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Haven't thought very deeply about this, but FOSS doesn't seem like socialism, as the capital being competed for is user attention. FOSS projects without enough

by shard 6y ago

Haven't thought very deeply about this, but FOSS doesn't seem like socialism, as the capital being competed for is user attention. FOSS projects without enough capital does not gain enough developers, and falls into disrepair and obscurity. Not sure what a socialist FOSS movement might look like, but maybe developers would be assigned to projects as opposed to them freely choosing the projects to work on?

mercer 6y ago
> Haven't thought very deeply about this, but FOSS doesn't seem like socialism, as the capital being competed for is user attention. I think that's stretching the definition of 'competition' a bit too much. First off, many people work on FOSS just because they want to, or because they believe that it's a good thing. Not because they want 'user attention'. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that even the people that are motivated by user attention don't see it as a competition. > FOSS projects without enough capital does not gain enough developers, and falls into disrepair and obscurity. There are plenty of FOSS projects that do fine with just a handful of developers, or even just a single one. with perhaps the occasional pull request from others. > Not sure what a socialist FOSS movement might look like, but maybe developers would be assigned to projects as opposed to them freely choosing the projects to work on? Maybe I misunderstand, but I get the impression that you're thinking of 'state' socialism. I wouldn't say being assigned stuff is a core aspect of socialism. All that said, it's not so much that I think FOSS is like socialism, but rather that FOSS is a counter-example to a common argument I hear from especially the more hardcore 'everything should be market forces' capitalists, which is that we're primarily driven by competition.
- shard 6y ago
  Hi Mercer, interesting points. But I think in general, the FOSS projects that thrive, that gather users which report bugs, that has an active community, are going to be the ones which attract developers, not necessarily because they seek fame and fortune, but just by the simple aspect that they are more likely to run into those projects, and be able to contribute to those projects more easily due to better documentation and active devs who can answer questions. It is the projects which compete for attention for their livelihood, like an emergent behavior, even if the developers don't explicitly target it. Besides, developers are humans too, and they can feel pride when their contributions are recognized, and they can consider the work to be helping to pave the way to future employment. Contributing to large active projects give higher chances for both prospects. Regarding whether it's state socialism that I'm thinking of, you're probably right. I've never been very clear on the definition of socialism. On the most superficial level, I understand socialism to be that the community controlled the means of production. So when applied to FOSS, that seems to mean that the whole community decides what projects to work on, and in the case where the community decided that something needs to be worked on, but not enough devs volunteer, then it seems like the work will need to be assigned. Finally, as you said, it's not about FOSS being like socialism, but that they devs are not directly competing for big cash prizes that's the interesting aspect. I agree. There are not that many industries that are so fundamental to our society which has a large contingent of people doing critical work for free. Perhaps education comes close. Politics, with political power taking a similar role as attention for FOSS projects, but that's straying pretty far.

by shard 6y ago

mercer 6y ago

> Haven't thought very deeply about this, but FOSS doesn't seem like socialism, as the capital being competed for is user attention. I think that's stretching the definition of 'competition' a bit too much. First off, many people work on FOSS just because they want to, or because they believe that it's a good thing. Not because they want 'user attention'. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that even the people that are motivated by user attention don't see it as a competition. > FOSS projects without enough capital does not gain enough developers, and falls into disrepair and obscurity. There are plenty of FOSS projects that do fine with just a handful of developers, or even just a single one. with perhaps the occasional pull request from others. > Not sure what a socialist FOSS movement might look like, but maybe developers would be assigned to projects as opposed to them freely choosing the projects to work on? Maybe I misunderstand, but I get the impression that you're thinking of 'state' socialism. I wouldn't say being assigned stuff is a core aspect of socialism. All that said, it's not so much that I think FOSS is like socialism, but rather that FOSS is a counter-example to a common argument I hear from especially the more hardcore 'everything should be market forces' capitalists, which is that we're primarily driven by competition.

shard 6y ago
Hi Mercer, interesting points. But I think in general, the FOSS projects that thrive, that gather users which report bugs, that has an active community, are going to be the ones which attract developers, not necessarily because they seek fame and fortune, but just by the simple aspect that they are more likely to run into those projects, and be able to contribute to those projects more easily due to better documentation and active devs who can answer questions. It is the projects which compete for attention for their livelihood, like an emergent behavior, even if the developers don't explicitly target it. Besides, developers are humans too, and they can feel pride when their contributions are recognized, and they can consider the work to be helping to pave the way to future employment. Contributing to large active projects give higher chances for both prospects. Regarding whether it's state socialism that I'm thinking of, you're probably right. I've never been very clear on the definition of socialism. On the most superficial level, I understand socialism to be that the community controlled the means of production. So when applied to FOSS, that seems to mean that the whole community decides what projects to work on, and in the case where the community decided that something needs to be worked on, but not enough devs volunteer, then it seems like the work will need to be assigned. Finally, as you said, it's not about FOSS being like socialism, but that they devs are not directly competing for big cash prizes that's the interesting aspect. I agree. There are not that many industries that are so fundamental to our society which has a large contingent of people doing critical work for free. Perhaps education comes close. Politics, with political power taking a similar role as attention for FOSS projects, but that's straying pretty far.