[ecrea] Call for Abstracts - Journal of Peer Production

The Critical Power of Free Software: from Intellectual Property to 
Epistemologies?

*Edited by: Maurizio Teli and Vincenzo D’Andrea
*

> From the perspective of social organization, Free Software can be conceived
as a form of critique by adaptability and modifiability, as pointed out by
anthropologist Christopher Kelty [Two Bits, 2008], standing outside
institutionalized forms of power and providing working alternatives as
critical tools. Starting from this kind of understanding, Free Software has
been interpreted as a form of critique toward consolidated and contemporary
capitalistic forms, such as the extension of Intellectual Property over any
kind of common pool resources, or the forms of organization of labour of
distributed developers.

Nevertheless, the increasing adoption of Free Software by multi-national
corporations points to increasing domestication of free software practices
by contemporary global capitalism and to the expansion of hierarchical
forms of social organization. This is particularly apparent in the form of
the Open Source dialect, through the extensive overlapping of open source
discourse with capitalistic discourses, such as that on legitimate hybrid
business models, combining open source and proprietary licensing.

Such perspective requires that the critical power of Free Software be
brought under scrutiny, moving from the undermining of the discourses of
Intellectual Property, organization of work or hierarchy, to the
understanding of the epistemological implications for computer science and
software engineering. From this point of view, arguments that see the
epistemology of computing as the locus of production and reproduction of
long-standing inequalities in power relationships, are suggesting new areas
of enquiry. Is Free Software a form of critique of the epistemological
basis of computing? Is it possible to connect its critique of Intellectual
Property and organizational forms to the critique of software development
premises as a professional and research practice?
Those are the questions this special issue is trying to answer. To promote
an interdisciplinary debate, we encourage submissions of theoretical and
empirical papers authored both by social scientists, in a broad sense, and
by computer scientists (joint papers are most welcome). We expect the
authors to envision the potential for Free Software of being a form of
cultural, practical, and material critique.

*Call: 500-word abstract*

*Important Dates:
*
July 31st, 2012: Abstract Submission (max 500 words)
August 31st, 2012: Abstract Evaluation and Communication
December 15th, 2012: Full Paper Submission
February 15th, 2012: First Review Completion
May 15th, 2013: Final Submission
June 2013: Signalling and Publication

*Submissions:
*
Through contact form<http://peerproduction.net/contact/>  or straight to
the editors, via email at (maurizio /at/ ahref.eu) and (vincenzo.dandrea /at/ unitn.it)

The Journal of Peer Production (JoPP) is a new open access, online journal
that focuses on the implications of peer production for social change.


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