Wednesday 17 August 2016
Politics of Cooption in Free and Open Communities
Politics of Cooption in Free and Open Communities
Bradley M. Kuhn
Wednesday 17 August 2016
Slides Links
Some of the slides have links to various articles.
I don’t mind at all if you would rather read those than listen to me further. :)
ebb.org/bkuhn/talks/OpenSym-2016/politics.html, or via url shortener at ur1.ca/plug4
Source code of slides is available. I’m sure to have typos; please submit patches there rather than calling them. :)
Am I Qualified to Give This Talk?
I am not a political scientist.
I am not a sociologist.
●I am (to use a phrase that admittedly I coined):
●an accidental politician.
What Is Politics?
Politics (from Greek: πολιτικός (politikos): “of, for, or relating to citizens”) is the process of making uniform decisions applying to all members of a group. It also involves the use of power by one person to affect the behavior of another person. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community.
— Politics. (2016, June 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 June 2016..
Key Issues of Software Freedom Politics
Politics is the process of making uniform decisions applying to all members of a group. It also involves the use of power by one person to affect the behavior of another person. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community.
— Politics. (2016, June 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 June 2016. (Emphasis mine)
How Did This Begin?
●Software freedom has roughly two roots:
●CS academics: the BSD project and its descendants.
●activist: the GNU project and its descendants.
●Neither was terribly political to start:
●even the activism.
●It started slowly:
●politicians arrived …
●“spin” began …
●“duc, sequere, aut de via decede” (“lead, follow, or get out of the way”)
First Mover’s Advantage
Tim O’Reilly should be credited as the first Open Source politician.
He organized the so-called historical Palo Alto meeting in early 1998.
Aninvite-only event under O’Reilly’s control.
14 unelected, affluent men (all but one Caucasian) in a room decide what the principles of a whole community are.
This is where “Open Source” comes from.
A Uniform Decision
Politics … is the process of making uniform decisions applying to all members of a group.
— Politics. (2016, June 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 June 2016. (Emphasis mine)
On Terminology
The early political opposition to this was, IMO, correct but clumsy.
RMS, founder of the GNU project, writes Why Open Source Misses The Point.
The debate as framed as a terminology battle rather than a question of cooption.
Cooption
Co-option (n.):
The process by which a group subsumes or assimilates a smaller or weaker group with related interests; or, similarly, the process by which one group gains converts from another group by attempting to replicate the aspects that they find appealing without adopting the full program or ideals.
— Co-option. (2016, May 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
O’Reilly Hustles The Meme
The meeting’s purpose was to facilitate a high-level discussion of the successes and challenges facing the developers. While this type of software has often been called … “free software” in the past, the developers agreed that commercial development of the software is part of the picture, and that the term … “open source” … best describes the development method they support.
— O’Reilly and Associates Press Release, 1998-04-14. (Emphasis mine).
The Meme Hustler
O’Reilly may be the best politician Open Source has ever seen.
see Evgeny Morozov’s article, The Meme Hustler
●Seeing ahead to what those in power will want to coopt …
●& priming it to adapt it for their cooption.
●& is a wonderful way to gain power.
c.f. John L. O’Sullivan and “manifest destiny”
Why Focus on O’Reilly?
He’s surely the most successful & savvy Open Source politician.
& his play didn’t end with the Open Source cooption.
Freedom 0
●In 2001, Microsoft begins attacking copyleft, specifically.
●Their political goal: bifurcate the copyleft/non-copyleft segments of community.
●Encourage more non-copyleft projects.
●With help, they succeeded.
●O’Reilly’s messaging is much better:
●Freedom 0, he says, is “the freedom to chose your own license”.
Politics of Power
Politics … involves the use of power by one person to affect the behavior of another person.
— Politics. (2016, June 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 June 2016. (Emphasis mine)
Freedom or Power?
In 2001, I co-wrote an essay with RMS, called Freedom or Power.
●It was basically in response to O’Reilly’s Freedom 0
●although, we scrubbed that reference in the final version …
●in an effort to control the meme.
Ultimately, where does the power in FLOSS (Free, Libre and Open Source Software) come from?
Why We’re Obsessed With Licenses
●There’s really only one monopolistic control mechanism for software:
●copyright
Audrey Eschright: copyright is the “primary point of leverage”.
If you hold the exclusive decision-making about copyright, you wield all the power.
●O’Reilly wasn’t talking about freedom, he was talking about power.
●control the copyright → control the power → win the politics → govern.
Controlling Governance
Politics … refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community.
— Politics. (2016, June 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 June 2016. (Emphasis mine)
The Buzzword of Governance
This phrase itself is used with vastly different meanings in FLOSS.
●Governance in FLOSS circles can mean:
●what licensing your project requires for upstreaming (rarely means that anymore).
●how technical decisions are made.
●how companies exploit FLOSS (particularly what licenses they ban).
Who is in charge of governance?
Unelected Incumbent Power Structure
The advent of the for-profit corporate “Open Source office”.
●Ostensibly, their mission is to manage interaction with FLOSS.
●BTW, isn’t “community management” a NewSpeak sort of phrase?
●Really, these are the incumbent leadership.
●Many of them were once FLOSS activists.
●Some of them still model their roles as such.
●But they are inside the for-profit corporate system.
Unelected Incumbent Power Structure
●Their tactic mission:
●Exploit volunteer labor for the Company.
●Control policy, procedures and the ultimate power structure of FLOSS.
Really, Be Obsessed with Licensing
The power structure is, again, who controls the copyrights.
●Companies promulgate CLAs & ©AAs.
●the goal of such agreements is to give all the power to the Company.
Turn FLOSS contribution into a one-click-through omnibus, rights-shifting agreement only Apple or Facebook could love.
The so-called “Post Open Source” no-licensing meme is in service of that messaging.
Astroturfing
Astroturfing (n.):
the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participant(s).
— Astroturfing. (2016, June 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 23, 2016.
The Trade Association Model
●Organize for-profit-controlled trade associations
●501(c)(6) in the USA.
●Give minimal funding to specific FLOSS projects with broad base of supporter.
●create good will; it’s their marketing budget.
Use that brand to gain interest, more resources, & developer mindshare.
Long-term: this changes the focus of work.
The 2010s Software Freedom Paradox
For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their necessary work on a computer.
The 2010s Software Freedom Paradox
The smartest thing that companies do is distract great FLOSS leaders with interesting technical problems.
●Take it from one of O’Reilly’s beloved stars:
●“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads“ — Jeff Hammerbach
The charity-style volunteerism we once had (work 40 hours, then spend some free time helping Free Software) has mostly evaporated.
Attention given only to Free Software in specific infrastructural areas.
The New Cooptive Meme: Sustainability
●These new would-be O’Reilly’s today seek to brand sustainability as:
●Control the goose that lays the golden eggs.
●They want the Open Source gravy train to keep running.
●They even attempted to reinvent that invite-only meeting from 1998 earlier this year!
●Audrey Eschright’s framing is right:
●Create an environment that assures users have essential freedoms, and individual developers can create systems that treat those users well.
Why You Should Care?
●First: it seems no one is studying this sociopolitical structure.
●perhaps the papers belong with political scientists?
●Second: the FLOSS world that you study is in danger of crumbling.
●This form of Open Source is not particularly distinct from existing traditional proprietary methods.
●well, perhaps our collapse will make a good paper someday.
●Third: will it hit the other collaborative communities?
Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales specifically cited Free Software as the primary inspiration for starting Wikipedia.
Wikipedia’s organizational principles were congruent with software freedom.
Wikimedia Foundation embodied them.
Wikimedia
●2016 “search engine debacle” shows overly powerful organizations.
●Fortunately, existence as a charity where volunteers have real power (rather than a trade association), likely saved it.
●Wikipedia could succeed in collaborative & egalitarian political organization because of the project’s nature.
●A single encyclopedia hosted on a single website has cohesion we can’t create in the anarchy of Free Software.
●& we’ve left power vacuums that leave us open to cooption.
Wikimedia
●Sure, they’ve had their scandals.
●& my captious nature leads me to find plenty to criticize.
●But, it’s actually tough to say anything really bad about Wikimedia:
●they’re a charity.
●they insist on only free-as-in-freedom, usually copyleft, licensing …
●… both for content & software.
●they have egalitarian, republican governance.
Those Who Forget the Past…
●Software freedom spawned the Open.* communities.
●they are repeating the mistakes that we made.
●For me, it’s like watching a very slow motion car crash.
Licensing Challenges
●Creative Commons absolutely refuses to take a moral stance.
●ND & NC licensing, which Open Source and Free Software eradicated 20 years ago, is often preferred.
●copyleft (CC BY-SA or GPL) is widely & unfairly attacked in Open.* communities.
●e.g., Adam, speaking from Open Education mindset, disparaged copyleft this morning.
●Politically manipulative conflation of commercial & proprietary.
●yet copyleft is the only system to assure for-profit companies don’t exploit without giving back.
Rejection of Software Freedom
●Open.* communities widely reject software freedom.
●the vehement anti-copyleft rhetoric is just the beginning.
●On this point, Adam & I agree: “Why are Open Education people not doing Open Source?”
But, even some software-liberated initiatives don’t support Free Software operating systems like GNU/Linux & FreeBSD.
These position are often utilized by the cooptive forces (trade associations & companies) in the software world to marginalize radical positions.
What Can You Do?
●Academic research ispolitical by its nature.
●I know of researchers who are funded to produce data to discredit activist positions.
●Megan Squire’s paper we heard today has political ramifications (which I suspect are quite positive).
●Who funds the research matters:
●(cf: where we’re standing: Fraunhofer’s patents are regularly used to attack Free Software projects.)
Be as independent as possible.
●You’re (likely) not anthropologists so you can occasionally “go native”.
●teach your students that there is a moral & activist component to this work.
More Info / Talk License
●URLs / Social Networking / Email:
●Pls. support Conservancy: sfconservancy.org/supporter/
●The Guide is available & welcomes contributions at copyleft.org.
●Conservancy: sfconservancy.org & @conservancy.
●Me: faif.us & ebb.org/bkuhn
●Slides: ebb.org/bkuhn/talks.
Presentation and slides are: Copyright © 2015, 2016 Bradley M. Kuhn, and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.