Open source and post-capitalistic society

"The example of that are patents. They are good for hardware, but are opposite of that for software."

Software runs on hardware and they are both very closely integrated. That statement above should definitely be revised, sir. They are not "good" for hardware.

I agree with both previous comments.

To the first one: Indeed, it is not about restricting one to be "too succesful", but it is leveling the field so that everyone has a fair chance to win. In an overregulated society we're in this is far from true. Sharing is helping other and helping others is helping the society in general while helping society in general means helping yourself - sharing is a "win-win" situation, however you put it.

For the second:

I agree. The article these comments are posted to has been revised for the very reason that there were some flaws in understanding in it cause maybe by lack of my research and therefore my knowledge.

But it's been more then seven months of me spuring the growth of libervis community here, months of numerous discussions, research, reading and continiously improving my understanding *through sharing* of expressions and opinions by which i have greatly benefited (improved understanding).

I now completely agree that patents are bad for hardware as well. Patents restrict the use of an idea to create upon it, no matter if it is software or patents. Copyright further restricts an information or expression, that is, content, from being shared and built upon - again having a deadly effect on the further positive development of our culture.

Thank you

"3. I build myself a house. It is my house, you have no right to it! I build myself a bicycle from raw materials, you have no right to it, it is mine. These are the rewards for my effort, and my labour. People do not have a right to it based on need! I write software. What I do with that software is my choice, it is the result of my effort, no one has rights to except me and who ever I decide I wish to share it with "under my terms" if you do not agree to those terms then I will not let you use *my* software that I created."

If you build yourself a house and you want to be private, and selfish, then you will probably never offer other people help on how to build the house. If you are here to live life to help other people then you would maybe even give your house to someone else once you figured out how to easily create another one. Or you could live in your current house and pretend that by "protecting" your house, somehow this is going to make world progress or in some way help other people (read: selfish or not?)

"To put monopolism into the context of the olympics I have included an extract from a paper by Robert S. Getman

Imagine an Olympics where--in an attempt to "level the playing field"--no athlete was allowed to score "too many" points or to win "unreasonably." Imagine, after the event, a winner being punished for having scored "too much"--punished, at the behest of his competitors. Imagine that the very definitions of "too much" and "unreasonable" were left to the whim of each referee. Such "rules" would not "level" the field--except in the sense of leveling it to rubble, rendering all the rules arbitrary and athletic achievement impossible."

Imagine an olympics where people were more interested in sharing with each other techniques and knowledge on how to improve their health and their results. Compete with yourself to become healthier. Why keep secrets such as using a certain brand of steroids to "win over" the other person or to receive a materialistic "gold medal that somehow helps me when I'm dead".

How about an olympics where people discussed what foods and techniques they used to obtain their results so they could improve many humans results instead of selfishly just a few? What harm would it be if everyone openly discussed how to improve their health and olympic times? Why is is better that one person gets slightly better results in the olympics by "hiding information"? To have a better coach than the next fellow or to have "better techhnique" than the next fellow in the olympics is selfish. To share information with a fellow so that he improves and you improve also, means more for both of you.

What whey powder mixes did one athlete use to gain better results? Why should this be kept secret if it will help humans? Why should only one human be "the winner" and how is this going to help anyone when this one person is dead?

How does this restriction of information in software and nonsoftware help people as a whole? It has nothing to do with communism or capitalism.. more about interest in helping people, or lack of interest. That and about being selfish or not.

A lot of the arguments in this thread are somewhat confused and contradictory but a good attempt to try to *think differently* which I think is always a good move.

I thought that checking out Hardt & Negri's book Multitude might help with some of the philosophical and economic arguments in the article and might even help explain what a post-capitalist society might look like.

And for those who make such swinging comments about the USSR and its economy - technically it was State Capitalism. This, as many theorists are starting to uncover is so similar to the way that Capitalism in the west works (i.e. based around industrialisation, large companies, forcing everyone to work for a living, using the political system to direct attention away from social issues etc). It is rather an uncanny thought.

I quite like Fredric Jameson's explanation that we have moved through market capitalism to monopoly capitalism and now finally we have arrived at multinational capitalism (also called late or postmodern capitalism). The world doesn't stand still though and I am sure there will be further upheaval and change.

:hum: :humeur:

I agree. Not only are the reasons for capitalism wrong but the growth history as well.

Take a listen to last weeks Linux show, where this article got a billing all of it's own... See what the Open Source experts think of this article. On the show this article got its very own slot!!

http://www.thelinuxshow.com/archives/lastweek.mp3

Oh... and BTW, the piece on this article starts about 60 minutes into the broadcast.

:yes:

Eh.. I am aware of that as i actually listened to it. And i am aware of that the article was rated very low and has actually been ridiculed. But to say the truth, i am not bothered as i myself don't believe it's a very high quality piece of work. I can openly and without shame say that this article was like a blunt shouting of my current thoughts and it was my first article of this kind that i ever wrote.

However, i have my freedom of speech and opinion, and even if most of people don't agree with me, or even if i am not right, that doesn't deny me to speak up. However, as a serious free software movement advocate and enthusiast, it is my responsibility to "clear this up", provide a better "explanation" and "clarification" of my views in order to prove my seriousness about the subject. That is why i am writing a new article on the same issue, only much much better researched, well thought off and probably of much better quality, you'd be the judge. The article will probably be finished by the end of the day (or night, here in Croatia) The prupose is to clarify the issue at it's best.

Thank you
Daniel

I don't think your comments are helpful in moving this debate forward.

I agree Stephan.

But consider that free/open source software movement would not be a revolution if it had nothing to fight against. It would be a common thing.

So, yes, the existence of Microsoft is a driving force as much as the cause is always a driving force for every movement. It is a normal thing.

NOTE TO EVERYONE: I am working on a complete revision of this rather controversal article where i will explain some of the arguments made in this article and my reasons for making them. I will also openly say where i think i was wrong and why, as well as express my current and definite views on the subject. The article's name would be similar to this, but not the same. I am doing this because i feel i havent' conveyed the right message the right way. I haven't succeeded in explaining the relation between free software movement and capitalism. In the revision, i will talk about the reason why so many people advocating free software (who included myself) feel against capitalism, and is that feeling well founded.

Thank you
Danijel Orsolic

>3. I build myself a house. It is my house, you have no right to it! >I build myself a bicycle from raw materials, you have no right to >it,

Hey, MacGiver ! And with Linux (free GPL software) you can create
an Operational System yourself !!!!

And you are free to give it for free or not !

> no one has rights to except me and who ever I decide I wish to >share it with "under my terms" if you do not agree to those >terms then I will not let you use *my* software that I created.

Hey, again ! So, I supose if you get the cure for Parkinson's disease in your hands you think you own the right to give it for who you think deserves it or no ? Hey, excuse me, I forgot: there are laws that block you to do it !

Monopoly is a menace to capitalism. Those guys who don't want to compete are a menace to capitalism.

Can you imagine a NBA with only one team ?

Please, excuse me by my horrible english

Let's consider this statement a moment:

"Look at the capitalistic giant, Microsoft! Imagine that there were no free software movement and open source.... THAT is the very proof of capitalism being simply too old and incompetent to handle the new technology of today properly, in the information age run by computers and software."

i believe that essentially false, for this reason: without Microsoft there would be no Open Source movement as we know it. As much as i hate it, a large number of Open Source programmers are driven solely by the fact that they are "fighting Microsoft." i've met developers who use Linux "because it is not from Microsoft." That is, IMO, a very misled reason to do ANYTHING, but it is indeed one of the underlying driving factors of the Open Source movement.

So, in short, without Microsoft there would be no Open Source movement.

----- stephan at s11n net

I don't believe that neither is really a good thing. It's therfore already been stated that what we actually need is neither the old or current capitalism nor the communism. What we need, for the IT industry at least, is a different kind of capitalism that will regulate software in a proper and more fair way. Free software movement is a role model to such system. Will one company own everything this way? Of course not. There will be both competitions and colaborations, depending on the scales of succes of certain free software business-es as well as the openess of their community's to colaborate. Similarily to what we have today in form of certain software projects being more structurized and organized in teams which are then opened to community as an organization accepting volonteer programers or being less structurized and more opened to the community having uncountable people working on a certai project. Or simply having an individual working alone, but opening the code and project to the community in order to get feedback and bug reports. There may be pretty much diversity's in how can businesses in free software world be formed.
Even today, we have succesful free software businesses such as RedHat, SuSE etc. Do the own or control "everything"? No! Their products are widely available for free, but they are still thriving because they always offer more than the one offering free copy of linux can offer.
So you see, free software kind of "capitalism" is definitely not capitalistic company nor communism party owning everything. It's far better then either of it. It's more open, not controling, not restricting and providing the neccesery freedoms.

Daniel

Interesting link.
I have some sympathy for libertarians like the author of that article, but there is one point where I don't agree. Pure unregulated capitalism is not the beginning of freedom but the end.
Pure capitalism will result in one company owning everything.
A company buying another company is not committing fraud, so this should be allowed. Bigger companies with a wider range of products have a stronger competitive position, attract more wealth, and can easier merge with even more companies.

One company owning everything or the communist party owning everything, what's the difference?

...so capitalism is good, but it needs to be restricted with antitrust laws and such. Capitalism is good, but pure capitalism isn't? Confusing.
The definition of socialism (very restricted capitalism + many public services) over here (NL) might be different from the one most people in the US use (weak form of communism?).

Indeed there is nothing wrong with the ideas "market" and "value".

I hope this makes me look a bit less like a crazy commie :smurf:

I agree with most of the things you say.

From the outside the US looks like a rotten corrupt place, but I have never been there so who am I...

I understand how that can be confusing. It can give a headache..

Here is one of the articles that made me see this. It seems that the fundamentals, or founding principles of capitalism are pretty much similar to the fundamentals of free software movement (there reffered to as "open source").
What i was trying to say is that it only cannot be properly applied to information technology (software), not in it's current, probably corrupt, form, nor in it's original form. Even if the founding principles were the same, the way of appliying those principles to information technology should be different. But proprietary software owners seem not to realize that treating software as they would treat any other product of raw materials. Software is in nature, an information and cannot be treated the same as raw material made products.

So, what we have here are these:
1.) The capitalism as an ideal founded on similar fundamental grounds to free software movement fundamental grounds.
2.) The capitalism of today, corrupt, therefore not reaching it's ultimate ideal. For example, in true capitalism, market and the state should be separated, but today, companies still use goverments to their advantage.
3.)Free software movement promoting a different social system which may actually be a capitalism, only one properly applied to information technology and valid only in the fields of IT industry. (could call thet the IT-capitalism)

Daniel

Well, that is true in a sense of doing or not doing certain activity. When you do nothing, you do nothing either wrong ot right. Whenever you take action, you take either a positive or negative one, according to your beliefs, knowledge and finally, your choice based on it.

Daniel Orsolic

If you look at something as true or false, or morally right or morally wrong, there is no middle ground. If you look at something as positive or negative, nothing is the middle ground. If I am deciding whether to eat pizza or tacos for dinner, either choice is morally right because it hurts no one, but neither choice is positive or negative.

I will let you get the last word in on this, as I am sure you are probably tired of me treating this as a blog. This will be my last comment. If anyone wants to debate my views or politics in general, please suggest a blog.

Rowdy

Okay.. you're maybe right there. there are some choices in life that are really no positive nor negative, at least in regard to the consequences to other people. But choosing between two meals may still be choosing between better or worse since one may be healthy for you, and one not that healthy. So even in these kinds of choice, there seems to be no in between.

But even if it would, i don't think it's true to say that every choice has it's "in between" or "third choice" what that would actually be.

You can actually become a blogger on our site. You just use the

contact us form and write that you would like to be a blogger on libervis.com, include your short bio and your account may be upgraded to blogger. You should of course register before we can do that.

Then, you can write a blog on certain issue in regard to free software and open source movement which can then be discussed in the commenting system of that blog. Or you can start a thread on it in forums. Hey, that's what this site is all about. If you'd discuss and talk about anything related to free software/open source movements, you can do that. We have much more than this article section here

Thanks.
Daniel Orsolic

Maybe I should clarify my "a lack of a positve does not equal a negative" comment in regards to the fruit of ones labor.

Freely contributing helps people.

Not contributing neither helps nor hurts people.

Forcibly taking hurts people.

Rowdy Riemer

Much of my last comment was a reply to others. As far as your article and comments, I think we have narrowed down that to which we disagree as much as we can. If you be live that "You have the freedom to choose, whatever your choice is." but that it is better to not make people pay for every copy, then we do mostly agree atleast within the scope of opensource software.

The middle would be 0, or nothing, or null, or "neither right nor wrong". It is simplistic, but complex things are build out of many simple things.

Thanks for putting up with my long wordy comments.

Rowdy Riemer

Hello Rowdy.

You clearly described your points of view here and i wont comment too much since i agree with most of them.

What i recently came to realize is that it is not the capitalism in it's roots, basic founding principles that is overall "bad". But, what actually is bad about it is the fact that it seems to be the ideal that human society didn't reach yet. Capitalism as it exists today is corrupt and mixed. And while i agree that we shouldn't completely abandon it just becuase of these imperfections or bugs, i believe that we must urge those "bug fixes" as much as possible.
And speaking of bugs in todays's capitalism, i believe that the greatest, major bug is the way capitalism tends to handle information technology today, which is simply wrong. That is also the reason why many free software advocates tend to act in a highly anti-capitalistic manner. Their field, and that is IT industry, is what the capitalism "hurts" the most. Information technology is not the same as other technology's and it cannot therefore be handles the same way.

I agree that you have the right to choose whether you'll provide your software as free to redistribute or not, but it doesn't means that making people pay for every copy is a right thing to do. Therefore, it doesn't means that the choice you make is always the right one. You have the freedom to choose, whatever your choice is.

That leads me to another thing i also don't agree with is that positive doesn't automatically means negative. Hm.. what is the middle then? Either it is right or wrong. It may be rather simplistic, almost religious point of view, but it is true.

Daniel Orsolic

Ah, I can see the misunderstanding here.
Oxygen and hydrogen go in, water comes out, not the other way around. Splitting water TAKES energy.
Don't they teach this in highschool over there?

Actually the oil industry is not so unhappy about this technology anymore now they found a way to split hydrogen off oil. I'm not sure if the byproduct is carbon or carbon dioxide...

Anyway, cars that run on bio oil may be cleaner than hydrogen cars...

This is a reply to multiple comments.

>> I also believe that Marxism in practice leads to everyone being equally miserable.

>How is this different from capitalism?

With capitalism, an individual is free to improve their financial status. With capitalism there is certainly not equal misery for all, but a good life for those willing to put forth the effort to make it that way.

>You may be richer than you would be in a communist society now, but how rich will >your children's children be?

That depends on their actions and to some extent what I can leave for them when I die.

>Both "fair" >communism and "fair" capitalism will eventually be abused by an >immoral few.

The difference is that there is less corruption with capitalism. There is absolutely no way to eliminate all corruption, but most implementations of capitalism have laws that keep corruption in check such as antitrust laws. With communism or any form of strong socialism, corruption is the only alternative to improve your financial status. Its absurd to think that capitalism should be abandoned just because it is not perfect.

>In the USA there are "few" people who know what true poverty is. Why are there any >in such a rich country?

Mostly because of their own actions, though certainly not in all cases. There are maybe some who are homeless because they are mentally ill. There are also some who are truly disabled in other ways who may know what true poverty is. For people in these situations, there are sufficient socialist measures to make sure they are not truly in poverty. People dependant on the government in the USA generally have sufficient food and shelter as well as cable TV and other luxuries to where they can't reasonably be considered impoverished. Some of these people do need this assistance. However, most continue to depend on the government because they lack the ambition to provide for themselves. For those who must dependant on others, I believe that charities and the families of these individuals should provide assistance, though I understand that this may not always be sufficient.

>When capitalism goes wrong, the answer is not communism. We need something new. I >think the author of this article pointed out very well that this new thing is >evolving in the way people share information.

If one of the headlights on your car burns out, are you going to buy a new car or just replace the headlight? If you find a bug in your software, are you going to rewrite it from scratch, or just fix the bug? There is nothing fundamentally wrong with capitalism. Some implementations of capitalism may need a few "bug fixes" from time to time.

>1. Please explain how patents are good for hardware, but bad for software. Please >explain why the two are different, and in one case you have more ownership rights >to the fruits of my thought, my labour, my effort than another.

Copyrights are sufficient for intellectual property. I believe it is more difficult to weed out frivolous software patents. If you wrote a novel, you could copywrite that novel, but it would be silly if you could patent your writing style or to patent the format of the novel. Why should software be any different.

>2. For all of you Marxists out there: If I labour, and work (regardless of the form >that work manifests itself) by what right do you claim ownership to my efforts? For >the public? Who are the Public? For the common good of society? Who judges what is >the common good and who are the society? Once you define these concepts with >something a little more precise, then I might be able to offer an opinion, but as >long as the "social collectivists" deal in non absolutes and undefineable terms, it >is hard to base any reason based response on the fuzzy terms used.

This is easy regardless of their terms. No one has the right to the fruit of your labors.

>3. I build myself a house. It is my house, you have no right to it! I build myself >a bicycle from raw materials, you have no right to it, it is mine. These are the >rewards for my effort, and my labour. People do not have a right to it based on >need! I write software. What I do with that software is my choice, it is the result >of my effort, no one has rights to except me and who ever I decide I wish to share >it with "under my terms" if you do not agree to those terms then I will not let you >use *my* software that I created.

Right on!!! For all those marxists/socialist who want to call us capitalists greedy, remember that capitalism leaves intact the right to give what you have freely. This is the key difference between socialism and capitalism. Giving of your own free will is a wonderful thing. Not sharing what is yours is well within your rights (a lack of a positive is not a negative). Having what is yours forcibly taken from you is wrong regardless of who needs it. Many capitalists such as myself, are generous people. But we want and deserve to have control over what we contribute and weather or not we should contribute.

>Please stop rehashing the ages old communism vs capitalism discussion. Both systems >suck, in different ways.

Their is nothing fundamental about capitalism that sucks. The philosophies behind capitalism and socialism are relevant to software and how open source software fits into our society and are therefore relevant to this article. As long as there are a significant number of those who believe that socialism is preferable to capitalism, I will continue to discuss why capitalism is better. Socialist ideas are a threat to me because people can elect socialist politicians who will f$*# up my way of life, and that would really piss me off. If other nations prefer socialism, then that is fine with me, but since Americans are reading these comments, I will continue to argue against socialism.

>1. ....Software not only doesn't need's patents to make the developers effort >worthwhile, it can only make harm bringing chaos into the software world and >restricting freedoms for other developers to use certain algorithms in their >programs just because it has been patented. The chaos, because you will never be >sure if the algorithm you just came up with has not been patented already.

Right on!!!. That is why I, a strong capitalist, hate software patents, and think that copyrights are sufficient for the protection of intellectual property. But I still believe that someone who owns intellectual property has the right to ask payment for each copy. I love opensourced software, and in many cases it makes great business sense, but no one should be forced to open source their software.

>Capitalism as it stands today only sucks for those poor countries and individuals >who do not have the Darwinian gumption to claim what is theirs by might.

"Darwinian"? Capitalism is about earning what is yours and claiming what you have earned. Its not about forcibly keeping resources from those who are less fortunate. Capitalism provides opportunity for all who wish to put forth the effort to improve their life.

Hydrogen powered cars would kick ass. While the oil companies probably do not care to contribute to such technology, companies are certainly free to do their own R&D. I think right now, the technology is just not affordable to the average person, but it is heading in that direction. I don't know what the oil companies are doing to hinder the efforts of others to produce this technology, but I would like to know. If their is some wrong doing on the part of the oil industry, then it should be addressed in a way that is not detrimental to capitalism.

Rowdy Riemer

Capitalism as it stands today only sucks for those poor countries and individuals who do not have the Darwinian gumption to claim what is thiers by might.

The car that runs on water is an old april fools joke. The only ways to get energy out of water are nuclear fusion and by pouring it over a wheel in a water mill. Both possibilities are not usable in a car.

Cars that burn hydrogen and produce only water exist. I have some doubts about how environment friendly these actually are. Fuel cells contain a lot of platinum, and platinum mines are very dirty.

Sharing all information with everyone is better than my copyrights idea, which could be a logical first step in that direction. The next step would be to move all research into public universities.

Hydrogen powered cars, that's what i meant. It splits the water (H2O) into hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O2). By that, i don't see the released oxygen as a threat to environment. However, i am not much of a chemistry guy so i want debate on that too much. However, i still believe that this technology would reach it's top and more wide usage if the oil monopolies only let it. I am sure we don't have to drive those cars on that dirty oil forever, but that's what oil industry obviously wants. It's in their interest.

Daniel Orsolic

By the other monopolists do you mean hardware monopolists, non-software company's? If yes, i agree that this problem wouldn't be solved as soon as software monopoly might be. But i believe that supporting and puhing the free software movement in it's goals will be a good way toward influencing non-IT industry's to follow the same paths, only with rules and regulations appropriate for these industries. Probably the best example of non-IT monopoly is oil industry. The whole oil industry in itself is a monopoly and inside the industry itself we have USA that obviously wants to hold the monopoly on oil in their hands.
Why is oil industry in a whole a monopoly? Because it oppresses other types of energy that may replace oil. I don't know if you're familiar with the mistery of a car run on water. I heard and read that this innovation existed all the way back into 80s, but never saw the daylight because of the oil industry which may be very crippled if not crushed if the water powered cars replaced the ones on oil. Here again, we have a conflict between new technology and the old systems. And again, in this case we have problems with humans and their wish to stay on power even if it harms the whole humanity. The same happens with software industry, really. It would be easy to bring on new era's of technological prosperity if the powerful men would only accept that they should step off it's power for the good of humanity.

For software patents. The software developers could get payed in their investments very quickly, even if they release their software with a code allowing the redistribution. I explained that. Open source IS business model. Many just seem not to recognize that and are afraid that they wont get their investements back, or that they wont get payed anyhow. That's not true.

I agree with you that copyright is much better than patents for regulation of use of information and your idea is intriguing.
However, the tricky part is that free software movement encourages free share of information which is in some contradiction with the r&d company's selling copyrighted innovation since i suppose it means that these copyright licences would not allow re-distribution of this information.
I should research that issue a bit further.

Daniel

"We might see an end to monopolies on information in the near future."

That is, monopolies on software and news. I don't think patents will disappear. That would be a huge step towards a more fair world.

PK