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TomGlaisyerPaper1EbensArgument 9 - 15 Oct 2008 - Main.TomGlaisyer
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Introduction | | | Anarchic production | |
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< | As I am most interested in functional goods I will focus on these and here Eben's argument rests on the productivity of the free software movement following the adoption of the General Product Licence (GPL) - a creation that he argues is the greatest achievement of Richard Stallman. (Moglen, Anarchism Triumphant) This seems a curious claim since the development of the GNU toolset and its subsequent marriage with the Linux project was no small or inconsequential undertaking yet without this legal vehicle it does seem reasonable that the latter project may not have succeeded. However, suggesting that a relatively modest, it is only a few pages long, legal artifact enforced by elements of the state seems an odd document to invoke when making an argument for anarchic productionsince it is defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics as
-- "the view that society can and should be organized without a coercive state
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> | As I am most interested in functional goods I will focus on this aspect of Eben's argument which rests on the productivity of the free software movement following the adoption of the General Product Licence (GPL) - a creation that he argues is the greatest achievement of Richard Stallman. (Moglen, Anarchism Triumphant) Eben's claim that it is Richard Stallman's greatest achievement seems curious since the development of the GNU toolset and its subsequent marriage with the Linux project was no small or inconsequential undertaking yet it is entirely reasonable that without this legal vehicle the latter project may not have succeeded. However, suggesting that a relatively modest legal artifact enforced by elements of the state is critical to facilitating anarchic production since anarchy,as defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, is "the view that society can and should be organized without a coercive state." | | | | |
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< | That said, the evidence exists, | >
> | That said, the evidence of successful free and open source projects is ever more plentiful - Samba, MediaWiki? , Apache, FireFox? - the list goes on. Moreover, it is generally accepted that they are better than proprietary software on a number of dimensions - feature set, usability, reliability. All of this underpinned by the fact that if it doesn't quite work the technologist has the ability to fix it themselves. Moreover, and much more important to the technology executive, won't be left holding proprietary tools for which support is no longer available or 30% more expensive.
Clearly, this mode of production is attractive to users as well as more successful at a technical level. Yet it isn't clear to me that anarchy full describes its mode of production. | | | - Define in as rich a way as possible by bringing in Stark and heterarchy, Benkler and peer production |
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