You can download “Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software” in several formats for free. In “Two Bits”, Christopher M. Kelty investigates the history and cultural significance of Free Software, revealing the people and practices that have transformed not only software but also music, film, science, and education.
Book Description
Free Software is a set of practices devoted to the collaborative creation of software source code that is made openly and freely available through an unconventional use of copyright law. Kelty shows how these specific practices have reoriented the relations of power around the creation, dissemination, and authorization of all kinds of knowledge after the arrival of the Internet. Two Bits also makes an important contribution to discussions of public spheres and social imaginaries by demonstrating how Free Software is a “recursive public” public organized around the ability to build, modify, and maintain the very infrastructure that gives it life in the first place.
Table of Contents
- Geeks and Recursive Publics
- Protestant Reformers, Polymaths, Transhumanists
- The Movement
- Sharing Source Code
- Conceiving Open Systems
- Writing Copyright Licenses
- Coordinating Collaborations
- If We Succeed, We Will Disappear
- Reuse, Modification, and the Nonexistence of Norms
- Conclusion: The Cultural Consequences of Free Software
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Format(s): PDF, HTML, ePub
File size: 3.34 MB
Number of pages: 396
Link: Download.