4 ms·

There's a third audience, those people who think capitalism and socialism each have their pros and cons. It's larger than you think: since we find the for/agai

There's a third audience, those people who think capitalism and socialism each have their pros and cons. It's larger than you think: since we find the for/against VC/RMS debates rather tiresome and fruitless, except for the purpose of clarifying our own world views, we don't end up saying much.

pfraze 13y ago
The Hacker ethos isn't socialist by the modern definition (government-run/public services). It's more about keeping business decisions from affecting quality of engineering and user rights. That doesn't mean capitalism can't happen - or socialism for that matter - it just means there's ethical requirements which take priority.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Copyleft seeks to ensure public ownership of the means of production.
  - spacelizard 13y ago
    No, copyleft is fairly neutral and just seeks to mitigate some of the damage done by copyright. Copyright is what has the serious political agenda, not copyleft.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      ownership : means of production :: source code : binaries
      - spacelizard 13y ago
        That analogy doesn't make any sense because computer software is not produced in factories. Plus, the idea of copyleft is that software shouldn't have owners, period.
        foobarbazqux 13y ago
        You didn't get the analogy, but I was being extremely terse, so I apologize. Your computer is the factory. The binaries running on your computer are the means of production. You use your factory to do office work, for example writing documents, whatever. Copyleft is all about protecting the user that is running the binaries. Now, if you control the source code to your computer, you control the binaries. This means that you control (own) the means of production, as far as a binary can be owned. However, if you don't have the source code, I can sell you binaries but you have no mechanism to control your own means of production. Really, you haven't bought the software from me, you have bought a license to use it. It's as if you work in a factory, and you have to pay someone else for the privilege to use the machines in it. Copyleft makes source code public among its recipients, meaning that control / ownership is shared, and you can still do what you want on your own machine. Copyleft depends on copyright law to ensure public ownership; if all RMS wanted was a lack of ownership, as opposed to public ownership, he would promote public domain and BSD code. Note that at no point here have I said that public ownership is bad - there are cases where it makes a lot of sense - but I do believe its not helpful to deny that the model is fundamentally socialist, as opposed to the EULA model which is fundamentally capitalist.
        pfraze 13y ago
        That's an interesting argument. The manufacturing comparison is complex; perhaps not bad, but a bit difficult (for me) to catch the nuances of. I'm certainly not sure how it matches with the original concepts of Marx (which is what I assume is being referenced by "means of production"). I'll have to chew on it a while. I still wouldn't call your conceptualization of Copyleft "socialism," because that (at least currently) has a strong connotation of government-involvement nowadays. I'd probably call what you're describing communism.
        foobarbazqux 13y ago
        Yeah, I probably should have said communism. I only said socialism because I thought it would be received as less of an insult. Anyway, thanks for listening. You could also argue that the source code was the means of production (of binaries, and then of work), which might be more accurate. I do not know much about Marx or the history of communism, but the focus on social concerns in the GPL is similar.

pfraze 13y ago

The Hacker ethos isn't socialist by the modern definition (government-run/public services). It's more about keeping business decisions from affecting quality of engineering and user rights. That doesn't mean capitalism can't happen - or socialism for that matter - it just means there's ethical requirements which take priority.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
Copyleft seeks to ensure public ownership of the means of production.
- spacelizard 13y ago
  No, copyleft is fairly neutral and just seeks to mitigate some of the damage done by copyright. Copyright is what has the serious political agenda, not copyleft.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    ownership : means of production :: source code : binaries
    - spacelizard 13y ago
      That analogy doesn't make any sense because computer software is not produced in factories. Plus, the idea of copyleft is that software shouldn't have owners, period.
      - foobarbazqux 13y ago
        You didn't get the analogy, but I was being extremely terse, so I apologize. Your computer is the factory. The binaries running on your computer are the means of production. You use your factory to do office work, for example writing documents, whatever. Copyleft is all about protecting the user that is running the binaries. Now, if you control the source code to your computer, you control the binaries. This means that you control (own) the means of production, as far as a binary can be owned. However, if you don't have the source code, I can sell you binaries but you have no mechanism to control your own means of production. Really, you haven't bought the software from me, you have bought a license to use it. It's as if you work in a factory, and you have to pay someone else for the privilege to use the machines in it. Copyleft makes source code public among its recipients, meaning that control / ownership is shared, and you can still do what you want on your own machine. Copyleft depends on copyright law to ensure public ownership; if all RMS wanted was a lack of ownership, as opposed to public ownership, he would promote public domain and BSD code. Note that at no point here have I said that public ownership is bad - there are cases where it makes a lot of sense - but I do believe its not helpful to deny that the model is fundamentally socialist, as opposed to the EULA model which is fundamentally capitalist.
        pfraze 13y ago
        That's an interesting argument. The manufacturing comparison is complex; perhaps not bad, but a bit difficult (for me) to catch the nuances of. I'm certainly not sure how it matches with the original concepts of Marx (which is what I assume is being referenced by "means of production"). I'll have to chew on it a while. I still wouldn't call your conceptualization of Copyleft "socialism," because that (at least currently) has a strong connotation of government-involvement nowadays. I'd probably call what you're describing communism.
        foobarbazqux 13y ago
        Yeah, I probably should have said communism. I only said socialism because I thought it would be received as less of an insult. Anyway, thanks for listening. You could also argue that the source code was the means of production (of binaries, and then of work), which might be more accurate. I do not know much about Marx or the history of communism, but the focus on social concerns in the GPL is similar.