[p2p-research] P2P Ideology

[Stan Rhodes]

Matt,

I was the one that wrote what you quoted, below.

A parallel to consider is the use of nonviolence struggle methods to oppose
regimes.  When one person gets away with a daring display of defiance, and
the next time a dozen people, and the next time a hundred people, well...
hey, maybe it's doable.  But how many people have the "right stuff" for that
first daring display?  Usually, few.  Further, the initial action may well
be an innovation in some way, or performed by someone with "nothing left to
lose."  Tragically, when opposing regimes, that could be a person like a
mother whose son was "disappeared" by the government.  It could also be
teenagers with "more courage than sense" poking fun at the government.  Once
a movement has started, people join up because the barrier to entry has
lowered, whether because they figure they're less likely to get arrested, or
they know that the GPL provides a solid legal wrapper for their software.

Moral imperative may drive initial adoption, but it will only gain masses of
followers if it's effective in producing good results for the peer or larger
social group.  This may be up-and-coming politicians that want a position in
the new government in an overthrow, or someone that doesn't want to write a
packet sniffer from scratch.  These results may vary from person to person,
and of course there's nothing stopping someone from benefiting in very
substantive ways and simultaneously feeling they're on moral high ground.

However, we cannot assume that the motivations surrounding the birth of the
movement continue to be--for the majority--the primary motivators during
subsequent adoption.  I would argue that we should reject any such
assumption.

The courageous/zealous/eccentric/brilliant/naive pioneers demonstrate the
method can work.  The ideal that "something better is possible" drives the
pioneers, and the rest follow from a combination of social proof and proof
found in the tasting of the pudding.  To mix metaphors further, while some
truly believe in the values surrounding the initial use of the method, for
the rest that moral high ground is just gravy.  They may self-report the
moral ground as being important, and they likely believe it.  The real test
of mettle is measuring their actual behavior (but of course, it's far easier
to survey people than monitor them).  Please note, I'm not saying they're
being consciously dishonest or deceptive.

Someone might think that "selling" a movement would fare better if benefits
rather than ideals were "sold" to the masses.  I don't think so: it looks
better to others--and even ourselves--to be "sold" on moral high ground
while we quietly detect more substantive benefits.  This is all likely to be
mostly subconscious, but can be an important consideration in working toward
adoption of something.

In the case of a publically-traded companies, one would want to make the
substantive benefits more salient, because it's ok to value them above moral
concerns in that situation.  Nothing personal, it's just business.  However,
the movement may very well may be sending the wrong signal to the company as
well: that they're willing to compromise in order to secure adoption.  I
think this is a grave mistake, too often made, and I think the history of
attempts to compromise free software licenses pushes this point home.

-- Stan

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 6:57 AM, Matt Cooperrider <mattcooperrider at gmail.com
> wrote:

> I'm forking this out from the discussion "Is the P2PFoundation a Shill for
> Proprietary  Software?"  The question of whether P2P is an ideology needs
> discussing.
>
> -----
>
> Athina wrote:
>
> > It seems this raises again the issue of ideology I think in p2p which so
> > far has been a bit conveniently thrown under the carpet, especially in
> > relation to the commercialization and promotion of the open source and
> open
> > products in general.
> >
> >
>
> Stan wrote:
>
> I don't think it's been thrown under the carpet at all.  Upon close
> inspection, the notion of a general ideology in p2p itself is a nonsensical
> concept.  P2P is a phenomenon / process.  Participants may have diverse
> ideologies (e.g. profit-only vs freedom-only), but as long as they agree on
> the basic principles of production, that doesn't impact the process.
> Ideological differences can and do impact organizations participating in
> p2p
> production, and that has come up regularly (e.g. Wikipedia).
>
> -------
>
> I don't have much of an argument, but I wanted to invite others to discuss
> (particularly to invite Athina to rebut, and Kevin to expand on his close
> inspection).
>
> I agree with Kevin that there is no "general ideology in p2p itself", but
> the notion of "p2p itself" brackets the historical context.  Employing p2p's
> "basic principles of production" in 2009 has potentially huge political and
> social implications.  Those of us who work to advance "p2p alternatives" do
> so because p2p processes (maybe not in every case, but when considered
> together) privilege certain outcomes that we prefer.  Our preferences need
> to be examined.
>
> Best,
> Matt
>
> --
> Matt Cooperrider, Consultant
> SITE: http://mattcoop.com
> SITE: http://collabforge.com
> TWITTER: @mattcoop
> PHONE: 774.487.8152
>
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