The “creolisation” of free software
Aymeric Mansoux is an artist, musician and media researcher with a background in economics, fine art, graphic design and computer programming. He was interviewed by Xavier Coadic following the publication of his article “Nothing in Commons: the end of digital collective ownership?”1
They spoke about the commons, intellectual property, the evolution of FLOSS, and “techno-legal artificial scarcity”, or using laws and software code to limit the potential of technology so that it profits corporations and benefits state control. The full interview can be downloaded at: https://media.apc.org/w/p/hvSrvn6rTr1dYgL8875EiF
In the interview, he argues that divergences and dysfunctions within the free software movement are part of its cycle of renewal. However, he believes that dogmatism – which he calls “free software fundamentalism” – and branding, such as Creative Commons licences, have caused a great deal of damage over the past 20 years.
In the case of Creative Commons, there is an intention to regulate the digital space with a North American free-market mindset underpinning this approach:
There is a two-way illusion here, involving both the political and the technological aspects. Lawrence Lessig, a constitutional lawyer, travelled through post-war Eastern Europe and was also influenced by Karl Popper’s The Open Society. Lessig therefore set about drafting the outlines of a “constitution” to organise society in “cyberspace”, not least because he feared that anarchy in this space would allow anti-authoritarianism to develop.
Mansoux argues that the concepts of exploitation, social classes, domination and North-South relations were not part of the foundations of the free software movement:
The free software movement has attempted to modernise itself and embrace its own contradictions as a source of richness. GNU, with [Richard] Stallman, has acted as the ultimate arbiter in deciding what can and cannot become “official” free software. But this is a monologue on free software. From a cultural perspective, the development of free software has been driven by capitalism.
What he refers to as the “creolisation” of free software involves stepping outside the established norms of the free software movement. The diversity on the fringes, at the grassroots, in the liminal spaces, needs to be embraced, even though it has never been valued or validated by the dominant cultural and market forces. Nevertheless, “historically, before Creative Commons and before the official open source movement, it was these fringe groups that were at the heart of the open source movement and its development,” he says in the interview.
Notes
This report was originally published as part of a larger compilation: “Global Information Society Watch 2026 special edition: Free/libre and open source software: Visions of openness from the Global South"
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) - Some rights reserved.
Web and e-book
ISBN 978-92-95113-91-6
APC-202607-APC-R-EN-DIGITAL-384
Print
ISBN 978-92-95113-92-3
APC-202607-APC-R-EN-P-385
- 1Mansoux, A. (n.d.). Nothing in Commons: the end of digital collective ownership? Collectief eigendom. https://collectiefeigendom.nl/en/ownership/digital-collective-ownership