[JoPP-Public] FOSS and firms: new publications

Tue Mar 24 02:46:47 CET 2020

Hi all

I hope everyone has not been affected too horribly by the pandemic. These are very, very tough times. Yet maybe they also present opportunities for positive social change. For example I've been working with Sophie on putting together "principles and proposals for the commons" for the upcoming Handbook of Peer Production (more on that at a later date). This was in initially conceived in response to the climate crisis so articulated around job losses due to automation, relocalisation and degrowth, and P2PF notions like "design global, manufacture local" or DGML. It's interesting to see how current events are making related initiatives that seemed far-fetched a few months ago, like a basic income and free utilities, a reality in some places.

Anyway, I thought I would share some research by myself and others around how some sectors of peer production have been swallowed up by the market.

"‘Open source has won and lost the war’: Legitimising commercial–communal hybridisation in a FOSS project" by Mathieu O’Neil, Laure Muselli, Mahin Raissi and Stefano Zacchroli, New Media & Society.

Summary: Information technology (IT) firms are paying developers in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects, leading to the emergence of hybrid forms of work. In order to understand how the firm–project hybridisation process occurs, we present the results of an online survey of participants in the Debian project, as well as interviews with Debian Developers. We find that the intermingling of the commercial logic of the firm and the communal logic of the project requires rhetorical legitimation. We analyse the discourses used to legitimise firm–project cooperation as well as the organisational mechanisms which facilitate this cooperation. A first phase of legitimation, based on firm adoption of open licenses and developer self-fulfilment, aims to erase the commercial/communal divide. A second more recent phase seeks to professionalise work relations inside the project and, in doing so, challenges the social order which restricts participation in FOSS. Ultimately, hybridisation raises the question of the fair distribution of the profits firms derive from FOSS.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444820907022?journalCode=nmsa
The preprint is available on Zack's publications page: https://upsilon.cc/~zack/research/publications/

This is a follow-up to "Preliminary Report on the Influence of Capital in an Ethical-Modular Project: Quantitative data from the 2016 Debian Survey" by Molly de Blanc, Mathieu O’Neil, Mahin Raissi and Stefano Zacchiroli published in JoPP#10
http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-10-peer-production-and-work/preliminary-report-debian-survey/

In the same issue we also published an article on "From the Commons to Capital: Red Hat, Inc. and the Business of Free Software" by Benjamin Birkinbine
http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-10-peer-production-and-work/from-the-commons-to-capital/

Most of you are probably aware that Ben has recently released a book on a very similar topic: "Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software" (University of Westminster Press, 2020). Just in case you weren't:

Summary: In the book, I draw from a critical political economic framework to investigate the intersection of the digital commons and digital capitalism. I use three case studies (Microsoft's history with FLOSS communities, Red Hat's relationship with the Fedora Project, and Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems) to illustrate different dynamics between FLOSS communities and corporations.

https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.uwestminsterpress.co.uk%2fsite%2fbooks%2f10.16997%2fbook39%2f&c=E,1,evVuIHboeuiMCHGZT13NDwGSmq5vXdOau0rAhL4zvd9AY13Bw1YSVCpvXK62yAVPWGYeovZEVIFLv4WlrIo6uzUcAx3Ej-H6AVh3w8QbqcJs9EKi&typo=1

cheers,
Mathieu
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