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From: Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink>
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Subject: Roots Culture: Free Software Vibrations Inna Babylon
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2024 00:34:18 -0000 (UTC)
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Roots Culture: Free Software Vibrations "inna Babylon"
======================================================
by Armin Medosch

In this article I want to focus on free software as a culture.  My
first reason for doing so is to make it very clear that there is a
difference between open source and free software, a difference that
goes beyond the important distinction made by Richard Stallman. [1] 
His ideas have grown legs and now the notion of free software (with
'free' as in 'freedom') has been taken further in ways he could not
have imagined.  Second, I want to show that at least a specific part
of the free software scene shows all the traits of a culture; this is
understood by protagonists of the scene and is made explicit through
the way they act.  With software development rooted in culture, it
becomes a discipline distinct from engineering, and is invested with
social and cultural values.

Rasta Roots and the 'Root' in Computing
=======================================
The first part of the title, 'Roots Culture', is designed to resonate
with the hacker pride of being 'root' on a Unix system, and with
Rastafarian reggae 'roots' culture.  In a file system, root is the
uppermost directory, the one from where all other sub-directories
originate.  In Unix-style operating systems (including GNU/Linux),
'root' is also the name of the super-user account, the user who has
all rights in all modes and who can set up and administrate other
accounts.  Roots reggae is a specific type of reggae music with heavy
bass lines and African rhythmical influences.

Roots reggae originated in Jamaica, and is closely associated with
Rastafari.  This is sometimes described as either a sect/religion, or
a subculture, but neither of these definitions can fully do justice
to the diversity of this phenomenon.  Therefore it is better to
follow Paul Gilroy who suggests that Rastafari be understood as a
popular movement whose "language and symbols have been put to a broad
and diverse use". [2] It originated in Jamaica in the 1930s, and took
some inspiration from the black nationalism, PanAfricanism and
Ethiopianism of Marcus Garvey.  Through Rastafari, the African
Caribbean working class found a way of fermenting resistance to the
continued legacy of colonialism, racism and capitalist exploitation.
It is eclectic and culturally hybrid, drawing from a range of
influences such as African drumming styles, African traditions in
agriculture, food and social organisation, [3] and American Black
music styles such as R&B and soul.  The central trope of the
Rastafari narrative is that the Rastas are the 12th tribe of Judah,
living in captivity in Babylon, and longing to go back to Africa,
identified as a mythical Ethiopia.

Paul Gilroy (borrowing a phrase from Edward Said) describes Rastas as
an "interpretive community".  The ideas and stories of Rastafari
"brought philosophical and historical meaning to individual and
collective action". [4] Through the enormous success of reggae as a
form of popular music, particularly the work of Bob Marley and the
Wailers, Rastafari became popular throughout the world in the 1970s;
now, many non-Jamaicans sport Rasta hairstyles and dreadlocks, and
dedicate themselves to the music and the activity of ganja smoking.
In the UK, versions of Rasta culture now span all ages and
ethnicities; [5] it is probably, by consensus, the most popular
subculture in Britain today.  Aspects of it have been heavily
commercialised and roots reggae has therefore been unfashionable for
a while.  It has, however, made a strong comeback recently.  The
reason for this can only be that it is more than a music style or a
fashion (not everybody with dreadlocks is a Rasta and not every Rasta
wears 'dreads'): it is a culture in a true and deep sense (the
meaning of which I will come back to later).  'Roots' influences can
now be found in hip-hop, jungle, drum & bass, 2Step and other forms
of contemporary urban music.

Both notions, the 'roots' in computing and in Rastafari, are not to
be understood in any literal or narrow meaning, but as points of
association and affinity.  Knotted together, the two narrations form
a crucial potential point of departure for the radical social
imaginary. [6] Neither Rastafari nor hacker cultures are without
problems of their own.  Rastafari, for instance, is a very male
culture, where homophobia is rife and women suffer a subordinated
role in the midst of a supposed liberation struggle. [7] I have
chosen the Rastafari theme for a number of reasons.  The main one is
that it has developed a language of revolution which it uses to very
effectively recount, judging from the massive reception it has got so
far, stories about political resistance and the struggle for freedom,
peace and justice.  These accounts have resonated far beyond Jamaica
and the urban African Caribbean communities in the US and Britain.
Roots reggae, as music and as a liberatory mythmaking machine, has a
huge influence in Africa and Latin America.

Rastafari lends itself to be adopted by other communities and
cultures due to its eclectic and hybrid nature.  The experience of
diaspora, central to the Rastafari story, is shared by many people
who feel displaced and uprooted.  This is understood well by some of
the musical protagonists of roots music, who encourage 'togetherness'
of all people who feel alienated in the societies where they live.
In the words of Humble Lion from the Aba Shanti Sound System from
south London: "Ultimately, people who are like us, who hold similar
attitudes, will gravitate towards us, because we are aiming for the
same virtues that they are, and this creates a something a lot better
than what society stands for.  Right now, it's obvious that our
societies are controlled by money, polarised, xenophobic.  The major
world powers back their puppet leaders and the media sanitises,
separates 'spectators' from reality.  [...] I have to say that now it
is not only the black youths who are suffering in this land, so to
me, increasingly, the true inner meaning of Rasta is not concerned
with colour". [8]

Hackers, young and old, have their own reasons to feel alienated in
society, one of which is the misrepresentation of their creed in the
media.  Originally 'hacking' meant nothing else but feeling
impassioned about writing software to the extent of pursuing this
interest sometimes outside the norms, which would not necessarily
imply anything illegal.  The original 'hackers' such as Richard
Stallman were employees of research institutions like the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) anyway, so they could
hardly be seen as being outside the state system.  But during the
1980s, in the course of the boom in computer science research
(sponsored by the military pursuing projects such as Strategic
Missile Defense and Artificial Intelligence), [9] the mood in these
research ivory towers, which had been fairly liberal in the 1970s,
changed.  Mavericks like Stallman left, and hackers outside the
state-sanctioned system were increasingly perceived as a potential
threat to national security.

From the mid-1980s onwards, secret services and other law enforcement
agencies started their 'war against hacking', with a compliant mass
media doing their best to stigmatise hackers as criminals, or even as
terrorists. [10] With the mass adoption of the Internet in the 1990s,
a new breed of hacker emerged, so-called 'script kiddies', who did
not have to develop deep knowledge of computers because hacking tools
had become relatively easily obtainable.  Script kiddies, not
considered 'real' hackers but instead called 'crackers', have
developed an obsession with breaking into web servers, obtaining
'root' privileges and inscribing digital graffiti on the web server's
homepage.  This activity served as legitimation for the strengthening
of the legal regime, and allowed centrally owned mass media to
continue, in full force, their denouncement of computer subcultures
in general.  Welcome to Babylon!

Hacker Ethics
=============
I do not want to enter into a discussion here of what 'true' hackers
are, especially since the factional infighting between hackers
sometimes rages over topics such as which 'free' version of BSD is
the better or 'truer' one, which seems rather pointless to the
noninitiated. [11] Nevertheless, a common theme can be identified
that transcends internal schisms in the hacker community.  Most
hackers share an ethical code in relation to computers and networks.
Central to this ethical code is that hackers do not disrupt the flow
of information and do not destroy data.  It is not my intention to
idealise hackers as freedom fighters of the information age, but it
must be said that their ethics stand in marked contrast to the
behaviour of the state and certain industries who do their best to
erect barriers, disrupt communication flows and enclose data by
various means, including threats of breaking into the computers of
users who participate in file-sharing networks.  This hacker ethic
has been a shared commitment to a 'live and let live principle'.  It
is an ethos that is born out of love for the craft of hacking and the
desire to let as many people as possible benefit from the sources of
knowledge.  Hackers do not represent one homogenous community; they
are split and divided into many subgroups, but are united in that for
them hacking is more than just writing code.  It is a way of life, it
has its own politics and it has many characteristics of a culture.
Hacker culture has developed its own ways of speaking, certain types
of 'geek' humour, and even some sort of a dress code.  Hackers
regularly meet at conventions (some highly publicised, some more
subterranean) with an atmosphere more resembling a picnic of a large
family or a tribe than any sort of formal 'meeting'.  From this point
of view, there are similarities between hackers and Rastafari.

The Hijacking of Free Software
==============================
As Ur-hacker Richard Stallman makes clear whenever he speaks in
public, there is not much difference between 'open source' and 'free'
software in the way the software is developed technically.  Most free
and open source software packages are also protected by the same
licence, the General Public Licence (GPL) developed by Stallman with
the support of Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen.  Yet,
according to Stallman, there is a profound difference insofar that
'free' software is linked with a political concept of freedom centred
on freedom of speech.  The term 'open source' was introduced by a
group of probusiness computer libertarians in direct opposition to
this political position.  Eric Raymond and others proposed the use of
the term 'open source' to make the idea of releasing source code and
developing software collaboratively more appealing to American IT
investors.  This move by the proponents of open source was
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