7 Components: the Function Pages - Developers

High hopes in
free software
Wikimedia
projects
A nerve struck?
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back to a basic anthropological constant (“That's just the way people
are”) or to seemingly “objective” necessities that result from an economic
constitution that eliminates or controls existential fundamentals
of competitors.
The free software community represents a counterdraft to the
commercialization of information products – especially as an alternative
to Unix. Free software functions here as an alternative model
that generates the hope that the expansion of the information technology-based
leading sector can be able to be seriously blocked by
making available stable and free software. These hopes have only
been partially realized. The property rights regime was in no way
questioned by the demand for freedom of information. Several forms
of ownership can coexist. Free goods can be utilized very well as a
component of an overall product; for instance, in the case of free
software, through support and books.
In the attempt to transform digital goods into commodities
through copyright, patents and trademarks, the music industry is
leading the way, in its fight against “bootleg” copies with their
motto: “downloading is theft.” On the opposite side, with the Wikimedia
group, a significant player is growing that is turning against
the marketing of software patents, image, film and text rights with
its free content by pursuing the goal of building up enclaves of digital
commons. 20 The Wiki Commons project has already been mentioned,
as has Wikibooks, whose focus is the provision of cost-free
textbooks whose commercial alternatives must be obtained at great
cost. This is done in the hope of expanding access even to classes
with less disposable income.
To what extent a nerve of a developing high-tech capitalism has
been struck with the blockade of privatization tendencies in information
technology is debatable. In his book The Age of Access: The
New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All Life is a Paid-For Experience
(2000), Jeremy Rifkin sees the question of “access” as the
successor to the ownership question. In contrast, others have raised
the objection that the “old economy” and its accompanying ownership
relationships, over which the new technologies are simply superimposed,
are thus being masked. 21 Furthermore, in various instances,
the argument has been voiced that a greater danger is growing
from the property rights regime through the direct contact between
producers and consumers than through the provision of costfree
services.
20 In addition to others, such as the Free Software Foundation, Creative
Commons or the hacker culture.
21 e.g. Haug 2003, 67f.
22 Tools with a Future? Technical and Social Outlook with Wikis