Free Software Movement in Germany, Part Two

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

Still to big? Uuuuh...

Kurt-Werner Pörtner
 GL: Development of open source software seems to be particularly
successful amongst Germans, so it seems. Statistically, Germans come
second after the Americans. Would you know of any specific cultural
explanation?

SM: First of all I question how meaningful the figure is as a basis for
your question. Germany is the country with the biggest population in
Europe. To have a really meaningful figure you need to calculate the
number of German free software developers per capita of the German
population and compare that with the same figures for other countries.

Besides that I guess that the share of people with academic education is
quite high in relation to some other European countries which are among
the most industrialized countries of the world. In addition the English
language is pretty well known in Germany - opposed to e.g. Japan. So the
preconditions in Germany to enter the free software scene are relatively

good and the high absolute numbers simply may be a result of these good
preconditions.

GL: It strikes me that participants on the Oekonux list are not that
much worried about attempts of certain IT-companies such as IBM to gain
control over the production of open source software. Could you explain
this worry-less optimism?

SM: Well, I guess most people on the Oekonux list don't recognize IBM's
activities as to gain control over the free software scene. I think IBM
and some other companies simply start to understand, that they should
better not slaughter the cow they want to milk in the future. Many of
these companies are mainly hardware manufacturers or sell services and
they have their own good reasons to have a flourishing free software
scene. They seem to understand that they may break this with their
activities if they are not careful.

On the other hand in the past companies, who tried to exploit the free
software scene solely for their own advantage, had some bad experiences.
For instance the free software scene didn't like the activities of Corel
when they started to create their own distribution. Until now to my
knowledge at least no big player has been able to really betray the free
software scene. This is a result of the power the free software scene
itself already has today.

GL: Even on the Oekonux list the interests seem to be very much
focusedon open source related issues and not so much to create a wider
network.Many computer users are saying that open source will only become
a success if it is able to transcend the (male) geek culture of software
engineering, making alliances with interface designers, activists and
artists, cross-linking with broader cyber-cultures such as the games
communities. Do you think that the withdrawal into the technical is only
a temporary phenomena? When is the free software/open source movement
ready to break out?

SM: IMHO on the Oekonux list we are actively trying to see the whole
picture. The conference has its focus on exactly that: Bringing together
people from as many professions as possible who are all interested in
the model of free development the free software is only the most visible
example of. On the other hand we are talking of a new model of goods
production in general, which transcends the industrial model. So it is
clear, that a big part of the picture has to be technical and that
people with knowledge in engineering of any kind play an important role
in that picture.

GL: Yes, this is what you and others call the "GPL society." Could you
explain this? Isn't free software and open source more like a source of
inspiration and metaphor rather than a model for the entire society with
all its complex relations? The digital economy itself is everything but
open source. The Internet Economy is all about accumulating intellectual
property. What makes you think that the free/open source models can go
beyond the realm of software production?

SM: With GPL society we describe a society beyond capitalism. The main
difference is, that this society is no longer based on exchange and
exchange value and thus the term labor doesn't make much sense any
longer. Instead the basis of this new society will be the individual
self-unfolding ("Selbstenftaltung") combined with self-organization and
global cooperation. Goods in this society are not sold but simply
available and taken by those who need them. Of course such a society is
difficult to imagine for people who grew up with only money on their
mind.

To my knowledge the historical new thing of this concept is, that the
GPL society will transcend the industrial model of production into a new
form, which allows human potential to really flourish. In particular the
work machines are doing is actually used for setting people free in the
sense that the machines do the necessary things while humans can be
artists, engineers, ... whatever they like. This way the permanently
rising productivity no longer results in the curse of unemployment but
in the benediction of freedom from the necessity for mankind. A world
where the individual freedom of each single person is the precondition
for the freedom of all.

These aspects of absence of exchange value (i.e. money), self-unfolding,
self-organization, and global cooperation are the ones in the Oekonux
project we recognize in the principles of free software development.
Indeed many people on the Oekonux list think free software is a germ
form of the GPL society. Insofar it is much more than a metaphor,
because the analysis of the phenomenon of free software constantly
brings up new aspects which often can be transformed into a different
organization of a society very well. Actually I'm astonished over and
over again how good this works.