FWD: Free software movement in Germany, Part Two

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

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.

Of 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

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg
body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net


Kurt-Werner Pörtner