Can Open Source and Open Content escape capitalist markets?

May 8th, 2006

IP in an Open Source Society; who is paying who? - FLOSSE Posse:
Interesting post from Teemu Arina.
“The absolutely central thing to understand here is that production logic of the industrial era is changing from centralized (central IP control, centralized production, controlled distribution, few developers) to decentralized (decentralized production, distributed costs, lots of developers, IP in the commons). The driver here is that as you benefit from the commons, you are likely to contribute something back to the commons. This is technically enabled by the licensing, which often requires that you give the next person the same rights you received in the first hand. It’s a gift economy, but driven by economical benefits. It supports free markets by creating an open market, rather than a closed market.”
there are two ways of looking at this. One is to argue that Open Source and Open Content represents ‘merely’ a new form of market organisation under capitalism. And of course for many companies that is what it is - I am unsure mind that IBM licensing under the GPL represents a ‘gift economy’.
On the other hand a lot of the work done on Open Content and Open Source is freely given and is undertaken in peoples own free time. I don’t think think this is part of a capitalist market economy at all. Is this possible under capitalism. It seems to me there have always been instances of meaningful and socially valuable activities undertaken in the period of capitalism but for which no market value as such has been asked for or ascribed.
The big move in the last 10 years or so has been to attempt to place a market or exchange value on everything - including, critically knowledge. It is juts this move which has driven the attempts to extend IPR.
We should celebrate activity which takes place outside the bounds of the market, rather than try to recognise market value. (Incidentally this is why I disagree with those trying to introduce LETS systems - or barter systems for software and content development. these represent a market economy using time as cash - rather than cash itself for exchanging goods. But it is the same thing at the end of the day).
Would welcome any other opinions on this.

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Entry Filed under: General, Open Content