5 ms·

Free software isn't at odds with capitalism (you don't have to extract monetary profit from everything you do in capitalism). Neither is bitcoin. Government-con

by jsn 15y ago

Free software isn't at odds with capitalism (you don't have to extract monetary profit from everything you do in capitalism). Neither is bitcoin. Government-controlled paper money, on the other hand, definitely is at odds with free market.

hasenj 15y ago
I think free software is at odds with certain capitalistic ideas: As a private owner of a "production" factory, you have control over your products, and through this control you gain profit. Contrast this with communism, which views private control over things which are needed by the public (like food) as a bad idea because the person in charge gets to limit the freedom of others (or some idea similar to that). Free Software is similar in this regard: software is ubiquitous, and so it's unethical (according to the philosophy of the FSF) to let it be under the control of corporations. Apple has complete control over iPhones, and they decide what you can and cannot do with it: this is "evil", according to FSF's philosophy. From a purely capitalistic point of view: a software developer gets an incentive to create and evolve software if it was closed source and hard to crack so that he could sell it and get profit. From a market perspective, this is more efficient. But, from RMS's perspective, market efficiency shouldn't matter here because the act of putting artificial restriction on software usage is unethical. While I don't agree with RMS about this thing being necessarily unethical in and of itself; I do find his arguments very compelling, and I'm inclined to say that it's best if one was able to make money doing open source. However, I think one has to be realistic, and in reality developers need money, and so it's ok to sell closed apps (as in iPhone apps, or SaaS webapps like 37signals). As you can see, my position doesn't have anything to do with capitalism as an ideology.
- dalke 15y ago
  The issue is your statement "you have control over your products" does not apply. Copyright law legally prevents you from including someone else's software in your work, unless you get permission. The GPL grants you that permission so long as you follow the terms of the license. In other words, it isn't "your products", it's a joint product, and the other contributor wants a say on how the joint product is delivered. If your product doesn't use anyone else's license, then the FSF does say that it's morally reprehensible to not have free software, but they stay well within copyright law to change the system from within. Have you considered that perhaps it's copyright's temporary monopoly grant which is "at odds with certain capitalistic ideas"? After all, copyright in US law comes from promoting "the Progress of Science and useful Arts", not making profit.
  - hasenj 15y ago
    > The GPL grants you that permission so long as you follow the terms of the license. In other words, it isn't "your products", it's a joint product, and the other contributor wants a say on how the joint product is delivered. I've already responded to this in another comment. The GPL doesn't "simply grant you this right". FSF think this right is essential and that it's unethical to not grant this right. If RMS simply wanted to give you a permission, he could've used a variation of the BSD/MIT licenses. > but they stay well within copyright law to change the system from within. But they still think the system is wrong. > Have you considered that perhaps it's copyright's temporary monopoly grant which is "at odds with certain capitalistic ideas"? I've heard this argument, and I don't think it's very compelling, but really what's the point? Why should anyone feel compelled to make such an argument? As if capitalism is the religion of the state, and every ideology must be compatible with it, or else!! So you have to go around and make these interpretation about what "true" capitalism is all about.
    - dalke 15y ago
      Ahh, so you are arguing what would happen if the free software movement were able to change copyright law to what they wish. I thought you were talking about the world as it is now, and not the way the FSF would like it to be. With that in mind I think you can see how I interpreted your comment to mean that the legal expression of free software ideology embedded in the GPL, which depends on current strong copyright law, is at odds with capitalism. If that were the case then strong copyright is at odds with capitalism. I personally can consider a set of laws in which distributed software must be distributed as free software. I agree that such would be a limitation of the sorts of economics decisions you can make. As such, I can agree that it would be against "certain capitalistic ideas." However, since we (as a general culture) agree that Mr. Factory Owner may not employ child labor, may not have slaves, may not dump toxic wastes in the water system, must have a safe working environment, and so on, we are already at a point where we (as a culture) agree that "certain capitalistic ideas" are either morally toxic or at least subject to trajedy of the commons oversight. Since we (as a culture) don't have, and don't want to have, a "purely capitalistic point of view", arguments grounded in that premise are at heart faulty.
barrkel 15y ago
Nobody wants a free market. That's a market that includes slaves, child pornography, assassination contracts, etc. At the level of globally integrated economies, I think the gold standard has been pretty well proven to be disastrous. It especially doesn't deal well with trade imbalances that unwind suddenly. The trouble you see in the Euro area can be seen as a microcosm of what a gold standard is like; countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain don't control their money supply - more or less, it's like gold - so they're caught in an extremely painful bind, when what would be best for them is to devalue their currency some. Instead, they're having to struggle under huge debt burdens, and some might have to default, or leave the Euro (i.e. by analogy leave the gold standard).
- dualogy 15y ago
  "That's a market that includes slaves, child pornography, assassination contracts, etc." Yes -- but by definition only if agreed upon mutually voluntarily. But you're probably still right when saying that (almost) "nobody wants" that.
- olalonde 15y ago
  > Nobody wants a free market. That's a market that includes slaves, child pornography, assassination contracts, etc. Those things are perfectly compatible with democracy but completely incompatible with capitalism. An inherent idea to capitalism is the protection of individual freedom which those things clearly violate in some way or another. On the other hand, those things are perfectly compatible with democracy given that 51% of the population are OK with it. In fact, what nobody believes in is democracy (that's why most democratic countries have a constitution). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMb_72hgkJk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMb_72hgkJk
  - v21 15y ago
    Is capitalism the same as the free market?
    - olalonde 15y ago
      There might be other definitions, but I was referring to free market capitalism. Edit: Why the hell am I being down voted here?

by jsn 15y ago

hasenj 15y ago

I think free software is at odds with certain capitalistic ideas: As a private owner of a "production" factory, you have control over your products, and through this control you gain profit. Contrast this with communism, which views private control over things which are needed by the public (like food) as a bad idea because the person in charge gets to limit the freedom of others (or some idea similar to that). Free Software is similar in this regard: software is ubiquitous, and so it's unethical (according to the philosophy of the FSF) to let it be under the control of corporations. Apple has complete control over iPhones, and they decide what you can and cannot do with it: this is "evil", according to FSF's philosophy. From a purely capitalistic point of view: a software developer gets an incentive to create and evolve software if it was closed source and hard to crack so that he could sell it and get profit. From a market perspective, this is more efficient. But, from RMS's perspective, market efficiency shouldn't matter here because the act of putting artificial restriction on software usage is unethical. While I don't agree with RMS about this thing being necessarily unethical in and of itself; I do find his arguments very compelling, and I'm inclined to say that it's best if one was able to make money doing open source. However, I think one has to be realistic, and in reality developers need money, and so it's ok to sell closed apps (as in iPhone apps, or SaaS webapps like 37signals). As you can see, my position doesn't have anything to do with capitalism as an ideology.

dalke 15y ago
The issue is your statement "you have control over your products" does not apply. Copyright law legally prevents you from including someone else's software in your work, unless you get permission. The GPL grants you that permission so long as you follow the terms of the license. In other words, it isn't "your products", it's a joint product, and the other contributor wants a say on how the joint product is delivered. If your product doesn't use anyone else's license, then the FSF does say that it's morally reprehensible to not have free software, but they stay well within copyright law to change the system from within. Have you considered that perhaps it's copyright's temporary monopoly grant which is "at odds with certain capitalistic ideas"? After all, copyright in US law comes from promoting "the Progress of Science and useful Arts", not making profit.
- hasenj 15y ago
  > The GPL grants you that permission so long as you follow the terms of the license. In other words, it isn't "your products", it's a joint product, and the other contributor wants a say on how the joint product is delivered. I've already responded to this in another comment. The GPL doesn't "simply grant you this right". FSF think this right is essential and that it's unethical to not grant this right. If RMS simply wanted to give you a permission, he could've used a variation of the BSD/MIT licenses. > but they stay well within copyright law to change the system from within. But they still think the system is wrong. > Have you considered that perhaps it's copyright's temporary monopoly grant which is "at odds with certain capitalistic ideas"? I've heard this argument, and I don't think it's very compelling, but really what's the point? Why should anyone feel compelled to make such an argument? As if capitalism is the religion of the state, and every ideology must be compatible with it, or else!! So you have to go around and make these interpretation about what "true" capitalism is all about.
  - dalke 15y ago
    Ahh, so you are arguing what would happen if the free software movement were able to change copyright law to what they wish. I thought you were talking about the world as it is now, and not the way the FSF would like it to be. With that in mind I think you can see how I interpreted your comment to mean that the legal expression of free software ideology embedded in the GPL, which depends on current strong copyright law, is at odds with capitalism. If that were the case then strong copyright is at odds with capitalism. I personally can consider a set of laws in which distributed software must be distributed as free software. I agree that such would be a limitation of the sorts of economics decisions you can make. As such, I can agree that it would be against "certain capitalistic ideas." However, since we (as a general culture) agree that Mr. Factory Owner may not employ child labor, may not have slaves, may not dump toxic wastes in the water system, must have a safe working environment, and so on, we are already at a point where we (as a culture) agree that "certain capitalistic ideas" are either morally toxic or at least subject to trajedy of the commons oversight. Since we (as a culture) don't have, and don't want to have, a "purely capitalistic point of view", arguments grounded in that premise are at heart faulty.

barrkel 15y ago

Nobody wants a free market. That's a market that includes slaves, child pornography, assassination contracts, etc. At the level of globally integrated economies, I think the gold standard has been pretty well proven to be disastrous. It especially doesn't deal well with trade imbalances that unwind suddenly. The trouble you see in the Euro area can be seen as a microcosm of what a gold standard is like; countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain don't control their money supply - more or less, it's like gold - so they're caught in an extremely painful bind, when what would be best for them is to devalue their currency some. Instead, they're having to struggle under huge debt burdens, and some might have to default, or leave the Euro (i.e. by analogy leave the gold standard).

dualogy 15y ago
"That's a market that includes slaves, child pornography, assassination contracts, etc." Yes -- but by definition only if agreed upon mutually voluntarily. But you're probably still right when saying that (almost) "nobody wants" that.
olalonde 15y ago
> Nobody wants a free market. That's a market that includes slaves, child pornography, assassination contracts, etc. Those things are perfectly compatible with democracy but completely incompatible with capitalism. An inherent idea to capitalism is the protection of individual freedom which those things clearly violate in some way or another. On the other hand, those things are perfectly compatible with democracy given that 51% of the population are OK with it. In fact, what nobody believes in is democracy (that's why most democratic countries have a constitution). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMb_72hgkJk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMb_72hgkJk
- v21 15y ago
  Is capitalism the same as the free market?
  - olalonde 15y ago
    There might be other definitions, but I was referring to free market capitalism. Edit: Why the hell am I being down voted here?