>
> Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> > But in regards to Linux, don't buy the hype of voluntarism around it.
> > Linux derives from massive government planning and investment over thirty
> > years.
>
> Nathan, aren't you ignoring the work of Richard Stallman and his group?
This whole question is very interesting to me - where does the labour that goes into free software come from? A proper study of contributors to such software would be very useful - i.e. where do the FreeBSD core team work? When do they find time to develop software? Similarly for the Linux kernel, GNOME, or Mozilla.
In my experience, one motor for development is the fact that systems people write their own software, and then share it. That's how Perl (the most popular language for WWW site programming) was developed. This doesn't, however, explain everything - systems larger and more complex than Perl seem to use a more co-ordinated effort. E.g. free operating systems like Linux or FreeBSD, or the GNOME desktop architecture. Here the question becomes less an individual hacker contributing software to the world, and more a question of people organising themselves in a new way.
My feeling is that to some extent this 'way of organising' sometimes involves resistance by computer professionals against the pressures of capitalism. I know that as a systems programmer, I prefer working with software that is open to my inspection and customization. I'd rather be able to tweak tools to do what I want them to, than just sit around deploying 'black box' software.
Secondly, the non-commodity nature of free software has power implications - software which I procure (off the Internet) and deploy allows me to maintain control of the computers. By contrast, large software purchases normally go hand in hand with the involvement of outside consultants, and lessened ability for in-house computer people to control the process of production.
Finally, while I think there are interesting possibilities in the relationships built up around free software development, it is an illusion to pretend that they naturally lead to some kind of working class independence. Firstly, the struggles around software often have a 'craft' character - a struggle between a particular layer of skilled workers and their bosses, which can be (and often is) resolved in favour of the bosses by splitting computer workers from the rest of the workforce.
Secondly, as some people are finding out, free software can be a step up into the petty bourgeoisie. Look at how the 'open source' movement spearheaded by Eric Raymond is trying to create 'commercially acceptable' open source software. Richard Stallman's vision with the Free Software Foundation was the create a situation where software is liberated from the bounds of money. Raymond's vision of 'open source' is more along the lines of what I suggested above - giving power back to the programmers in the computer industry. Nowadays a number of companies are exploiting the potential of 'open source' development, and a number of 'open source' specialists are making money as consultants based on the wide availability of 'open source' products. And the (in my view naive) Richard Stallman is denounced as a 'commie'.
Peter -- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk : PGP key available 'The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions.' - Karl Marx