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It's a good thing I wasn't reading over the sample code in the office. Bravo, a poignant demonstration of the value of collectivism through code. As coders, it

It's a good thing I wasn't reading over the sample code in the office. Bravo, a poignant demonstration of the value of collectivism through code. As coders, it is easy to overlook how much we depend on the generosity of others to do our work, to feel entitled to all this infrastructure we can leverage at little or no cost, and especially to not see how this empowering system should be used in other aspects of our society. Maybe KickStarter for open-source medical technology or textbooks.

javert 14y ago
Bravo, a poignant demonstration of the value of collectivism through code. Open source software is not "collectivism", which is a moral/political doctrine.
- WiseWeasel 14y ago
  It's collectivist in the sense that it is owned by the people.
  - andyzweb 14y ago
    Open Source software is owned by the copyright holder. "the people" have no ownership whatsoever. Merely a license to use the software (albeit a very permissive license)
    - WiseWeasel 14y ago
      In the case of the GPL, everyone can use, modify and re-distribute it of their own accord, as long as it's distributed under the license the author chose. It's not the same, but effectively pretty close to ownership. It's a public entitlement to a permissive license. Open source != GPL, however; the BSD license creates something indistinguishable from common ownership.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- Symmetry 14y ago
  Indeed. Open source software is the first example I'll reach for when talking about the difference between the ideas of "free market" and "capitalism". Anybody can choose to contribute to open source or not, for reasons that are selfish or altruistic, in any way that they decide. Other's may or may not decide to pull their changelists, but everything is all about voluntary transactions - what you'd call a totally free market. On the other hand its totally unlike capitalism for reasons I hope I don't have to explain. I can easily imagine collectivist code development, but I can't imagine a collectivist software effort that would allow both Ruby and Python, both Java and C# to exist. I mean, if you're making these decisions collectively how could you justify the division of effort?
  - jerf 14y ago
    Capitalism doesn't mean that everybody is running around for themselves. If its opponents seriously thought about that accusation for a moment, they'd realize that it is completely inconsistent with also talking about large corporations being abusive... indeed, large corporations existing at all. Capitalism allows you to freely set up your own organizations within its top-level free matrix, so if you find a problem space where near dictatorial "collectism" is the answer, you're free to choose that. (Fast food springs to mind.) That's in contrast to many ideologies which really do insist they are the right answer for every scale. Making that accusation of capitalism is generally a form of projection of the biases of the accuser, since it works exactly the opposite. (And the answer to many of the putative abuses of the system is for people to band together and form things like insurance corporations and credit unions and such.)
    - javert 14y ago
      A large fast food giant (to take your example) is still not a dictatorship and it's still not collectivist. You can have collectivist things under capitalism (for example, a hippie commune), but you cannot have a dictatorship.
  - javert 14y ago
    On the other hand its totally unlike capitalism for reasons I hope I don't have to explain. You're going to have to explain it if you want me to tell you why you're wrong in thinking that they're "totally different." The free market is the economic aspect of capitalism, which is an economic and political system.

javert 14y ago

Bravo, a poignant demonstration of the value of collectivism through code. Open source software is not "collectivism", which is a moral/political doctrine.

WiseWeasel 14y ago
It's collectivist in the sense that it is owned by the people.
- andyzweb 14y ago
  Open Source software is owned by the copyright holder. "the people" have no ownership whatsoever. Merely a license to use the software (albeit a very permissive license)
  - WiseWeasel 14y ago
    In the case of the GPL, everyone can use, modify and re-distribute it of their own accord, as long as it's distributed under the license the author chose. It's not the same, but effectively pretty close to ownership. It's a public entitlement to a permissive license. Open source != GPL, however; the BSD license creates something indistinguishable from common ownership.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
Symmetry 14y ago
Indeed. Open source software is the first example I'll reach for when talking about the difference between the ideas of "free market" and "capitalism". Anybody can choose to contribute to open source or not, for reasons that are selfish or altruistic, in any way that they decide. Other's may or may not decide to pull their changelists, but everything is all about voluntary transactions - what you'd call a totally free market. On the other hand its totally unlike capitalism for reasons I hope I don't have to explain. I can easily imagine collectivist code development, but I can't imagine a collectivist software effort that would allow both Ruby and Python, both Java and C# to exist. I mean, if you're making these decisions collectively how could you justify the division of effort?
- jerf 14y ago
  Capitalism doesn't mean that everybody is running around for themselves. If its opponents seriously thought about that accusation for a moment, they'd realize that it is completely inconsistent with also talking about large corporations being abusive... indeed, large corporations existing at all. Capitalism allows you to freely set up your own organizations within its top-level free matrix, so if you find a problem space where near dictatorial "collectism" is the answer, you're free to choose that. (Fast food springs to mind.) That's in contrast to many ideologies which really do insist they are the right answer for every scale. Making that accusation of capitalism is generally a form of projection of the biases of the accuser, since it works exactly the opposite. (And the answer to many of the putative abuses of the system is for people to band together and form things like insurance corporations and credit unions and such.)
  - javert 14y ago
    A large fast food giant (to take your example) is still not a dictatorship and it's still not collectivist. You can have collectivist things under capitalism (for example, a hippie commune), but you cannot have a dictatorship.
- javert 14y ago
  On the other hand its totally unlike capitalism for reasons I hope I don't have to explain. You're going to have to explain it if you want me to tell you why you're wrong in thinking that they're "totally different." The free market is the economic aspect of capitalism, which is an economic and political system.