[P2P-F] [Commoning] new capitalism and commoning

Michel Bauwens michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Tue Feb 8 22:10:56 CET 2011


the situation is a lot  more complex than that

many different corporate players contribute to Linux, and the Linux
Foundation consists for example of different players

though 75% of Linux contributors are paid, 25 % are still volunteers

I've heard from free software developers that a substantial number of IBM
Linux workers can self-determine the areas they contribute to, depending not
just on the corporate needs of IBM

I have yet to hear strong, or even weak, critiques of free software
developers towards the general attitude of IBM in this matter, though they
have 'specific' critiques about specific actions; in general, I think the
opinions of those knowledge workers directly involved in such projects,
should be taken into account

of course, the corporatisation of a commons is a matter of concern, and
changes the rules of the game, but it remains a matter of community vs.
corporate dynamics, not at all a simple and straight enclosure and
programmed defeat, but a dynamic co-adaptation and struggle; nevertheless,
it is a commons that continues to grow and create value for society; that
creates sustainability and social reproduction for a very large fraction of
contributors; the overwhelming majority of free software workers considers
this important progress, not an enclosure in which they lost

nevertheless, this is why open source communities should ideally strive
towards the creation of independent entities, use a logic of preferential
attachment towards corporate entities that maximally share commons values,
and fight for community autonomy in the governance of such commons; it's a
construction and a struggle, not a fixed and idealized situation of total
defeat

your analysis would suggest that voluntary contributors that can't make a
living, is a superior situation where 75% percent of workers can make a
living, an analysis and appreciation not shared by said commoners

free software workers do not share your ironic idealization of IBM, but they
appreciate a social compact that reflects a current balance of power that is
not experienced as something wholly negative, but as a realistic advance in
the view of current circumstances; wnen this compact is broken, they
frequently react, and frequently win these conflicts (see
http://delicious.com/mbauwens/P2P-Conflicts); commoners aware of
contradictions within the present political economy also create their own
autonomous cooperatives (http://p2pfoundation.net/Free_Software_Cooperatives)
and actively propose alternatives (such as the Venture Communism of
Telekommunisten)

Our own p2p.coop is in process of adopting the latter's peer production
license, which creates a commoners-only commons, i.e. an active and mutually
supportive counter-economy; however, it comes at the price of a much slower
growth of said commons, and actually 'closes' the commons to a significant
degree; there is a real irony in that a real commons operating purely on
commonist principles, is open to appropriation by capital, while a closed
commons has a non-commercial clause which prohibits such appropriation

in such a context, a conclusion like, No commons without commoning, no IBM
involvement without enclosure, would appear to deny such complexities; in
fact, commoning and enclosure can co-exist in complex and paradoxical ways,
in which the advantage of the one is not always a zero-sum game leading to
the loss of another

which why I prefer the paradoxical conclusion: no real enclosure without
real enclosure, and no enclosure without the majority of commoners
experience such enclosure; of course such a conclusion would warrant that we
take the experience and points of view of such workers seriously



On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 11:51 PM, j.martin.pedersen <
m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:

>
>
> On 08/02/11 12:14, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > so does IBM and at the same time, it is also strengthening
> > the free software commons.
>
> On the premise that there are no commons without commoning, IBM does not
> strengthen the software commons.
>
> Rather, IBM converts the (re)production of the *resource* that software
> commoners have created/established into a matter of wage labour.
>
> Command over wage labour - and the means of production required to
> capitalise on it - are thus used to subsume control of what was
> previously a commons, - a process also known as enclosure. This is the
> first step. They claim ownership, by acquiring decision-making powers,
> by claiming de facto leadership of the organisation (and future
> direction) of the resource. Software - like most things - is movement,
> and IBM moves it in a direction away from common ground.
>
> Due to way in which the GPL sits on the fence, this is possible without
> the immediately apparent destruction of the commons. Hence, for the
> uncritical observer it might appear as if IBM are adding to the commons,
> but their interaction with the commons actually results in the
> minimisation/marginalisation of commoners in the development of the
> commons: they are rendered marginal: they may still play with the code,
> i.e. the resource, but their commoning is ever less significant in the
> development of the resource, while waged labour and corporate planning
> increasingly determines the trajectory of the resource.
>
> No commons without commoning, no IBM involvement without enclosure.
>
> Unless, of course, we say that IBM is such a nice trustworthy outfit
> that like our Open Source friends at Google "do no evil"(TM) and who
> would never help computing another holocaust.
>
> m
>



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