"Over at Sphere of Networks, I published a text that tries to give a simple overview of the workings of information production in the age of the internet, covering everything from free software to free culture. This article is a slightly modified version of a chapter of this text.

When the idea of sharing software comes up, people frequently break out in debates over Capitalism vs. Communism. It doesn't take long before someone starts equating - derisively, no less - sharing software with Communism. But since when did the Communists corner the market on sharing?

The Free Knowledge, Free Technology Conference (FKFT) is the first international event which will centre on the production and sharing of educational and training materials in the field of Free Software and Open Standards.

"Free" has been a founding concept in the Linux world since before there was Linux — or GNU/Linux, if you prefer. In his history of the GNU project, Richard M. Stallman begins, "When I started working at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1971, I became part of a software-sharing community that had existed for many years.

"...The core ideals of free software are very strongly aligned with the core ideas of anarchism: the ideas of mutual aid and sharing combined with essential freedoms [...] At this point, I think can say that the key difference is how they treated the opposing forces. Under the anarchists, there was the widespread burning of churches and violence against Catholicism.

"Conference by Richard M. Stallman at the First International Conference Free Knowledge, Free Technology - Education for a free information society in Barcelona (Spain), 15 July 2008, on the production and sharing of free educational and training materials about Free Software..."

A new conventional wisdom began to spring up around free software, led in part by theorists like Eric Raymond, who were interested in the economics of free software production.

"The Free Knowledge & Free Technology Conference (FKFT) is the first international event that focuses on the production and sharing of free educational and training materials about Free Software. It aims to..."

"This article is about free software as used in the sociopolitical free software movement...Free software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions only to ensure that end users have the same freedoms as the original authors..."