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diff --git a/wiki/dev/gnu-collective-action-license.md b/wiki/dev/gnu-collective-action-license.md deleted file mode 100644 index 6a0bc3b..0000000 --- a/wiki/dev/gnu-collective-action-license.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,51 +0,0 @@ -# The GPL As Collective Action - -Programmers, like many groups of subject experts, are widely afflicted by the -belief that all other fields of expertise can be reduced to a special case of -programming expertise. For a great example of this, watch [programmers argue -about law](https://xkcd.com/1494/) (which can _obviously_ be reduced to a rules -system, which is a programming problem), -[consent](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2e5a7k/could_the_blockchain_be_used_to_prove_consensual/) -(which is _obviously_ about non-repudiatable proofs, which are a programming -problem), or [art](https://github.com/google/deepdream) (which is _obviously_ -reducible to simple but large automata). One key symptom of this social pattern -is a disregard for outside expertise and outside bodies of knowledge. - -I believe this habit may have bitten Stallman. - -The GNU Public License presents a simple, legally enforceable offer: in return -for granting the right to distribute the licensed work and its derivatives, the -GPL demands that derivative works also be released under the GPL. The _intent_, -as derived from -[Stallman’s commentaries](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html) -on the GPL and on the social systems around software, is that people who _use_ -information systems should, morally and legally, be entitled to the tools to -understand what the system will do and why, and to make changes to those tools -as they see fit. - -This is a form of _collective action_, as implemented by someone who thinks of -unions and organized labour as something that software could do better. The -usual lens for critique of the GPL is that GPL’d software cannot be used in -non-GPL systems (which is increasingly true, as the Free Software Foundation -catches up with the “as a Service” model of software deliver) _by developers_, -but I think there’s a more interesting angle on it as an attempt to apply the -collective bargaining power of programmers as a class to extracting a -concession from managerial -- business and government -- interests, instead. In -that reading, the GPL demands that managerial interests in software avoid -behaviours that would be bad for programmers (framed as “users”, as above) as a -condition of benefitting from the labour of those programmers. - -Sadly, Stallman is not a labour historian or a union organizer. He’s a public -speaker and a programmer. By attempting to reinvent collective action from -first principles, and by treating collective action as a special case of -software development, the GPL acts to divide programmers from non-programming -computer users, and to weaken the collective position of programmers vis-à-vis -managerial interests. The rise of “merit”-based open source licenses, such as -the MIT license (which I use heavily, but advisedly), and the increasing -pervasiveness of the Github Resume, are both simple consequences of this -mistake. - -I’m pro-organized-labour, and largely pro-union. The only thing worse than -having two competing powerful interests in the room is having only one powerful -interest in the room. The GPL should be part of any historical case study for -the unionization of programmers, since it captures so much of what we do wrong. |