Open Source (OS) can be associated with several things, a community, a movement, a revolution, a mode of production, a culture, a non-propietary computer software. Its wide connotations make open source difficult to grasp, to comprehend. In this essay I reconstruct the OS revolution as a modern mythmaking process and elaborate a critique of it.
A Modern Exercise on Mythmaking.
On February 3rd of 1998, at a meeting held in the offices of VA Research (now Geeknet Inc.), in Mountain View, California, a small group of computer programmers, technologists, and Silicon Valley fans of the Linux operating system coined the term “open source.” The creation of the term was part of a strategy designed to persuade the corporate world about the superiority of non-proprietary software mode of production.
On February 8th, Eric Raymond, one of the leaders of the strategy, published Goodbye, “free software”; hello, “open source” (1998), the first call to the community of non-proprietary software developers to start using the new label. In this text, Raymond claimed that the term “free software” had to be replaced because it was ambiguous, it was associated with negative stereotypes, and it made the business people nervous. Writing in plural, and highlighting his participation in the strategist meeting, Raymond said,
“we suggest that everywhere we as a culture have previously talked about “free software”, the label should be changed to “open source”. Open source software. The open source model. The open source culture.”
Twelve years after the creation of the “open source” label, it is possible to say that the marketing campaign for persuading the corporate world has been a success. Not only has the OS mode of production been embraced by the business world for developing thousands of software projects but it has also been adapted to the production of other cultural and knowledge goods.
The rhetoric of openness and the buzzing word “open” have become so pervasive in the global information economy that nowadays it is common to encounter OS projects that focus on open standards, open content, open media, open education, open government, open mapping, open culture, open journalism, open storytelling, open art, open cinema. You name it.
Although it is true that OS provides several practical advantages for the production of information goods in a global scale, the marketing campaign intended to mainstream OS methodology was too modern. It was so modern that evangelists, businessmen, and ordinary people still talk about the OS revolution. By trying to convince the world about the revolutionary aspects of OS, campaigners and strategists created a myth that does not take into account the historical roots of the non-proprietary software development model and ignores the political, ethical, and idealist principles that lay underneath it. However, as
Bruno Latour has claimed,
“revolutions attempt to abolish the past but cannot do so.” (69)
Spinning the Open Source Revolution
Inventing the OS revolution can be understood in the context of the mythic period of the Computer Age, a period in which, as Vincent Mosco has argued, computers and the Internet are the main icons of mythology, the sources of great visions of social transformations. Technologies remain in mythic periods until they become banal, and computers and the digital networked environment have not turned into that yet. Because the OS mode of production is based on the use of computer technology, campaigners of the OS revolution encountered a fertile mythic space where to nurture naturally. Thus, the new myth emerged as a variation on the theme
“society and culture are in the process of a great transformation brought about by the introduction of computers and communication technology” (Mosco, 18)
In the OS revolution such transformations where specifically related to the corporate world, software business, and the nascent information economy.
The synergistic relationship between the mainstreaming of OS and the developments of the Internet and the World Wide Web, as well as the wonders that have been shouted for advertising these processes, reveal not only that the myth of the OS revolution emerges from the mythic space of the Computer Age but also that it has been very productive. For instance, the myth has helped people believe in the superiority of the OS development methodology, in the nascent information economy, and in the new forms of social media production. Beyond the lies and exaggeration that can be associated with the OS revolution, the myth has giving meaning to the lives, labors, and projects of many people.
The making of myths has been always done by people that are able to structure grand narratives, by storytellers. Eric Raymond, a computer programmer and writer that declared himself an “accidental revolutionary,” has been the one in charge of creating the language, imagery and tone of the OS revolution. He assumed the leadership of the OS marketing campaign and carefully crafted a narrative that was plenty of drama and conflict.
Besides providing the bits of the story in several of his texts, Raymond played also the role of an evangelist at trade shows, conferences, and in the mass media. As he explains in The Revenge of the Hackers,
“we needed a firebrand, a spin doctor, a propagandist, an ambassador, an evangelist — somebody who could dance and sing and shout from the housetops and seduce reporters and huggermug with CEOs and bang the media machine until its contrary gears ground out the message: the revolution is here! (214)
Because of the dual role of Raymond as a mythmaker/evangelist, he can be considered the trickster behind the OS revolution. Myths, as Vincent Mosco points out, “are frequently animated by tricksters, characters that cross over the line, shake up the accepted reality, engage in double-cross and doublethink, thrive on ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox.” (46)
The construction of the OS revolution starts in 1997, with the first version of the Cathedral and the Bazaar, a paper in where Raymond describes the software development methodology behind the Linux operating system and the Fetchmail program. As a practitioner and co-developer, Raymond is able to create a coherent ethnographic tone for characterizing the cooperative customs and the organizational structure of the “new” mode of production pioneered by Linus Torvalds.
Furthermore, using a practical language emptied of any sort of idealism and political connotations, Raymond introduces the powerful image of the “bazaar.” According to him, “Linus Torvalds’s style of development—release early and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the point of promiscuity—came as a surprise. No quiet, reverent cathedral-building here—rather, the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches (aptly symbolized by the Linux archive sites, who’d take submissions from anyone) out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles.” (The Cathedral and the Bazaar)
The “shot heard ’round the world” happens one year later, on January 22nd of 1998 when Netscape Communications Corporation announces that it planned to release on the Internet the source code of its web browser. The announcement came out after the Microsoft Corporation had targeted Netscapeʼs web browser for destruction. In an effort to prevent Microsoft dominance of the browser market and to save the development of their web browser, Netscape executives decide to break the rules of the business world and try out the non-proprietary mode of production. More exactly, they decided to try out the methodology described in The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
As Raymond explains, “this was the event that commentators in the computer trade press would later call “the shot heard ’round the world”– and Barksdale had cast me as its Thomas Paine, whether I wanted the role or not. For the first time in the history of the hacker culture, a Fortune 500 darling of Wall Street had bet its future on the belief that our way was right. And, more specifically, that my analysis of `our way’ was right.” (The revenge…, 210)
During the year of 1998 the OS revolution develops into a living myth. The trickster role of Raymond becomes more important for planning and applying the marketing campaign. His strategies and tactics succeed.* As he reveals in The Revenge of the Hackers, “I developed an entire theory of media manipulation which I then proceeded to apply. The theory centers around the use of what I call “attractive dissonance” to fan an itchy curiosity about the evangelist, and then exploiting that itch for all it’s worth in promoting the ideas.” (214)
With his “attractive dissonance” Raymond becomes a mandatory presence not only in the meetings of Netscape Corporation and other software business, but also in several software conferences and computer trade shows. Furthermore, Raymond also turns out to be the co-founder of the OS Initiative (OSI), and an influential figure behind the creation of the OS Definition (OSD) and the OS Trademark.
* Some of the tactics proposed by Raymond included evangelizing top-down — making a direct effort to capture the CEO/CTO/CIO types. Instead of bottom-up; Using Linux as the demonstration case; Capture the Fortune 500; and co-opt prestige media such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Forbes, and Barron’s Magazine. (The revenge….212-213)
References
Latour, Bruno. We have never been modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Mosco, Vincent. The Digital Sublime. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004.
Raymond, Eric S. “The Revenge of the Hackers.” Open sources : voices from the open source revolution. Beijing ; Sebastopol : O’Reilly, c1999.
Raymond, Eric S. Goodbye, “free software”; hello, “open source.” http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html. Retrieved, Nov, 21, 2013.
Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ . Retrieved, Nov, 21, 2013.
