4 ms·

Just because it's free? Let's talk again when all open source projects are funded and controlled by the state with zero competition between them and no consumer

by ngruhn 10mo ago

Just because it's free? Let's talk again when all open source projects are funded and controlled by the state with zero competition between them and no consumer choice. Only one Linux distro, only one database, only one web framework, etc. And it's decided top-down from the state what to work on. I doubt though that these projects would have started in the first place in a communist setting.

ben_w 10mo ago
"The" state, with no competition, like there's only one state? Belgium isn't big enough to realistically have its own linux, but France and Germany are.
- pepa65 10mo ago
  Of course it's big enough. Why would it not be big enough??
  - ben_w 10mo ago
    All the usual reasons for comparative advantage, plus have you seen the size of OS codebases these days?
- integralid 10mo ago
  North Korea has its own Linux. Google has its own Linux. There are Linux distributions maintained by a single person. Belgium will do fine.
  - ben_w 10mo ago
    Maintained, with heavy leaning on other people having actually written all the stuff, enabled by an open market. The hypothetical specifically precludes that.
lompad 10mo ago
There is no reason such a state would have to set things up this way. As an example: you probably know that germany has socialized healthcare. It is, however, not implemented as a single-payer model. Instead there are tons of different insurances competing with each other, while having a highly regulated floor of what they MUST offer. Is the model perfect? Hell no, it has tons of issues - though overall it's pretty solid. My point is just that social policies and "no internal competition ever" does absolutely not have to go hand in hand. There is a massive middle ground. See: social democracy as a concept and in its current implementation.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- keybored 10mo ago
  And social democracy forked from the socialist tradition over half a century ago (GGP[1] said socialism/communism). So both you and GP are wrong. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46551378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46551378
  - lompad 10mo ago
    Problem here being that those terms aren't used as defined in regular discourse. Language changes and casual use differs from academic use. When on an american-centric board anybody writes about "communism", I assume they refer to anything from marxism to stalinism to socialism to democratic socialism to social democracy up to anything non-hyper-capitalist. Not great, but sadly something to be taken into consideration. Especially when looked at in context - parent was criticizing the EU initiative by essentially claiming something like that leads to a kind of monoculture like in a planned economy reminiscent of "communism", here probably meaning stalinism, from what I assume is a radical libertarian position. Which tells me the person is likely american, implying a rather ... minimal awareness of the nuance here. Please, look at the actual comment chain and it should be rather trivial to make out what everybody is talking about. Does your comment really add value here?
    - 10mo ago
xbmcuser 10mo ago
Yours and others knee jerk reaction proves my point you are conflating autocracy with communism/socialism.
keybored 10mo ago
This is as usual confused. People keep discussing communism as if they were (via analogy) talking about capitalism being about men in suites with fake smiles, green paper, bank vaults, and powerpoint presentations. Every time people have to respond with paragraphs upon paragraphs just unrolling all that nonsense. Try to update your knowledge on the subject instead of talking like an alien in Trafalgar Square.

by ngruhn 10mo ago

ben_w 10mo ago

"The" state, with no competition, like there's only one state? Belgium isn't big enough to realistically have its own linux, but France and Germany are.

pepa65 10mo ago
Of course it's big enough. Why would it not be big enough??
- ben_w 10mo ago
  All the usual reasons for comparative advantage, plus have you seen the size of OS codebases these days?
integralid 10mo ago
North Korea has its own Linux. Google has its own Linux. There are Linux distributions maintained by a single person. Belgium will do fine.
- ben_w 10mo ago
  Maintained, with heavy leaning on other people having actually written all the stuff, enabled by an open market. The hypothetical specifically precludes that.

lompad 10mo ago

There is no reason such a state would have to set things up this way. As an example: you probably know that germany has socialized healthcare. It is, however, not implemented as a single-payer model. Instead there are tons of different insurances competing with each other, while having a highly regulated floor of what they MUST offer. Is the model perfect? Hell no, it has tons of issues - though overall it's pretty solid. My point is just that social policies and "no internal competition ever" does absolutely not have to go hand in hand. There is a massive middle ground. See: social democracy as a concept and in its current implementation.

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
keybored 10mo ago
And social democracy forked from the socialist tradition over half a century ago (GGP[1] said socialism/communism). So both you and GP are wrong. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46551378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46551378
- lompad 10mo ago
  Problem here being that those terms aren't used as defined in regular discourse. Language changes and casual use differs from academic use. When on an american-centric board anybody writes about "communism", I assume they refer to anything from marxism to stalinism to socialism to democratic socialism to social democracy up to anything non-hyper-capitalist. Not great, but sadly something to be taken into consideration. Especially when looked at in context - parent was criticizing the EU initiative by essentially claiming something like that leads to a kind of monoculture like in a planned economy reminiscent of "communism", here probably meaning stalinism, from what I assume is a radical libertarian position. Which tells me the person is likely american, implying a rather ... minimal awareness of the nuance here. Please, look at the actual comment chain and it should be rather trivial to make out what everybody is talking about. Does your comment really add value here?
  - 10mo ago

xbmcuser 10mo ago

Yours and others knee jerk reaction proves my point you are conflating autocracy with communism/socialism.

keybored 10mo ago

This is as usual confused. People keep discussing communism as if they were (via analogy) talking about capitalism being about men in suites with fake smiles, green paper, bank vaults, and powerpoint presentations. Every time people have to respond with paragraphs upon paragraphs just unrolling all that nonsense. Try to update your knowledge on the subject instead of talking like an alien in Trafalgar Square.