The Journal of Peer Production - New perspectives on the implications of peer production for social change New perspectives on the implications of peer production for social change
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Where you are: Home · Issues · Issue #3: The Critical Power of Free Software · Debate

The Debate Section was stimulated by the original Call for Papers of this special issue. Three pieces have been prepared by well-known authors in order to address the questions raised in the CfP.

1. There is no free software

Christopher Kelty reads Free Software as a practical solution to the problem of the disruption of the previous relation between power and knowledge. He argues that this solution has now evolved into copyfight, the critique of intellectual property.

 

2. Desired becomings

Katja Mayer and Judith Simon stress that feminist epistemologies can help question Free Software in novel ways, leading to an assessment of whether Free Software can be an example of how knowledge practices should be constructed.

 

3. An Envisioning of Free Software’s potential as a form of cultural, practical, and material critique: A New perspective on the implications of FS peer production for social change?

David Hakken specifies how the key aspect of the critical potential of Free Software can be the renewed relationship between productive practices, computing, and wage labor.