Open Source and the Moral Field of Computing

ABSTRACT The concept of “open source” has spread in usage from the world of computing to virtually every domain imaginable: from government and publishing, to academic research, health care, and the military. The usage, appeal, potential, and pitfalls of this concept are improved by an understanding of the context in which it emerged: computing in the second half of the 20th century. In particular, the concept emerged out of a long-running political and moral discourse about rights and obligations between programmers and computer users. This article presents a framework for understanding the moral culture of the computing field today that draws on contemporary research in the fields of cultural and economic sociology, situates current open source communities and moral controversies in open source software within this framework, and suggests some lessons for bringing “open source” into other domains.

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