Crisis: defining itself

Wow, lots went on in the last few days. The list that had a one or two messages per day went to more than a dozen everyday.

A political debate got really hot and personal between certain persons. The moderator had to step in, and it didn't really help the problem. Few persons left the list, new forums emerged and all this fuzz lead to a redefinition of the role of the list. Should it be used only for general discussion? Should the support aspect be moved elsewhere? Should there be new list for different type of discussion? Those are questions that are still debate. The increase of participant lately made the administrator request new moderators to join in, and the community is asking for more clarity.

What I've learn about this is that the place of the political discussion on my discussion list is taking new proportion lately and it is now requesting its own space.

Politicizing technical question

Ubuntu developers community has been describe as a community of practice before (see older post). I think this concept could also apply to the users of the discussion list I am following. They gather for enhancing their practice of Ubuntu. They use the discussion list to ask how to perform a really specific task, (lately it was about installing Ubuntu on a third drive), and everyone is trying to find a way to perform the task. Sometimes, it does look like a game: someone comes up with a problem, and then everyone is trying to get the better solution. It is the same pattern as describe in The Charms of Wikipedia (2008). That’s what makes the list so attractive to the users.

Almost every conversation on the list begins with a support question. But the support question often leads to larger discussion about open source philosophy and/or how to convince more people to join in. Not all support question that lead to open sources philosophy. Unsolved technical problems related to closed source driver, or closed source software are more subject to lead to broader discussion. Situations where corporation force open source user into closed source software give ways to heated debate on the discussion list. This restriction of liberty and choice encourage the users to consider political action, and some of the discussions did lead to concrete action.

Baker, Nicholson. 2008. The Charms of Wikipedia. The New York Review of Books 55, no. 4 (March 20).

Ethical concern

As you may have notice, the posting cadency hasn’t really improved since last time, while the handwritten scrapbook is filling. 

Even if I did participate a little on translation, the support discussion lists were better suited to get a glance at the discourse of the users and programmers. I decided to follow a French support list based in Quebec.

I informed the “administrator” of my intention to conduct a research on his list though the IRC channel associate to the list.

The discussion went like this:

me> I want to confirm, you are in charge of the discussion list, aren’t you?
admin> yes
me> I sent you an email Monday about a research project. Have you check it out? [the email was about getting permission for conducting research]
admin> I see
admin> the list don’t belong to me.
admin> The data that you could find on it is public
admin> the content is only owned by each authors
admin> so no need for my authorization – but “ be kind “ :)

As you can see, as a manager of the list, admin isn’t claiming any ownership. He’s simply using his role as a moderator as I have seen on the list. Now and then, he will only ask people to avoid crude language and that sums it.
Since I didn’t want to interrupt every user of the list for getting consent, I informed the whole list of my intention. Sadly, I never had feedback on this.

And here goes anonymity...

Taken from: Raymond, Eric S. 2001. How To Become A Hacker. http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html.

Finally, a few things not to do.

• Don't use a silly, grandiose user ID or screen name. 

[...]

The only reputation you'll make doing any of these things is as a twit. Hackers have long memories — it could take you years to live your early blunders down enough to be accepted.

The problem with screen names or handles deserves some amplification. Concealing your identity behind a handle is a juvenile and silly behavior characteristic of crackers, warez d00dz, and other lower life forms. Hackers don't do this; they're proud of what they do and want it associated with their real names. So if you have a handle, drop it. In the hacker culture it will only mark you as a loser.

List of questions

Back to the main purpose of this blog, I’ll list here the key questions and the focus I want to give to this project. Don’t expect those questions to be static and decisive. For now, they are simple milestone to guide this investigation.

The main objective of this research consists of understanding the free / open source community’s perception and use of software as a contestation tools against copyright, authorship and intellectual property. This question contain multiple parts:

1- Do the community perceives the F/OSS as contestation tools? By contestation tools, I mean a way to criticize and to pressurize the traditional software corporation and their ideology.

1.1- To achieve this task, I’ll need to understand and summarize what is the ideology behind proprietary software, and what about it pose problem to the F/OSS community.

2- If they do perceive the F/OSS as a contestation tools, how can they act accordingly? What action can they make to challenge the ideology that they stand up against? How do they use those tools?

2.1- What is the place of software as a mean of contestation?

2.2- What is the role of the community versus of the role of individual in this contestation?

This small collection of questions will guide my first step in the community. New questions may arise as I progress, while other may be left out. Nonetheless, it feel like a good base to start on.

Choice - F/OSS Community

Finally, I am fixed on one subject. Sadly, to choose one, is to let go many others. I guess I can't help it. If anyone of you is desperate to find an idea, I could provide a few ones. Maybe a dozen...

* * *

I will focus my ethnography on the free/open source community. Briefly stated, free/open source community is a grouping of developers and users of free/open source software (F/OSS). The particularity of such software is that they are distributed under terms that allow a user to use freely (as in free speech) his software.

The concept of freedom with computer software can be hard to grasp at first. To illustrate it, here's what I can read at the back of my Ubuntu CD, an open source operating system based on Linux:

"You are encouraged and legally entitled to copy, reinstall, modify, and redistribute this CD for yourself and your friends."

The focus point here is the community behind those software. These people, situated everywhere in the "meat world" regroup themselves on internet to work over project that they share with the rest of the world. This ideology contrasted with the mainstream business model of large software corporation such as Microsoft. Moreover, many members of this community see more in this movement than software development. Many see a way of life, a fight against propriety software, copyright holder and such. I want those members of the open source community to be at the center of my ethnographic project.

Open Source Ad on Youtube

The F/OSS community may be reach in a vast array of locations. For the purpose of this ethnography, I will start with the community section of the Ubuntu forums. Those forums were set up by community members that wanted to support fellow ubuntu users, and help each other improving their ubuntu experience. I chose this forum in particular for three reasons. I will then extend the research to the IRC chat room associate with this part of the forum.

1- As an ubuntu user, I am already familiar with other part of the forum (mainly the support part) where I asked for help and shared my little knowledge on the matter. I can't say that I am a very active member, I made a little over 100 posts over the past 3 years and my friend list is still empty.

2- The ubuntu forums in general are well regarded in the open source community. The members take pride in their openness and are really helpful. Harsh response to question such as "RTFM" (Read the Fucking Manuel) or "Google it" are frown upon, and most of the time, author of such comment get moderated.

3- I am not a programmer, nor a developer, let alone a hacker. I have absolutely no knowledge in the matter. On the other hand, I know that I will still have a place to participate in this community because of their respect for others and for their openness.