Free Software Movement..., Part Three

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

 f course we don't have a full-blown concept in our drawers how the new
society will look like - and we better should not have such a drawing
table model IMHO. Of course today there are many questions which can't
be answered honestly. However, it is possible to think about this GPL
society and which trends in the presence may extend and lead us into
this GPL society. Indeed given the frame work of Oekonux you can find a
number of aspects already existing today, which may also be seen as germ

forms. For instance, NGOs share a number of interesting aspects with the
development of free software and may be seen as a non-technical
counterpart among the germ forms for the GPL society. And even in the
midst of capitalism you can see how the production process more and more
depends on information.

Today the material side of material production is rather unimportant
even in capitalism. And information is something very different from the
material world simply by the fact that you can copy it without losing
the original. What is known as the new/Internet/digital economy is
indeed the plain old money economy on new territories. What this economy
does is to try
to make profit from things which are inherently not profitable. The very
basis for any profit is scarcity. Since the invention of computers and
particularly the Internet, however, scarcity of digital information is
difficult to keep. Once a digital information has been produced it is
reproducible with extremely marginal cost. This is the reason why
information industries of all kinds are making such a fuss about
intellectual property rights: IPRs could make digital information a
scarce good you then can make profit with. Personally I think the
technical means of reproduction, which meanwhile are distributed among
millions of households, opened the bottle, the ghost is out and nothing
will be able to put it back in there.

Take for instance the freely available music files Napster started to
establish. The music industry may destroy Napster but what for? The
clones and even better, non-centralized ideas are already there and
these things will survive everything - even a hoard of hungry lawyers.

However, there is a even more fundamental reason why I think the free
production of information and in the end of free material goods as well
will overcome societies based on exchange: They simply produce better
goods. You can see that with free software and there are more and older
examples proofing that the free flow of information results in better
products. Science and cooking recipes both are good examples IMHO.
Particularly the cooking recipes show how useful global cooperation and
sharing of information is. As well as capitalism with its industrial
model was able to deliver better products than the former feudalistic
models and therefore overcame feudalism, free production of goods will
overcome the former model of capitalism.

But wait a minute. I'm not saying that these trends will become dominant
all by themselves. IMHO they are only potentials humans must actively
put forward to transform the world into something better. That's the
deepest reason I think the Oekonux project is not only useful but
ultimately needed.

GL: What would you advice new media artists to do if they want to get
involved into free software but find it too hard to learn programming
themselves? How do you think the gap between those who program and those
who don't should be dealt with? Should everyone become a technician?
That's not very likely to happen. Many people simply look at the
available free/open source software and conclude that there is almost
nothing ready to be used. There are no drivers available etc. In part
this is a prejudice, but anyway, it is the common attitude, even of
those who have worked with computers for decades. How could they be
convinced?

SM: Well, the idea of free information goods is not limited to software
at all. Every piece of information possible to represent as bits is
instantly subject to exactly the same form of free development as
software is. So my advice to media artists who are interested in the
principles of free software is to set up free art projects, which make
possible the fundamental principles of free software (absence of
exchange value, self-unfolding, self-organization, global cooperation).
There are already a number of them out in the Internet e.g. for writing
and music. As long as the free art fits onto a computer monitor or
another computer device, there are next to no limitations given the
broad availability of web space at next to zero price.

What can be done about prejudices - good question. And it's a even
better one when M$ starts demonizing free software. I think the best
what can be done is to confront people with reality and facts. Today
even for a person used to Windows it's no problem to use a Gnu/Linux
system for the same office work s/he does on M$ products. Take KDE and
StarOffice and you will notice only a few minor differences. Well, a
major difference you may notice: The system is far more stable than say
for instance M$ Word on Windows.

Actually today IMHO for a lot of computer users there is no technical
reason not to use free software. Most things are readily available and I
know a number of people who are interested amateurs who had no problem
to install e.g. a SuSE distribution on their computer. And if you won't
do that yourself, it's likely, that you'll find a Gnu/Linux enthusiast
in your environment who will hurry to install whatever you need.

GL: Do you have free software projects, which are under way at the
moment, that you personally particularly like?

SM: Not really. Personally I'm using a number of free programs: Emacs,
Perl, gmake, CVS, SDF, TkDesk, fvwm2, StarOffice, Netscape (which is not
really free) a hell lot of standard Gnu/Linux tools, and so on.
Unfortunately I don't find the time to offer my software to the world.
It's a pity :-( .

Well, I'm keen to see what the GPL-ization of StarOffice / OpenOffice
will bring. Actually I'd had some wishes about a integration with
command line oriented processing of data.

GL: Could you tell us what the main discussion in Dortmund is going to
be and what outcome you would like to see?

SM: [laughing] Fortunately not! In Dortmund we'll have a very broad
spectrum of people, and to me it's exciting to think of the many, many
discussions which for sure will take place there. Personally I hope,
that I'm not too loaded with organizational work so I'll have a chance
to attend some talks and workshops.

Of course I would appreciate if the conference is able to spread our
ideas a bit more and to make them fruitful for others as well as the
opportunity to take into account new thoughts, perspectives and ideas
from others. Given the big attention the conference has got during the
last few months I think the plain existence of the conference alone has
already done part of the work.

---

Related URLs:

Website of the Oekonux list: www.oekonux.org
Oekonux Dortmund conference: www.oekonux-konferenz.de/
Wizard of OS, Berlin conference: www.mikro.org/wos
(the second WOS will be held from 11-13 October, 2001)
The Open Theory site: www.opentheory.org
Krisis Group ("Critique of the Commodity Society") www.krisis.org

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