Doctoral Dissertation Research - Information Values in Translation: An Ethnography of Free and Open Source Software in Vietnam

这项研究考察了自由和开放源码软件(FOSS)在不同国家的设计和实施过程中发生的变化。最近的研究描述了自由/开源软件是如何作为“民主化”技术的长期历史的一部分出现的。这些研究表明，自由和开放源码软件是如何被设计成特定政治价值观的技术延伸，从而代表了美国自由意志主义文化和政治的一种非常特定的配置。然而，随着自由和开放源码软件在没有这种政治文化历史的国家实施，我们可以预见这些技术将会改变，甚至与现有的价值观发生冲突。反过来，这项研究考察了随着自由和开放源码软件迁移到新的国家，这些价值观是如何变化的。在国际上，自由和开放源码软件越来越多地与政府政策干预直接联系起来部署。政府对自由和开放源码软件的参与导致倡导者谴责这种活动与自由和开放源码软件本身的精神背道而驰。鉴于这种价值观的冲突，本研究问：(1)政府政策如何影响自由和开放源码软件在越南的设计和实施？(2)随着自由和开放源码软件进入新的国家，开放、自由和民主的价值观如何变化？(3)其他哪些行为者和组织参与了自由和开放源码软件的设计和实施，他们在这些过程中有什么发言权？这篇论文改进基金将资助越南河内两个自由开放源代码组织为期一年的实地考察，一个是营利性组织，一个是非营利性组织。这项实地工作将包括对这些组织的软件开发工作的参与者观察，以及对其员工和更广泛的自由/开源软件社区成员的半结构化访谈。拟议的研究将有助于更广泛地理解一项技术在传播到新的国家和背景时所具有的含义。鉴于越南背景的特殊性，拟议的研究还将有助于更广泛地理解文化价值观如何导致技术变化，以及技术与现有价值观发生冲突时会发生什么。

This study examines how free and open source software (FOSS) change as they are designed and implemented in different countries. Recent studies describe how FOSS has emerged as part of a long history of 'democratizing' technologies. These studies show how FOSS has been designed as the technological extension of particular political values and thus represent a very specific configuration of American libertarian culture and politics. As FOSS is implemented in countries without this political cultural history, however, we can anticipate these technologies to change and even clash with existing values. In turn, this study examines how these values change as FOSS migrates into new countries. Internationally, FOSS is increasingly deployed in direct association with government policy intervention. Government involvement with FOSS has led advocates to decry such activities as antithetical to the very spirit of FOSS itself. Given this conflict in values, this study asks: (1) How does government policy shape FOSS' design and implementation in Vietnam?; (2) How do the values of openness, freedom, and democracy change as FOSS moves into new countries?; and (3) What other actors and organizations are involved in FOSS' design and implementation and what kind of say do they have in these processes? This dissertation improvement grant will fund fieldwork for one year of two free and open source organizations in Hanoi, Vietnam, one for-profit and one non-profit. This fieldwork will consist of participant observation of software development work in both these organizations and semi-structured interviews with their employees as well as with members of the wider FOSS community.The proposed research will contribute to a broader understanding of the meanings attached to a technology as it travels to new countries and contexts. Given the particularities of the Vietnam context, the proposed research will also contribute to a broader understanding of how cultural values can cause technologies to change as well as what happens with a technology clashes with existing values.