Liberty, Linux and the gift economy.
Liberty. Freedom to act. The right to be. The essence of our humanity and of our society. A fundamental value which underpins Labour.
Linux. The story of a network of self-organized volunteers who broke new ground in the early 90s, not only in computer science, but in the way in which they worked together on a project from which none of them would derive significant monetary benefit. They did it because it was important, they were driven and because it provided a greater good. The term Linux is derived from Linus Torvalds, a Finn, who in 1991 invited a bunch of academic computer scientists to join him in creating a new operating system. This was around the time the internet happened.
Today, Linux remains hugely important as the basis of many computer operating systems across the world which are constantly evolving.
It’s been described as the phenomenon of massive, distributed , self-organising volunteer labour, which continues to accelerate.
The gift economy. The notion that:
where goods and services are exchanged without a direct quid pro quo, and where a participant’s power and status are derived not from what s/he has accumulated by taking from others, but from what s/he has contributed by giving to others.
This is a deeply compelling philosophy. It’s the philosophy of reciprocity and exchange which underpins community and builds society. And it’s the philosophy of the internet. And, I contend, of Labour.
Why am I telling you this?
Because today is Software Freedom Day. And Labour can learn a lot from these founders of software freedom. They exposed the limitations of the monopoly market and the way in which the control of software has been used to concentrate wealth and stifle innovation.
There are extraordinary parallels across our society particularly in the technology infrastructure that will drive our future as a nation.
Open access, open source, open data, open software, open government. Opening up. This discussion began at our Labour Party conference last weekend.
Today, I pledge that we will try to practice what we preach and have an open discussion to build sound and profound policy. Please join this discussion and add value. If you are a Red Alert reader, you’ll be more likely to take an interest.
And read this article (PDF link) where I got some of the ideas for this post.
Interesting idea
Government funded fibre to the home for every NZer is something even a Nat member like me can get behind, open source software is a part of the idea of to revolutionise further the ease of near free communication and economic opportunities… The countries that get there first will benefit the most… We need to be one of them…
Good stuff Clare it’s good to see a politican with the smarts to recognise the importance fully but I saw you at the Republican AGM so I already knew you were smart..!
Have you seen Idiot/Savant’s wiki-based progressive bills site? It’s a great example of collaboratively working on legislative/policy ideas. He’s had some success with it too.
[...] http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2009/09/20/opening-up-3-how-can-we/ a few seconds ago from Gwibber [...]
Great post Clare. Welcome on board. Software Freedom Day in Wellington currently discussing open government and open data.
Great to see this, Clare. You’re headed in the right direction.
Dave
Clare – this is great stuff. I’m really impressed to see a major party “getting it” about open source. Thanks.
One point – calling a “gift economy” uses the framing of commercial software. We don’t need to do that. There’s no reason that software has to be pay-for, its just that some is. Two different models.
Cheers
Colin
Let’s not forget that Clare Curran equates Open Source with Copyright Infringement;
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2009/07/26/what-the-future-will-be-like/
A technology-literate populace is not in the Labour Party’s interests. Such a populace is much, much less susceptible to the extreme Left-wing dogma Labour peddles. Take any advocacy for F/OSS from the Labour Politburo with a grain of salt.
I reckon we’re starting to see the Right worry about this blog. Good thing too. As your popularity grows, you will inevitably get waves of attacks from the Kiwiblog Right trying to smear, attack and diminish. That’s their style. Trevor and co have been pretty good at keeping a lid on it. But the rubbish poured out in this thread alone shows how vigilant you’ll need to be to keep your process credible and effective. The open in Open Source really means you have to let these wreckers in the door. They see no issue flailing about rather than actually engaging in policy. So, I reckon it’s a great idea, Clare. But just be wary that the Right is quite prepared to wreck it at all costs.
Claire, I’m afraid you’ve completely ignored the role of Richard Stallman, the GNU Project, and the Free Software Foundation in the history of free software. Linus Torvalds didn’t “[invite] a bunch of academic computer scientists to join him in creating a new operating system”, Richard Stallman did that with GNU in 1983. The GNU Project created most of the components of the operating system, including gcc, glibc, emacs, coreutils, and bash, all released under the GNU General Public License so that people might be free to control the software on their own computers. Unfortunately, when the time came to create the kernel, they picked a codebase (Mach) to build on that ended up making their aims a lot more difficult. Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel in the early ’90s, as you said, and it has been used with the GNU operating system ever since. Although the kernel is an essential component of an OS, it is not the only one.
Likewise, you can’t forget the contributions of people at Berkeley, where BSD was created.
Kadin
Apologies. Was trying to be brief and encapsulate the gist of linux. I know there’s so much more to it that what I’ve written. And I’m still learning. The point was though, for us to be drawing on these innovators and freedom seekers and looking at how we can help shape the future. Are you interested in being part of that?
Clare
Yeah, leaving out Stallman & the FSF is pretty egregious in terms of rewriting history.
Still, if we’re going to have the folks at Berkeley, let’s not forget AT&T, that well known lefty stronghold.
In terms of contrast to those hippies at the MIT AI labs and Berkeley fullstop!
@Simon. You may want to be extremely adversarial. No-one can stop you. But back in the day in the post you linked to – 27 July to be precise – Clare did say:
I for one accept she is genuine in her intention.
@Keir: “leaving out Stallman & the FSF is pretty egregious in terms of rewriting history.”
The PDF that Clare links specifically talks about Richard Stallman’s involvement so no one’s trying to hide that, or rewrite history.
Good stuff Clare
This story has been submitted to fsdaily.com! If you think this story should be read by the free software community, come vote it up and discuss it here: http://www.fsdaily.com/Philosophy/Software_Freedom_Day_2009_in_Wellington_New_Zealand
Clare,
Can you please clarify something for me? I’m really quite concerned that you seem to be advocating an open-slather on open-source software in the public sector.
For all of Microsoft’s (for example) faults, the products they provide are generally pretty stable, and capabable of doing everything the vast vast majority of public servants require. Most importantly it has a support structure second to none, which open-source, almost by definition, cannot.
Most importantly it has a support structure second to none, which open-source, almost by definition, cannot.
Really? Tell that to IBM.
Sorry you couldn’t make it to the SFD event in Wellington this weekend – we had an excellent time and hopefully everyone came away with something they had learned. I know a bunch of kids are now starting their software development paths with http://scratch.mit.edu/.
http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/wellington has some photos courtesy of Brenda, and you can look up more on Flickr using the #sfdwlg09 tag.
Looking forward to seeing you at next year’s event!
This is related to the theme here… there was a big announcement in Open Data and Open Education within New Zealand,
“Restrictive copyright laws can best be addressed in education by supporting open and collaborative approaches to the creation of learning content” Professor Rory McGreal
“My faith in education is restored observing schools like Warrington here in Otago, who are committed to the core values of education, namely to share knowledge freely” Dr Mackintosh
http://wikieducator.org/Launch_of_the_OER_foundation
Phil,
Can you please tell me which Open Source products you are unable to find support for? I will endeavour to hook you up with those providing it, or you can contact the New Zealand Open Source Society (nzoss.org.nz) who will do the same.
Vik :v)
Phil Anderson says:
September 21, 2009 at 10:47 am
For all of Microsoft’s (for example) faults, the products they provide are generally pretty stable, and capabable of doing everything the vast vast majority of public servants require. Most importantly it has a support structure second to none, which open-source, almost by definition, cannot.
Vik,
My original argument was a little clumsy, let me put it this way.
I work in the public sector. Every day, like thousands of other analysts, I’m dealing with very specific details about people and/or business.
My concern is that with a public sector exposed to carte-blanche open source software, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain effective control over where that data and information goes.
Hi Phil
My concern is that with a public sector exposed to carte-blanche open source software, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain effective control over where that data and information goes.
Really? How so? It’s just software, right? To be managed in the same way as any other software. Only you have more, not less, control over what it does to your data and information. I think you are confusing FOSS with something that has been given the label “The Cloud”. They are very different things.
I have put an article about Clare’s work and this posting up on the NZOSS site if anyone is interested (and apologies for the bad form posting my own links up here. In my defence I link out to what other countries are doing over there).
http://nzoss.org.nz/news/2009/politics-labour-and-foss
@Phil Anderson: why should you be focussing on controlling information in the public sector? There is a growing call for public information to be publicly available on the web as a matter of course. See open.org.nz
And sure, there is some stuff that will not be in the public domain: I think most people would include Inland Revenue records in that category for example. But data security is just one (important) part of assessing whether software is fit-for-use. Whether is is open-source or corporation-built isn’t relevant is it? I use both: Firefox and Thurderbird, and Vista and MS-Office. So far this month I have had 13 (count ‘em!) ‘Important’ updates (patches) from Microsoft. So what? I am reasonably trusting of both MS and Mozilla, and I take backups.
@ Don
think you are confusing FOSS with something that has been given the label “The Cloud”. They are very different things.
Ok, that makes sense. Will look into that more before going off half-cocked on a blog.
Hi Clare,
It is good to see that you understand the impact the “open” principle is. Although it has started with software it is quickly moving into other areas such as authoring books, making music and films. Teacher will use open resources to improve the quality of their teaching resources. Even in business co-operation can be used to compete in the global economy.
We are not advocating forcing anyone to use open source. Public organisations are free to use whatever software they want. However, they do have a responsibility to the taxpayer to be financially responsible. To ignore the opportunity to use open source would be kind of foolhardy if it can save money without sacrificing quality or functionality.