Trailer - Hacking for the Commons - a 87' documentary film by Philippe Borrel
Computing has infiltrated almost all human activities of todays world. Has it contributed to making us more self reliant ? Or has it turned us into the passive consumers of what has become a total market ?
Without our being aware of it, two logics are confronting each other at the very heart of technology, since the emancipating principles of Free software have shaken the exclusive proprietary rights of so called intellectual property since the 80s.
It would have seemed totally unimaginable just 20 years ago that non-industrial or non-state protagonists might succeed in collectively creating a system of exploitation like Linux or an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Several challenges that appear insurmountable today - climate, energy or social - might well be tackled tomorrow by all of humanity, across borders, thanks to models being tried out by the Free and Open Source activists.
Free software, open source hardware, free medicine or free seeds and free access to knowledge... Objects, devices, machines, concepts, reproducible to infinity by all who wish, thanks to the free distribution of their blueprints. The founding legal principles of Free software serve as an example with the battle won against the dominant model of intellectual property.
Since then, collective and contributing practices of Free are flourishing in many other domains, whether in relation to technology, ecology, the defence of public services or culture.
By stressing the importance of freedom, cooperation and sharing, at the same time they revive users autonomy and power. They can as such contribute to the emergence of a world that might be liberated of copyright and patents for the benefit of the Commons. Which is above all a political and a cultural revolution.
Featuring Kenneth Roelofsen, Karen Sandler, Richard Stallman, James Boyle, Shamnad Basheer, Abhiram Ravikumar, David Bollier, Vandana Shiva, Guy Standing, Pr Joseph Stiglitz and James Love.