Political Economy Approach

I. Research question
In what ways do free and open source software invoke and revise traditional notions of property and production?

II. Research Methods

• Clarify the terminology e.g. free versus open software
• Document successful examples and unsuccessful examples of free/open source software
• Examine free/open software in terms of copyleft versus copyright
• Draw upon various resources e.g. Free Software Foundation, GNU, theorists
• Market penetration of GNU versus Windows/Mac/Linux
• Compare the user/communities between GNU versus Windows/Mac/Linux in terms of connectivity and socioeconomic substructures
  

Resources

From GNU.org:

What is free software?

Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer. Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.'
• Situate research within an historical context of traditional economies e.g. other gift economies
  

Chris Anderson: "Every industry that becomes digital eventually becomes free."




Historical Gift Economies

Potlatch

III. Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages

• Allows for a broader scope of investigation
• Examines the larger socioeconomic systems in which the software is produced, distributed, and used

Disadvantages

• Doesn't allow for specific, quantitative analysis
• More difficult to hone in on specific examples to support analysis
  
• External economic forces - current economic collapse - may alter the findings