6 ms·

How can we trust Open Sources power but doubt Socialism's potential to unite us?

11 points by DonnyV 2y ago

I believe the Open Source movement, and the community built around it, has demonstrated that a form of collaborative socialism can work. The notion that people only contribute to projects for monetary gain or self-interest is simply not true. Open Source has shown that individuals will work on solutions—whether to address global challenges or explore possibilities—for the collective good of the community. This has been proven over many years of sustained, voluntary contributions. However, within the Open Source community, the currency is knowledge or the value of your project’s output. The challenge is: how can we extend this model to all aspects of life? Could people find joy in activities like cooking, farming, or construction to the point that they would willingly contribute their skills to society, not for profit but for shared benefit? Of course, doing this day in and day out could lead to burnout and would leave room for those looking to exploit the system. Grifters will exist in any society, regardless of the economic framework. I recall reading a tweet from a bricklayer who said he loved his work and would gladly do it for free, but not every single day. Perhaps we could move away from rigid specialization and embrace a more flexible system where people contribute in multiple areas. This shift could distribute the workload more evenly, preventing burnout and creating efficiencies across society. For example, before Git, we had numerous private code repositories, each with inefficiencies and barriers. Linus Torvalds recognized a need for change, and while Git benefited his Linux project, he made it open source for everyone. He could have privatized it to fund his work, but he didn't. The community saw its value, adopted it, and improved it. Imagine applying this Open Source philosophy to housing. Our current approach to housing is inefficient—what innovations in materials, construction, and design could arise if we treated housing like an open-source project? The same could be applied to farming, transportation, sanitation, and power generation. What does the community think?

dtagames 2y ago
To paraphrase Churchill, capitalism is the worst system except for all the others. Open source doesn't represent socialism, which has a history of mass deaths and economic and literal starvation. Open source just says, "I wrote this code and you can use it without paying me." To make an economy work, though, people have to pay for stuff -- which means they have to earn money. Open source projects, including all the big ones, are funded by profit-making, capitalist businesses. Whether it's being propped up by Adobe (like the awesome Blender) or Microsoft (with VS Code), you have to make money to be able to give it away like that. Even personal open source projects are funded by that person's money, probably from a job.
- azemetre 2y ago
  Churchill never said this about capitalism, he said it about democracy.
  - avaldez_ 2y ago
    That's what paraphrasing means.
    - azemetre 2y ago
      Not really, you have to paraphrase what was actually said not completely distort the original meaning to push your narrative.
      - dtagames 2y ago
        My intent here is not to distort the meaning but rather to apply it, fully intact, to the concept of capitalism.
    - eesmith 2y ago
      To paraphrase Churchill, the HN commenting system is the worst system except for all the others. To paraphrase Churchill, pineapple pizza is the worst pizza except for all the others. To paraphrase Churchill, Japan is the worst country except for all the others.
- troymc 2y ago
  Churchill's famous quote wasn't about capitalism, it was about democracy, which isn't the same thing at all. Here's an article with his full quote and the history of the idea he was expressing: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/12/08/democracy-worst/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/12/08/democracy-worst/
  - dtagames 2y ago
    I'm fully aware of that, hence calling it a paraphrase. Perhaps I should have used the term allusion.
peacechance 2y ago
I think this is a great idea and I support it with all of my heart.
_yid9 2y ago
Open Source doesn’t imply the absence of property rights. It’s a choice to invest my own effort into something I choose to give to some people for free. It literally requires me to use (at personal risk) my savings to create and give a gift to others. I don’t see “socialists” risking their own wealth to produce and give gifts to others. They take others wealth and give it to their (usually unproductive) friends. Big difference.
- DonnyV 2y ago
  "I don’t see “socialists” risking their own wealth to produce and give gifts to others. They take others wealth and give it to their (usually unproductive) friends." Isn't that how hedge funds are ran, lol.
  - Ancapistani 2y ago
    Sort of. They use others' wealth, increase it, and take a cut of that increase. ... at least in theory :)
taylodl 2y ago
I don't see how this system will create billionaires and people living in excess while others go without. It'll never work! :)
tomohawk 2y ago
Open source exists because people can contribute. People can contribute because they have something to contribute. They own. In a socialist system, the government owns or controls all of the means of production, so open source would not exist. Only what the government wants to exist would exist.
- DonnyV 2y ago
  In a communist based society government owns and controls everything. In a socialist society ownership and control is done by its citizens. Government is actually very small in a socialist society. Communist is top down while Socialist is bottom up.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
zooq_ai 2y ago
Open Source software works because it scales. When you build an open source software or creative commons content, it is instantly available to billions. Cooking, Building, and Healthcare doesn't. Your free 4 hour per day service to others only scales to the one person that probably benefited from it and for a short period. A 4 hour bug fix / feature add is benefitting thousands every day. Atoms vs Bits
- tocs3 2y ago
  Power in numbers. I will not say forcing people to public service is a good idea but if every one were to put in 4 hours a day (or even week or month) the efforts could really add up.
eesmith 2y ago
> Open Source has shown that individuals will work on solutions Sure, but that's nothing special about open source. Individuals have worked on solutions for a very long time. "The Negro Motorist Green Book" would not have worked without the contribution of many individuals to the solution. > Of course, doing this day in and day out could lead to burnout As Open Source demonstrated earlier this year in the xz utilities backdoor. > a form of collaborative socialism can work I think it's important to be cautious about what "socialism" means. Is a barn raising "socialism"? Is a trade group socialism? Is the Chromium project a form of socialism? > The notion that people only contribute to projects for monetary gain or self-interest is simply not true. But surely that's true of most jobs. Like, people become teachers not just for the money, but also because they like to help kids learn. I'll bet you that most of the people with a full-time job working on Chromium or Firefox would stop if they weren't being paid for it. > before Git, we had numerous private code repositories You are mistaking a version control system software license with access to the source repository. In the 1990s I used RCS, which was distributed under the GPL. However, the repositories were proprietary, just like how there are a lot of private git repositories now. > what innovations in materials, construction, and design could arise if we treated housing like an open-source project? We already have a lot of "open source" in that space, including Habitat for Humanity. Or for real "socialized housing", do what the socialists do - have the city set up a building company to use taxes to build new housing, with the cities acting as at-cost rather than profit-seeking landlords. Or change the laws to promote nonprofit cooperative building societies. Similarly, if open-source is socialism then open-source transportation is known as (city/county/community/government) mass transit. And open-source farming would be something like Ocean Spray Cranberries, the co-op which produces 70% of North American cranberry production, yes?
- tocs3 2y ago
  "I'll bet you that most of the people with a full-time job working on Chromium or Firefox would stop if they weren't being paid for it." I bet you are right but also think that if we did not have to pay for just about everything in life (food, housing, healthcare, etc.) there would be others to step into the gap. They might also be better at it. "And open-source farming would be something like Ocean Spray Cranberries, the co-op which produces 70% of North American cranberry production, yes?" Farming (and other) co-ops have a long history in in my, admittedly limited experience, have been good for the ag. communities they are in.
gatane 2y ago
Open Source is more akin to anarchism, if you think about it. Which more or less, fits the "hacker way" of it: You are free (freedom) to see, edit and distribute it in many ways depending on your license (self imposed government).
benterix 2y ago
In other words, why did it always fail? Short answer: because of the human factor. There was always someone who'd abuse nicely-sounding ideas to an extreme degree. There is also something else: if you accept violence or not. If you do, no matter how noble your ideas are, you are just another Stalin or Mao. So where does socialism sort of work? In small, voluntary setups like the Longo Mai. Just like Open Source works within the framework of limited communities of interested people.
- DonnyV 2y ago
  We've never had a socialist society. We've had some communist experiments, but no socialist ones.
  - tocs3 2y ago
    Co-ops count as socialist. Much of my family have a history in agriculture where co-ops were prevalent (and mostly, sadly, gone in my community). I live in an area served by the Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC) and am happy with the service. For a list of cooperatices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cooperatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cooperatives
    - _yid9 2y ago
      Socialists generally despise co-ops, volitional communities (eg. Hutterites) because they work, and provide long-running, successful examples of the benefits espoused by socialists, but ... They are done by free people, using their own resources! That is the problem: "socialists" don't want to use their own resources and effort to accomplish their utopian goals; they want to use your resources. There is no amount of other people's blood and treasure a socialist is unwilling to risk.
      - tocs3 2y ago
        This might be a case where "judging by their works" comes into play. Grouping by semantics is not a good idea.
tocs3 2y ago
As a member of the community I think we should not be thinking about Socialism and Capitalism quite like we generally do. Instead of Capitalism being a belief system maybe we could approach it more as a natural law. If you make money and other resources (capital) available for some thing more people will do that thing more. Restricting capital for that thing and less people will do that thing. There will still be those that will do it out of enjoyment or need but the will be less incentive. We are social beings and work together to get things done as well. Public works and services are usually something we work together to get done. They are things we want cannot or do not want to be responsible for as individuals. So, we work together. As far as Open Source Software... If you are using something support it (as an individual). If the OSS does not exist you can do without, do it yourself, or pay for it. If it is something that is widely used some sort of official public support could be important for everyone and should possibly be subsidized. Relying on a single method for everything will just lead to unhealthy outcomes (both systems have plenty of examples of poor outcomes).
- DonnyV 2y ago
  Capitalism is nowhere near a natural law. Capitalism left unchecked turns into what we have now. Basically Socialism for a small subset of wealthy people. Everytime a company is in trouble the government bails it out or adjusts the interest rate on money.
  - tocs3 2y ago
    Socialism leads to nepotism, favors for friends, and socialism for the most powerful. I am saying we need "Checks and balances". Totally relying on human nature for good outcomes is, in the longer run, a loosing proposition. Saying we should rely totally on "Capitalism" is just as short sited as saying we should rely on "Socialism". Trying a little to stay on the Open Source topic. There are fine examples of open source and proprietary and both have examples of failures. I lean towards OSS but use proprietary software when it seams appropriate.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
Open Source is a voluntary community. You don't have to contribute if you don't want to; you don't have to use it if you don't want to. But trying to apply it to all of society would require forcing it on those who are not voluntarily willing to do things that way. That's where the difference comes: Is it voluntary, or not? And that's where the problem comes for socialist societies - there are always lots of people who don't want to live that way, and you have to force them. There seems to be another route to socialism, or at least socialism lite: democratically pass legislation, one piece at a time. That does not have the moral problem of force. But you won't see your vision in your lifetime.
recursivedoubts 2y ago
Digital goods are different than physical goods: they are (mostly) easily reproducible. If I build a house for myself, building a house for you is still a tremendous amount of effort and expense. If I build a piece of software for myself, giving you a copy is nearly zero effort. This produces extremely different economic dynamics.
johnea 2y ago
For the same reason you have to say "open source" instead of "free software". It's the money stupid! Socialism for the wealthy and austerity for the idiot herd has been the standard for decades in the US and UK. Still the poster child almost 2 decades post, the 2008 economic meltdown was fueled by a banking industry making bets on their bets. But when it all failed, the newly enshrined democratic president of the US adopted the solution planned by the previous republican president, and bailed out the same bankers that caused the whole problem, while letting US homeowners twist in the wind. Clearly cooperative effort is the most efficient policy for helping the most people the most, but it doesn't help a few people more than everyone else, so it's basically anti-thema to the group who claims to be pursuing "efficiency".

eesmith 2y ago

I know how simple it is to say "socialism = mass death", but it's not meaningful. Was Roosevelt a socialist? Certainly some at the time said he was a socialist or even a communist. Or as VP candidate Walz said: "One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness." Walz's comment is surely aligned with what the OP meant as socialism. "Capitalism" doesn't simply mean "pay for stuff", because people used money and worked on personal and shared projects long before there was capitalism. And it's not like capitalism doesn't have its own history of mass deaths and economic and literal starvation.

dtagames 2y ago
This is also not correct. No form of socialism has worked and therefore, empirically, it does not work. Capitalism, however, has raised the standard of living for more people across more socioeconomic classes in more places than any other idea in human history, and that's provable on any measure of the quality of human life.
- tocs3 2y ago
  I have a post above somewhere above but CO-OPS. I agree that capitalism has worked wonders but it is not the only route to success.
- eesmith 2y ago
  > This is also not correct. No form of socialism has worked ... The problem is in how one draws the line to define "socialism". I mentioned how Roosevelt was called a socialist and communist due to his New Deal. Was that socialism, or was it not socialism? I highlighted how "One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness." That's why "socialism" as a blanket term is pretty meaningless. If you can't define socialism, you can't tell if it worked. If your definition excludes examples which others have said is socialism, and which seem to work, which definition should we trust, and why? > Capitalism, however, has raised the standard of living How do you prove that? How do you disentangle correlation and causation? (As an aside, 'standard of living' is usually measured in economic terms, often coupled with growth, so choosing that definition is not unbiased.) Can we attribute the upcoming climate catastrophe to capitalism? If 500 million people die from it, can we say that capitalism caused mass deaths and economic and literal starvation?
  - dtagames 2y ago
    Socialism and communism are easily defined by Marx's 10 Planks. In terms of raising the standard of living, those are all standard terms and metrics. In terms of causation, money earned by people gets spent by them to raise their standard of living. Don't let people who want to control you pull the wool over your eyes and start thinking that giving them all your money and power means they would make things better for you. They won't. They never have. Those are true facts. For more on the underlying concept of liberty vs. statism and why only the former can deliver any kind of results, I highly recommend Ayn Rand's short essay called, A Textbook of Americanism [0]. [0] https://fee.org/resources/textbook-of-americanism/ https://fee.org/resources/textbook-of-americanism/
    - eesmith 2y ago
      That doesn't really help at all. That list is why some people say the US is a socialist country, that Roosevelt was a socialist or communist, etc. For literally the first DDG example, http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/TenPlanks.html http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/TenPlanks.html . I know they are standard metrics. I don't think they are good metrics due to their built-in assumptions. This thread has nothing to do with "giving them all your money and power means they would make things better for you". My observations were 1) "socialism" is such as broad term as to be meaningless until pinned down - and DonnyV clearly isn't talking about Marxism, and 2) a market economy clearly does not require capitalism as people earned money and had jobs long before there was capitalism or mercantilism, so your connecting the two is not a valid argument. I ask again: Can we attribute the upcoming climate catastrophe to capitalism? If 500 million people die from it, can we say that capitalism caused mass deaths and economic and literal starvation?
      - dtagames 2y ago
        No. And how did we get from history to conjecture? We use oil because it's cheap and comes out of the ground, not because of capitalism. If you could get socialists to volunteer to build and run solar energy systems for free, then we would have those already. Oil also contributed enormously to the rise in the human standard of living everywhere. There is no mass extinction from climate change happening now. Humans survived the ice age. You cannot sell me communism by calling it socialism and appealing to future climate fear. You are absolutely asking for people to give over control and money, as that's exactly what socialism requires. Peace. Out.