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WHY should everything be GPL-ed? Capitalism is an ethical, meritorious system rewarding hard-work and skill and GPL runs counter to everything capitalism stands

WHY should everything be GPL-ed? Capitalism is an ethical, meritorious system rewarding hard-work and skill and GPL runs counter to everything capitalism stands for. Not to mention that the fat profits capitalism bestows on Google FUNDS fuchsia

tomc1985 9y ago
> Capitalism is an ethical, meritorious system rewarding hard-work Um... no it isn't. Meritorious only for those on top. While I agree that Google doesn't need to GPL Fuschia, GPL was imagined as a direct response capitalism's very pro-owner and anti-customer approach to distribution and rightsholding.
_tulpa 9y ago
> Capitalism is an ethical, meritorious system rewarding hard-work and skill Did you drop an /s or something? Captialism doesn't give a shit about eithics or merit either way. The only thing worth a damn is capital, which is a pretty good motivator for all kinds of unethical and corrupt practices. Not that GPL would necessarily be a good thing in this case.
SolarNet 9y ago
> GPL runs counter to everything capitalism stands for. That's the point (or at least one of them). Though I personally don't care if it is GPL or not, as someone interested in perhaps using this OS for commercial purposes at some point it's not being GPL is a slight plus for me. However, one key point of the GPL is to create a commons (of software, hardware, protocols, etc.) that can't be exploited for gain by capitalists, that can't be exploited for economic rent, that can't be laden down with copyrights and patents. A system that is actually, truly free (as in freedom). Which is important to understand if you want to be intellectually honest.
msla 9y ago
> GPL runs counter to everything capitalism stands for. As a point of fact, it doesn't. Stallman himself sold GNU Emacs in the early days, and it was GPL'd from the start.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  Your statement is entirely true but is non-sequitur. Capitalism is not "the economic system in which things are bought and sold with money", it's a much more particular subset of all those types of economies (namely, capitalism is the type where the primary resources and means of production are privately owned). It's incidentally TRUE that GPL is not anti-capitalist. But it's also true that you can consistently both sell things and be anti-capitalist. Selling things happens in most economic systems, capitalist or not.
  - gnulinux 9y ago
    > Capitalism is not "the economic system in which things are bought and sold with money" Well, at least according to Marx (c.f. Capital) capitalism is the system where things are bought and sold with money. If you read first few chapters of Capital you'll see that Marx explains this in various ways such as characterizing capitalism with division of labour where instead of producing bunch of commodities, workers produce one commodity and sell it for money with which they can buy other commodities. And according to, again, his definition communism is the society after this type of commodity production, i.e. the mechanism that produces value (money) is stopped in the sense that people stopped exchanging things for money. You may not care of Marx's definition, but I just wanted to note for completeness.
    - quadrangle 9y ago
      Indeed, I don't defer to Marx. But that said, it's been a while since I read him much. I suspect you're conflating Marx describing Capitalism with defining it. We can describe the idea of buying and selling with money as certainly being a characteristic of Capitalism without asserting that it's a defining characteristic that is absent in other systems. To be blunt, buying and selling with money is FAR older than Capitalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism is actually pretty good and neutral
      - gnulinux 9y ago
typon 9y ago
> Capitalism is an ethical, meritorious system rewarding hard-work and skill This belongs on some a list of "naive things Americans believe"
newnewpdro 9y ago
The fervor visible in your response validates the significance of a license change.
tracker1 9y ago
How so... It just prevents you from co-opting someone else's GPL software without contributing back. For that matter, I'm a pretty big fan of LGPL for libraries. Nothing forces anyone from using someone else's GPL software. You aren't prevented from using GPL software either. In fact, it has a price, and that price is you contributing changes and directly interfaced software back into GPL. The price isn't money. Beyond this, open-source/floss is meant to create a commons in terms of libraries and software that aren't commercially encumbered. Way too many things (particularly drivers) are locked away and stop working.
quadrangle 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

tomc1985 9y ago

> Capitalism is an ethical, meritorious system rewarding hard-work Um... no it isn't. Meritorious only for those on top. While I agree that Google doesn't need to GPL Fuschia, GPL was imagined as a direct response capitalism's very pro-owner and anti-customer approach to distribution and rightsholding.

_tulpa 9y ago

> Capitalism is an ethical, meritorious system rewarding hard-work and skill Did you drop an /s or something? Captialism doesn't give a shit about eithics or merit either way. The only thing worth a damn is capital, which is a pretty good motivator for all kinds of unethical and corrupt practices. Not that GPL would necessarily be a good thing in this case.

SolarNet 9y ago

> GPL runs counter to everything capitalism stands for. That's the point (or at least one of them). Though I personally don't care if it is GPL or not, as someone interested in perhaps using this OS for commercial purposes at some point it's not being GPL is a slight plus for me. However, one key point of the GPL is to create a commons (of software, hardware, protocols, etc.) that can't be exploited for gain by capitalists, that can't be exploited for economic rent, that can't be laden down with copyrights and patents. A system that is actually, truly free (as in freedom). Which is important to understand if you want to be intellectually honest.

msla 9y ago

> GPL runs counter to everything capitalism stands for. As a point of fact, it doesn't. Stallman himself sold GNU Emacs in the early days, and it was GPL'd from the start.

quadrangle 9y ago
Your statement is entirely true but is non-sequitur. Capitalism is not "the economic system in which things are bought and sold with money", it's a much more particular subset of all those types of economies (namely, capitalism is the type where the primary resources and means of production are privately owned). It's incidentally TRUE that GPL is not anti-capitalist. But it's also true that you can consistently both sell things and be anti-capitalist. Selling things happens in most economic systems, capitalist or not.
- gnulinux 9y ago
  > Capitalism is not "the economic system in which things are bought and sold with money" Well, at least according to Marx (c.f. Capital) capitalism is the system where things are bought and sold with money. If you read first few chapters of Capital you'll see that Marx explains this in various ways such as characterizing capitalism with division of labour where instead of producing bunch of commodities, workers produce one commodity and sell it for money with which they can buy other commodities. And according to, again, his definition communism is the society after this type of commodity production, i.e. the mechanism that produces value (money) is stopped in the sense that people stopped exchanging things for money. You may not care of Marx's definition, but I just wanted to note for completeness.
  - quadrangle 9y ago
    Indeed, I don't defer to Marx. But that said, it's been a while since I read him much. I suspect you're conflating Marx describing Capitalism with defining it. We can describe the idea of buying and selling with money as certainly being a characteristic of Capitalism without asserting that it's a defining characteristic that is absent in other systems. To be blunt, buying and selling with money is FAR older than Capitalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism is actually pretty good and neutral
    - gnulinux 9y ago

typon 9y ago

> Capitalism is an ethical, meritorious system rewarding hard-work and skill This belongs on some a list of "naive things Americans believe"

newnewpdro 9y ago

The fervor visible in your response validates the significance of a license change.

tracker1 9y ago

How so... It just prevents you from co-opting someone else's GPL software without contributing back. For that matter, I'm a pretty big fan of LGPL for libraries. Nothing forces anyone from using someone else's GPL software. You aren't prevented from using GPL software either. In fact, it has a price, and that price is you contributing changes and directly interfaced software back into GPL. The price isn't money. Beyond this, open-source/floss is meant to create a commons in terms of libraries and software that aren't commercially encumbered. Way too many things (particularly drivers) are locked away and stop working.

quadrangle 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law