Open Source Sex

In five years Facebook has changed the world... or so the headlines scream. The phenomenon that is net-mediated social networking really hit the mainstream with Facebook.

Such social networking is not as new as Facebook, it has always been at the core of the Open Source developers community. The clue is in the word 'community'.

Facebook is, of course, from the ground up 100% Open Source. The technologies it uses are a gift to us all and ever since I read about the Open Source software culture being a manifestation of gift-giving behaviour I have not been able to get that thought out of my mind. Why do they do it?

I think I know. It's all to do with sex.

Many years ago I taught a socio-biology option as part of a senior biology ethology class. It was a very popular as well as contentious topic in the 1980's. Sociobiology is a study of the behaviour of humans set within the discipline of ethology. The 1980's twist is to add an evolutionary context to behaviour along the lines of Richard Dawkins' 'Selfish Gene' treatises.

Gift-giving is socially quite complex - close kin do most gift giving. Inferiors give to superiors as signs of subordination or respect. Peer groups often indulge in competitive gift giving as a sign of their economic status (in some societies this can even become a crippling gift-war) and superiors may give to inferiors to reinforce their status and indebt the receiver. That's about it. Gift-giving it follows usually has not much to do with altruism outside kin.

The unprecedented increase in economic wealth and growth since the 80's produced the so called 'consumer culture' characterised chiefly by the creation of artificial needs, individualism and personal gain, or so it seems.

But during the same period, and especially the last ten years, we have seen the most massive explosion in gift-giving behaviour.

By this I mean the countless hours donated by the developers to produce the Open Source software that Facebook is based upon. But I am also thinking of the music and videos 'given' to us all on YouTube.

We all use Free, Open Source software most of the time - Facebook, Wikipedia, Linux, Apache - often without knowing it. Even if many developers are now paid to work full time on their projects the vast majority of code has been a gift from its creators.

But why should they give? What's in it for them?

The 'Mainstream' Explanation

Normally, a sociobiologist would look for an explanation that conceivably would enhance the reproductive success of the individual and or his or her closely related group or tribe, thereby passing on his or her genes to persist in the future.

I think however with our gift giving code-culture, with no disrespect intended to any hacker or geek, such an explanation would be pushing it a bit. It seems safest to plump for a variant of kin-altruism. Here the perception of kin inspires 'bonding' behaviour within a community through the reward of kudos.

Kudos is a lovely word, it broadly means 'what is said or known about you'. Kudos is a social cement as much as ostracism and exclusion (ie. unkownness) is a social disruptor.

Altruism such as giving, ultimate giving being self-sacrifice, has been shown over and over again to be related to kinship or pseudo-kinship (eg. soldiers) and is statistically at it's maximun for mother-child relationships.

The selfish-gene explanation of the above is obvious, especially for the mother saving her genetic copies in her child. It is postulated that groups or tribes can socially extend the idea to the survival of the group's genes, especially for a genetically related group such aher genetic copies a tribe.

So, deep breath, we are actually saying that our Open Source contributors are members of a neo-tribe and gain kudos through 'kin' gift-giving which in turn cements and supports the tribe's success.

The above, believe it or not, is a mainstream explanation of the gift giving behaviour of the Open Source movement. Trust me I have waded through some stuff to be able to say this with confidence. But I have discovered a twist that will delight the selfish-gene apologists in equal measure with the GPL drafters.

Hacker Sex and Open Source's Children

So far we have asserted that the behaviour of the Open Source gift-givers is a variant of a natural social behaviour in a novel context. The givers or authors do gain much kudos I'm sure that is right, but thanks to the GPL they can have offspring!

Open Source code once released into the wild, as it were, is free to be used, copied, adapted, evolve... but most of all persist through time just like successful genes.

The 'genes' of Facebook have many 'parents', as do those of Linux and so on. Developers with high kudos contribute lots of code, most of which will form the backbone of a myriad of offspring. You get the picture. Hackers gain Kudos and thereby enhance their 'reproductive' success... pure high school sociobiology.

Now does any one think that the closed code of a company like Microsoft is going anyware except into oblivion? Who will pick-up and run with the code of CIFS, for example. The only way MS's 'genes' can survive is if they release their code as Open Source soon.

In ten year's time the ancestral progenitors of much open source code will be forgotten but every application will share some of their genes. This can't happen for closed source. From a hacker's view point it's as good as sex.

Summary

Paradoxically, a wealthy consumer society famed for its selfishness made it possible for a few with their basic needs more than met to be able to give away things.

That wealth also made it possible for societies to re-arrange themselves back into neo-tribes through social networking and this in turn re-kick-started 'kudos as a driver.

Then the GPL finished the work because it released the code to thrive or perish in the wild.

Evolution will out. Happy birthday Facebook.