Open Source advocates are often embarrassed at the suggestion
that their favorite type of software may be a socialistic
phenomenon.
Though they protest, many secretly fear it may be true. The
sharing aspect of Open Source, its emphasis on community and its
availability free of charge certainly sound like some form of
Socialism. And Open Source doesn't lend itself easily to
commercial exploitation. Is it anti-capitalist, then?
The recent pronouncements by Microsoft executives, that there is
no value in "free" and that it is impossible to make money by
giving away the very thing that is of value, ring true. It would
indeed be dreadful to discover that Open Source is
anti-capitalist, wouldn't it?
Many advocates of Open Source fervently hope for companies
offering Linux-related services to finally turn profits and prove
that there is a business model behind Open Source, but such a
prospect doesn't seem likely in the near term.
In any case, that's a roundabout way to establish Open Source's
capitalist credentials.
A Capital Idea
The fundamental principles of capitalism are laid out very
clearly by that hardcore ideologue, Ayn Rand. So we should be
able to determine objectively (her favorite word) whether Open
Source, especially GPL-ed software, is opposed to the capitalist
system.
In each of the following sections, we will look at Rand's view on
a particular concept and see how it compares with the state of
Open Source and the GPL. That should tell us where Open Source
stands with respect to capitalism -- or at least establish
"objectively" whether it is friend or foe.
The Wealth of OSs
"Wealth is the result of man's ability to think applied to the
sphere of production and trade. Reason, ultimately, is the source
of all wealth."
"Fundamentally, wealth is the product of man's mind -- and
belongs to each man to the extent that he created it."
"Wealth belongs to the individual who produced it."
Ayn Rand never wrote about software in her lifetime, but she
surely would have recognized it as wealth. Indeed, if Rand were
to write "The Fountainhead" today, her hero might very well be a
programmer rather than an architect. Nothing epitomizes
individual human creativity as well as software, being the
product of pure mind.
It is probably also safe to assume from her writings that Rand
would have considered software to rightfully belong to the
programmers who wrote it.
Hot Property
"Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of
individual rights, including property rights, in which all
property is privately owned."
Ayn Rand believed that there is no such thing as "public
property." What is commonly referred to as such is the private
property of a government.
She would probably have had no use for "public domain" software,
treating it as wealth without an owner. However, Open Source
software, including all of GPL-ed software, is copyrighted by its
authors, and hence is not "public domain" but clearly privately
owned.
Not only that, since the software is owned by none other than its
creators, Ayn Rand would have had no argument at all with the
property ownership aspect of Open Source.
Heir Apparent "The right to dispose of one's income belongs to the producer,
and if he wishes to give it to an heir, a charity, or to flush it
down the toilet -- that is the producer's right. It is not any of
your concern, and it certainly is not the concern of the
government."
Rand clearly believed that the producer of wealth alone had the
right to determine what to do with it, and stated this belief in
no uncertain terms.
When we say today that the author of a piece of software gets to
choose the license under which to release it, we are echoing
Rand.
License To ...
A programmer may release his or her work under a commercial
license or an Open Source license, such as the BSD license or the
GPL. We may all have our individual preferences for one or
another, but as Rand admonishes, the producer alone has the right
to decide how to dispose of his or her creation.
Therefore, Rand would have had nothing to say against programmers
choosing to release their software under the GPL of their own
free will.
Trading Places
"Free competition is the freedom to produce, and the freedom to
trade what one has produced, for one's own self-interest, i.e.,
in the pursuit of one's own happiness."
Rand also wrote that under capitalism, one may obtain property
from other people in only one way: by voluntary consent of the
other. Rand said that by banning the initiation of physical
force, capitalism leaves only one way for people to deal with
each other -- through trade, which Rand termed "the highest form
of voluntary social cooperation."
Rand was implacable in her opposition to the use of force for any
purpose but self-defense. She believed that capitalism is based
on individual rights, free will and free choice, not force or
fraud.
What would the capitalist view of the general public license
(GPL) license be?
The GPL is by no means a coercive or deceptive license. It
clearly states the rights and obligations of any party who
accepts its terms. It offers access to the intellectual wealth
created by a producer, for a certain consideration.
The consideration is that any derived works that are publicly
distributed must also be made available under the same
terms. This consideration may seem strange, but stranger
contracts have been known to exist, which are legally valid and
defensible.
The important thing is, there is nothing in the terms of the GPL
that is illegal, coercive or deceptive. If the terms of the GPL
are unacceptable to any party, those people are at liberty to
walk away. However, once they agree to the license, they are
bound by its terms and cannot renege on the deal.
Of Contract Bondage
Indeed, our archetype capitalist, Ayn Rand, believed that one of
the legitimate functions of a government is to enforce contracts.
So far from Rand considering the GPL an evil socialistic
phenomenon, it seems very likely from her writings that she would
have seen nothing in it contrary to the principles of
capitalism. Under the GPL, there are creators owning their
creations, deciding without coercion what to do with it, and
entering into voluntary agreements with other free individuals to
use and improve their work for mutual benefit.
The GPL is a textbook example of the enlightened self-interest
that capitalism talks about. It is clearly a way to increase
wealth, not to destroy it, and therefore it is objectively good.
The Money Train
And what about making money? Does Open Source fail the capitalism
test on that point? I'd say not as a matter of principle.
Rand always talked about "wealth" rather than money. She
recognized that there are many different forms of wealth created
by the humans for their enjoyment.
In that view, Rand remains light years ahead of today's
self-styled capitalists who see the capitalist system as a system
designed to make money.
No Status Quo
"How does capitalism differ from statism?
Statism is the opposite of capitalism.
According to Rand, only capitalism declares that each and every
person has a right to live his own life and pursue his own
happiness. Rand wrote that men live not by permission of others,
but by right, and that the role of government is to protect that
liberty right because it is inalienable.
Rand believed that individuals must be free to carry out trade
with other individuals based on free will. She also identified
forces that seek to prevent the functioning of such a free system
and called them "statist," because they are enemies of progress.
Since the GPL works according to principles approved of by this
capitalist ideal, those who seek to have it outlawed are
attempting to interfere with individual freedom. They are
therefore statist -- and the real enemies of capitalism. Thus,
when software giant Microsoft talks about the need to educate
policy makers about the "threat" from Open Source, it is posing a
statist threat to capitalist values.
No Guarantee
Supporters of Open Source need not be embarrassed if no
corporation makes money from Open Source. Capitalism does not
guarantee corporations a profit, and Open Source does not need
"proof" of its capitalist credentials.
What is important is that Open Source works exactly according to
the principles of capitalism. While many corporations may make
significantly less money due to the disruptive effect of Open
Source, Open Source will continue to create wealth for its
creators to enjoy and to share with everyone of their own free
will.
And that is the ultimate measure of its value.
References
1. Capitalism - "The Unknown Ideal," Ayn Rand (New American Library 1967).
2. Capitalism.org, a Web site devoted to the philosophy of Ayn Rand
Ganesh Prasad is a strong supporter of Linux and Open Source
software. He considers himself a capitalist in the broadest
sense, because he believes that wealth is potentially limitless
and must be sought to be maximized. He also believes that
individual wealth is maximized when everyone is wealthy, because
of the greater variety and abundance of things to trade, and so
it is in the long-term self-interest of everyone to work towards
increased global wealth.
Ganesh offers permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software
Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and
no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is available at
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.
Interested in submitting a Community Column or a letter to the editor for publication on
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reserve the right to edit submissions.
Capitalism is based on property ownership and competing businesses. Free software provides both. Some people think free software goes against the principal of propert ownership. However, if I buy a CD at the store, intellectual property says I don't have ownership rights of a CD. If I did, I could do anything with it I wanted to. Without the bizarre intellectual property game, I own what I buy. Period.
I have only one thing I want to add: For many creators, the most important recognition is respect for their achievement, not money. However, we would all be much better off if gifted people are able to pursue their creations without being diverted by more mundane concerns about how they will house their families and send their children to college.
We need to find sustainable business models that will encourage a reasonable compensation for developers of open source software. This is not a matter of getting venture capitalists rich, because that's not a realistic outcome. Instead, we need business models that will make it attractive for investors to support the development of software they need and will use, thereby sharing the cost of development. Such businesses could employ many creative people to develop software. But they would not make anyone fabulously rich, only comfortable. However, we all would be much richer for their results.
Re: Excellent Article! > We need to find sustainable business models that will encourage a reasonable
> compensation for developers of open source software.
Some of those sustainable business models already exist:
* Perl is supported by the publisher who makes money from Perl books.
* GCC and the Win32 port of many GNU tools is supported by Cygnus/RedHat who sell support/consulting services
* Various open source initiatives have been supported by Sun make their OS more standard/enhanced.
* Apache has been supported by IBM, Sun, and others for their own reasons
These business models have been around for *years* and they show no signs of disappearing anytime soon.
One business model that's often overlooked isn't really a business model. Companies that depends on software that they don't want to specialize in creating (e.g. a software company that doesn't want to create a custom installation package) will often contribute to an existing open source project that specializes in that area (e.g. RPM) because it saves them the money and resources it develop an inhouse solution. They contribute to the main stream of development because the don't want to keep patching their software against the new versions or because they want those features to be a defacto standard.
Ayn Rand had a moment in the sun and it faded... for good reasons. Now we have an evaluation based upon what hardly rises to the Wealth of Nations. What next? All software being compared to Existentialism... it just had to be that way? Hang your head in shame!!!
Whatever merit this article had is lost on two points. One the idea that that Ayn Rand is the quintessential spokes person for capitalism and second that this is totally Microsoft's argument. To attempt to tie a license of apolitical philosophy like GNU/open source to a political philosophy is folly. MS has already won this arguement if we are in defense mode.
For those not grokking... Capitalism is about capital and wealth. Capital wrt software is inextricably tied to the model of selling the software. In the case of MS shrinkwrapped and monopolized in a way that resembles the criminal element more than true free enterprise. If you are concerned about software vendor's capital then please note they have been falling away to one significant vendor for years. If MS was not cooking their books it would be clear that it is no longer even a viable model for them.
Now as a business person you need to consider cost, quality and the long term security of being able to be serviced by your software. For these reasons open source is attractive for capitalists. But there is another reason. Because the mission of MS is to suck as much capital out of us as they can, elimiate competition and choice (very anti capitalist) and lock us in without regard for our welfare... it behooves those who love capitalism to avoid MS whenver practical or possible. Expecially given it's notorious history with issues of security, efficiency and reliability. It also gives business the possiblity to be more competitive with lower overhead than their denser competitors who are busy rebooting. (Sheesh like this is hard to figure out)
Here is an argument that does not say "no we're not communists" but says "If you're buying Microsoft you are not supporting capitalist ideals as well as with open source". Why pussyfoot around?
To hold up Ayn Rand as the "archtypical capitalist" will get you laughed out of most serious philosophy and economics classes. Ayn Rand doesn't even have an entry in my Dictionary of Philosophy.
Someone else noted the quasi-religious aspects of Objectivism... it is nowhere exposed more forcefully than in Micheal Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things", in the chapter "The Most Unlikely Cult".
This author is missing the point entirely. The GPL isn't about economics: people who claim the GPL is socialist are wrong, just as people who claim the GPL is capitalist are wrong: you are comparing apples and oranges.
The GPL is all about freedom: it is a *political* idea, not an economic one. To even engage in the "is the RMS a communist" debate is to engage in a sea of red herrings. You might attempt to argue the connection between the political ideals of individual freedom and the economics of capitalism, but that's a broader issue and quite beside the point of the GPL.
It's a shame to see Ganesh waste his time on such specious arguments: his past articles have certainly lived up to his namesake for the "god of wisdom", but I think this one was wasted effort.
Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher Someone else noted the quasi-religious aspects of Objectivism... it is nowhere exposed more forcefully than in Micheal Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things", in the chapter "The Most Unlikely Cult".
Great, I read _years_ ago an article about a similar thing about some of the shenigans AR was up to with an ex-lover and other nasty stuff. I think it was when Wollershiem(sp?) was running the FACTnet as a 100% ftp site[back when mosiac roamed the earth and 14.4 was broadband]. I went out to try and find it again, but failed.
Nice to see other skeptics around. ;)
--- Myddrin GLIMS Project -- glims.sourceforge.net Panda Thumb -- sourceforge.net/projects/ptmb
Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher > This author is missing the point entirely.
The author is not missing the point at all. It's a lovely demonstration: Take the most ridiculously extreme exponent of free market philosophy. Show that even that extreme point of view is consistent in its tenets with free software. It should follow that less extreme free market points of view would also be consistent with free software. Has nothing to do with whether Ayn Rand's views are *correct*, or even sensible.
> The GPL isn't about economics:
The GPL is about political economy. People's insistence on separating the two leads to ridiculous statements.
> people who claim the GPL is socialist are wrong, just as people who claim the GPL is capitalist are wrong: you are comparing apples and oranges.
>
Prasad didn't claim that the GPL *was* capitalist, if I remember the article right. Prasad claimed that free software was *consistent* with Ayn Rand's philosophy, which he took as a radically capitalist one (near as I can make out, so did Ayn Rand). It's an interesting thought experiment--one shouldn't read too much into it.
> The GPL is all about freedom:
True.
> it is a *political* idea, not an economic one.
The two generally go together.
> To even engage in the "is the RMS a communist" debate is to engage in a sea of red herrings.
Ah! Let me see . . . the GPL is a political idea, so it's inappropriate to discuss it in the same breath as communism or socialism, because they are purely economic ideas, with no political component? Something wrong with this picture somewhere.
> You might attempt to argue the connection between the political ideals of individual freedom and the economics of capitalism, but that's a broader issue and quite beside the point of the GPL.
>
Admittedly capitalism seems to be only partly in the same playing field as socialism, communism, or the GPL. Part of that is only seeming, I think--there is a political ideology, perhaps more than one, associated with capitalism.
Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher Ayn Rand is irrelevant to Free Software, at least the type of freedom that the GPL is hoping to advance. In political philosophy, there is always this tension between "positive" liberty, which is the freedom TO do what one wants (read: opportunity), and "negative" liberty, which is the freedom FROM coercion. Ayn Rand and the extreme libertarians are clearly advocates of negative liberty at the expense of all other values. "Statism" is really just another word for coercion. What little I've read of her efforts at philosophy was truly horrible, and not worth anyone's time.
Even though there is an element of negative freedom in the GPL, it is mostly about the freedom TO see the source, the freedom TO modify it and the freedom TO redistribute it: i.e. positive freedom. There ARE restrictions in the GPL, the most notable of which is that you may not redistribute the software, except under the GPL. You MUST make the source code available. A true libertarian would see that as a form of coercion.
In short, it's a different kind of freedom that the GPL is trying to protect.
Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher Take the most ridiculously extreme exponent of free market philosophy. Show that even that extreme point of view is consistent in its tenets with free software...
That's an interesting slant that I must admit I didn't get when reading the article, but I can see it now.
The GPL is about political economy. People's insistence on separating the two leads to ridiculous statements.
I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean by "political economy"
Prasad didn't claim that the GPL *was* capitalist, if I remember the article right.
I interpolated that from the concluding paragraphs.... perhaps incorrectly, but I don't think so.
The two [politics and economics] generally go together.
Sure, but not in the case of the GPL.
the GPL is a political idea, so it's inappropriate to discuss it in the same breath as communism or socialism, because they are purely economic ideas, with no political component?
The GPL doesn't entail any sort of economics. Except for the reasonable cost limitation for charging for the media on which source code would be transferred, economics isn't even touched on in any meaningful way in the GPL.
Perhaps "RMS is a communist debate" wasn't quite what I meant: rather, it's more like "RMS wants everything to be free (gratis)", which is spurious.
I think I'm a "true" Libertarian (whatever that means!), but I don't see any coercion... the "restrictions" are there to *promote* the GPL, and it makes things fair.
"Even though there is an element of negative freedom in the GPL, it is mostly about the freedom TO see the source, the freedom TO modify it and the freedom TO redistribute it: i.e. positive freedom. There ARE restrictions in the GPL, the most notable of which is that you may not redistribute the software, except under the GPL. You MUST make the source code available. A true libertarian would see that as a form of coercion. "
No libertarian or Objectivist would see this as a form of coercion, since nothing is forcing you to make use of the program in the first place.
As for positive and negative liberty, what the heck are you babbling about? Objectivists (AFAIK) both believe in that the limit of your rights end at the
point of violating someone elses. There is the notion of properly defined individual rights being "negative", in that they do not require violating someone else's rights to be practiced. For example, the not so negative right to a certain amount of free schooling requires others be taxed to pay for it, but that doesn't seem to be what you are talking about.
Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher > In political philosophy, there is always this tension between "positive" liberty, which is the freedom TO do what one wants (read: opportunity), and "negative" liberty, which is the freedom FROM coercion.
I am not a political philosopher, so I am at a disadvantage. However, I cannot see a meaningful difference. It is much like free speech. It incorporates both the right to make a statement and the right not to make a statement you find abhorrant. In the realm and to the degree that you are coerced, you are unable to exercise the positive freedom to take advantage of opportunities you seek.
Good stuff for grad students and professors to talk over so that they can feel like Masters of the Universe, I suppose.
Re: Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher >> You MUST make the source code available. A true libertarian would see that as >>a form of coercion. "
>
> No libertarian or Objectivist would see this as a form of coercion, since nothing is forcing you to make use of the program in the first place.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The major premise of libertarianism is: "I have an inate right to do whatever I want and no one should be allowed to interfere." The GPL clearly interferes whenever someone wishes to proprietize GPL'd software. The type of freedom afforded by the GPL is mostly an ENABLING one.
>
> As for positive and negative liberty, what the heck are you babbling about? >Objectivists (AFAIK) both believe in that the limit of your rights end at the
> point of violating someone elses.
"Positive liberty" and "negative liberty" are terms commonly used in contemporary political philosophy (well, at least in the Anglo-American world). If you had read anything by, say, Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, Robert Nozick (to name a few), you would have encountered the terms on a regular basis. In fact, much of contemporary political philosophy revolves around the reconciliation of the two ideals.
Re: Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher > > In political philosophy, there is always this tension between "positive" liberty, which is the freedom TO do what one wants (read: opportunity), and "negative" liberty, which is the freedom FROM coercion.
>
> I am not a political philosopher, so I am at a disadvantage. However, I cannot see a meaningful difference. It is much like free speech. It incorporates both the right to make a statement and the right not to make a statement you find abhorrant. In the realm and to the degree that you are coerced, you are unable to exercise the positive freedom to take advantage of opportunities you seek.
>
It's not that hard to understand. Consider the difference between (1) your freedom to speak your mind without anyone trying to silence you, and (2) your freedom to go to the public library and read the information contained in those books.
Re: Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher > The GPL is about political economy. People's insistence on separating the two leads to ridiculous statements.
>
> I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean by "political economy"
>
It's an old term, fallen out of favour over the last few decades. It was once considered odd to study "economics" in isolation, as it were, from the political environment. The two areas of study were considered to be intertwined, and were taught and written about as such. There was a lot more descriptive work looking at conditions in places and trying to explain them, a lot less mathematics. Regulatory environment, industrial policy, "intellectual property" laws, culture all have an impact on the economy. The legal methods available for organizing firms make a difference. So do labour laws. So do the methods available for licensing software, such as the GPL. Its intent is political, but its results are surely both economic and political.
>
> the GPL is a political idea, so it's inappropriate to discuss it in the same breath as communism or socialism, because they are purely economic ideas, with no political component?
>
> Perhaps I wasn't clear ("Brevis esso laboro, Obscurus fio" -- Horace).
>
> The GPL doesn't entail any sort of economics. Except for the reasonable cost limitation for charging for the media on which source code would be transferred, economics isn't even touched on in any meaningful way in the GPL.
>
> Perhaps "RMS is a communist debate" wasn't quite what I meant: rather, it's more like "RMS wants everything to be free (gratis)", which is spurious.
>
> Hopefully that's at least slightly more clear :)
>
Ah! Yes, I see what you're getting at. Quite true--the "RMS wants everything to be free (gratis)" pseudothesis is spurious.
Re: Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher > > In political philosophy, there is always this tension between "positive" liberty, which is the freedom TO do what one wants (read: opportunity), and "negative" liberty, which is the freedom FROM coercion.
>
> I am not a political philosopher, so I am at a disadvantage. However, I cannot see a meaningful difference.
I think he misspoke. I have generally seen discussion of positive and negative *rights*, but freedom is generally considered a negative right. A right to education would be a positive one. The right to own property would be a positive right if it meant you were actually guaranteed some (forty acres and a mule)--in practise when people talk about this they mean, basically, the negative right not to have it expropriated without compensation. I think that is a meaningful difference, and it's often helped structure discussions about leftish and rightish ideas. Freedom of speech is a negative right--they aren't giving you the *ability* to speak, you can already do that. They're guaranteeing that you won't be tossed in jail for doing so, and maybe that if someone tries to coerce you into not talking they'll intervene. Some of the stuff the GPL gives you is positive--they guarantee you a look at the source code if you want it. You can't do that at all if the source code isn't handed over, so handing over the source code is something the distributor has to do for you. Some is negative--the right to make changes. Nobody can stop you from making changes to source code if you have it, but they can say they'll prosecute you if you do. GPL hands over the negative right to make changes by guaranteeing that nobody'll come after you for doing it.
IMHO, a just society requires some of both kinds. And for a free society to remain, in practise, free, negative rights will generally not be sufficient in the long term.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher > Wrong, wrong, wrong. The major premise of libertarianism is: "I have an inate right to do whatever I want and no one should be allowed to interfere."
A rather interesting statement to make, given the list of authors you provided. Are you caricaturing for effect or do you really believe that?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher > > > In political philosophy, there is always this tension between "positive" liberty, which is the freedom TO do what one wants (read: opportunity), and "negative" liberty, which is the freedom FROM coercion.
> >
> > I am not a political philosopher, so I am at a disadvantage. However, I cannot see a meaningful difference.
>
> I think he misspoke.
I most certainly did not. It is quite the norm to speak of "positive" and "negative" liberty in political philosophy.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosopher > >> You MUST make the source code available. A true libertarian would see that as >>a form of coercion. "
> >
> > No libertarian or Objectivist would see this as a form of coercion, since nothing is forcing you to make use of the program in the first place.
>
> Wrong, wrong, wrong. The major premise of libertarianism is: "I have an
> inate right to do whatever I want and no one should be allowed to interfere."
Perhaps that is some sort of extreme "by the strictest letter of the meaning of the word" libertarianism, but that certainly is *not* the view of people (myself included) who call themselves libertarian. No libertarian, for example, would claim the inate right to be able kill you and no one should be allowed to interfere.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ayn Rand the pseudo-philosophe > > > > In political philosophy, there is always this tension between "positive" liberty, which is the freedom TO do what one wants (read: opportunity), and "negative" liberty, which is the freedom FROM coercion.
> > >
> > > I am not a political philosopher, so I am at a disadvantage. However, I cannot see a meaningful difference.
> >
> > I think he misspoke.
>
> I most certainly did not. It is quite the norm to speak of "positive" and "negative" liberty in political philosophy.
>
I stand corrected; I can see from your own further posts that you have some knowledge of these matters.
Free Software has his origins in the scientific world and since many centuries it's quite common to share the knowledge in that world. You know, parts of that knowlegde are teached to people when they enter school and later on college.
Parts of the business world try to monopolize knowledge so everyone must buy it from these capitalists or invent the wheel himself. Take this literally, if possible _greedy_ businessmen would try to patent genes, music, painting, film, business patents and software. Oh, they do that already ?
All will have to make their own choise, as I have done already. I feel better in the scientific environment than between _greedy_ businessmen.
In the book she makes a strong assertion that 5% of people are the creative force that drives everything and most everyone else is pretty much catching a free ride (at least partially) on their creativity.
In her book that 5% of people (or less) basically escape and form their own community leaving the rest of the country / world(?) to collapse without their guiding hand...
That is how I see the current explosion of Open Source software. (Except that Open Source / Free Software community is big enough to allow those without a large amount of capital and/or skill to participate as well.)
Re: Atlas Shrugged... In her book that 5% of people (or less) basically escape and form their own community leaving the rest of the country / world(?) to collapse without their guiding hand...
That is how I see the current explosion of Open Source software.
I honestly fail to see the connection. RMS and company didn't pull up stakes and go hide out in the hills of Montana to write software and "pull the rug out" from everyone else.
Missing the point of open source I think that instead of shunning anything that doesn't fit into the capitalist philosophy, people need to realize that the success of open source software stands as evidence that non-capitalist, non-statist governments can work. A socialist government would be the perfect environment for opensource software to flourish, as well as productivity, culture and the arts. OSS shows that people don't need private property as a motivation for work.
So, in essence, open source software is anti-capitalistic philosophically (a good thing in my book for many reasons), but nothing in Libertarian philosophy would prevent some one from giving their property to the public good.
Socialism bugaboo and US Socialism is a political philosophy that has only partial overlap with capitalism. Capitalism is only partly a political philosophy. I say this because I believe that money is not the lynchpin of all political an philisophical activity that people may engage in. When people call Linux and Free Software "socialist" it seems that what they really want to imply is that free software/Linux is "communist". Saying that free software/linux is communist sounds too stupid, so the term socialist is used. This argument works particularly well in the US, where the Democratic party is considered "left wing" and anything left of that is "socialist" (i.e. easy to write off). If we continue to separate the economic and political/liberty ideals of free software, just as Mr. Stallman does, we should be OK. We should not ourselves fall into the trap of mixing up economics and individual freedom; nor should we frame our arguments only in American terms. This latter pitfall will impoverish both the range of discussion in the free software movement and its traction outside the US.
Re: Socialism bugaboo and US Ian, I have in turned myself equated the open-source community and projects as comparative to socialistic idealism. Inwhich case it is, it is very true to leftist ideal(why the gpl is cometimes called the 'copyleft'). I understand where your post is coming from, however I think your contigency to disagree with this philosophy is developed not entirely on your end but those perhaps that you have disagreed with. Socialism and capatalism are in essence litteral opposites and neither(at the soul of their ideology) are inductive to any sort of politcal form/rights/economic systems. They are definitions of property at thier heart and soul. The interperations of these property definitions make the basis for which peoples philosophy are founded. They deal more typically with property on a widescale and this is where they have become "what people have made them". I am not arguing for or against capatalism/socialism(both as an idea or realistic applcation) as I believe they both have their places. I do however find the open-source/socialism comparison most deeply interesting. It is often something quite tangible that can be called upon in examples and discussion(as I have many times). But the ideas of voluntary cooperation and that ideas create the basis for which property can be formed(they are not property themselves) are entirely proclaimed socialist and open-source ideals. This does not mean the linux is a call to "overthrow capatalism" or anything else absurd. It is simply a fact and one that is quite interesting within itself(no matter how deep you take it).
Nice to see. Its nice to see this perspective finally presented. I'm a big fan of Ayn Rand. There is nothing wrong with capitalism. Sadly, it’s shunned at most universities for the wrong reasons.
Free Software is often based on a persons'
needs, and the desire to share those end
results with others. With the GPL, others
are permitted to embrace and extend (in what
most of us on this forum feel is in a moral
and ethical way) the code/program. However
we're not allowed to extinguish, unlike a
certain unnamed company.
Keep in mind that a lot of the programs written
under the GPL are written by those hobbyists,
code hackers, high school and college students
and even professional programmers who may have
that ''itch to scratch.'' Just because they elect
to give their source code and program away does
in no way make them anti-Capitalism; any more than
a person volunteering their time and energy to a
charitable organization in whatever way their
talents allow.
I'm sure they are aware of the other licenses
available.
In short: I view the GPL as the ''Great Equalizer''
in the present unbalanced situation by certain
overbloated, monopolistic corporation that feeds on
everyone else. The GPL has the capability to allow
other companies (specifically hardware companies
and some select software companies who will view
'software as a service in' in a legit way) to share
in this great redistribution of wealth.
Thus Free Software can, in fact; allow for programmers,
support personnel, and hardware manufacturers to fully
particpate in Capitalsim and put food on the table.
Re: Capitalism=Food on your table? You're right on. Unfortunately, American capitialism has become tainted. Companies compete less for the favour of the consumer and more for the favour of the government to provide various legislative advantages.
GPL (the "great equalizer" as you call it) to the rescue! I have worked for many years as a contract programmer for major corporations. Once inside the company, I have the advantage of all of the software that has been previously written to interface with various systems, and as a base for all new development. It's an ok living, but between the 30% or more of my earnings taken by the human resources agencies and another 30% or more taken in taxes, I don't even get to keep the majority of what I earn. Because of Linux and other open source software, I can now enjoy the advantage of an excellent code base for any projects I take outside the huge "corporate / human resources agency" structure. I can provide clients an architecture and services for a greatly reduced cost to me. It gives the advantage back to the independent contractor and an opportunity to keep more of what we earn.
As Ayn Rand believed that one had a right to all of the fruits on one's labour, I can't help but think than Ayn Rand would have been a fan of the independent contractor.
Re: Nice to see. > Its nice to see this perspective finally presented. I'm a big fan of Ayn Rand. There is nothing wrong with capitalism. Sadly, it’s shunned at most universities for the wrong reasons.
That's largely because it is also advocated for the wrong reasons--or, to put it a different way, because little about capitalism as it exists and is practised in the world has much to do with capitalism as it is envisioned by Ayn Rand and free/competitive market theorists. Like communism, capitalism might be a nice system but it's never been tried. Communism's never been tried because its success would depend on counterfactual ideas about human nature. Capitalism's never been tried for the same reason, and also because the market theories depend on counterfactual ideas about a whole bunch of other things (e.g. economies of scale, transaction costs, the nature of information, the existence of future time . . . )
Read Adam Smith, not Ayn Rand According to Adam Smith, wealth comes from efficiency and trade. His example was steam power. Steam power helped create the British Empire because the stream engine could do the work of a hundred men. Wealth gets created from the continuing drive to efficiency. If I can produce a good for less cost, than I make more money, and my customers save some money too. A side effect of the stream engine was that clothing, food and books became cheap, while unskilled laborers could get factory jobs instead of spending years learning a guild trade.
Almost every manufactured thing has been patented at one time. If we lived in Ayn Rand's world, there would be very little progress, as we there would be no knowledge in the public domain. The fact is that every day we use the "intellectual property" of five thousand years of civilization. The founders of the USA recognized that for the good of society and progress, that patents and copyrights would be limited. Would Howard Rork been able to create a new steel alloy if he had to hire a team of layers to fight a company like Rambus, who would own all rights to Calculus and Differential Equeations? Is it communist or socialist that all this knowledge exists, yet no one can put a cash value on it?
It seems to be this idea of monetary value that causes people to call the GNU GPL a communist idea. Free Software is not much different than the use of any public domain knowledge. Free Software is like Newton's Calculus, it's the knowledge that will drive the next industrial revolution.
GPL Software is an infinite public resource. We should call it Hilbert's GNU Hotel.
Re: Rubbish In all fairness, some of Rand's conclusions were ... somewhat colored by her personality ... and open software is not in any way based on Objectivism. However, GPL code (for example) is indeed compatible with the principles of Objectivism in as far as no coercion (force) is used to get you either to use or contribute to the code base. Does this matter? Probably only to an objectivist.
Before people get too huffy I'd like to point out that I've seen Ganesh Prasad articles and comments before, and he clearly is *not* an Ayn Rand proponent--heck, I don't think he's even a capitalist. His previous commentaries have struck me as quite leftish.
This is an interesting thought experiment, nothing more and nothing less--testing the *theoretical* ideas of as rabid a right-winger as could be found, and judging whether they accommodate free software. No advocacy of Ayn Rand is contained in the article. I think that Ayn Rand was a fool, and that her ideas contain major problems. But it's a cool article.
Capitalism != Libertarianism This is why am a capitalist. Thank you for the excellent elucidation
of these great old principles from which so many have strayed.
There is one point that needs expansion. Unlimited contract and
oppression are also statist tools. Many libertarians have adopted such
disgraceful values and distorted the ideology away from freedom. For
this reason, I can no longer consider myself as "libertarian", and the
word no longer has any meaning to me.
Ayn Rand Rubbish It's very sad to see the entanglement of free software with every kookie political movement. IMHO, one doesn't get much kookier than Ayn Rand.
I'm a very political animal, but I try to divest my technical and business opinions of my politics. But this article goes too far. I abhor Rand. The principles of free software have absolutely nothing to do with Ayn Rand.
Glad to see this article Like it or not, the free software movement has already been politicized.
Microsoft is calling it communism, and the Aynd Rand Institute has aligned
itself with Microsoft. So I'm glad to see this article as a counterbalance
to that.
I've read Rand, and I was never very successful at predicting what position
she would take on any given issue. So I have no idea if this article is
correct. I don't go through life asking myself what she would say about this
or that. I'm satisfied that there is nothing morally or ethically or
politically reprehensible about free software. It's flourishing on a totally
voluntary basis in the midst of a society that, if not ideal, is as free as
it gets. To me personally, there is nothing more liberating than the act of
sitting down and reading the source code for the Linux kernel. To say there's
nothing wrong with it is to say far too little.
Re: Re: Ayn Rand Rubbish > Thank you for offering no reason for disliking Rand -- and therefore discrediting your opinion.
You're most welcome. I don't have to give a reason.
The mixing of free software with petty politics is what I object to. Whether it's Randism, communism, libertarianism, or whatever-ism. I dislike Rand Rubbish just as I dislike Communism-rubbish, socialist-rubbish, etc.
The construction of software via peer-review is a non-political process. Let's keep it that way.
Geez... There are some good arguments supporting and killing this article, but I think everybody's missing the point. The GPL isn't capitalist or socialist, communist, or any other political system. Sure, there are traces of all of them, and you can read the angle you like best, such as free sharing/socialist, or charging/capitalism, but the most important thing about the GPL is that it isn't something you can jam into a narrow, one-sided, definition to suit your own needs.
Just like life. None of us is purely socialist, capitalist, or communist. Anyone that says they are is lying. We share with some people out of kindness, others we charge, and others we regretfully give our help to support a larger cause.
Why we waste time arguing this is beyond me. The GPL allows artists (software coders definitely deserve the title) to share their work with the world, while not restricting them to any particular way of doing so. Proprietary systems wish they had that kind of freedom.
Linux=Science not communism Open source is like science, it's open for verification and testing. Is science bad for capitalism. The GPL is very similar to the original American declarations. Are they communist?
It's about freedom, baby! I never really thought about how important Richard Stallman and the GPL were. But come to think of it, if it weren't for the GPL, Linux would be like BSD.
Also, try running Linux without gcc, glibc, gunzip, and many other contributions GNU.
Basically, you can't run Linux without gcc.
It's about freedom, baby! Freeeedom!
Freedom to make money, freedom to add contribution, freedom to take out code you don't like, freedom keep my changes private....
GPL, BSD, Proprietary I suppose the only thing one might conclude with certainty is that Rand would've supported any licensing scheme that the software creator/owner decided was in his/her best interest...BSD, GPL, or other. In _The_Fountainhead_,Roark did much of Keating's work and wasn't paid or even recognized for it...and he didn't care...well, except that he blew up a building when 'they' modified his work. Hmm, would that be an example BSD or GPL license?
Um, hello... RedHat just broke even... ...and claims to be profitable in the current quarter. Read financial news much? What is it with online 'journalists' nowadays?
"Many advocates of Open Source fervently hope for companies offering Linux-related services to finally turn profits and prove that there is a business model behind Open Source, but such a prospect doesn't seem likely in the near term."
LUG's We see everybody at the LUG's, anarchist to comitted (big, greedy) corporate emploees.
Our weekly clinic is the only place where I've ever seen a gleeful Republican discussing Clinton with an equally gleeful Black Block anarchist, then going on to figure out why X won't configure on the anarchist's computer.
So what do pierced punks, tie-dyed naked hippies, suited businessmen, reversed Nike cap wearing workers, and even others have in common that they support Free software?
Can the Intellectual Commons, the Public Domain, really be defended against the sequestering of knowledge as Intellectual Property?
People are curious, they often want to know how things work, treat their computers as puzzles to be solved, and some of them just happen to find solving the puzzles created by those who want to divide the Intellectual Commons into Intellectual Property a fascinating challenge.
For some extremely bright people, if it's this much fun, it's got to be good.
Whoever controls the code controls the computer, and the spread of Free software shows that people and corporations find it most useful to gain the greatest control possible over their own data, and resist having the data on their computers become someone else's Intellectual Property.
Finding Free Software challenging Intellectual Property is not an unintended consequence of the GPL.
Atlas Sucked Ayn Rand is a 3rd rate philosopher and her followers are the kind of folks that know just enough big words to be dangerous. That said, I'll have to admit that I'm an anarchist. I started using linux due to my attraction to the political aspects of the GPL. I quickly learned that "politically correct" is not the reason to choose an OS (but stability certainly is!). Soon, I realized that every time I booted into Windoze, I felt constrained-- and bored. I also realized the point of linux, and all other OSS software. It's not to justify this economic philosophy or that (apologies to RMS), and it's not necessarily to make money. It's about having fun and making Software That Doesn't Suck(tm).
The GPL is altruism in the computer world, and I think it is just as altruistic as any other form of alleged altruism. I am very much a christian socialist, and also a capitalist - I don't believe the two are in any way incompatible, and just in case you haven't guessed, I'm also a European (that unusual breed - a pro-Europe Englishman).
Think Dawkins, and "The Selfish Gene". It is to my mind extremely easy to show that altruism - acting to benefit those around you - actively improves the overall wellbeing of everyone including oneself. The best position to be in is to be a cheat in a society of altruists. If it's "everyone for themselves" then the average "well-off-ness" is low. Altruism raises this level quite noticeably. If you can then cheat in an altruistic society, your personal well-off-ness goes to the top of the scale.
Unfortunately, Capitalism as currently practised in Western society is run by the cheats for the cheats - we have a problem! And that is also one of the reasons the GPL is somewhat unpopular - the people complaining most are the cheats who do not like the fact that the GPL demands they be "altruistic" if they wish to benefit from what it offers.
So, bearing in mind that "Socialist" is perfectly acceptable in Europe (and to my mind perfectly compatible with "Capitalist"), I personally would say that the GPL is very much a socialist document. But I'm probably using those words with a very different slant to what the majority of my readers will understand...
What's the difference? In a communist system everything is owned by the state. in many places, especially the USA, things are rapidly heading in the direction of everything owned by large corporate entities. To most people any difference between the two is rather academic
So what? It's odd how so many people with technical training, who recognize that
any design is a series of tradeoffs and cost-benefit calculations, abandon
this pragmatist philosophy when they start to think about politics.
Given a bunch of knobs that can be set from 0% to 100%, no engineer would
assume that the optimal solution would be to set all the knobs either to
0 or to 100, or to insist on finding one knob that can be set to 100 while
all other knobs are set to zero. Life's a tradeoff, things work better
when you take some of this and some of that.
But no, when techies think about politics, too many of them are attracted
to quasi-religious programs like that of Ayn Rand. What's so wrong about
Rand is her insistence on purity, on her wrong-headed notion that a simple
set of postulates give all the answers. It's just Karl Marx flipped around,
therefore equally wrong.
In reality, free software has some aspects of socialism and some aspects of
capitalism, and some that have no analogs in convential political-economic
theory. But some are so terrified of one or more of these words that this
is very threatening and they have to deny it. Even "socialism" and "capitalism"
include very different systems: for "capitalism" are we talking about Adam
Smith's nation of shopkeepers or today's world of mega-corporations whose
lobbiests write most of the laws in the US? For "socialism" do we mean the
humane and democratic form practiced in Scandinavia today, or the totalitarian,
murderous cult of personality of Stalin's Soviet Union? In practice, every
decent society practices a mixture of systems and sets the tradeoffs differently.
Re: So what? > It's odd how so many people with technical training, who recognize that
> any design is a series of tradeoffs and cost-benefit calculations, abandon
> this pragmatist philosophy when they start to think about politics.
> Given a bunch of knobs that can be set from 0% to 100%, no engineer would
> assume that the optimal solution would be to set all the knobs either to
> 0 or to 100, or to insist on finding one knob that can be set to 100 while
> all other knobs are set to zero. Life's a tradeoff, things work better
> when you take some of this and some of that.
>
> But no, when techies think about politics, too many of them are attracted
> to quasi-religious programs like that of Ayn Rand. What's so wrong about
> Rand is her insistence on purity, on her wrong-headed notion that a simple
> set of postulates give all the answers. It's just Karl Marx flipped around,
> therefore equally wrong.
>
> In reality, free software has some aspects of socialism and some aspects of
> capitalism, and some that have no analogs in convential political-economic
> theory. But some are so terrified of one or more of these words that this
> is very threatening and they have to deny it. Even "socialism" and "capitalism"
> include very different systems: for "capitalism" are we talking about Adam
> Smith's nation of shopkeepers or today's world of mega-corporations whose
> lobbiests write most of the laws in the US? For "socialism" do we mean the
> humane and democratic form practiced in Scandinavia today, or the totalitarian,
> murderous cult of personality of Stalin's Soviet Union? In practice, every
> decent society practices a mixture of systems and sets the tradeoffs differently.
>
I concur. It's been said that communism doesn't work, but captialism has no soul. The latter was clearly illustrated by the failure of the Soviet Union whereas current American Capitalism, with it's ability to buy whatever advantage is needed from the politicians, is a fine example of the latter. The latter most certainly is not what was meant by Ayn Rand's vision of pure capitalism. whereas open source software certainly fits Rand's definition, as Prasad so eloquently argues.
Communism: You write the program, the state appropriates it for its own use, the leadership lives high on the hog, the you get a pittance and may shot if you complain. American Capitalism: you write a program, your boss takes it for his/her own use and lives high on the hog. You get a pittance but you are allowed to complain and even seek a new job in the same field. However, the boss's pricey lawyers convinces the courts that you know too many company secrets to be employed in your chosen field again, especially if he/she has bought off enough politicians with campaign donations to get the playing field tilted sharply in his/her favor. Somehow that scenario doesn't fit the definition of capitalism I learned in economics class.
Captialism is dead ? Lets see,,
As long as our efforts and hardwork are a source of profit to the privilaged few, we are patriotic capitialist.
But if we dare to decide to produce something and freely share it with others, depriving the privilaged few of their profits, again from our work and efforts, the we are socialist.
Sounds like more propoganda from the whining "privilaged few"
Long live OpenSource and the GPL
Re: Captialism is dead ? Do you really believe that there is anyone out there that would work for free?? Are you thinking properly? By open sourcing a project effectively increases a companies R&D staff by thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of people! Red hat broke even last quarter and expects to turn a profit next. Why do you think that is? They are not selling Linux! Linux is not a product!! The service behind Linux is! Remember the way Gillette got big? Give away the razor and sell the blades. Well, give away the OS, and sell the tech support, machines, books, etc. How is that in any way not capitalist?
Capitalism vs. Stock valuation.... It's ironic that most people claiming capitalist philosophy as thier own tend to look at the stock value of a company (price earnings ratios etc.) in determining the value of its products. I refer to the stock market as the fraud market exactly because it goes against so many of the fundamental priciples of capitalism and results in nothing more than a wealth transfer model.
The Dtocom phenomenon was a prime example of this. We saw many Dotcom's with valuations approaching $100 billion (in some cases even exceeding this mark). The assumption was that thier products must then be worth the stock valuation. Eventually reality happened. People lost thier shirts, because they ignored the value proposition inherent in capitalism.
> While wealth = money isn't quite true, wealth != money is even less true.
Ganesh and Dean, I gotta disagree with both of you. Wealth is not money--money is a *symbol* of wealth. A vault full of Bill Gates' greenbacks would have little value in a nuclear winter (except its value if you burn it for heat).
Who was it that said something has intrinsic value only if you can use it to keep warm, eat it, or f**k it?
Capitalism != Free Enterprise Although I am not an expert, I would classify Capitalism as the rule of money and as such, opposed to free enterprise. I belive the uS was established to provide for the latter. Both right and left wings miss the point, too much power concetrated in *any* one place is dangerous. Corporations are persons in the eyes of the law, they are created by contract, they insultate stockholders from the liability of their actions for which they would otherwise be held accountalble. I doubt billg@microsoft.com would have been able to create his wealth as a single man, without his corporation.
The GPL affords protection of freemen (FBD) to be free from exploitation from other protected entities.
Re: Capitalism != Free Enterprise >Both right and left wings miss the point, too much power concetrated in *any* one place is dangerous.
I suspect you'd find, if you looked at the beliefs of the current left wing as instantiated by all those weirdos protesting at conferences, that they have not in fact missed that point. Now in the old days, it may have been true.
Re: Capitalism != Free Enterprise > Although I am not an expert, I would classify Capitalism as the rule of money and as such, opposed to free enterprise. I belive the uS was established to provide for the latter. Both right and left wings miss the point, too much power concetrated in *any* one place is dangerous. Corporations are persons in the eyes of the law, they are created by contract, they insultate stockholders from the liability of their actions for which they would otherwise be held accountalble. I doubt billg@microsoft.com would have been able to create his wealth as a single man, without his corporation.
davec,
No offense, but you think the right wing "misses the point" because you've listened to too much left wing propaganda telling you that the right wing only cares about the interests of large corporations. It is true that large corporations benefit from right wing goals, but then so do small corporations and individuals. Right wing goals are motivated by general ideas of right and wrong and for the preservation of individual rights; there is an honest attempt to reach goals without preference to any group. Left wing goals are motivated by an attempt provide common good with the understanding that that involves trampling on individual rights and always involves giving special treament to one group at the expense of another. If large corporations like the right wing then it is because they fear damage caused by left wing policy. Many large corporations like left wing policy when it provides them with an unfair advantage.
You aren't suggesting corporations are inherently evil because they have self-interest are you? Self-interest isn't evil, but taking the rights or property of another by force for whoever's interest is. The system of government spelled out in the US Constitution clearly states that the US government exists to protect individual rights and self interest--not collective rights or group interests as other governments attempt to protect. Please read Ayn Rand's Virtue of Selfishness for a better understanding.
Yes, corporate law can prevent some individuals in the group from being held accountable for their individual actions, but why would you want an individual to be accountable for the actions of a group? Corporate law ensures that the group pays for group crimes. In a market economy, is it any less of a group crime simply because that the group is organized to allow one individual to make major decisions? For example, citizens of the US are responsible for the actions of the US President, and citizens ultimately hold the President accountable for his actions.
Microsoft, under billg@microsoft.com, compensated individuals for their time an effort. Microsoft profited greatly by attracting and maintaining talent through equitable relationships. It was obviously so, otherwise persons would have applied their talent elsewhere--perhaps as many are now doing with Linux. Bill Gates deserves every penney he earned even if it was earned by gambling on the talents of others.
In my book capitalism is the opposite of free enterprise. Capitalism is the accumulation of wealth, trying to create monopilies as a monopoly is much more profitable that free enterprise. Just watch large corporations swallow smaller ones, effectively eliminating competition. That is NOT free enterprise.
Capitalism is not about creating value, it's about control through ownership. It may be that Rand has another definition of the word, but that just means we need a word for this control through ownership.
Given Rand's definition of capitalism, USA is not a capitalist nation as USA constantly uses it's military forces to force other nations to accept USA's rules.
Re: Re: Capitalism != Free Enterprise >> Both right and left wings miss the point, too much power concetrated in *any* one place is dangerous.
>
> No offense, but you think the right wing "misses the point" because you've listened to too much left wing propaganda telling you that the right wing only cares about the interests of large corporations.
OK, that's got me going. Epistle follows:
Well, it depends. It's true that most of the actual *people* who espouse and vote for right wing candidates and ideas care about the interests of real people. However, what the actual decision-makers do with those votes in hand is omething else again. As far as we left-wingers are concerned, right wing *people* are basically people who haven't taken a sufficiently long and hard look at what is going on, and who have not thought sufficiently about the implications of things like media structure. The right wing is a lot like cigarettes: There are corporations who are selling stuff that will kill people. Their executives don't give a damn about those people and will do whatever they can to keep on selling the stuff and keep those people in the dark about the fact that they're victims. And then there are a whole lot of people who, up until recently, had no idea how bad the stuff was for you. That's the right wing rank and file, and we really hope that someday they find out what they're being sold.
> It is true that large corporations benefit from right wing goals, but then so do small corporations
Sometimes. The regulatory environment that helps large corporations is not always the same as what will help small ones. Most specifically, the regulatory environment that helps transnational corporations is often not the same one that would help domestic-only corporations.
> and individuals.
Well, obviously we lefties dispute that.
> Right wing goals are motivated by general ideas of right and wrong
At the rank and file level, sort of true. But then left wing goals are too; it might be truer to say that the goals of each side are motivated by a subset of general ideas of right and wrong (subsets with substantial overlaps)
> and for the preservation of individual rights;
That's true enough as far as it goes. Although the right wing has in actual practise abrogated lots of individual rights, mainly in pursuit of the war on drugs, although also in the way they deal with protest and in a number of other contexts. Leaving that aside, there are still difficulties with saying "you have the same rights as anybody else, but we will put lots of practical roadblocks in the way of your ever actually exercizing any of them".
> there is an honest attempt to reach goals without preference to any group.
Um. I dunno. Again, I think the rank and file may have this in mind, but that's not what the leadership have in mind.
> Left wing goals are motivated by an attempt provide common good with the understanding that that involves trampling on individual rights and always involves giving special treament to one group at the expense of another.
This is a gross distortion. Depending on what you mean by "group". Just at the moment, in North America particularly, I have no problem with "soaking the rich" because of the simple fact that the share of wealth and income owned by the upper 1% has soared to a ridiculous degree over the last 20 years.
If large corporations like the right wing then it is because they fear damage caused by left wing policy. Many large corporations like left wing policy when it provides them with an unfair advantage.
>
> You aren't suggesting corporations are inherently evil because they have self-interest are you?
Corporations aren't inherently evil. They're *not people*! They are *not moral agents of any sort*. I am suggesting that different structures are prone to different outcomes. I object to the corporate structure for essentially the same reason we *both* object to a USSR-style economy: it inevitably leads to control by, and aggrandizement of, a very few at the expense of both the freedom and well-being of the many. I am also suggesting that the idea that democracy is incredibly important, *until* we step through our employer's door at which point it is completely unimportant, is wrong. Democracy stays important no matter where you are; corporate structure is profoundly undemocratic. For as long as it remains an important part of the fabric of our lives, the corporate structure needs to have firm regulations to rein in its tendencies. Ultimately, it would be better if most production were done instead by worker-owned co-ops, an equally dynamic but much more democratic structure.
> Self-interest isn't evil,
No. However, the belief that everyone being solely self-interested in a narrow way will inevitably lead to good things is flawed. Adam Smith was firmly of the opinion that for this to work, a moral society with a strong fabric, and the right set of rules to play by, were essential. The modern right wing seeks to say that a society run solely by self-interest with no social cohesion and no controls is a good thing.
> but taking the rights or property of another by force for whoever's interest is.
Like both the police and the IRS are currently empowered to do, because of right wing pressures? And I'm not even talking about "taxation is theft" here--all the IRS have to do is *allege* with no evidence that your assets may have something to do with a crime, and they can just take them. Same goes for the cops--in many jurisdictions now, they claim your goods are drug-related and they can seize everything you have; not only that, the police department gets to keep the proceeds, and they never have to so much as give you a day in court. It's become a major addition to the budgetary bottom line in many places; nice scam if you can get away with it.
> The system of government spelled out in the US Constitution clearly states that the US government exists to protect individual rights and self interest--not collective rights or group interests as other governments attempt to protect.
Hmmm . . . I'm not entirely sure it's quite as clear as that. And, for that matter, I believe we're talking about safeguards against arbitrary authority, not safeguards against collective rights or group interests. But ultimately, who cares what system of government was spelled out in the US Constitution? To the extent that they were right, they were right. To the extent that they were wrong, or their ideas no longer apply, they were wrong or their ideas no longer apply. That's why it's been amended a bunch of times. This is a document that was designed by great men, yes, but they were also mostly major landowners. I'm not one, neither is anyone I know; our interests are not theirs.
>
> Yes, corporate law can prevent some individuals in the group from being held accountable for their individual actions, but why would you want an individual to be accountable for the actions of a group?
Because he owns the company? Because without some form of individual accountability, terrible crimes can be committed in the knowledge that nobody will have to pay? Because it's not good enough for the people responsible to say "Ve vere chust followingk orders!" Frankly I'm amazed. You're all big on individual rights being much more important than group rights. (And for that matter, I agree--individual rights are highly important, and they are not opposed to group rights, they are the foundation of them. The moment individual rights and group rights seem in opposition, it's time to take a long hard look at the situation.) Presumably this goes with a belief in individual responsibility. Yet the moment the group is a corporation, then group rights are important and individuals don't need either rights or responsibility.
> Corporate law ensures that the group pays for group crimes.
If only it did. Corporate law seems usually to ensure that the richest group wins. That is rarely the individual consumer.
> In a market economy, is it any less of a group crime simply because that the group is organized to allow one individual to make major decisions?
Ahem: Yes! It is a crime by the individual who made the decision. Hello!
> For example, citizens of the US are responsible for the actions of the US President
Say what? So the entire U.S. citizenship bears responsibility for Watergate, despite the fact that it was illegal, that they didn't know Nixon was doing it, that most of them didn't vote for him, that they would have said "No! Don't do that, it's wrong!" if asked, that the ones who *did* vote for him mostly wouldn't have if they had known what he was going to do? This makes no sense whatsoever.
>
> Microsoft, under billg@microsoft.com, compensated individuals for their time an effort. Microsoft profited greatly by attracting and maintaining talent through equitable relationships. It was obviously so, otherwise persons would have applied their talent elsewhere--perhaps as many are now doing with Linux. Bill Gates deserves every penney he earned even if it was earned by gambling on the talents of others.
Every penny? It is true that Microsoft (and indeed most software companies--computer people are quite insulated from the real world of employment) treats its employees quite well. The consumers is another question. But does he really deserve all those massive wads of cash for successfully ramming his OS down our throats? Did he personally really add more value to the world than he took out? How much money does cleverness, ruthlessness in buying or suppressing competition, and willingness to gamble some in the early days actually merit? A comfortable lifestyle, sure. Enough cash to buy a small country outright? Is Bill Gates such a wonderful, amazing, superhuman person that he deserves that? I strongly doubt it. Even at that, he has a better claim on his millions than many. Lots of CEOs make millions while managing their companies into the toilet. Do they deserve them? I think the answer is clear. And lots of people inherit their wealth, and get richer basically by waving a finger at their accountant and saying "make it so". Do they deserve it? Now the question of whether it's OK to take it all away is a very different one; I'm not at all sure it is, whether they deserves it or not. Not until they die, anyway--strong inheritance taxes are good. Although it's certainly OK to charge them a premium in taxes for being in a position to benefit so greatly from the system. But the question of whether it would be better if structures were formed such that things didn't get that unequal in the first place is a different one--I think it would.
Re: Re: Re: Capitalism != Free Enterprise As far as we left-wingers are concerned, right wing *people* are basically people who haven't taken a sufficiently long and hard look at what is going on, and who have not thought sufficiently about the implications of things like media structure. The right wing is a lot like cigarettes: There are corporations who are selling stuff that will kill people.
Rufus,
As a card carrying member of the left wing who has given time and money to many left wing causes, I have to say: I don't think it would be possible for me to disagree more.
I think that most of the right wingers* are intelligent people who approach the world from a distinctly different world view. They have different conclusions becuase they make different assumptions about the world around them. Most of them have very well thought out arguements as to why they are right, they start from a different starting point.
It's a mistake (IMHO) to paint the "opposition" with such a broad brush becuase in doing so it's very easy to forget that we really are on the same team with one goal "Making society work."
--- Myddrin GLIMS Project -- glims.sourceforge.net Panda Thumb -- sourceforge.net/projects/ptmb
*I am excluding of course hate groups which often get placed (by liberals) as part of the right wing. (Actually they are on a different axises altoghether, as hate can easily transcend traditional political affliations.) I'm also excluding the knee-jerk conservatives (just as I hope our esteemed friends on the other side would exclude knee-jerk liberals when discussing us).
Re: Re: Re: Capitalism != Free Enterprise > Well, it depends. It's true that most of the actual *people* who espouse and vote for right wing candidates and ideas care about the interests of real people. However, what the actual decision-makers do with those votes in hand is omething else again.
True as far as it goes, Rufus. But you perhaps miss the point that for both left and right wing *politicians*, the only issue that matters is power (including money).
> As far as we left-wingers are concerned, right wing *people* are basically people who haven't taken a sufficiently long and hard look at what is going on, and who have not thought sufficiently about the implications of things like media structure.
Funny, right-wingers think basically the same thing about left-wingers. Hmmm...
Reasonable people can have honest disagreements; just because someone sees things differently doesn't mean they haven't thought about the issues as long and hard as you have.
> > Right wing goals are motivated by general ideas of right and wrong
> At the rank and file level, sort of true. But then left wing goals are too;
That's not been my experience with left wing people. Perhaps it's just that I know a different set of liberals than you do. (Clinton was certainly devoid of any moral sense of right & wrong.)
> in North America particularly, I have no problem with "soaking the rich"
The problem with that is too many people define "rich" as anyone who has a job that pays more than minimum wage.
>
> Corporations aren't inherently evil. They're *not people*! They are *not moral agents of any sort*.
Does it surprise you that this conservative agrees with you 100% on this point?
> The modern right wing seeks to say that a society run solely by self-interest with no social cohesion and no controls is a good thing.
>
Now come on, Rufus. Do you really believe that? I'm fiscally right wing (although not right wing in regards to some other matters), and I firmly believe in reasonable controls on businesses. Try not to paint all conservatives with the same brush, okay?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Capitalism != Free Enterprise > I think that most of the right wingers* are intelligent people who approach the world from a distinctly different world view. They have different conclusions becuase they make different assumptions about the world around them.
Most is a big number. I would say the vast majority of Republican voters are not the careful theorists you describe. This is the 'rank and file' I described, who are smoking what they've been sold. And even the thoughtful people generally paint interesting ideas of how things would be if their leaders practised the philosophy they espoused, but either acknowledge or try to ignore the fact that the leaders do not actually practise or legislate according to that philosophy. I suppose I was confusing two dichotomies.
>Most of them have very well thought out arguments as to why they are right, they start from a different starting point.
>
Well, even if you start from the utterly basic Libertarian "I should be absolutely free as long as my freedoms don't infringe on your freedom or wellbeing; my freedom to swing my fist ends at your nose" idea, with nothing else added, it has a lot of implications not normally considered part of Libertarian-ness. For instance, presumably it means factory owners are not allowed to fire their workers--my freedom to fire people ends at your unemployment. And it means stringent environmental regulations--my freedom to pollute ends at your bad water, asthma, etc. etc. And it means stringent safe workplace regulations--my freedom to arrange the workplace ends when it causes you injury. And it means strong fraud laws. And it means selling cigarettes is illegal. Taken literally and not restricted to the case of face-to-face confrontation, it means an awful lot of very leftist stuff. I'm not sure that the basic values are so different as all that--it's the directions that one is willing to explore those values that is different.
> It's a mistake (IMHO) to paint the "opposition" with such a broad brush because in doing so it's very easy to forget that we really are on the same team with one goal "Making society work."
>
Hum. I don't think I am doing that. I was trying to draw a distinction between those with the power to make things happen, who call themselves rightist (and who have no interest in making society work, or in rightist ideas that don't serve their purposes), and those who put them in power, who also call themselves rightist but are sincere and sincerely hold ideas I take to be mistaken. I suggest that often the latter do not support, and are actually victimized by, the actual agendas of the former--but they aren't told about that part.
> *I am excluding of course hate groups which often get placed (by liberals) as part of the right wing. (Actually they are on a different axises altoghether, as hate can easily transcend traditional political affliations.)
While I agree with you in theory, in North America there is a very considerable confluence in fact between ultra-right politics and hate groups. The two have a longstanding history of common membership and alliance. This gives liberals a strong reason to make such a placement, at least around here. In, say, Eastern Europe, I reckon it's quite different.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Capitalism != Free Enterprise Well said! As a card carrying member of the right wing, I salute you for a reasoned and intelligent talkback. If only all left-right dialogs could be of this nature...
>
> Rufus,
> As a card carrying member of the left wing who has given time and money to many left wing causes, I have to say: I don't think it would be possible for me to disagree more.
>
> I think that most of the right wingers* are intelligent people who approach the world from a distinctly different world view. They have different conclusions becuase they make different assumptions about the world around them. Most of them have very well thought out arguements as to why they are right, they start from a different starting point.
>
> It's a mistake (IMHO) to paint the "opposition" with such a broad brush becuase in doing so it's very easy to forget that we really are on the same team with one goal "Making society work."
>
> ---
> Myddrin
> GLIMS Project -- glims.sourceforge.net
> Panda Thumb -- sourceforge.net/projects/ptmb
>
> *I am excluding of course hate groups which often get placed (by liberals) as part of the right wing. (Actually they are on a different axises altoghether, as hate can easily transcend traditional political affliations.) I'm also excluding the knee-jerk conservatives (just as I hope our esteemed friends on the other side would exclude knee-jerk liberals when discussing us).
Re: Re: Re: Re: Capitalism != Free Enterprise > True as far as it goes, Rufus. But you perhaps miss the point that for both left and right wing *politicians*, the only issue that matters is power (including money).
>
In the states, the only national left wing politician I'm aware of is Ralph Nader, who, while well off, spends most of his income on his public interest lobbying. The left wing movements currently forming don't really have much in the line of politicians in the normal sense, which may be a good thing.
> > As far as we left-wingers are concerned, right wing *people* are basically people who haven't taken a sufficiently long and hard look at what is going on, and who have not thought sufficiently about the implications of things like media structure.
>
> Funny, right-wingers think basically the same thing about left-wingers. Hmmm...
> Reasonable people can have honest disagreements; just because someone sees things differently doesn't mean they haven't thought about the issues as long and hard as you have.
>
True enough.
> > > Right wing goals are motivated by general ideas of right and wrong
> > At the rank and file level, sort of true. But then left wing goals are too;
>
> That's not been my experience with left wing people. Perhaps it's just that I know a different set of liberals than you do. (Clinton was certainly devoid of any moral sense of right & wrong.)
>
Hrrmmm . . . sounds like we're talking about an entirely different group. I would define U.S. liberals as "centrist"; centrism tends to be very pragmatic and so not motivated by deep principle. Clinton is certainly not left wing in any way, shape or form and I would never claim that he had any principles. It is currently impossible for left ideas to be talked about in major policy circles in the United States, and very difficult in Canada.
I would say that the real left wing in North America is the sort of people who go to/support antiglobalization rallies and so forth. The kind who develop indymedia sites. And many greens. Nearly all of those base their political ideas on ideas of right and wrong. Oddly, most of the principles they work from are very similar to right wing ones, but their conclusions are different. For instance, they are very big on freedom--but they see the threat to those freedoms as being transnational corporations as much as government. They are very big on democracy and noncoercion, to the extent that they build their large demonstrations explicitly on the actions of many self-selected "affinity groups" which are internally democratic and largely independent of one another. The nature of the movement is very varied, a patchwork of different autonomous local initiatives in a similar spirit, and most seem to consider that this is a very valuable trait. It's very much a bottom-up self-assembling network, operating in stark opposition to top-down hierarchy. So, I think the values are really surprisingly close to those of right wingers. But they also value co-operation a lot, which may be why there's a strong lefty component among pro-GPL people.
> > in North America particularly, I have no problem with "soaking the rich"
>
> The problem with that is too many people define "rich" as anyone who has a job that pays more than minimum wage.
> >
That would certainly be a major problem. Frankly, I don't think you even get into anything that can seriously be called a living wage until you're well above minimum wage.
> > Corporations aren't inherently evil. They're *not people*! They are *not moral agents of any sort*.
>
> Does it surprise you that this conservative agrees with you 100% on this point?
>
Not really. I wasn't so much taking issue with beliefs per se as clumsy language--people personify corporations too much, and it gives us the impression that we owe them something, that they are an end in themselves, like people, when in fact they are merely a means to an end.
> > The modern right wing seeks to say that a society run solely by self-interest with no social cohesion and no controls is a good thing.
> >
> Now come on, Rufus. Do you really believe that? I'm fiscally right wing (although not right wing in regards to some other matters), and I firmly believe in reasonable controls on businesses. Try not to paint all conservatives with the same brush, okay?
>
Not all conservatives espouse that, true. So I'm perfectly willing to accept that you're not one of those. But many of them do. And it is implicit in the positions taken by a number of others. The deregulation mantra implies that. Margaret Thatcher came right out and said "There's no such thing as society". It is implicit in the section of NAFTA that allows corporations to sue governments for any regulation or decision that infringes on their profits. Which, frankly, could be practically anything--environmental regulations, safety regulations, minimum wage laws, the list goes on. That says social decisions are unimportant, only monetary gain is important.
Still, I think the core values of true conservative thinkers are very similar to the core values of leftist thinkers, at least today. It's just a matter of which implications of those values are being explored.
> In the states, the only national left wing politician I'm aware of is Ralph Nader,
Your definiton of left wing politician is certainly different from mine. My point of view includes Clinton (both of 'em) & Gore.
>
> Hrrmmm . . . sounds like we're talking about an entirely different group. I would define U.S. liberals as "centrist";
You obviously don't know the same liberals I know ;-)
I frequently put the word "liberal" in quotes because many of them (that I've encountered) are certainly not liberal in the denotative sense of the word. Not allowing opposing views to be expressed on college campuses is a not uncommon practice by "liberals" in the States. I'm sure you're aware of similar coercive tactics practiced by such people. Not very liberal, in my view.
> which may be why there's a strong lefty component among pro-GPL people.
>
You're probably right, but there are still many conservatives, like me, who think the GPL is the neatest thing since sliced bread.
>
> Still, I think the core values of true conservative thinkers are very similar to the core values of leftist thinkers, at least today. It's just a matter of which implications of those values are being explored.
>
I suspect you're correct to some extent. I think reasonable, honest, and intelligent thinkers (conservative and liberal) desire to improve the lot of mankind. We just differ on the means of achieving the goal.
New "ism"? It is time for the economists and socialogists to create a new "ism" to
refer to a specific phenomena that is affecting all of us.
No - it is not the GPL or Open Source related social aspects that should fall
under this. Very clearly, these ideas are indeed capitalist. They celebrate
individual creativity, and provide a mechanism for their creativity to be exposed to the world. On the contrary, we hardly know who wrote a specific piece of code in many OSes, and whatever returns the people get back for their creativity, is insignificant compared to the inherent value. Our system has
the capability to produce a mechanism that will let the serious users of the free software to connect to the developers, and can easily enable a financing
model without the requirement of a big company infrastructure. We should thank
Ganesh for making it very clear to all the concerned.
The new "ism" can be explained this way: Any person has to depend on an infrastructure for his/her day-to-day living. The "dependencies" are sometimes
natural (for example, Oxygen), and sometimes created (For e.g. car). Direct
or indirect control over dependencies will definitely create a big market share.
The process of dependency creation is too slow for the people to understand.
If we look at history, control over physical territories by bigger political powers was common, and called Imperialism. Perhaps the political boundaries are
biggest dependencies for the people. On the same lines, we now find that our
day-to-day aspects are now controlled by bigger firms. This phenomena deserves some "ism" term of its own.
Once the dependencies are absolute, the companies that have the control can
choose to make whatever money they want to, because there is no connection
between the demand-supply situation and the money-making capability. Perhaps
this is what we are now seeing as part of the new licensing programs. More
interesting is the way of dependency creation - and even getting it accepted
by the people and other organizations, as if it is fact of life.
GPL is Communism In the industrial Age the key factor for making money was owning the means of production of goods,cars,etc. In the information age , the key factor for making money is information . It means software code, hardware design, formulas for medicines and many other cases. Communism tried to make all the means of production public. Now GPL is trying to make all the information public. Communism is back. Wake Up America!!
Re: GPL is Communism First things first, nice piece Ganesh! One can even argue that the open source idea is a trading model. Only, the currency is not money but other software. Or
it is indirect money (to please the economists who seem to believe nowadays that money making is the only stable economic model) since you can spend money on other products (not necessarily computing products) that deliver what is promised at a guaranteed level of quality (be it potentially limited in time). And that with some form of freedom of choice and for a reasonable market-driven price.
As to Charles, comparing the GPL to communism fails miserably : there is no central body claiming "ethical" authority and deciding on your behalf what's good for you and mankind. It's not because you use GPL'ed (derived) software, all software on your computer has to become GPL. It is a license just like any other license : when you agree to it, you must stick to it, otherwise don't agree and steer away from it. Period.
Capitalism Capitalism is not Free-Enterprise, Capitalism makes the Central Bank owner of all enterprise threw the use of interest; "usury". Over-production is the amount of paper in circulation is more than the amount of gold on hand. Underconsumption is the amount of paper in circualtion is less than the amount printed. A Cover term for inflation is venture capital. Socialism is impossible without Capitalism, Capitalism is impossible without inflation , and inflation is impossible without usury. A Gold standard wont work because it cannot keep up with the inflation cause by usury.
Neat Article... I'm not the biggest fan of Ayn Rand, but I do agree with some of her philosophy.
That said, I think Ganesh has created an interesting read here. I have been moving slowly towards the "capitalism sucks, death to capitalistic pigs!" viewpoint... but maybe it's just modern (greedy), American capitalism that I hate.
Ummmmmmmmmmm..... About this "wealth" thing.
I suppose you could define a nose full of drippings as wealth if you so desire.
While wealth = money isn't quite true, wealth != money is even less true. Money is a measuring stick, nothing more. It measures, however imperfectly, wealth.
While free software, as opposed to some of its proponents, is not anti-capitalist, it ain't pro-capitalist, either.
The discussion of charitable acts is spurious.
Free software isn't free software unless you give substantially all of the wealth in it away to society at large.
Incidentally -- what about all those free software types who claim that there is no such thing as intellectual property? In that case, the creator of a literary (or software) work has no ownership claim to what he produces.
Free Sofware may be un-capitalist, but it is not quite anti-capitalist because free software is not (RMS aside) not an all-or-nothing affair. It is possible to give some things away and sell others. It is possible to give away the last release while licensing the newest for profit, etc.
Many free software types have embraced IBM's presence in the community. Last I looked, IBM is a serious capitalist. They don't make their money from free software. They are, however, able to use free software as a tool in making money.
Incidentally -- what about all those free software types who claim that there is no such thing as intellectual property? In that case, the creator of a literary (or software) work has no ownership claim to what he produces.
(snip)
Wow, Dean, that 'lawyer think' must be hard to dislodge from the gray matter.
Slashdot had a recent story about the Homebuilders Association lawyers sending a nasty letter to a guy who posted PUBLIC law on his web site. Amazing! He has to pay hundred's of dollars to see or purchase a copy, but can't not quote it extensively for purposes of public discourse because of bogus "IP" and copyright laws. This is where the IP nonsense is heading if it is not checked by citizen actions. It is obvious that politicans, at least the lawyer types, have no interest in keeping public law public.
I repeat my previous comment about 'tangible vs. intangible'. If we don't keep this concept alive then we will be facing a future in which the use of languge is metered because someone has an "IP" copyright on it. Can't happen? Then explain in a way that makes sense in view of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Amendments. The 1st Amendment no longer protects free speech or freedom of religion in public places for certain groups, the 2nd Amendment no longer protects ownership and use of firearms (knives, clubs and forks to follow) in other places, and the number of places is constantly increasing .... the travesty continues. I find it strange that those who complain the most about 'nazi's in our mists behave most like them.
Re: Ummmmmmmmmmm..... >Free Sofware may be un-capitalist, but it is not quite anti-capitalist because free software is not (RMS aside) not an all-or-nothing affair.
It is too not an all-or-nothing affair!*grin* unintentional double negatives are fun...
> About this "wealth" thing.
> I suppose you could define a nose full of drippings as wealth if you so desire.
(I normally use analogies that are not gross)
Wealth is something that is of value to someone. I noticed the other day that Starbucks in Sydney is giving away *used* coffee powder in bags for use as compost. That's wealth, because it still has value for somebody, even though it's waste to the producer.
> While wealth = money isn't quite true, wealth != money is even less true.
Nobody said wealth != money. Don't put words into my mouth. Wealth includes, but is not limited to money.
>
> While free software, as opposed to some of its proponents, is not anti-capitalist, it ain't pro-capitalist, either.
>
Do you have a workable definition of Capitalism that I can use? For what it is worth, I used Ayn Rand's definition and showed that Free Software/Open Source is consistent with it. You need to define (1) what Capitalism is and (2) what it means to be "pro-capitalist" if mere conformance with the principles of Capitalism isn't enough for you.
> The discussion of charitable acts is spurious.
> Free software isn't free software unless you give substantially all of the wealth in it away to society at large.
I don't understand what "give it away" means in the context of Free Software/Open Source. The author still has complete access to the software, which is not the case when someone "gives away" physical goods. Besides, even though the software is freely available to everyone, each and every such individual uses it *under license*. The original author also gets back contributions that s/he can use, so it's not charity, it's enlightened self-interest.
>
> Incidentally -- what about all those free software types who claim that there is no such thing as intellectual property? In that case, the creator of a literary (or software) work has no ownership claim to what he produces.
>
Those opinions are moot, because the law happens to recognise intellectual property, and Free Software/Open Source does use the notion of copyright to allow authors to claim ownership of their work. This point is tangential to the article.
>
> Free Sofware may be un-capitalist, but it is not quite anti-capitalist because free software is not (RMS aside) not an all-or-nothing affair. It is possible to give some things away and sell others. It is possible to give away the last release while licensing the newest for profit, etc.
As I said, you have not explained what "un-capitalist" and "anti-capitalist" mean. My article shows Free Software/Open Source to be completely capitalist using an (admittedly hardline) definition of Capitalism. The onus is on you to disprove that with reasoned arguments.
I suspect you define Capitalism as the ability to make money. I see this thread in all your posts. That's why Open Source ties you up in knots. You like it but you aren't able to reconcile it with your limited mental model.
Re: Re: Ummmmmmmmmmm..... > Slashdot had a recent story about the Homebuilders Association lawyers sending a nasty letter to a guy who posted PUBLIC law on his web site. Amazing!
I agree.
In a way, it makes sense because the laws in question are essentially legal include files of privately published building codes.
However,
the information in those code books cannot be owned, especially if they are law.
I sincerely hope the Supremes will see the ludicrous nature of this.
Re: Re: Ummmmmmmmmmm..... >The 1st Amendment no longer protects free speech or freedom of religion in public places for certain groups, the 2nd Amendment no longer protects ownership and use of firearms (knives, clubs and forks to follow) in other places, and the number of places is constantly increasing .... the travesty continues. I find it strange that those who complain the most about 'nazi's in our mists behave most like them.
>
Have to agree with you there. Note that there is a sense of design in our loss of amendments (whether or not it's actually being engineered).
The 2nd amendment was the first to go, followed by the 1st, and more recently by the 4th. My prediction for the next to fall is the 6th. Read them carefully, think Orwell, and it should be obvious why I think the 6th is next in line.
Re: Re: Ummmmmmmmmmm..... > >Free Sofware may be un-capitalist, but it is not quite anti-capitalist because free software is not (RMS aside) not an all-or-nothing affair.
>
> It is too not an all-or-nothing affair!*grin* unintentional double negatives are fun...
Actually:
NOT (ALL OR NOTHING) == (NOT ALL) AND (NOT NOTHING) == (SOMETHING OR NOTHING) AND (SOMETHING OR ALL) == SOMETHING
So what you're saying is:
"It is too a something affair."
Re: Re: Re: Ummmmmmmmmmm..... "The 1st Amendment no longer protects free speech or freedom of religion in public places for certain groups, the 2nd Amendment no longer protects ownership and use of firearms (knives, clubs and forks to follow) in other places, and the number of places is constantly increasing .... the travesty continues. I find it strange that those who complain the most about 'nazi's in our mists behave most like them.
Have to agree with you there. Note that there is a sense of design in our loss of amendments (whether or not it's actually being engineered).
The 2nd amendment was the first to go, followed by the 1st, and more recently by the 4th. My prediction for the next to fall is the 6th. Read them carefully, think Orwell, and it should be obvious why I think the 6th is next in line."
I think the fact that 1,2 and 4 have fallen means 9 and 10 are already gone.
9 - The enumeration in the constitution of certian rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
10 - The powers not delegated to the United States or prohibited to it by the states are reserved for the states or the people.
It's not only the amendments that are falling to the way side.
Read Article 1 section 8.
Basicly to paraphrase Tomas Jefferson the judicary of this country will not rest until power has been vested into the federal goverment and such time, this nation's government will be worse than the one we seperated from. I took this as a predication of the fall of the 10th.
