Open Source and Socialism

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25 Jul 2011, 8:14 am

Some hardcore right-libertarians are also strong advocates of open-source software (see Slashdot for many examples). The Open-source is communism meme has been around for a long time, including as FUD spread by Microsoft. The Free Software Foundation (owners of GNU) refer to the GNU General Public License as being "copyleft."

RedHanrahan
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25 Jul 2011, 3:48 pm

@ iamnotaparakeet

I don't get sulky when you challenge my posts, in fact lately I tried to show a lot of tolerance and directly answered your questions/points something you so often choose not to do. I don't regard being challenged as being badgered, are your convictions so desperate and uncertain that the will not stand challenge or rebuke or are you just too arogant?

peace j

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iamnotaparakeet
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25 Jul 2011, 3:51 pm

RedHanrahan wrote:

Thanks for trying to be civil with such an evil person as you perceive me to be. Please try to read what I actually say occasionally, as it might help you to not have to "tolerate" my presence here or whatever else.

AstroGeek
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30 Jul 2011, 11:03 am

Socialism does not necessarily mean control by the state--that is just one form of socialism. Socialism means (traditionally) the workers owning the means of production. Also, from what little I know about Marx's idea of a society, open source fits quite well within it. And I am not alone in this analysis--there are some ecosocialists out there that agree with me.

thewags05
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26 Jun 2013, 3:23 am

Vexcalibur wrote:

Proprietary software is closets to a communist regime in that all information goes through filters and every bit of society is by and from the prime minister rather than the people.

Proprietary software is usually build my companies for the purpose of making a profit. Seems pretty antisocialist to me.

thewags05
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26 Jun 2013, 3:29 am

NeantHumain wrote:

In my opinion I would say that the GNU license is pretty close to a license that a socialist government would impose. A capitalist government would likely have something closer to the GPL license, as it protects the software developer more than the software itself.

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26 Jun 2013, 9:24 am

RedHanrahan wrote:

AstroGeek wrote:

I don't know if this has occurred to anyone else, but it strikes me as though open source software is one of the most socialist [?1] developments yet seen. It is developed fairly spontaneously, not really owned by anyone, anyone is able to contribute... it seems almost reminiscent of cooperatives.

This I think brings up an interesting scenario. Perhaps people have heard of the 3D printers capable of producing basic objects (including those needed to construct another 3D printer in one case). If those are developed to the point that they can produce appliances (and there's no reason why not), or even computers, then the designs for these things could be developed in an open source fashion. The production of almost all consumer goods (at least the better established, less cutting edge ones) could non-violently and spontaneously move away from capitalism and towards what is essentially a form of socialism. Even if most people didn't want this, there could very easily be a sub-community who used only open-source appliances, similar to the open-source software using community.

Thoughts?

[? 1] I think you have a weird idea of 'socialism'? I think perhaps you would find that the culture of the open source software community is somewhat less centralised and anarchic [from an-archos = without rulers] and the values displayed syndicalist and co-operative, mutualist.

Personally I have little to do with computers but the ideal of open source culture seems to trump the corporate one easily and appeals to my generally anti capitalist approach to life.

peace j

Anarchism is a type of socialism.

fueledbycoffee
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26 Jun 2013, 10:27 am

RedHanrahan wrote:

What the sam diggity ^%*^ are you two on about?

Seriously dude, the man has a right to be annoyed when he posts something that was on topic and somewhat funny and you nail him for some crap that apparently came from some past issue between the two. Software ethics has nothing to do with religion. Sort out personal ^%*& in PMs. Behave like an adult. Now, on topic.

Open source is not socialist. It's not anti-capitalist, either. What it is is a somewhat anarchic subculture that is anti-current-capitalism. IE, it stands against huge multinational monopolies that have formed as a result of semi-Socialist corporate protectionist arrangements by the US government. It allows small-time entrepreneurs to compete, by giving them the means to do so, if they bring know-how to the table. Not socialist in the least. In fact, it's the essence of classical capitalism.

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26 Jun 2013, 10:31 am

fueledbycoffee wrote:

What the sam diggity ^%*^ are you two on about?

You might want to check the date of this thread. :wink:

It has been necroed from the dead by a newbie. iamnotaparakeet has not been here in a very long time.

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fueledbycoffee
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26 Jun 2013, 10:39 am

TallyMan wrote:

fueledbycoffee wrote:

What the sam diggity ^%*^ are you two on about?

You might want to check the date of this thread. :wink:

It has been necroed from the dead by a newbie. iamnotaparakeet has not been here in a very long time.

Ah, thank you kindly. Did not notice. Gotta love thread necros.

ruveyn
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26 Jun 2013, 1:15 pm

The legal owner of any asset has the right to give it to anyone of his choice for free, if he so wishes. Ownership implies the right of disposition. It its yours and you want to give it away, then give it away.

If the item given away is competitive with items for sale or lease then it is no wonder that the purveyors of proprietary items get a tad pissed off. No one will buy their stuff if they can get something better for free.

ruveyn

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26 Jun 2013, 3:19 pm

fueledbycoffee wrote:

Open source is not socialist. It's not anti-capitalist, either. What it is is a somewhat anarchic subculture that is anti-current-capitalism. IE, it stands against huge multinational monopolies that have formed as a result of semi-Socialist corporate protectionist arrangements by the US government. It allows small-time entrepreneurs to compete, by giving them the means to do so, if they bring know-how to the table. Not socialist in the least. In fact, it's the essence of classical capitalism.

So you are saying open source is capitalism because entrepreneurs can exploit the content? Capitalists are the ones who restrict, in a real free market everything would be up for grabs. Open source content is for everyone, and communism is as free as a market can get.

fueledbycoffee
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26 Jun 2013, 4:04 pm

RushKing wrote:

fueledbycoffee wrote:

Open source allows people to alter, code, and come up with some really sweet stuff and market it. It's democratic, but it's not communist. Creative Commons on the other hand.

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26 Jun 2013, 5:41 pm

Hey, let us all have freedom to do everything we'd like !

But Mario misunderstood that freedom and thought "So I can make other people my slaves! Great!".

Since Mario was the only one abusing his freedom in this way, at the end, everyone (except Mario) was not actually free.

So we changed our mind, and we decided to allow everyone to have freedom, and in order to do that, you sort of have to remove the "freedom" to make others your slaves.

thewags05 wrote:

NeantHumain wrote:

Enlighten me, what are the differences between the GPL License and the "GNU license" ?

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