LinuxWorld: Stalin would be pleased [with proprietary software]

“Those who try to compare free software to communism have it
backwards. In fact, I’d say that proprietary software is
much more like communism than free software is, because the two
share the concept of strong, top-down central planning.”

“…if central planning could not help communist leaders
centrally manage the supply of mundane commodities like meat and
eggs, it is even less likely to help proprietary software companies
manage the design of their products in the fast-moving world of
high tech.”

“With intellectual property, it is vastly more complex (and thus
expensive) to produce to first unit than it is to produce any
subsequent unit. Once you’re gone through the trouble of coding
your program, it is relatively trivial to copy it… Once
intellectual property is created, it’s dead easy to replicate. It
was easy to replicate and ship intellectual property in the days
before the Internet; and it is much easier now…”

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