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.

• An invite-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 is political 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.