"About once a week a certain blogger stridently claims Open
Source is a Capitalist Movement! or Today, Open Source is
Commercial! and Open Source is About Capitalism, Not Freebies!
"In fact, the truth is more complicated. We'll get into the
economics of software and business to understand it.
"First, is business capitalistic? Well, sure, you'd say. But the
truth is that business rarely operates under a pure capitalist
model. And especially not now. Under such a model, a bankrupt or
uncompetitive business would be allowed, indeed encouraged, to die
in a sort of Social Darwinism.
"Yet one need only look at economic recovery schemes worldwide
to see that companies thought of as the epitome of capitalism just
last year are now only too eager to nurse at our collective
tax-funded teat, with the approval of their peers and millions of
smaller businesses worldwide.
"But business isn't only Communist when it's down. Business
requires a commons to operate. Public roads, and infrastructure in
general are the usual examples, but also the broader collection of
nearly everything that government does: providing a common
framework of law in which business can compete, keeping civil
order, providing education for the work force, funding research and
development."
