Part III: The Politics of Avowal and Disavowal
Chapter 5: Code Is Speech
Did not like the vague use of the word “legal”. While licensing is a legal matter, it is one small part in what “legal” encompasses. So phrases like “living out legal meaning” (p. 164) and how violations of existing guidelines for free software are justified being described as “legal expertise” made me question the author’s point (p. 165, “answer clearly demonstrates the depth of legal expertise”, and p. 168, “training themselves to become legal experts”)
However, what the author did reveal to me is the process of getting what the license states to meet tangible legal significance, exemplified in the two cases of lawsuits over the indictment of hackers arrested for making software that challenges intellectual property rights. And also that alertness over this topic was born from the FBI arrests at Defcon.
I liked the example of DeCSS (always thought in the back of my mind before reading it, the CSS I know is cascading style sheets!) being used for the distribution of the real DeCSS.
But having pirated a lot throughout the years, I never shake the feeling that I am indeed stealing, and perhaps I will never shake that feeling until I have creations which I want to almost disown. Perhaps our open access strategy is somewhat like this. Stewart Brand, “Information wants to be free”, but it coexists with information wanting to be expensive. It will not go away.
Ownership is incomplete freedom, expression/learning/modification is.
Conclusion: The Cultural Critique of Intellectual Property Law
The “culture” here is the culture of F/OSS.
FOSS is a utopia. It sits above the fray of politics (p. 198, citing Fray). In communities like ones exemplified by Debian, once a collective vision is set in place, with intentional onboarding, we can leave parts of our individual behind to work for the greater goal of the collective. To me, much more so than the “materialization of the legal” or the “two different liberals: classical liberalism vs. Millian liberalism”, this was the interesting part. That there is a tipping point, where we feel excited to work together despite our differences. Perhaps the work of Latour invoked in p. 190—that gradual enrollment (like that with Debian and its social contract) recruits various allies to extend a network of meanings, objects, and institutions.
I also thought about recent brainstorming for a new project I’ve been doing with David, and the topic of Ethical Source that’s come up a couple times. It represents a tension between inclusion and meritocracy, perhaps a different kind of tension in FOSS than what is unpacked at length in this book, but I kind of understood why these movements stirred up the community in largely negative ways—it politicized the utopia that doesn’t want to be politicized. Loved the idea of avowed neutrality in p. 189, that certain fundamental principles like tolerance and free speech resides outside the sphere of proper politics.
Question to Nathan: do you contribute to Debian? Hanlin asks to what extent Debian and WP contributors care about the use of their output. How does it feel to be the developer of what you use, and is that part of what makes FOSS great? “To each according to their needs” — is FOSS a realization of the Marxist ideal?