Comment by xbmcuser
9 days ago
To me this is the most amazing thing people that would turn themselves inside out against communism/socialism because of the lies they have been told. When it actually comes down to it are all for communism ie open source
Open source is not communism. Communism would entail that we collectively own Linux, which we don't. It's private property, and if we want to use the code, we need to abide by its licensing terms. Licensing terms that are built upon the existence of copyright, a concept that allows for private ownership of intellectual property.
The licensing terms exist as a patch on copyright. If copyright law were fixed, we wouldn't need those terms at all.
> If copyright law were fixed, we wouldn't need those terms at all.
Why do you think so?
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This is so reductive. Open source has nothing to do with communism.
As a socialist, I would disagree.
Communism is about a would-be utopia after the workers own the means of production.
For us tech workers, it could be argued that the means of production are source code. Thus, there is a socialist aspect to open source - but that's a good thing!
The means of production are computers, no?
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.
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.
> germany has socialized healthcare.
Germany has a dual healthcare system with both public (GKV) and private health insurance (PKV) options. About 10% of residents use private health insurance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany
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
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"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.
Of course it's big enough. Why would it not be big enough??
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North Korea has its own Linux. Google has its own Linux. There are Linux distributions maintained by a single person. Belgium will do fine.
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Yours and others knee jerk reaction proves my point you are conflating autocracy with communism/socialism.
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.
Open source = communism is the dumbest take I've read on HN lmao
I would argue open source is decentralization and proprietary is centralization.
In other words, open source is libertarianism and proprietary is communism.
And this move is to move from Big Tech/"Big State" to smaller alternatives.
> proprietary is communism.
Maybe we should not twist ourselves to logical pretzels to redefine terms like that.