| (b) The GPL, and its derivatives, are what differentiates free software from merely open source software and though a number of projects don't use the license it is entirely reasonable that without this legal vehicle participants may not have participated in the projects in the way that they have.
That said, it is curious that a relatively modest legal artifact enforced through mechanisms of the state is said to be critical to facilitating anarchic production since anarchy, as defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, is "the view that society can and should be organized without a coercive state." for me this suggests that despite the attractiveness of this mode of production to users, and its success at a technical level it isn't clear to me that the term anarchic production is an adequate description and that it needs to be considered at a more micro level. It is occurring within loose organizational structures, that Stark might call heterarchical, and moreover it has thrived in conjunction with the firm though its success is because copyright privileges were assigned according to the GPL.
- Add Benkler and peer production |