular, so that the best skills can be matched to the precise modules, and the process to achieve this is very open, is it not, compared to corporate selection? On the other hand, there is governance with a relative and flexible hierarchy, based on those that have had the vision to create the project, the highest skill andn experience level, etc.. These form the core, vs. a more distributed periphery of cooperators.
if the production is managed through peer governance,
not through market allocation or corporate hierarchy
Would it be possible to abstract this to something like alienated
forces or may be forces external to the project and its goals?
YES, I WOULD agree with that abstraction.
if the result of the production is universally
available as use value (universal common property) and
it is here that the requirements of free software come
in
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