what_is_what@oxconference

Presentation: The Two Economies
or, why the washing machine question is the wrong question
Rubric Transfer
Event data: Nov, 2nd / 17:00 / 2 hrs. / Track C
Contributors: Graham Seaman
Abstract:

Free software development appears to be a fragment of a new mode of production. The dependencies of this fragment on the old economy, and vice versa, affect both their natures.

The escape from this situation will not be by technological changes alone. To become more than a fragment, the dependencies of the new on the old economy must decrease, while the dependencies of the old on the new increase. And the new must spread to new social areas - a process which has begun with the pressure for use of free software by states around the world, and adoption of the rhetoric of free software by supporters of academic freedom within the universities.

 
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