In the following post I will answer the 5 questions presented by Cultural Anthropology (culanth.org) after their review of the primary research article CODE IS SPEECH: Legal Tinkering, Expertise, and Protest among Free and Open Source Software Developers by Gabriella Coleman. This article is about how the Open Source community is fighting against the “dominate regime” of intellectual property and highlights two programmers and the movement and protests that they have provoked to have code fall under the rights of free speech.
1. What is the distinction between “free speech” and “free beer” and why is this difference significant for the hackers Coleman discusses?
“Free speech” differs from “free beer” in relation to software in that “free speech” software can be used and altered as a building block for new software and “free beer” software just means that you can download it for free, but that’s it. “free beer” just means that you didn’t have to pay any money for it, “free speech” software you have as much power to do with it what you please as the original developer.
2. Is the technical work of writing code, designing software, etc. inherently political? If so, in what ways? If not, how are such activities politicized?
I think that anything worth lots of money will eventually become political. Once the software industry started creating billionaires I think that it became political. The powers that be will always try and exploit any situation, the issue here is that people are making their code available for free and someone wants to make money off of them.
3. How did the epistemological shift from software as property to software as speech occur?
There was a growing school of thought between academics and programmers that the act of programming should be thought of as literary, it then was related to copyright and literary creation and naturally evolved into writing and free speech. Programmer’s technical training also made it easier to adapt to the understanding of laws and how to use them in their favor to not allow the copyright regime to dictate and restrict creativity.
4. According to Coleman, how does equating source code with speech relate to liberalism as a political philosophy? How does F/OSS embody the principles of liberalism?
Liberalism as a political philosophy generally support ideas such as free speech, civil rights, free trade, freedom of religion…This is the same philosophy that the Open Source Software community is trying to follow within the software philosophy. Any code you write should be treated no differently than a book or poem. You have the right to speak your opinion.
5. In what ways is the ability to challenge formal legal structures made possible by the digital form with which hackers work; how might the efficacy of their arguments change if they were working with an analog or print form instead?
I’ve left the last question open to those who wish to read the article and answer question 5 in the comment section below. I look forward to reading your responses.
The article can be found here:
https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/005/984/Coleman-Code-is-Speech.pdf
Images:
http://www.erenkrantz.com/Geeks/Research/ics-280/img11.jpg
http://www.tpnn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ZSpeech.jpg
Article Reference:
Coleman, Gabriella. “Code Is Speech: Legal Tinkering, Expertise, and Protest among Free and Open Source Software Developers.” Cultural Anthropology 24, no. 3 (2009): 420-454.