搜尋結果
Description. James Moore: "The end of cheap nature is best comprehended as the exhaustion of the value-relations that have periodically restored the “Four Cheaps”: labor-power, food, energy, and raw materials. Crucially, these value-relations are co-produced by and through humans with the rest of nature."
- Definition
- Linux Organization
- Linux Governance
- Special Governance Topics
- Discussion 1: Challenging Interpretations of Linux as Self-Governing
- Discussion 2: Generalities About Peer Governance
- Reference Section
- More Information
"Linux is the *kernel* of an Operating System very similar to Unix originally authored by Linus Torvalds. Some insist the name GNU/Linux be used when referring to the entire Operating System because the kernel alone is almost unusable without the GNU libraries and tools that make up most of the rest of a Distro."
From George Dafermos at http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_11/dafermos/ "Linus cultivated his base of co-developers and leveraged the Internet for collaboration. The Open Source self-appointed anthropologist, E. Raymond explains that the leader-coordinator for a 'bazaar style of effort' does not have to be an exceptional design talent but to ...
Jeremy Malcolm on the balance between hierarchy and control
From the Book, Multi-Stakeholder Governance and the Internet Governance Forum. Jeremy Malcolm. Terminus, 2008, draft of chapter 4: "In the case of the Linux kernel, Torvalds who is perhaps the archetype of a Benevolent DictatorFor Life, possesses ultimate authority to decide which contributions (”patches”) to the Linux operating system kernel should be accepted and which should be refused. Torvalds no longer personally manages the whole of the kernel and has delegated authority to a number of...
George Dafermos on the four-fold structure
"Linux relies on four structural layers that are comprised by the leader (Torvalds), the "trusted lieutenants", the "pool of developers" and the Open Source community. Even though the community layer does not appear to be part of the Linux structure at first glance, it is in fact incorporated in it and has significant influence over the Project. The pattern of the layers cannot be said to be vertical but rather horizontal if there has to be a hierarchical classification. This structure is not...
Business Week on The Professionalization of Linux
The following article by Business Week is the result of an in-depth investigation regarding the actual production of Linux: “Little understood by the outside world, the community of Linux programmers has evolved in recent years into something much more mature, organized, and efficient. Put bluntly, Linux has turned pro. Torvalds now has a team of lieutenants, nearly all of them employed by tech companies, that oversees development of top-priority projects. Tech giants such as IBM (IBM ), Hewl...
Virtual Roofs
Concept to characterize the management structure in Peer Productionprojects such as Linux. George Dafermos: "The virtual roof is the common denominator of the users, the implementers and the surrounding community and acts as intermediary (as a trusted third party) to ensure trust in a largely anonymous virtual marketplace by providing an electronic platform whereby network communication is nurtured. However, the virtual roof has no power to delegate authority or abuse its power in favour of e...
How IBM contributes to Linux
"IBM's contributions to the Linux “community” are shaken by an IBM document as follows:Participation in communities involves not only contributing code developed at IBM, but also augmenting,testing, and deploying code developed by others to ensure that it meets community and user expectations.IBM engineers also contribute to other aspects of open source development required to deliver enterpriselevelfunctionality. They develop documentation for open source projects and the IBM Information Cen...
The co-dependence of Linus Torvalds
By Lee Fleming (Harvard Business School), David M. Waguespack (University of Maryland): Rivlin (2003) illustrates howLinus Torvalds (the original author of LINUX) realizesthat his authority is technically derived, tenuous, andconstantly in need of collective reaffirmation: “His hold over Linux is based more on loyalty than legalities.He owns the rights to the name and nothing else.Theoretically, someone could appropriate every last lineof his OS [operating system] and rename it Sally. “Ican’t...
A contrarian view: Linux as a dictatorship
By Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov We recommend reading this alternative profile of Linus Torvalds, which is highly critical athttp://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/index.shtml: "Another very popular fairytale is that Linus Torvalds was a volunteer -- this might be true only for the first two years of development. The development of Linux kernel quickly switched to the model of "sponsored software" development. The first sponsor was University of Helsinki which gave Linus semi-official possibilit...
Linus Torvalds admits he's a dictator
"Open source may sound democratic, but it isn't. At the LinuxWorld Expo on Wednesday, leaders of some of the best-known open source development efforts said they function as dictators. The ultimate example is Linux itself. Creator Linus Torvalds has final say over all changes to the kernel of the popular open source clone of Unix. Because the Linux development community has grown so large, most software patches are reviewed by many different people before they reach him, Torvalds said. If he...
Political behaviour and power in Open Source Communities
"Ignoring political behavior and hierarchical structures in the open source community means ignoring reality. In the OSS community as a whole, and in each project in particular, there are political systems with corresponding and sometimes fuzzy hierarchical structures. That fact can explain many of the irrational behaviors in the OSS movement. Why else would some distort or withhold information, restrict their output, overpublicize their successes, hide their failures, distort statistics or o...
Corporate vs. Community Dynamics
How IBM had to adapt to community dynamics, Mathieu O'Neil: "In fact, when differences between the corporate logic and collaborative production logic emerged, thecompany had to accept the way of doing things of the community. Take the example of the communicationsspeed. - Free software communities work based on an alternation of instant and transparent communications, andrapid product iterations. For conversations they use instant messaging or email, or whatever fast mean. Incomparison, the c...
Notes
E.E. David, Jr. and R.M. Fano, 1965. "Some thoughts about the social implications of the accessible computing," excerpts reprinted in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, volume 14, number 2, pp. 36-39, and at http://www.multicians.org/fjcc6.html, accessed 27 October 2001; J. Abbate, 1999. Inventing the Internet. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press; and, J.J. Naughton, 2000. A Brief History of the Future: From Radio Days to Internet Years in a Lifetime. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. R.M. Stall...
References compiled by George Dafermos
R.M. Axelrod and M.D. Cohen, 1999. Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier. New York: Free Press. J.H. Holland, 1975. Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems: An Introductory Analysis with Implications to Biology, Control, and Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. S.A. Kauffman, 1993. The Origins of Order: Self-organization and Selection in Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press. K. Kuwabara, 2000. Linux: A Bazaar at the edge of c...
Linux and Decentralized Development. By Christopher Browne at http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_3/browne/
