open source

Open-source: Anti-fascist

2009-03-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge). The rise of the internet, popularized the term but also provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities. “The open source model of operation and decision making allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, and differs from the more closed, centralized models of development.” (Raymond)

Open-source: A 10 set program

2009-03-29T21:51:00.000-07:00

Open-source concepts have a set a criteria that dictate the ability to be considered as open-source. A set of rules and ideas that are comparable to a political ideology. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria:
1. Free Redistribution The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
2. Source Code The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
3. Derived Works The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
7. Distribution of License The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties. 8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software. 10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface. –
Open Source Initiative, http://opensource.org/docs/osd

Pragmatic

2009-03-29T21:48:00.000-07:00

The rules of open-source are clear and precise. Open-source ideas are strongly pragmatic. Pragmatism is a philosophy that considers practical consequences or real effects to be vital components of meaning and truth. The pragmatic approach of open source ideas and the difference in its ethical approach has stabilized and given weight to its methodologies against other ideologies.

Thesis : Books, Music, Software (sharing)

2009-03-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

Open-source ideas are explored and tested in all aspects of society and commerce. Open-source methodologies of the internet and software production subvert the control of fascist ideology through choice. The open-source ideas of choice as a counter to fascism will be discussed through Choose your own Adventure Books, Freely distributed music and music videos of the band Radiohead, and systems of open software development especially the internet browser Firefox by mozilla.

Choose Your Own Adventer and Open-source

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Open Source when you boil it down is about choice. When something is free it is a very easy thing to choose. When monetary value is eliminated then true value is placed upon the item for its usefulness to the user. Open Source methodologies stem from a understanding of programming and code. Code has a particular syntax and this syntax has enabled some companies to hold the power over that syntax ie Microsoft. The control of Microsoft’s syntax exists with in the economic model that has made their company successful: make the computers operate for your user for a set price. Open-source subverts the ideas of control over the syntax and offers up a notion that when you allow users to choose their own way to run their computers or even do it themselves, control of the product is shared. The Microsoft proprietary software business model is equivalent to a standard narrative story with a beginning a middle and an end. You pay for the story that you as a user have no control over its narrative. With in literature, initial ideas of giving the users choice is the wildly popular Choose Your Own Adventure Books. Choose Your Own Adventure was one of the most popular children's series during the 1980s and 1990s, selling over 250 million copies between 1979-1998 and has been translated into at least 38 languages. ( Lodge, 2007 http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6408126.html.) These simple books with a variety in their story lines allowed options in the narrative that attempted to fit the user. The Choose Your Own Adventure books are in their content attempting to be open-source.

Production Power and the Panopticon

2009-03-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

On the other hand, the production and economic model that produced these books is the opposite. The books were produced and sold for money in a system of control similar to a Panopticon (The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience.") The Panoptic power system exists in the economic production of the Choose Your Own Adventure book only when the user chooses not to share with other users who have other books. The producer owns the power because they produce the content for a charge. Open-source can be compared to lending the books you paid for to you best friend or neighbor. The knowledge and information is then transfered for free and the user has the options of accepting or denying the content. The sharing of the books destroys the power held by the producer of the Choose Your Own Adventure with in production.

Open-source and sharing

2009-03-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

The ideas of sharing are the foundation for the explosion of the internet. The open-source Philosophy states that access to the source code makes software easy to configure to specific user needs. Because open-source is freely distributed, it can greatly reduce the user's total cost of computing. Open-source software is reliable, stable, scalable, secure and extremely cost-effective. ( Open Source Software Institute.org ) The internet allowed different levels of sharing that previously were controllable through distribution and production. The music industry for example, in the past, maintained a control over the distribution and production of music. Artists would attach their music to a record label who would front the money to produce, advertise, and distribute that artist’s music for a fee. Artist would sign contracts based on complicated economic figures and essentially relinquishing some control over where, when, and who will have access to their particular music. The economic power existed in the hands of the producers and distributers of the music. The music industry, take EMI for instance, maintained large amounts of capital which could then attract big time artists such as The Rolling Stones, and Radiohead.

Open-source and music clash

2009-03-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

The production of music and the subsequent selling of that music was hedged on the concept that it was a physical object, a record, a CD or a cassette tape. Similar to the control of the publishing world that produces a physical book. The open-source philosophy of sharing content and the connection of the internet devastated the music industry’s hold on the economic model of production and distribution. As users of the internet started to understand the capability of its sharing capacity the music industries control was the first to be challenged. Open-source software (ie free) of Napster and Limewire allow users to search and share information across the networked systems of the internet. The rhizome-matic systems of the internet allowed the process of sharing a book or cassette with your neighbor to be exponentially enhanced to the numbers that were offering shared content on the network of the internet. The idea that you had to be acquainted with the person ie friend of neighbor. has been abolished and the only stipulation required is that you download the free software that gave you access to the files with in the network. The Napster open-source software resulted in legal engagement, Metallica vs. Napster, resulting in clash of big time music industry vs. the fans who value for the music and attend concerts. "I can't believe they'd do something so overtly unhip," was the quote ZDNet got from one Metallica and Napster fan.” _ http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,14817,00.html. Although the Metallica debate ended up creating a media storm and frenzy around the intellectual property of music, the damage had been done to the hold that the music industry had on production and distribution. When the open-source access of this internet was realized by its users they were then given choice in a choice less power system forever altering the modes of access. The paradigm shift away for the Music Industries hold on production and distribution models came to fruition with the

Radiohead and the End of Fascist Music Control

2009-03-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/viewer.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nTFjVm9sTQ

October 10, 2007 release of In Rainbows by Radiohead as a digital download first, followed by a standard CD release in most countries during the last week of 2007. The album was released in North America on 1 January 2008. In Rainbows was Radiohead's first release after the end of their contract with EMI. Radiohead offered up their album for free on the open-source platform of the internet. The band allowed the user to set the price at which they would like to pay for the album in its digital form. Users could pay nothing or everything it was their decision. Radiohead realized when they were out of the control of EMI that they could subvert the fascist power cycle held by the large music giant. The album quickly became the buzz of the music industry and highlighted the end of the music industries choke hold on production and distribution. Interesting enough Radiohead continued to follow open-source ideas in the promotional materials that followed the album including using the programing language of processing for their music video for “House of Cards”

Opens Source: Pragmatic Democracy

2009-03-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

The sharing aspects of the open-source platform of the internet allows ideas of pragmatist democracy to be truly experienced. John Dewey on technological developments in a democracy stated "Persons do not become a society by living in physical proximity any more than a man ceases to be socially influenced by being so many feet or miles removed from others" -John Dewey (Feenberg). The ability of music listeners to share music has created an alternative economic model for the music industry. When the music is free how do artist make their money? Well it occurs with touring and selling special products like limited edition albums, books, shirts, products etc. Open-source philosophy has destroyed the panoptic power system of ownership and production. When items can be shared and distributed at next to no cost then the power of production no longer exists on the ability to get that product into the hands of consumers. It rely much greater on the ability of users to find the product, in this case music, valuable. Open-source utilizes in its philosophy a Good Reasons approach which is a meta-ethical theory that states simply that ethical conduct is justified if the actor has good reasons for that conduct. (Toulmin) Simply stated, music is good and should be shared free of cost.

Michel De Certeau’s Strategies versus Tactics

2009-03-29T21:16:00.001-07:00

The rhizome-matic system of the internet allows for open-source ideas to be pushed by the users within that system. The open-source agenda can be placed in the context to its purpose with in an ideology. Michel De Certeau’s Strategies versus Tactics attempts to put into context the purpose of a process with in a system. Open source Initiatives of companies like IBM and their use of Linux programming can now be comparable to a strategy. Strategies are a carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal. Strategies demand locations of power, require competition, define legitimate modes of research, and establish the boundaries of acceptable practice. This can be seen in the Open Source Initiative. Strategies are the institutional processes that set norms and conventions. Strategies harvest finite ideas that become concrete, and essentially remain conclusive. On the opposite side of strategies is tactics: a course of action followed in order to achieve an immediate or short-term aim. Tactics lack a specific location, survive through improvisation, and use the advantages of the weak against the strong. Tactics are the modes of creative opportunity that operate within the gaps and slips of conventional thought and the patterns of everyday life. (Lewis, Tsurumaki, Lewis, 1998)

Open Source Firefox as a Tactic

2009-03-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Open-source of Linux was first a tactic to undo the power system of Microsoft or Macintosh. The internet is the strategy for the tactic of open-source. The open-source web browser Firefox by mozilla is a tactic against the strategy based browsers of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Apple’s Safari. Open-source exists with in the ability to share content and information as a way to free users from economic control systems. When economic control systems operate in a competitiveness atmospheres they control the power and tend to operate in fascistic manners.

Conclusion

2009-03-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

As open-source ideas move through the sharing based access of networked systems, open-source can be attributed to its connection to democratic ideologies. If governments / industries role is to control the people under its command then free speech, sharing, and freedom are tactics against the strategy of control with in that ideology. Strategies require power structures to evolve around them, but power and control in excess equals Fascism. The internet and the power of open-source as strategy or tactic is being explored in every aspect of society, government and business. The hope is that open-source as a strategy does not lead us down the fascist road like the warning given to us in George Orwell's book : 1984. The internet and the ideas of open-source thinking explored through Choose Your Own Adventure Books (choice in narrative), the collapse of the music industry production and distribution racket (Radiohead’s In Rainbows success), and the use of open source software (Firefox web browser) can be attributed to tactics in the power struggle of fascist ideologies.

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2009-03-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

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