Open Source:
Fusing Rationalization and Emancipation
One of the technological emblems of network production as contributing to the power of “the people” is the open source architecture. The term “open source” referred originally to software products but came in the digital discourse to epitomize and indeed stand for the revolutionary potentialities entailed by the broader phenomenon of network production. Its broader political and social ramifications are frequently referred to in the context of the “open source movement,” or “open source culture” (see, for example, the entry “open source” in Wikipedia). Let me start with a brief explanation of what open source is. Computer programs, such as Web browsers, word processors, or games, are written in a specialized programming language as lines of code. Once written, this collection of command lines, or source code, is habitually sealed (both technically and legally) so that users can run the program and use it as an application but have no access to its source code, its underlying programming text. From the point of view of software companies, this helps protect their proprietary rights, ensuring that their investment in writing the source code yields profit. From the point of view of users—specifically hackers and other tinkerers—the implication is that the program is a sealed product that cannot be altered and modified to their individual needs, nor can parts of it be copied and used as a basis for further development of software products. The open source movement reverses this situation by making the source code of the software technically and legally open; users have free access to it and can modify it to their needs or use parts of the code in order to build new software products. This, of course, has far-reaching implications for the process of production, as well as for the legal status of the end product.
One of the original open source projects, as well as arguably one of the most famous and successful ones, is Linux. Linux is an open source operating system inaugurated in 1994 by Linus Torvalds as an alternative to the existing proprietary operating systems of Microsoft and Apple. Torvalds wrote the kernel of the operating system, posted its source code on the Web, and invited other programmers to tinker with it and improve on it. It has since sprawled to become a viable (though still weak) competitor to the mainstream, proprietary operating systems and is now used by more than 18 million people around the world and in varied machines, from cell phones to servers (Rivlin 2003).
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