[ox-en] Re: Simply and Doubly Free Software
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 09:30:09 +0100
Hi Michel, StefanS, all!
Last week (9 days ago) Stefan Seefeld wrote:
Michael Bauwens wrote:
- what makes you sure that pure modes of doubly free
software are of superior quality that hybrid models
with support from an ecology of corporations, which
may include paid developers, as for Linux.
That's a very interesting question. I think the common answer
would be that Free developers write better software due to
superior motives.
Well, I'd not say they are superior in a moral sense - to me moral has
nothing to do with all this - and that's one of the fundamental
strengths. They are superior because they are not alienated. If you
are working in a non-alienated way the only goal you have is your own
Selbstentfaltung. And among other things this Selbstentfaltung is
accomplished by
1. excelling in the application of your abilities
This point is important to explain why so many experts are involved
in Free Software for instance: They like to hack because it's an
expression of their skills. This, however, is a very fundamental
human incentive.
2. using useful products and creating them where necessary
Selbstentfaltung is accomplished best with products which are
perfectly tailored to your individual needs. There is probably
nothing in the world where you can do this better than in Free
Software on all levels.
If you work in an alienated environment your incentives are
fundamentally different. You go there to earn money. That is your and
the whole companies top motive. Excelling in the application of your
abilities for this is useful only insofar as you find somebody who is
willing to pay for their application. This on the other hand is
greatly determined by marketing divisions and bosses who have anything
in mind but (absolute) product quality.
In fact for alienated modes of production the absolute quality of the
product doesn't matter. Relative product quality suffices: If it
better than the competing products it's fine. In the contrary: Even if
you have improvements of your product at hand you'd be stupid to
employ them before the market dictates it.
The book of Eric von Hippel gives another explanation which emphasizes
the second point above. He calls this user innovation. One of his
points is that users have a lot of tacit knowledge about their needs.
This knowledge is sometimes even inseparable from them. I'll get back
to this in my recension of the book.
However, I'd like to see some real discussion about this point
that doesn't take for granted / as an assumption something it
actually wants to prove. :-)
Was Linux better before they got involved?
Certainly not. But it's also hard to turn back and
wonder how it would have evolved without the participation
of commercial entities.
That opens the question to define what better means here. Given the
fast evolution of computers the Linux ten years ago can not be
compared with the Linux of today. Insofar it is a difficult question
in general and needs further qualification. This also is a hint to the
nature of use value: It is not possible to measure use value of
different things on a common scale. That is why use value can not be
transformed into terms of money.
I'd agree with Stefan insofar as commercial entities following their
own commercial interests ported Linux to their hardware increasing the
number of platforms Linux can be run on. This is certainly an
improvement.
If you refer especially to Linux - i.e. the operating system kernel -
my impression is that today the situation is rather similar to that of
GCC: There are a couple of commercial entities involved and a big
number of Doubly Free Developers. For Linux the governance structure
is certainly in the Doubly Free Realm - AFAICS regardless by whom
Linus Torvalds is paid actually.
If I want to characterize the commercial system around Linux then I'd
say there is a Free core and the commercial entities such as the
distributors "fork" from this Free core and create their own kernels
including modifications. In a way that is the "value adding" activity
done by them.
When I look at the governance model of Linux where product quality is
concerned I'd say there is a clear improvement compared to capitalist
mode of production. The direction Linux takes is extremely transparent
to those who are interested enough and AFAICS Linus still makes
decisions on a pure technical basis. That is: The quality of the
product is still at the very focus.
If you look at Windows on the other hand you can see how long
improvement of technical quality can take for a purely commercial
product - it it happens at all. To me this is a clear and expectable
result of the two modes of production employed here.
Anyway: Instead of comparing Linux with Linux it certainly makes more
sense to compare Linux with its proprietary "competitors". From a
technical perspective Linux and the underlying concepts of Unix are
clearly superior to those of Windows - may be Windows NT and its again
and again postponed offspring being a partial exception. As far as the
commercial Unices are concerned they all vanish away step by step and
are replaced by Linux. So those people replacing proprietary Unices
with Linux must see an improvement in quality or they'd stay with
their proprietary Unices.
Last week (8 days ago) Michael Bauwens wrote:
That pure doubly free
software is by definition better, is something that
needs to be empirically proven.
Well, I'd say that Free Software gained/gains market share out of
nothing is already a proof. Don't you think?
What would you accept as a proof?
My intuition is that it is better at some things, and
private production better at other things, so that in
some cases, combinations might be fruitful.
Well, "private" is not the right point here - Free Software *is*
private already for a large part - while being public at the same time
;-) . Alienated is more correct.
So I'd put the question more like: What can be fields where alienated
modes of production deliver better products. My answer is: In those
fields where Selbstentfaltung is not (yet) possible. Fields where you
need to (structurally) force people to do something because otherwise
it won't be done.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
--
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