Decoding Liberation: The Promise of Free and Open Source Software (Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture) - Hardcover

Samir Chopra; Scott Dexter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415978939 ISBN 13: 9780415978934

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

Software is more than a set of instructions for computers: it enables (and disables) political imperatives and policies. Nowhere is the potential for radical social and political change more apparent than in the practice and movement known as "free software." Free software makes the knowledge and innovation of its creators publicly available. This liberation of code―celebrated in free software’s explicatory slogan "Think free speech, not free beer"―is the foundation, for example, of the Linux phenomenon.

Decoding Liberation provides a synoptic perspective on the relationships between free software and freedom. Focusing on five main themes―the emancipatory potential of technology, social liberties, the facilitation of creativity, the objectivity of computing as scientific practice, and the role of software in a cyborg world―the authors ask: What are the freedoms of free software, and how are they manifested? This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how free software promises to transform not only technology but society as well.

About this title

About the Author

Samir Chopra is Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science and Philosophy at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Scott Dexter is Professor of Computer and Information Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415978939
• ISBN 13: 9780415978934
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232