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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 throug

by hasenj 16y 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 16y 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 16y 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 16y 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.

by hasenj 16y ago

dalke 16y 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 16y 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 16y 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.