Linux is capitalist!

[Craig White]

On Thu, 2006-05-18 at 17:45 -0700, Mike Schwartz wrote:
> On 5/18/06, Rod Heyd <rsheyd at gmail.com> wrote:
>         <more_rambling>
>         
>         Frankly, I've always felt the comparisons of open source to
>         communism show a distinct lack of understanding of the
>         environment from which the ideas of open source sprang.
>         
>         Richard Stallman is an academic and a computer scientist and
>         it is from within that environment that the methodology of
>         open source was developed.  As someone who has worked in the
>         field of the sciences, I can attest to the fact that
>         scientific progress occurs most efficiently when information
>         can be exchanged without any restrictions.  This is the whole
>         point of scientific journals, and the underlying motivation of
>         the "publish or perish" mantra in academia.  If you are a
>         researcher at a university and you aren't publishing your
>         work, then you aren't contributing and you don't deserve the
>         support of your institution. 
>         
>         Stallman adapted the methodology used for at least the last 3
>         centuries by the scientific community to the software
>         development world and called it open source.  There is nothing
>         inherently Marxist about that.  If people want to make such
>         comparisons, that's fine, but if they do so, they are missing
>         the point *and* failing to recognize that the ideas that open
>         source came from pre-date Marx by at least 200 hundred years,
>         probably longer.  Open source is not, nor was it ever intended
>         to be a model of a socio-economic system.  The point was to
>         generate better code that is available to everyone to improve
>         and extend, nothing more, and nothing less. 
>         
>         </more_rambling>
>         
>         Cheers,
>         
>         
>         Rod
>         
>         
>         
>         On 5/18/06, Victor Odhner <vodhner at cox.net> wrote:
>                 
>                 <ramble>
>                 
>                 Free Software does indeed have some strong
>                 resemblances 
>                 to classic Marxism.  What makes this possible, in the
>                 field of 
>                 software, is that a knowledge resource can be
>                 replicated
>                 indefinitely, so we can share something and still have
>                 it.
>                 Not so with physical resources:  it's always a
>                 trade-off.
>                 
>                 In the Marxist definition, Capitalism is also a
>                 central control 
>                 of the means of production, only it's for the sake of
>                 the Bad
>                 Guys, while State Socialism is for the sake of the
>                 Good
>                 Guys.  As Orwell said, all animals are equal, only
>                 some
>                 animals are more equal than others.  Owning things
>                 (or 
>                 managing them) gives us control, and people tend to
>                 like
>                 being "more equal than others".  But some
>                 concentration
>                 of power can lead to efficiencies ... within reason.
>                 An "owner" can be like Linus, or like Bill. 
>                 
>                 We are now seeing excessive concentration of power in
>                 the hands of corporations, which lots of people see as
>                 OK
>                 because they are providing us with bread and circuses.
>                 But the downside is getting more obvious, so I'm
>                 confident 
>                 the pendulum will swing, and Free Software is part of
>                 that.
>                 
>                 Constructive, generous, altruistic motives are a good
>                 thing.
>                 Selfish motives get a lot of stuff done too.  It's all
>                 about
>                 balance.
>                 
>                 </ramble>
> 
> 
> Umm, one small correction:
> > Stallman adapted [...] and called it open source. 
> 
> Nope.  What Stallman calls it, is "Free Software".
> Not only is "open source" not == "Free Software",
> but Stallman considers the difference to be important.
> He talks about it on some of the gnu project web pages -- see
>   http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
> In fact, his answer (more detailed than just 'no') to the question 
> "Is `Open Source' Synonymous With `Free Software'?".  
> is given in an essay entitled 
> << Why ``Free Software'' is better than ``Open Source'' >>
> at
>   http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
----
the terminology has shifted over time as there have been other 'free
software' licenses that are vastly different than GPL and so the
distinction being drawn over the terminology has changed but originally,
RMS was pushing the 'free software movement'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement

Thus you are technically correct as long as you ignore the past and
consider only the present definitions.

As for the political implications of the 'free software movement',
according to wikipedia, it's fairly clear that the issue was to combat
corporate greed - 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft#History
and I think it's fair to say that the Rod's connecting RMS's original
philosophy to one brought about by his scientific education is far more
apt than any political connection.

Craig