Abstract

National legislation to mandate the use or consideration of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in government institutions is increasingly emerging as a strategy for FLOSS advocates in Latin America and the broader developing world. Such movements for the political use and regulation of FLOSS mark a distinct turn in the objectives and work of FLOSS advocates, whose activities largely focused on the dissemination of FLOSS as a technological artifact. This paper investigates the network of diverse actors involved in promoting FLOSS legislation in Peru, one of the first nations where a movement for FLOSS legislation emerged. It emphasizes that crucial to the work of FLOSS' network actors is not their merely technological productivity, but their cultural and political productivity -- that is, their ability to produce diverse body of meaning made both evident and mobile in narratives of FLOSS use and adoption.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)78-99
Number of pages22
JournalScience Studies
Volume20
Issue number2
StatePublished - Dec 1 2007

Keywords

  • PERU
  • OPEN source software laws
  • OPEN source software
  • LEGISLATION
  • PUBLIC institutions
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • discursive practices
  • free software
  • Latin America
  • legislation
  • networks

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