Free Software Magazine: The Will to Code

“Free software has been described by theorists such as Benkler
(2002) as commons-based peer-production. It is hailed for the
revolutionary potentials inherent in its oft-described decentred,
non-hierarchical and egalitarian (dis)organisation (e.g. Moglen
1999; Hardt & Negri 2004). However, in this paper we intend to
see whether reading Nietzsche offers an alternative insight into
the workings of free software projects. In particular, an insight
that starts from a different point to that of an egalitarian theory
and points, instead, to explanations that may cohere around a
coding aristocracy. Does an analysis that focuses on the will to
power (or perhaps more accurately the will to code) provide any
explanatory value in understanding the extremely complex
interactions and processes involved in software development within
copyleft groups? How might reading Nietzsche help us to question
the morality instantiated in such software and associated cultural
projects? This short article is a preliminary sketch of how we feel
a reading of the practices of the free software movements could be
usefully understood through Nietzsche…”

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