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"Fighting for FOSS is basically fighting for communism." Communism is an economic system of physical goods and services, digital and intellectual things aren't
by jasonkostempski 10y ago
"Fighting for FOSS is basically fighting for communism."
Communism is an economic system of physical goods and services, digital and intellectual things aren't either so I don't think it's useful to equate the two. Digital media is easily obtained by anyone so is made with a lock to which the key is sold. The keys are usually some form of digital media, so a central authority is needed to validate the keys. The validation process is also digital, so laws get made to threaten anyone that tries to bypass that process and, instead of preventing attacks on ships, those laws get used to mess up peoples lives that usually don't deserve it. Software is just a big, messy math function, and trying to sell it is just as silly as trying to sell addition. Sell goods; sell services (even the service of writing software); but trying to sell the software itself is pretty much insane; the only way to win at it is to treat your customers like no-good, lying thieves.
- jcora 10y ago> Communism is an economic system of physical goods and services, digital and intellectual things aren't either so I don't think it's useful to equate the two. This is a very confused definition of communism. The proper definition is a classless, stateless, and moneyless society (although I prefer marketless). What that almost certainly implies, is a form of goal-oriented economic coordination in the form of central planning of production. The problem you're trying to describe is called commodification. It is harder to commodify digital goods than physical ones. But this is merely a pragmatic issue for the capitalists, as they have commodified and will commodify pretty much any facet of life.