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Re: Movement and Free Software and/vs. Open Source (was: Re: [ox-en] Re: Cooperation in Free Projects)




If I may pitch in. If we break out of the narrower
free software world vision, we see an emergence of an
enormous amount of initiatives which have at least 3
common focuses: the open/free paradigm, the
participatory paradigm, the commons paradigm. I would
woudn't call it a conscious movement, but they have a
significant amount of common assumpations, and they
are variously engaged in 1) constructive projects,
creating new processes; 2) transgressive projects
(filesharing), i.e. leaving behind the old; 3)
reformist projects (attempting to change the rules and
institutions from within the existing ones). There is
a  wide variety of forms of awareness of this, as
indicated in the previous discussions, varying from
'ends' to 'means'.

But I agree with STefan, this was no different with
the early labour movement, you had unions,
mutualities, fringe parties, clubs.

The only difference is that I do not think the current
movement will take the form of political parties
anymore, but of a network of networks, that at some
point may coalesce much more than is the case today.

These are very early days of emergence, but there are
many signs of more and more interconnected dialogue
about the various strands.

Michel


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

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Hi StefanS and all!

I'm going to separate this into sub-threads.

2 weeks (17 days) ago Stefan Seefeld wrote:
Well, at this time I'd even be reluctant to speak
of a 'Free Software Movement'
as a single homogenous body, with consistent
goals. And replacing 'Free Software'
by 'Open Source' doesn't make it better.

Instead, one should realize that there are many
different 'players' and 'stakeholders'
involved, often with partially contradicting, but
luckily also overlapping interests.

Well, IMHO that's perfectly the definition of a
movement. All this
applies to well-known movements. Look at movements
like the left
movement, the piece movement, attac or the like.
Even the early
capitalist movement was full of contradictions but
yet it was able to
overcome a model of society. Movements are
heterogenous and even
contradictory by definition. Yet there is some
common denominator you
can extract from this heterogeneity. I think this is
important to do
because this is the key to understand these
phenomenons.

Insofar I agree with you that there actually are a
lot of differences.
Insofar it is probably always possible to find a
counter example for
everything. Would you agree with me that it makes
sense to check for
the common denominators? Personally I think the
common denominators
can only be found when looking at things in a more
statistical way.

The whole FS vs. OSS discussion is a hint at that.
(And I do believe it is meaningful
to discuss the difference between Free and Open,
as these terms are used here, often
polemically.)

Certainly true. I'd say that these are two currents
in one movement.
And in some respect well distinguishable currents.

Did you read Steven Weber's book I recently posted a
long recension
for? I'd be very interested in your opinion on his
thoughts.

What we seem to be discussing here, and what all
those projects thus have in
common, is that the result of the work is Free
Software, i.e. the product is
freely distributable (where Free is defined in
roughly the terms as discussed
at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html).

This is certainly the biggest common denominator.

Yesterday Stefan Seefeld wrote:
I also suggested (in a different mail, I believe)
to distinguish between
'Free Software' and 'Open Source', not on
ideological grounds, but to
be able to differentiate the various aspects that
play a role here.

Can you give us an idea what you are thinking how
this can be
characterized?

For example, Free Software as a legal framework
doesn't imply any particular
Relations or Mode of Production. However, it is a
requirement for Open Source
Software (as a process) to happen.

To me this is an open question. In theory I'd agree
with you but what
we can see in practice is that this legal framework
seems to have some
consequences for the way projects are done.

To use my favorite comparsion: In theory capitalist
production could
probably have been down in a perfectly feudal
framework - and I think
it even has been tried. Nonetheless it turned out
that this was not
sustainable.


						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.
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