open source

On Friday afternoon, during my third attempt to locate Steven Weber's book "The Success of Open Source" at Lauinger Library, I scanned the spines of several hundred books, hoping to find it misshelved nearby. Instead, I stumbled across Tim Jordan's "Hacking: Digital Media and Technological Determinism," which has turned out to be the most delightful read I've come across since I began working on my thesis.  Read More »

Is open source software provocative to capitalism because it is free, or because it is authored in a way that subverts the labor-wage-consumption relations that are so central to Post-Fordist capitalism?

This is the central question taken up in "Hacking Capitalism: The Free and Open Source Software Movement" (Routledge, 2008) by Johan Soderberg. He comes down on the side of the latter, arguing specifically that the hacker movement has replaced the increasingly ineffective labor struggle with a new form of struggle: play struggle. "Resistance has here become a game" (183).  Read More »

Writing a thesis on a topic like "Open Culture" is a risky proposition. At best, it's a cloudy term, subject to misinterpretation and demanding a precise explanation. Since my primary interest is in open source software, I could have written a narrower thesis on copyright vs. copyleft. I certainly considered it.  Read More »

Every war has its "signature" weapon: the machine gun in World War Two, Napalm in Vietnam, AK-47s in ethnic conflicts. I suspect the 21st Century weapon of choice will be variations on the IED (improvised explosive device). Since the war in Iraq began nearly 81,000 IED attacks have caused nearly two thirds of American deaths. According to Pentagon estimates nearly 300 IED attacks occur each month beyond the borders of Iraq and Afganistan.  Read More »