Yet another seemingly interesting book on open source:

Hacking Capitalism: The Free and Open Source Software Movement by Johan Söderberg.

The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement demonstrates how labour can self-organise production, and, as is shown by the free operating system GNU/Linux, even compete with some of the worlds largest firms. The book examines the hopes of such thinkers as Friedrich Schiller, Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse and Antonio Negri, in the light of the recent achievements of the hacker movement. This book is the first to examine a different kind of political activism that consists in the development of technology from below.

I would love to read it, if only I had the time. I would also be able to pay the GBP 60 to get a copy of the book. But GBP 60 for a book on open source!!!

I find it extremely sad that all these books enthusiastically embracing the concept of open source are all – except a few – published under a old school totally “all rights reserved” license. Very few of the authors or publishers make their texts avalaible under an open content license such as creative commons.

What striking irony! It reminds me that a lot of artists that I met that were very much in favour of more openness and access to content but were more zealously protective of their own art than the most hard core IFPI or MPAA lawyers.

It is a little like the experience that you get when you deal with well-meaning left-leaning politicians: It is very easy to do good deeds with other people’s money 🙂

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