[Events] Notes on History & Ethics of Free Software resource

[Mike Linksvayer]

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 1:28 PM, Shauna Gordon-McKeon
<shaunagm at gmail.com> wrote:
> ___2. History____
>
> * But did free software really start with RMS? In some senses yes, but in
> others no - after all, the whole narrative you tell here is one of RMS
> defending free software culture from an incursion of proprietary culture.
> So how did that emerge?  How did software itself grow up?
> * Bonus: starting the history before RMS might give us the option to
> highlight a greater diversity of people.

Great comments. I've long been irked by reliance on lone genius
creation myths by FLOSS when we know those have very limited truth for
describing the way innovation happens -- instead independent invention
is frequent, and invention arises primarily from a community of
practice and knowledge. Emphasis on Torvalds/Linux other obvious one.
But to make it topical instead of just my pet peeve, I wonder which of
(a) telling story of how FLOSS came to be and what it is via RMS and
Torvalds stories or (b) telling story of FLOSS more abstractly and
with analogy to/continuation with older computing and tinkering and
scientific history -- would actually make FLOSS ethics more
interesting and compelling for newcomers, and more diverse newcomers?
I admit that most people like hero stories a *lot* more than I do.

Mike

Mike