Doctoral Dissertation Research: Coding Commons: F/OSS Collaboration and the Ubuntu Labor Process

University Of Southern California, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Understanding how software functions to structure social and economic possibilities is a crucial challenge to general social science scholarship and also to more specialized interests concerned with the digital context of knowledge-based economies, digital media and the Internet. This project analyzes the underdeveloped arena of software design and production through a study of the labor processes and everyday lives of software workers who contribute to Ubuntu Linux, a Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) project. F/OSS is different from proprietary software because it is distributed with the source code as well as with the right for anyone to edit, reuse, repurpose, and distribute the software as they see fit. This research project examines the geography of Ubuntu production cycles, which rely upon the collaborative labor of several hundred full-time paid contributors and tens of thousands of unpaid, volunteer contributors, all working around the globe. Volunteer and paid contributors regularly attribute their dedication to F/OSS and to Ubuntu in particular to personal satisfaction with being involved with the project. Creating and reproducing these conditions plays a central role in the organization and reproduction of Ubuntu labor processes. To understand the implications of F/OSS production and labor organization and to shed light on the future of the Internet and economic productivity generally, this project examines the practices and work experiences of paid and unpaid contributors and the role of enjoyment they feel in the development of the labor processes involved. At the local scale, ethnographic research using in-depth interviews and participant observation at places of Ubuntu will generate data on the experiences and rhythms of Ubuntu work. At the global scale, observing and participating in international collaboration, meetings, and discussions will generate data on the structures and norms in Ubuntu. This project will reveal F/OSS production as a network of real places and people who contribute to forming an alternative system of exchange. This doctoral dissertation project will develop a theoretical and empirical model of the significance of software grounded in a committed engagement, using interdisciplinary scholarship to understand the social and economic implications of the production of this software. The vast majority of web pages and emails in the world are served by F/OSS, and F/OSS runs the massive data centers and back offices of firms such as Google and Amazon.com. Yet it remains relatively unknown that much of the software upon which these companies and the Internet depend relies heavily on the unpaid labor of volunteers for its production. The results of this project will show how the production process of this kind of software will contribute to understanding globalizing capitalism. In doing so, it will meet the need to evaluate the promises of F/OSS as a solution to problems of intellectual property rights that restrict access to software, problems of dependency upon proprietary software, and problems in the international arena generated by state-controlled media. This project's analysis of place and labor processes makes a significant contribution to understanding how software shapes, mediates, and transforms our social lives and economies. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.