Samir Chopra - Decoding Liberation: The Promise of Free and Open Source Software

A number of our colleagues and friends helped us get this project off the ground. Timothy Shortell, one of the 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, loaned us his copy of Steven Webers The Success of Open Source; Corey Robin and Sharon Zukin both read and provided advice on the book proposal; Robert Tempio expertly guided our proposal into the right hands. Our editor, Matthew Byrnie, demonstrated faith in this project from very early on. For their comments on early versions of two chapters, we thank the members of the Faculty Fellowship Publications Program at the CUNY Graduate Center during the Spring 2005 semester: Jordi Getman-Eraso, Janet Johnson, Anru Lee, Costas Panayotakis, Fredrick Wasser, and Sharon Zukin. We also thank Lee Quinby and the Zicklin Seminar at Brooklyn College for their support during the Fall 2006 semester.

Richard Stallman provided extraordinarily timely and constructive feedback on versions of Chapters 1, 2, and 4. We owe him another intellectual debt, in that much of this book is directly inspired by his writings.

David Arnow, Carolina Bank-Muoz, David Berry, Matt Butcher, Fernando Cassia, Chris Cardona, Thomas Chance, Marvin Croy, John Frohnmeyer, Benjamin Mako Hill, James JD Howell, Aaron Kozbelt, Lee Quinby, George Thiruvathukal, Saam Trivedi, Robert Viscusi, Donna Wilson, and Thomas Wren provided intellectual support, critique, and encouragement. Portions of some chapters were presented at the International Conference on Knowledge, Technology and Society 2005; Computer Ethics and Philosophical Enquiry 2005; North American Computers and Philosophy Conference 2005; and the American Philosophical Associations Central Division Meeting 2006. We thank audiences at these meetings for their comments and discussion.

Noor Alam, Jill Cirasella, Dayton Clark, David Coady, Gabriella Coleman, David Dexter, Sharon Dexter, Virginia Held, Jelena Karanovic, Chandra Kumar, Edward Levine, Sean Sullivan, John Sutton, and Katherine Willis were dedicated readers of different versions of the chapters; we thank them all for their graceful handling of anxious authors.

Jill Cirasella and Katherine Willis performed astonishing feats of librarianship; Camille Martin helped dissolve bureaucratic obstacles; a PSC-CUNY research award helped in the procurement of books and supplies; Aaron Tenenbaum continues to be a sensitive and accommodating chair.

Pilon Coffee, Rasily Supari, International Food Store, Johns Bakery and Cafe, the MTA, Yo in Midtown, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Chris Parnell, Andy Samberg, Mark Feuerstein, Sam Friedlander, Adam Stein, VoxPop, Prospect Park, Transportation Alternatives, Ali Mohammed Grocery, Yahoo! Groups, and Gmail facilitated the long hours of writing.

S. C.

S. D.

I owe multifarious intellectual and personal debts: Jim Whitescarver, for dazzling me with his regular expressions and his spirit of constant inquiry; Rakesh Kushwaha, for the companionship, and for help with my struggles with coding; Gurinder Johar, for showing me work on computers could be playful; my brother, Ashutosh Chopra, for being the first hacker I knew; Devendra Vamathevan, for the first beautiful algorithm I had ever seen; the Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center, for teaching me most of the computer science I know; Thomas Meyer, for discussions about the philosophy of science; Norman Foo, for providing a great research environment in Sydney; JD Howell, for making GNU/Linux installs fun; Rohit Parikh, for teaching me much about mathematics, philosophy and computer science; Murray Turoff and Roxanne Hiltz, for introducing me to a study of technologys social and political implications; the UNIX community, for putting on many, many brilliant performances; all those in the free software and open source communities that keep their code free in all the ways they know.

My families continue to provide the emotional sustenance that lifts me each day. I am thankful for their love and support to the Chopras, the Sabharwals, the Tulis, the Sens, the Alams, and the Ahujas. A special thanks to Ashu, Ritu and Akul for keeping a home for me in India.