Sociologia27

Da Ortosociale.

Versione delle 11:53, 1 mag 2012

Open Source Software as a Social Construction

Introduction

Producing Open Source Software [[[Note # 1. The Open Source Software | Note 1. Open source software]]], follows with OS, which has been for decades, would require a careful sociological analysis. Its full of social and economic innovation represents a real danger to the theoretical constructs of social philosophy and a danger to the alleged practices of a capitalist economy ultra-Orthodox. Both these aspects are based on lack of knowledge of intellectual property that provides the service called "software". This generates a strong cooperation between developers and end users, without them you know. Are simultaneously denied, in the concrete social practice, the theories of Hobbes about human nature and that of Rousseau on the collective will [[[Note # 2. Theories of Social Contract | Note 2. Theories of Social Contract]]], the various theories on the social division of labor [[[Note # 3. The social division of labor and social stratification | Note 3. The social division of labor and social stratification]]], the need for a hierarchy to coordinate dozens, hundreds and, in the case of Linux, thousands of employees to various projects [[[Note # 4. The hierarchy of needs as socialized labor | Note 4. The hierarchy of needs as socialized labor]]], theories of social roles [[[Note # 5. Theories of social roles | Note 5. Theories of social roles]]], theories of language see section Language Problems (in Fetchmail) and [[[Note # 6. Theories of language | Note 6. The theories of language]]], the theory of bureaucratic rationality of Weber or "destiny of the West" [[[Note # 7. The theory of bureaucratic rationality Weber | Note 7. The theory of bureaucratic rationality of Weber]]], theories of socialization as the primary and secondary bases of the social construction of reality [[[Note # 8. The primary and secondary socialization | Note 8. The primary and secondary socialization]]], the mainstream economy and then the entire economic sociology [[[Note # 9. Economic Sociology | Note 9. Economic sociology]]]. It 's my intention to analyze the interactions between the social processes of virtual communities OS and technological developments of the ICT [Information Communication Technology], their integration in cultures-OS products, and their spread to "society" and "community" real. Up "to the point to accredit the thesis - typical of Sts [Editor's Note: Science Technology Studies] - for which science and society are increasingly and inextricably mixed up with each other. '(Neresini , 2011:88). The aim of this short paper is the focus, specific to the OS case, of what "we defined as the co-production between science and social order '(Neresini, 2011:133). Or, better technology and ICT policy or "disorder" social.

Rational

Knowledge, culture and society are aspects of the evolutionary process of the human species. The evolutionary theories of Lamarck and Darwin, who came after, mind you, the great French revolution, they did penetrate the self-reflexive awareness of this evolutionary process in knowledge, in culture, human societies. In the last half century, and then suddenly he started a heated debate about the dramatic adaptive capacity of the human species, dates previously taken for granted, even magnified as part of a safe and unlimited progress based on the development of technology, science, art, culture, organic society. Progress based on objective the development of ' prosthesis and artifacts. "The history of humanity is the story of the constant testing of implants which enhance our natural << >> supplied. In fact, humans are always the product of the mingling of the body, tools, and thought, human nature is the emergent effect of the interaction between bodies, machines, knowledge '(Neresini, 2011:66). This process is further accelerated by the emergence of intelligent machines that high-automation communicate with each other and with humans. If we understand the language of the prosthesis, we must consider the proliferation of languages ​​"well formed" for the man-machine built with the goal of balancing the human with the computer-machine-automaton. The technological communities that have given "birth" to the first Free Software and Open Source Software, then, are not opposed to this process but seek to govern projects with social awareness, self-reflective, focused. After all Open Source means knowing how the "other" human communicate with "our" machines. He speaks of "communication" between machines and machines and between machines and humans because the service / action delivered in separate machines are handled by a process of regular exchange of information, which includes the approval / authorization of the actors involved. In "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", cited hereafter as LCEIB, by Eric Steven Raymond, cited hereafter as ESR, we speak of the apparent chaos of "Linus' Law". Chaos This looks really scary to the efficiency of a swarm of ants. However, declined the cooperative aspect is predominant, and sees in communication, mediated by networked robots, its focal point. As in an anthill. When communication is threatening the crazy ant and triggering the alarm reaction that involves the whole organized group. See section The defense of freedom of information on the Internet. ' The prosthesis should be viewed primarily as books, cell phones, ICT, such as increased personal mobility made cars, ships, aircraft, in its central aspect of the expansion of human capabilities communication. As a process rather than intrusive, where the machine substantially prevails on humans, such as the cyborg, the development of prosthetic hardware and software can be read as an extension of human socialization processes (see Note 8. The primary and secondary socialization). The same significant increase in life expectancy should be seen as a strengthening of this process of social construction of body and prolonging life expectancy of human beings. The real cyborg is the elder of the elderly or the fourth age who stays fit and socially active as indicated by the Active Ageing project of WHO. His "power' ', the need to input a senior, is primarily cultural, emotional, social.

Data sources and references used

To define the interaction between technology and social processes of the OS virtual communities will be used as a case story, which I consider valid and complete, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric S. Raymond. ESR after having participated in the development of Free Software by Richard M. Stallman, a programmer at MIT, founder of the Free Software Foundation and author of the GNU GPL, venturing into a test. " What follows is my analysis of a successful open source project, fetchmail, deliberately used as a specific test for the verification of some surprising theories about software development suggested by the history of Linux. '(LCEIB). It is therefore a practical test of a project that sw has been successful by following the procedures "social", "technical" organization of Linux. To define the interaction between virtual communities and political societies real OS we will study the link between Arab spring 2011, OS international community, defending the integrity of the information on the Internet.

The relationship between science, technology, society

" The science and technology evolve along with society, being an integral part ... The posthumous attributions of discoveries and inventions are only Pyrrhic victories for those who benficia, but it is mainly an exercise made possible by a distorted view that contemplates the clear separation of science, technology and society and that defines innovation in terms of their linear sequence ... innovation, rather, took shape during a process in which blend scientific knowledge, technical skills, technological objects, social representations, entrepreneurial courage, willingness and beliefs of its potential users '(Neresini, 2011:72). While the book Neresini nanotechnology (Neresini, 2011) are considered the interactions between

• Personal bias,
• Career paths,
• The public image of research institutions,
• Economic interests,
• Competition for the acquisition of resources,
• Representations of public and social scientists who interact with one another,
• The background of such narratives and science fiction literature,
• Interpretive frames,
• The influences of the media,

ESR in the account of all this is short-circuited in a narrative self-reflexive awareness, where the intertwined relationships with users and co-developers, technical outweigh the effects of construction and location of the program "fetchmail", sedimentation and object mirabilis shared across the process. If "fetchmail" ESR "society" is a virtual community. Duration, extent, location, highly variable composition. The notion of society is not considered necessary here in its meaning essentialist, just the notion of an organized group, or better organized network of individuals whose "nodes of coordination" are websites. Not that the car replaces the man Coordinator; the rules for use of the various nodes, which then are interactive archives, are usually defined by consensus among the entire community. Beyond the community that participates directly in the project are the real end users to the intended release of the product [Editor's Note: Software release in English].

The origins of Free Software by Richard M. Stallman

" Given the opportunity to get to build, thanks to nanotechnology, and compatible chip small enough to be implanted in our brains to increase their power, someone has rightly raised the question of their control [Ed: Emphasis mine]: if it were in the hands of someone else outside of us, what would become of our freedom and our self-determination? But the same problem also arises about our PC? How many have actually control the plethora of gadgets which woven into our daily lives? '(Neresini, 2011:67). The question that arises concerns Neresini "the public" generic object can of nano-technology practices. In the case of Stallman Instead, the "public" is an experienced programmer who can immediately change the "object technology" that does not respond to his wishes. In 1980, Stallman and other hackers to some of the AI ​​Lab at MIT was refused the source code of software for the laser printer Xerox 9700 ("Dover"), the first in the industry. Stallman had modified the software on an old printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer) with its amendment by the printer the user received an electronic message that signaled the completion of the print request from him. All users in the print queue were also warned of congestion conditions of print queues, so that the user could wait for a delay in printing, and the other information necessary to avoid congestion. See prevented this additional service, for the unavailability of source code printer, was not a significant problem, since, as often happened, the printer was only for different users on different floors, and ended up at the printer to stop several people, to lose valuable time on hold, or to extricate themselves from other people's prints are not withdrawn. This experience convinced Stallman that people need to be free to modify the software they use. Following RMS began developing GNU, the parts of an operating system at the end of the process which lacked only the fundamental part of the kernel. Linus Torvalds using the excellent library, built in a "traditional"-style cathedral by the Free Software Foundation, realized in a highly "innovative" the Linux kernel. See Note 10. Linus Torvalds. The problem of queues, endemic in socialist countries, sparked the beginning of a peaceful revolt in democratic countries to mature capitalism.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

" In paragraph 1. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Linux is subversive. Who would have thought just five years ago that a world-class operating system would emerge as if by magic from part-time hacking by several thousand developers scattered and on ' entire planet, connected only by the faint of Internet cables? Certainly not myself. When Linux first appeared in my range at the beginning of 1993, I had dealt with the development of Unix and open source software for ten years. I was one of the first contributors to the GNU project in the mid 80s. distributed on the Internet I had a good number of open source software, making its own or in collaboration with several other programs (nethack, Emacs VC and GUD, Xlife, etc..) widely used even today. I know how needed to be done. Linux stravolse much of what I thought I knew. For years I had preached the gospel of Unix tools agile, prototype immediate and evolutionary programming. 'But I also believed that there was a critical point of complexity above which would necessitate a centralized approach and a priori '[Ed: Emphasis mine]. I thought the most important software (operating systems and tools as very bulky emacs) made went like cathedrals, carefully handcrafted by individual genes or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation, without any beta version saw the light before the right time. I was not a little surprised by the style of development of Linus Torvalds - disseminating release early and often, delegate everything to the other can be opened up to promiscuity. no cathedral to be built in silence and reverence. Rather, the Linux community was like a big, confusing bazaar, teeming with projects and approaches between their different (effectively symbolized by the Linux archive sites containing material which appeared produced by anyone). A bazaar from which only a series of miracles could bring out a stable and consistent. The fact that this bazaar style seemed to work, and also pretty good, hit me like a shock. As I learned to take its measurements, I worked hard not only on individual projects, but also trying to understand why the Linux world not only did not fall prey to utter confusion, but instead went from strength to strength growing at a speed barely imaginable to those who built cathedrals. was toward the middle of 1996 that I seemed to be about to see why. Destiny gave me a good opportunity to test my theory, in the form an open source project which decided to deal consciously using the bazaar style. I tried, and success was quite significant. In the remainder of this essay, I tell the story of that project, using it to propose some aphorisms about the effectiveness of open source development. Not that they have all learned from the Linux world, but we'll see how the arrangements offered by the latter are quite peculiar. If I have misunderstood, these aphorisms will help us to understand exactly what makes the community Linux so copious a source of good software - and help us all become more productive. '(LCEIB). The choice of ESR was to experiment in a real OS project, the implementation of "fetchmail", the method used by Linus Torvalds for Linux. The objective of ESR was to be 'production', not just as good or better looking or more ethical.

Cooperation in a OS community

The prerequisite for understanding what happened is this: The main problem of software bugs, bugs, errors in programming, writing, design. Correct them after they have unearthed is the way to a working software, clean, effective. The method used in Linux was to make readily available to all versions "buggy" to be tested. Even to the end users could use those releases (in many cases daily or "nightly built"). The users became co-developers and many times correcting reporting bugs. "Properly cultivated' [ 'Editor's note: the term" cultured "denotes the high degree of positive intentionality in the relationship between designer and user-producer-consumer relationship that still remains symmetrical, equal and cooperative. It should be emphasized in this report the presence of spontaneous and intentional intentionality organized '], users can become co-developers. Another strength of the Unix tradition, the ends happily with Linux is that many users are themselves hackers. And since the source code is available, hackers can become very effective. can be tremendously useful to reduce the debugging time. With a little 'encouragement, your users will diagnose problems, suggest solutions, help improve the code in a way unthinkable for a single person ... Treating your users as co-developers '(LCEIB). When the sw was mature enough were made to test general to root out the last bugs before a release "official" to the community. The release of Version 2 of Linux has had to wait an exceptional year of testing, because of the fear expressed by many co-developers of the persistence of undiscovered bugs. " In the bazaar view, on the other hand, you assume that bugs are generally shallow phenomena - or at least turn shallow pretty quick when exposed to a thousand eager co-developers pounding on every new release. It Accordingly you release often to get more corrections, and as a beneficial side effect you have less to lose if it turns out some botched patch. all. It is not little. If "Linus' Law" is false, then any system as complex as the Linux kernel, being hacked over by as many hands that have put together at some point have collapsed under the weight of unforseen bad interactions and undiscovered "deep" bugs. If it is true, it is sufficient to explain the relative lack of bugginess Linux. And maybe it should be no surprise. A few years ago were the sociologists to find that the averaged opinion of a group of observers equally expert (or equally ignorant) is quite a bit more reliable than a single observer randomly selected in that group. This is called the "Delphi effect" [Editor's note: this refers to the ESR Delphi method developed during the Cold War by the Rand Corporation]. It now appears that what Linus has shown is that this applies even to debugging an operating system - that the Delphi effect can tame development complexity even at the complexity of the kernel of an operating system. I am indebted Jeff Dutky (dukty@wam.umd.edu) for pointing out as Linus's Law can also be defined: "Debugging is parallelizable". Jeff observes that throughout the process, while requiring the coordination of a developer to heed the communication between those involved in debugging, but they do not require significant coordination. In this way you do not fall prey to the complexity and management costs that make that make adding developers. [Editor's note: see the cooperation of Marx and Durkheim] In practice, in the Linux world the loss of efficiency at a theoretical level, due to duplication of work by those who follow debuggers almost never seems to be a problem. One of the effects of policy "release early and often "is precisely to minimize such duplication by propagating quickly back fixes for users." (LCEIB). But this success was not due to a miracle. Simply implies the ability of co-developers to read through the source code (in C) "intentions" of the author of the code [Editor's Note: For code means a part of the software program]. And fix bugs respecting the intentions of the author. In exceptional cases Linus Torvalds replacing an entire piece of code rewriting, but they were exceptional and justified cases. Even if "fetchmail' '" These simple steps produced an immediate reward. Since the project began, I arrived bug reports present a quality that any developer would have envied, often with good solutions to attach . I received mail full of constructive criticism, rave, intelligent suggestions. Which brings us to: If you treat your beta-testers as if they were the most valuable resource, respond by becoming your most valuable resource available. '(LCEIB) [Ed. Thomas Law, or self-fulfilling prophecy]. It 'possible that the Iliad and the Odyssey were written in this manner?

Motivation and leisure

" Every good work of software starts by the frenzy of a staff developer. Perhaps this should have been obvious (it's long been known that" necessity is the mother of all inventions "), but too often software developers spend their days grinding away earn money from programs that have no need nor appreciate. But not in the Linux world - which explains the high average quality of software originated in the Linux community ... While I do not claim one of the most talented programmer, I try to imitate them. important trait of the great ones is constructive laziness. '(LCEIB) and' clear dichotomy between the world of "organic solidarity" where " spend their days grinding away for pay at programs in have no need nor love '(LCEIB) and a world that we could only call the "mechanical solidarity", according to the only categories available sociologically. This creates the problem of how to define the secondary socialization, and the primary one, see The primary and secondary socialization.

The Turning Point

" The real turning point of the project was when Harry Hochheiser sent me his initial code for forwarding to the client machine's SMTP port. I realized almost immediately that a reliable implementation of this feature would make obsolete any other mode of mail delivery. For many weeks I had been tweaking fetchmail interface, passable but messy - inelegant and with too many options scattered all around. Among those particularly bothered me, even without understanding why, those used to dump fetched mail to a mailbox file or elsewhere. What came to mind thinking about the function of "SMTP forwarding" was that popclient wanted to try to make too many things. It was designed to be both a "mail transport agent" (MTA ) is a "mail delivery agent" (MDA) at the local level. With SMTP forwarding, it could stop being an MDA to become a pure MTA, handing the post to other programs for local delivery just as sendmail does. Why bother to do in all the complexity of configuring a mail delivery agent or setting for the mailbox, when first it is almost always guaranteed that port 25 is available on any platform supporting TCP / IP? Especially when this means that messages will be taken as normal sender-initiated SMTP mail, which is really what we're trying to achieve. There are several lessons to be drawn at this point. First, the idea of ​​"SMTP forwarding" was the biggest single payoff I got from consciously trying to emulate the methods Linus. He had been a user to this terrific idea - I had only to understand the implications .... The best thing to having good ideas is recognizing that comes from users. Sometimes the best. Done Interestingly, it is easy to find out if you are completely honest and self-critical about how much you owe other people, the world will treat you as if every bit of that invention was thy work, while learning being becomingly modest about your innate genius. We seen how this has worked wonders with Linus! '(LCEIB). A bit of psychology and the analysis of social interaction. As we have seen Eric S.Raymond set in a highly collaborative and motivating his relationship with the user-cosviluppatori. The auditorium beyond that Goffman speaks ESR are cosviluppatori-users and the community of hackers, including the legendary Larry Wall, author of the Perl language, which explicitly mentions Eric. Eric immediately takes into account the solution proposed by Harry Hochheiser 'even if this involves at once a paradigm shift in design of the program'. Interweave these elements according to various levels of correspondence:

• The satisfaction of seeing the software turned into something comparable to Linux in small,
• Be useful to the community of hackers which he himself belongs. The utility made to the community is expressed in terms of aggressive competition (killer app), ecology (the conquest of a niche), the functional requirements (email management)
• Self-reflexive awareness of a great open source project coordinator
• Awareness of having been able to accept an idea from an other turning it into a bold paradigm shift. The idea of ​​Harry Hochheiser forced him to this transformation, but Eric had to re-draw Fetchmail (and drawing software is its specific skills)
• Having successfully completed a test and a contemporary theory of paradigm-Linux Bazaar. The remarkable balance between the practice (design and development software dl) and theory (model project coordination) is also shown in the literature to present LCEIB.

The fact that Eric mentions by name Harry Hochheiser indicates the strength of the significance of his memory. Finally, " I believe that similar results can not really aim or plan. You must be dragged into it by design ideas so powerful that, in hindsight, the results just seem inevitable, natural, even foreordained. The only way to try is having lots of ideas, or have the ability to bring the ideas of others beyond the point where they thought they could get. '(LCEIB).

Language Problems (in Fetchmail)

" Traditionally programmers have tended to favor control syntaxes very precise and compact and have no redundancy. This is a cultural legacy from when computing resources were expensive, so parsing stages had to be simple and cheap the highest degree. Then the English, with about 50% redundancy, looked like a very inappropriate model. This is not the reason why generally I avoid English-like syntaxes; I mention it here only to demolish it. With the 'cheap cycles and core, terseness should not be a goal in itself. Nowadays it is more important for a language to be convenient for humans than cheap for the computer. However, there are good reasons to proceed with caution . One is the complexity cost of the analyzer - there is no need to raise that up to the point where produce significant bugs and user confusion in itself. Another reason is that trying to make a speech in almost- English language often requires such an adjustment that the superficial similarities with the natural language confusing as much as the traditional syntax. (As you can see clearly in the database query languages ​​of "fourth generation" and commercial). syntax fetchmail control can avoid these problems because the domain reserved to the language is extremely limited. not even close to a general-purpose language, the things it says simply are not very complicated, thus leaving little room for potential confusion, when you moving mentally between a tiny subset of English and the language of real control. '(LCEIB). See also Theories of languages.

The indications of Eric S. Raymond (LCEIB)

These points are quotes in paragraphs 9, 10, 11:

• When you start to build the community, you must be able to present a plausible promise.
• Do not believe it is essential that the coordinator can produce exceptional design, but it is absolutely to be able to recognize good design ideas from others.
• The market reputation of the open source community exerts a subtle pressure on people to not to launch development if you are not competent enough to follow them. So far this has worked pretty well.
• Anyway, it is obvious that to put on a community of developers need to attract people, engage them in what they're doing, keep them happy for the work they do. The sputtering technical help much in this direction, but it is far from being all. It is also important to the kind of personality you project. It is hardly a coincidence that Linus is a nice guy, able to please people and get help. For my part, I am an extrovert who likes to work on energy in the crowd, as well as having some of the ways and instinct of the comic. To make the bazaar model, helps a lot to be able to exercise at least a little 'charm on people. [Editor's note: See Note 11. Charismatic Leader]
• Futility of the "principle of command". But what exactly is meant with a certain style of leadership and what are these customs? Meanwhile, do not rely on power relationships - and even if they could be, leadership by coercion would not produce the results we have seen. Weinberg [Editor's note: "The Psychology Of Computer Programming" by Gerald M. Weinberg (New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold 1971)] refers to the autobiography of nineteenth-century Russian Pyotr Kropotkin Alexeyvich, "Memoirs of a Revolutionist": "Having grown up in a family that had servants, are entered into active life, like all young men of my age, with a great deal of confidence in the necessity of commanding, ordering, scolding, punishing. But when, still young, I had to manage serious enterprises and to deal with men [free], and when each mistake would lead at once to heavy consequences, I began to appreciate the difference between acting on the principle of command and discipline and acting on the principle of common understanding. The former works admirably in a military parade, but it is worth nothing when it comes to real life, where the aim can be achieved only through the severe effort of many converging wills. "It is precisely the" severe effort of many converging wills " what a project like Linux requires - and the "principle of command" is effectively impossible to apply among volunteers in the anarchist's paradise we call the Internet. To operate and compete effectively, hackers who want to lead collaborative projects have to learn how to create and energize 'real communities of interest [Ed: Emphasis mine, see Note 12. Individual vs. Society] in the mode vaguely suggested by the "principle of understanding" quoted by Kropotkin. Must learn to use Linus's Law.
• In many ways, the Linux world behaves as a "free market" or as an ecological system, a number of agents attempting to maximize utility which in the process produces a spontaneous order can self-correct, more elaborate and efficient than it could reach any central planning.
• The "utility function" Linux hackers are maximizing is not classically economic, but rather their own ego satisfaction and reputation that is earned from other hackers [Editor's note: See Note 13. Status and classes].
• Maybe in the end the open-source culture will triumph not because cooperation is morally right or software because it "forced" to be morally wrong (assuming you believe this matter, which neither Linus nor I do ), but simply because the world "closed source" is not able to win the evolutionary arms race against the open source community capable of addressing a problem with timing and capacity by several orders of magnitude.

The OS === geographical communities before the Internet === " Before cheap Internet-spread, there were some geographically compact communities where the culture encouraged programming" egoless "Weinberg, and a developer could easily attract a lot of other co-developers in the leg. The Bell Labs, MIT, UC Berkeley - these became the home of innovations that are legendary and still potent. '(LCEIB). From these communities have left the germs that have made possible the free sw and the OS. Currently forming geographical communities such as local Linux User Group (LUG) or PHP User Group (PUG). These "communities" are communities of private research like Bell Labs who have seen the birth of the C language [Editor's note: key event in the history of science and technology of computer software] and immediately after the Unix operating system, taken from the Multics project at MIT . This culture has also infected some OS information technology corporations like IBM, which has released free Eclipse development environment to the OS community, see Note 14. Java and the law "and only OS OS". IBM supports Linux development because it installs in its servers (Benkler, 2006). See also on Dell and HP [Note 16. Communist China]. Conversely, the Closed Source world affects what OS. Many businessmen use the OS paradigm to make their products competitive business. Another "development" in the short history of the world OS was the meteor of Apple founder Steve Jobs, ousted by the shareholders and then reinstated as a savior and guru then beatified before his death as the last major U.S. high-tech innovator. In short Richard M. Stallman, the Free Software Foundation, accuses Steve Jobs had made man of low free software (regularly acquired licenses like BSD, Berkeley Software Distribution), it is closed to commercial licenses and gained massive profits peddling all as the result of creativity. At the point of "no regret his death, however cruel it may seem" [Editor's note: Sure Steve Jobs had never understood anything about software, having made gigantic holes in the water with the operating system aborted "Symphony" and the tablet "Newton"]. However, even if caught in commercial licensing of Apple closed, the OS runs sw abundant and robust across I-Pad and X OS (Operating System X, where X is Unix, just BSD Unix, developed at the University of California Berkeley) [Editor's note: see Berkeley Software Distribution].

The voluntary communities of interest === === " This does not mean they will be more important than the individual vision and brilliance, and I think rather that the cutting edge of open source software will belong to those who start from individual vision and brilliance, then amplify it through the actual construction of 'voluntary communities of interest [Ed: Emphasis mine] "(LCEIB). See Note 12. Individual vs. Society. The wide geographical spread of these virtual communities, if you will, is not unprecedented. The community of scholars, travel geography of the wise, the exchange of religious culture on trade routes, are ancient phenomena. The information and communication technology, the spread of a shared basic science, economic globalization, have made the exchange of information via a web necesssità history. Further developments in software, such as those that led to Google, as a "mission" facilitating the search for information: " Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" (http:/ / www.google.com/about/company/). See Note 17. Arab spring: who was behind it? Although Google has become one of the largest corporations, its beginning is tied to the OS. His first 9000 server, now is 1,000,000 distributed in its various data centers around the world, were based on Linux. Google has developed its own operating system OS, called significant Android, Java-based (see Note 14. Java and the Law "and OS OS only "), and used primarily on mobile phones. Having overtaken Microsoft, relatively closed network, as environment is not controlled from one point of view Closed Source, undermining its primacy on the PC, now Google is starting in an attempt to unseat Apple from the world of smart phones. An Italian engineer, Massimo Marchiori of Padua, who had worked with Google, participating in the invention of the algorithm research, he extended the algorithm so that people doing Web searches on the same topic may know and meet. Can then build in a semi-virtual communities, without having to resort to procedures such as registration in forums, blogs, mailing lists. The new company, with a strong commercial focus, is called volunia.com.

The defense of freedom of information on the Internet

"Anonymous attacks China: many sites online! '[Editor's note: Friday, April 6, 2012, 14:00 From http://www.jacktech.it/news/lifestyle/web-e-social/anonymous-attacca-la -china-480-sites-offline.aspx (Peppe Cross)]. " The Chinese government has not issued any official statement on the thorny faccenda.Gli Anonymous hackers this time if they are taken against the Chinese government that limits freedom of expression on the Internet. With a massive action has been taken offline 480 sites Web and stolen thousands of username and password.
free China - Anonymous beat China 480 to zero. First big hit of the international collective of hackers against the eastern giant, accused of violating freedom of expression of its citizens on the web. Almost 500 sites turned as socks, with thousands of user names and access keys stolen. In the focus of the attack, which began March 30 and still in progress, particularly public bodies, institutions and companies that cooperate with the Chinese government. Among the personal data there would be stolen even those of many government officials. An attack on the heart of Chinese policy, which was shown for the first time extremely vulnerable.
social Maneuver - Anonymous, in parallel with computer trespass, has also opened the door to his followers Chinese with a new Twitter account and a dedicated email contact. Within a few hours has already racked up over 3,000 fans and numerous certificates of esteem to which the collective has responded with warm tweet "We love our followers!! :) <3 ".
China defends itself - If, on the one hand, Chinese institutions for the attack was all bad - a lot of domains were official sites". Gov.cn "- the other is must admit that the responsiveness was impressive. All sites are back online and running in just a few hours, while the technicians will call in feet, on the other side of the world was dealt a severe blow against Anonymous. But not in China but the United States where he was arrested Higinio O. Ochoa III, blamed the so-called "Operation Roast Pig." A hacker attack against the websites of the U.S. government a few months ago. (sp) ' Surely Anonymous may fall, as he suffered a severe attack Wikileaks and Julian Assange. But an analysis of the situation reveals social and technological complexity. The Chinese government uses to spy for hackers towards other powers. " The great fortune of Wikileaks was started in 2007 when he joined the staff of volunteers, an activist who used the Tor anonymity software. Through this software, Wikileaks million intercepted conversations without the persons concerned. Among them Chinese hackers had sought information on the internet on Western governments. Wikileaks began to record all their traffic. A small fraction was posted on the organization and was used as the launch of the project. '(from [http:// it.wikipedia.org / wiki / Wikileaks # History Wikipedia under "Wikileaks"]). The core technology Wikileaks is still the PGP encryption system with encrypted messages that are received from sources covered will then be unveiled to the public. The PGP system is a complex software that was released as Open Source OpenPGP. The Free Software Foundation (see Richard M. Stallman) has developed its own OpenPGP-compliant program called GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG). There is therefore a vital interweaving between free software and OS software, encryption, military, intelligence, international, traditional and modern media, states, communities of hackers who sell themselves to their government, Swiss banks such as Julius Bar denouncing Wikileaks and district judges Americans like Jeffrey White, who, after closing the site wikileaks reopen it in the name of constitutional principles of the First Amendment Editor's note http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/29/us-baer-idUSN2927431720080229 see Reuters, and see Note 15. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Tecnonologica and social reality on which to base predictions could be rational, as suggested by Eric S. Raymond (LCEIB, par.10, The social context of open source software): "Perhaps in the end the source culture will triumph not because cooperation is morally right or software because it" forced "to be morally wrong (assuming assume that you believe this matter, which neither Linus nor I do), but simply because the world "closed source" is not able to win the evolutionary arms race against the open source community can face a problem with time and capacity of several orders of magnitude. ". This now results in the practical impossibility of closing the data base, institutional sites, private accounts, networks and electronic data streams, beyond the Internet and the Web, as the history of wikileaks. Also because the institutions themselves using sw OS, such as Communist China has adopted Linux as the operating system, renaming it the Red Flag, see 16 Note. Communist China. From a sociological point of view, value-free attack Anonymous is the behavior of an "Organized social power network 'transnational (Mann, 1986), similar to Wikileaks, which attacks and threats on the symbolic level an archaic state structure, the communist People's Republic of China, which combines in itself historical layers of capital organizations, religious-leaders-charismatic-Confucian, feudal-bureaucratic, Marxist, neo-capitalist, yet thanks to its solid base of support in the countryside, released in 1949 by the exploitation of the landlords .

Community === OS and Arab spring 2011 === The riots in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Syria were based on the use of cellular phones and photos from the internet. In these events it is clear the importance of at least two characters closely related to Google, Jared Cohen, director and founder of Google Ideas movements.org, U.S., and Wael Ghonim, Egyptian, Regional Marketing Manager at Google Egypt since 2008. Google has a major data center in Egypt. The fact that Jared Cohen, despite his young age, has been a consultant to the U.S. State Department, under Condoleezza Rice and Hilary Clinton, then first, it should not need to confirm the thesis of an American plot simplistic. First, because the reasons for a revolt had long been widespread and deep, varied, and differentiated. Also: sultanistici' regimes of Tunisia and Egypt were avowedly pro occidendali, the revolt has been extended by the Arab world to the U.S. (Wall Street Occupy) and to Israel itself, should perhaps consider American policy, rather than as a block monolithic, like a cauldron of conflicting options even violent with each other. The transition from the Bush administration than Obama, the gradual sgangiamento Obama from military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, draw a policy of containment of threats to American power in the world on the lines of an offensive policy based on democratic values ​​such as that outlined by movements. org, among whose founders include Jared Cohen is. The movements.org post on April 6, 2012 The Arab spring, Youth Freedom and the Tools of Technology, which follows does not need comments. Reproduces an article by Al-Arabiya. It 'was emphasized by me on the themes of community networks of young activists who are experts in technology (ICT) or tech literate devotees. The presence of these networks and their cultural affinity with the founders of Google should be questioning residual nostalgia and history of technological determinism. " The following excerpt was taken from Al-Arabiya News. To read more, click here. Wielding mobile phones and computers, the young activists across the Middle East have altered the way the world Approaches popular mobilization, social networks and Internet freedom. The Internet can be a transformational force for societies and individuals, Allowing for organization on a mass scale and the free flow of information. However, we must remember That the Internet and social media tools are That do not bring change Themselves, but act as facilitators in spreading the ideas. The seminal use of social media as vehicles for change in the Arab Spring uprisings exemplifies the power of web-based communication and makes a strong case for Internet freedom. Web-based communications sono stati used by young, tech literate activists across the Middle East for three core practical purposes: organization, exposure and leverage. Youth Led Efforts to organize social and political movements, expose the injustices of Governments and leverage internal and external stakeholders ACTED as catalysts for uprisings Otherwise Which would have remained dormant. Social networks allow for communication across geopolitical, cultural and linguistic barriers. This tool allowed the youth leaders of Egypt, the West Bank, Jordan, etc.. to organize in revolutionary new ways by creating online communities of supporters and Those using networks to bring people into the streets and rally international support for Their cause. As mobile devices and smart phones Become increasingly common, protesters are Able to gather at a moment's notice. This level of organization is made possible by near instant communication and a network of vigilant, tech literate devotees. Additionally, groups are Able to develop, collaborate on and distribute content to a Seemingly limitless audience. The ability of young activists to organize using technology has Brought the nature of citizen action to a new level and Given illustrated previously unheard voice to narratives. '. Jared Cohen as to the importance of the hypothesis of an American plot and see the Note 17. Arab spring: who was behind it?, In which however it also mentions the possibility of radical democratic wing, out of control, the U.S. State Department.

Final Thoughts === === But the sw OS is not a completely new social phenomenon. " This type of information production, made by agents operating on models decentralized and non-proprietary, is not entirely new. Science is built by many people who work incrementally - not operating on the basis of market signals and not receiving orders from a military leader - deciding on independence in the object of their research and sharing the fruits of their collaborations. It 's so that science is created. What we observe is that the economy in the network increases dramatically the importance of information produced in this way cooperative "(Benkler, 2004:80). The transparency and rational structuring of knowledge was also exactly the intent of many Encyclopedists, many of them unknown, who have given birth to Encyclopedie, whose full titration states: " 'Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et métiers par une société des gens de lettres de '. " Encyclopedia education therefore means full or complete knowledge from ancient greek' enkyklios paideia. Knowledge is "reasoned" that organicamenmte related to each other in a rational and unitary, intentionally aimed at building a company of people who autocoltivano on this same "knowledge" (société de gens de lettres') . This "knowledge" is public and accessible. The authors' mission is to spread the light of truth as unveiled by reason and philosophy. The beginning of the 1751 publication is the dawn of the industrial revolution then. The projection into a techno-science can perhaps be socially constructed meaning unexplored the Great Revolution of 1789.

Note === 1. Open source software === The OS has determined sw and determines the important development and the possibility of widespread use of ICT technology, especially the Internet. As for science, sw enters directly as Linux OS (CERN-Linux) machines in search of the LHC in Geneva, expensive point of the underlying physics. The world of OS producers, researchers and developers in general sw working part time for the OS, not just "give" their software. This is not scandal and Microsoft itself has for years given the DOS operating system. The Open Source also provide the "source", ie the software code that is understandable and visible program. Especially respond politely to any request for information and any error message. Users of the software may, if they want to see how it's done; may change; can report and correct errors. This latter aspect, what is called debugging or testing of the program is by far the most important and most relevant for practical purposes. And 'as if it were possible to open the hood of a car and be able to see transparently any gear while the engine is running. This allows the engine to copy, modify, fix, develop the power, make a completely new with some of the old, use it for fun or for inspiration (very frequent). The OS community is formed by the developers and users. As we said are based on strong cooperation and transparency between both project developers and between developers and users. During the process of "community building" (virtual) users participating in varying degrees of software design. The first role of users is to make reasoned and intensive debugging software and report bugs to the developers of the program official or indicating the corrections made by them. A little known fact outside the software world is the sure presence of errors (bugs) in many cases fatal to the proper functioning of the program. Identify and correct them makes the difference between a good and a mediocre software.

Note 2. Theories of Social Contract

Hobbes's theories on human nature particularly involving individuals who "do not know how to stop" in their desires. OS developers are a type of humanity that Hobbes might have even been able to find among his compatriots of the time if you had bothered to look without prejudice. The error of Hobbes is not the presumption of negativity, but mainly the reduction of the infinite variety of human types and complexity of their interactions contextualized in non-predictable. The focus of Rousseau, and not only for the "savages" who came from the Americas could have been an opportunity for a healthy realism about the variety of human types. On this specific issue see (Benkler, 2011). Likewise, Rousseau's theory on the collective will eliminate the incredible variety and specificity of negotiations and configurations between various social actors. The decision process is defined as the collective will of a majority or as the will (defined?) Of a project leader, but as a torturous process designed for success. In the case of OS, from theories of "Generalized Other" or "Significant Other" or "scene / background" to go to a practice of evaluation of concrete proposals 'other, seen in her programming style, in text expressions / characters of the email, the ability to design software, in its mastery of the problems or deadlocks.

Note 3. The social division of labor and social stratification

The various theories on the social division of labor (Durkheim, 1962), (Marx, 1956:18), do not take any account or individual, ignored in all their analyzes, neither the voluntary cooperation. For them, a phenomenon such as the production of sw OS would have been impossible. Moreover, it is unanimous among the social scientists assumed that the social division of labor is a natural phenomenon due to the emergence of experts in the course of human prehistory, which then always unilinear causal deterministic processes are inevitably comes to geeks in "pure theory". This was made possible by the formation of surplus. " Another general condition, closely allied to the preceding, is the availability of an economic surplus, which means that some individuals or groups may engage in specialized activities not directly related to subsistence. These specialized activities, as we have seen lead to a necessary segmentation of culture, and it makes possible a knowledge subjectively separated from <ogni> social relevance, that is pure theory << >>. '(PLBerger and T.Luckmann , 1966:108, [Editor's note: see also note 47 and note 48 of pag.108]). developers OS, in contrast to these theories have stolen time to the production of surplus, campando sometimes in situations of narrowness, to develop technology . technology that, so this in turn could develop surpluses, even and especially OS technology. The most obvious consideration is in fact a situation of economic surplus may perhaps be a necessary condition for the production of culture and knowledge, but is not sure a sufficient condition. So says candidly that historical determinism in its most naive: " The cooperation based on division of labor, ie manufacturing, is in its origin a spontaneous and natural. After it reached a certain size and a certain scale of existence, the form becomes conscious, deliberate and systematic according to a plan, the capitalist mode of production "(Marx, 1956:64). The knowledge of anthropology and history of ancient and K.Marx F.Engels were necessarily immature and requiring a more critical and less arrogance in defining the course of human history. See the funny 50th note signed FE (which reflects his patrol of "The origin of the family's private property of the state") "Studies rear, conducted very thoroughly, on the primitive conditions of man have led to the conclusion that the author was not originally the family to evolve into tribes, but vice versa: the tribe was the spontaneous form of the original association among men, based on kinship, so that only the latest number of different forms of the family developed from incipient dissolution of tribal ties. FE "(Marx, 1956:51, footnote 50a). These various theories are refuted by anthropologists and scholars of ancient history (Liverani, 1998:19-44) and (Frangipane, 2005) that based on archaeological evidence situate the social division of labor in the birth of the archaic state. This distortion of the social division of labor is much more serious to the extent that according to various authors explains and justifies the secondary socialization. It is not clear how it is taken so lightly the alleged explanation of social stratification, emergent property unique and exceptional in the history of humanity and the planet's biological life. Not explain how he has produced this surplus, the surplus according to some ancient historians and anthropologists came into being precisely the social division of labor. The technological explanation dates back to Gordon-Childe (Marxist) is opposed to that demographic of Ester Boserup (Liverani, 1998:12). Both fail to explain the main point, namely because this surplus has resulted in a social division of labor strong and stable only in a few limited geographic areas and historical periods. One possible answer to this important open question about the origin of civilization, with the transition from egalitarian to hierarchical societies human groups, stratified, is the theory dell'ingabbiamento (Mann, 1986).

Note 4. The hierarchy of needs as socialized labor

The command hierarchy and coercive labor sevirebbero according to classical to coordinate dozens, hundreds and, in the case of Linux, thousands of employees to various projects, see Note 3. The social division of labor and social stratification and Note 7. The theory of bureaucratic rationality of Weber. " A single violin player walks by himself, an orchestra needs a conductor '(Marx, 1956:28). This analysis does not take into account that the hasty conductor needs a theater, an audience of an orchestra in fact, but also a composer of the music. Karl Marx just can not take into account individual creativity. The conductor is thus a performer. The complex web of social interactions that "build" and animate a concert is not resolved in the role of a "director".

The primary and secondary socialization | Note 8.