Free software production as critical social practice

Abstract

This article analyses the phenomenon of free and open source software (FOSS) in the light of Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello's The New Spirit of Capitalism. It argues that collaborative FOSS production by volunteer software developers is a species of critical social practice in Boltanski and Chiapello's sense: rooted in resistance to capitalist social relations, and yet also a source of values that justify the new routes to profitability associated with contemporary network capitalism. Advanced via collective projects that are sustained by hacker norms and privately-legislated 'copyleft' law, the FOSS ethos is apparently antithetical to private property-based accumulation. Yet it can be shown to embody the 'new spirit of capitalism' in its most distilled form; moreover FOSS developers have instituted new forms of property and new modes of profit-creation around software that are in the process of being adapted for use in other economic sectors. Meanwhile, the private law constraints on profitseeking that have emerged from the FOSS movement are counteracting some of the social pathologies that accompany network capitalism only to consolidate others. The article concludes by identifying likely bases for a renewal of critique given these realities.

Everyday science learning and equity: Mapping the contested terrain

“…Take, for example, two prominent movements among hackers, a subculture of professional and hobbyist coders: the open source movement and e‐banditry. The open source movement consciously challenges fundamental principles of profit‐driven, capitalist production, albeit in ways that risk re‐inscriptions (Barron, ). Similarly, hackers involved in “e‐bandit” movements, such as Anonymous, explicitly confront what they see as inequities and injustices through new forms of transnational cyberactivism (Wong & Brown, ).…”

Hacking in the public interest: Authority, legitimacy, means, and ends

“…Also in the economic sphere, the participation and networked relationships have been claimed as foundations for a network and reputation-based economy (Benkler, 2006). This reading of hacking culture celebrates individualism, participation, and reputation within a 'new spirit' of capitalism (Barron, 2013) and neoliberal governance (Cammaerts, 2011).…”

“…Social researchers situate hacking as a form of spontaneous techno-cultural jouissance (Levy, 1984;Thomas, 2002;Jordan, 2008), as a model for participation-based governance (Mateo-Garcia and Steinmueller, 2008;Dafermos 2013;Kostidiakis 2013) with the possibility to transform markets more broadly (Benkler 2006;Benkler 2011), as the enactment of critiques of the politics of technological systems (Kelty, 2006;Barron, 2013;Bodo, 2014;Sauter, 2014) and intellectual property systems (Lessig, 2006;Barron, 2012), or as an engagement with the culture and performance of masculinity and expertise (Dunbar-Hester, 2011). We also assess the relationship between hacking and the social, political and economic systems that are transformed by expansions of hacking practice.…”

Open cultural production and the online gift economy: The case of Blender

“…Some attempts to do such analysis have been undertaken in research on the communities of free and open source software development which has stressed the role of gifting for acquiring reputation online as a form of personal capital (e.g., Bergquist and Ljungberg, 2001;Berdou, 2011;Barron, 2013). It remains unclear, though, how this economy of open gifts and power gets mobilised in practices beyond software development, such as those of open cultural production.…”