History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
ESA Conference: Ageing Societies, New Sociology
September 23-26, 2003 in Murcia, Spain
Two streams of sessions of the
Research Network 18: Sociology of Science and Technology (SSTNET)
Convenors:
Raymund Werle: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Köln, Germany (werle@mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de)
Marja Häyrinen Alestalo: Dept. of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland (marja.alestalo@helsinki.fi)
Luísa Oliveira: DINÂMIA/ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal (luisa.oliveira@iscte.pt)
Maarten Mentzel: 38 Johan de Wittstraat, 2334 AR Leiden, The Netherlands (m.a.mentzel@planet.nl)
First Stream: Governing Science and Technology in the Era of Globalization
Thursday Sept. 25
14.30 - 16.30 session 6 (Campus de La Merced)
Chair: Marja Häyrinen-Alestalo
6.3. Author(s): Weber, Karsten
Institution: European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
Professional Category: Chair of Philosophical Foundations of Cultural Analysis
City: Frankfurt (Oder)
Country: Germany
E-mail: kweber@euv-frankfurt-o.de
Social Aspects of Non-Proprietary Software as an Example of Coordinated but Non-Institutional Technology and Knowledge Production
Since Richard Stallman has founded the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation and since the source code of the Netscape browser is available as Open Source, benefits and risks of non-proprietary software (Open Source and Free Software are different, non-proprietary software is a more neutral term, see http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/hacking/fsvos.html) are widely discussed. The public discussion is focused on the Linux-Windows antagonism, on non-proprietary software as part of a solution of the digital divide, and the economical opportunities that particularly are revealed by Linux and Open Source.
The production of non-proprietary software is a coordinated and globalized but not institutionalized process which is the main difference to scientific knowledge production. Non-proprietary software is produced by single persons or (sometimes large) groups of volunteers. In most cases one can find so called maintainers who coordinate the software production process but there are no responsible persons in a moral or legal sense. Often the concept of responsibility is completely rejected by members of the non-proprietary software community as well as the idea that the production of non-proprietary software should be institutionalized.
The paper should give a brief history of Free Software and Open Source, describe the social aspects of the non-proprietary software community in more detail and address possible practical and theoretical problems which could arise, for instance, for public funding of non-proprietary software development and production or for concepts of responsibility in the ethics of technology.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006