Ongoing notes on Gabriella (Biella) Coleman’s dissertation on the dynamic ethical and motives of Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) developers through a case study of Debian.
In conversation with The Participant for my independent study on Power & Power User - ProspectusPart One: Debian and its Social Organization:
“While the Berkley Unix gurus accepted contributions from those who were not already participating on the project, it was difficult to pierce the inner circle of authority and become an actual member of the team. This, from the point of view of the developers participating in the [Debian] round-table, produced an unacceptable form of project participation, characterized by a degraded elitism that failed to equalize the terrain on which developers could prove their worth. As I discuss elsewhere (Coleman 2005), the F/OSS hacker system of meritocracy compels individuals to release the fruits of their labor in order to constantly equalize the conditions for production so that others can engage in the life-long project of technical self-cultivation within a community of peers. ” — Page 13
- Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian, was able to uniquely “harness the power of individuality to produce a distribution that far exceeded the contributions of any single person.” (pg 13)
Formatting Participation - How do we scale participation?
- New Maintainers Process - also includes a process of educating and shaping their moral sensibilities through their participation.
- Takes several months including a sponsor who acts as an adovcate.
- Verify Identity (In Person) - in-person verification through key signatures. Cryptographically verify that each developer has met at least another Debian Developer (DD).
- “Philosphy” step - they quiz the developers on Debian Social Contract (DSF) - not tested in order to ensure a homogenus viewpoint but to ensure they understand and engage with the concepts of F/OSS. Some questions are standard others application manager dependent. Universally seen as “good” (whereas some of the technical stuff is seen is absurd.)
“What we see here with these NM narratives is what Robert Cover, in his discussion of a nomos, describes as a simultaneous process of subjective commitment to and objective projective of norms, a bridging that emerges out of a narrative mode: ‘This objectification of the norms to which ones is committed frequently,’ Cover writes, ‘perhaps always entails a narrative — a story of how the low, now object, ame to be, and more importantly, how it came to be one’s own.‘”
— page 39
“These narratives are at the basis of temporal movement and personal transformation. They take people to new locations, and past, present, and future come together in a moment of ethical assesent. The past is weaved into the present, and the voicing of commitment in the application becomes the path toward a future within the project. It is a step that brings a developer closer to a new social localization within a larger ethical and technical project of developers wh have undergone to same reflective exercise.
— page 40
- Undergoing this reflective excercise is one of the steps needed to be able to partcipate in this community.