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Free Can Mean Big Money - The Open Source Economy
Gentu writes "People are always accusing Open Source proponents of being communists, but an editorial by the OSNews publisher, ex-Red Hat employee David Adams, takes a critical look at whether Free and Open Source Software is really anti-capitalistic or is, in fact, only a product of the free market at work. Does wide availability of high quality, low cost software harm or help the world's economy?"
There's a BusinessWeek article today advising the Linux community and those in product development to drop GPL and release under BSDesque licenses in order to stay more business-friendly.
There are different types of "free". There's "free" as in "free speech" and "free" as in "free beer". Some free projects adhere to one or the other, not all to both.
You can read about the GNU Free Software philosophy for more information on the former.
The notion of "From Each According To His Abilities, To Each According To His Needs" which is the core of Karl Marx's philosophy is also the core of Open Source ideals. Those of us who can code give away our code so that everyone who needs software can benefit.
The fact that the Cold War happened and 'communism' became a dirty word in the U.S. and other western nations doesn't make Open Source any less about ensuring that everyone can enjoy the fruits of the labor of the most talented without the necessity of enriching the producers of the software or discrimination against those that would not be able to afford software if it was proprietary and commercial.
Without open-source software (linux), the smaller companies for whom I have consulted would not have readily had the budget to hire me. Even though I'll happily work on commercial UNIX systems, the availability of Linux has contributed greatly to to my consulting cash-flow especially since the downturn in the economy.
IBM makes big bucks from WebSphere Application Server licenses at our company. Here's some snippets from the first half of its license.txt file:
IBM HTTP SERVER AND THE APACHE HTTP SERVER: The IBM HTTP Server component of the Program includes software developed by The Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/). The portions of the IBM HTTP Server which are based on software developed by The Apache Group for the Apache HTTP Server are Copyright (c) 2000 - 2003 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved. Your use of the portions of the IBM HTTP Server which are based on the Apache HTTP Server code in the Program is subject to the terms and conditions of the following license from The Apache Group
FastCGI Code: The Program includes FastCGI software that is copyrighted by Open Market, Inc. IBM obtained the FastCGI software under the terms and conditions of the following license from Open Market. Your use of the FastCGI software accompanying the Program is subject to the terms and conditions of the following license from Open Market, Inc
APACHE COMMONS-LOGGING. The Program includes Apache commons-logging software developed by The Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org) as part of the "Commons" project.. The portions of the Program which are based on software developed by The Apache Software Foundation are Copyright (c) 1999 - 2002 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved. IBM obtained the Apache commons-logging software under the terms and conditions of the following license from The Apache Software Foundation
APACHE ANT CODE. The Program includes software developed by The Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org). The portions of the Program which are based on software developed by The Apache Software Foundation are Copyright (c) 2000-2003 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved. IBM obtained the Apache Ant software under the terms and conditions of the
following license from The Apache Software Foundation
APACHE JAKARTA STRUTS CODE. The Program includes software developed by The Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org) as part of the "Jakarta" project. The portions of the Program which are based on software developed by The Apache Software Foundation are Copyright (c) 2001The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved. IBM obtained the Apache Struts software v. 1.0.2 and 1.1 (including the Tiles and Commons subcomponents) under the terms and conditions of the following license from The Apache Software Foundation
APACHE SOAP CODE. The Program includes software developed by The Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org). The portions of the Program which are based on software developed by The Apache Software Foundation are Copyright (c) 2000 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved. IBM obtained the Apache SOAP software under the terms and conditions of the following license from The Apache Software Foundation
JACL 1.2.6: This product includes Jacl 1.2.6, consisting of the \lib\jacl.jar and \lib\tcljava.jar. IBM obtained this software code under the terms and conditions reproduced below, and the Jacl software is provided to you under these terms and conditions and not the International Program License Agreement. IBM believes that this software code was modified from the copy originally released by Sun Microsystems, Inc., both by IBM and by prior authors.
APACHE JASPER CODE. The Program includes software developed by The Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org). The portions of the Program which are based on software developed by The Apache Software Foundation are Copyright (c) 2000 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved. IBM obtained the Apache Jasper software under the terms and conditions of the following license from The Apache Software Foundation:
JYTHON: The Program includes Jython software (which in turn includes JPython software) which is Copyright (c) 2000, Jython Developers. All rights reserved. IBM
Some may argue that the USSR, etc., wasn't "real Communism" but then the question remains: why wasn't it?
because USSR wasn't communist at all? it was a socialism, it says so in the name "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics". There has never been a communist state, only socialism. Most people go around saying communism is bad because of some reason that is socialism, not communism (i.e. I don't want the government to own everything). Well first of all, communism isn't ruled by the state, it's ruled by the people. Whats so bad about living in a country where every citizen is treated equally, payed equally and has an equal say in the laws? Well people like to through out the "I don't want to get payed the same amount as my lazy neighbor who barely works!". Why would you have a problem with that? I have no problem doing work for 5 people with my job since I love what I do. If people didn't have to worry about finding a job that pays good, then everyone could do jobs that they enjoy doing (yes their are a few flaws there, but I don't feel like pointing them out w/ the solution right now).
Now here's the real problem with communism: There's no way to go from any system we currently have in place, to communism. It was believed according to i think it was marx's theory, that you could go from socialism to communism, but as we've proven already, that doesn't work either.
It's somewhat ironic that the label 'communist' gets attached to open source software. In fact, software, like all information goods in a networked world, is a pure public good (a technical economic term; look it up in Wikipedia or your Econ text) and therefore a standard textbook case of market failure. One possible solution to this failure is government intervention through legislating and enforcing copyrights/patents (closed source). The other possible solution is a tying arrangement whereas the software is given away for free, and technical services (not a pure public good) are tied to the software.
As a solution to public goods market failure, tie-ins have been studied by economists for decades and are conceptually nothing new (look up Nobel-laureate Ronald Coase's classic article on lighthouses). In fact, since they're entirely market-driven and require no government intervention (in the case of public domain software), they're closer in spirit to the ideals of a free market than copyrights.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
First, I think that it is fundamentally wrong to assume that public works and benefits are somehow communist in the way that Communist governments exist today. This sort of thinking has been a way of attacking public sector projects in thinking that "I don't want my tax dollars paying for it."
Instead, it seems to me that we are talking about some sort of continuum between Capitalism and Socialism where the difference is that Socialism has a number of public works controls which help to redistribute wealth and keep in check the big business capitalism.
I use the term communism to refer to Soviet, Chinese, Eastern European, and Cuban communism. Whether or not they are the ideal is irrelevant. They are the examples of communist governments that we can reference. Communism in this perspective seems to be a socialist feudalism with state control and ownership of producers. This state control has limited utility and consequentially at some point one has to move to a person-based (corporations are artifical persons) ownership model.
Hence the move from Feudalism/Communism to Capitalism/Socialism seems to be a one-way road, provided that one only allows one ot consider a transition complete once it has really taken root. I.e. the family succession of elected offices in places like Singapore indicate that feudalist mentalities are still alive and well in the psyche of the citizenry.
The problem with open source from a capitalist perspective is that the means of production (in this case intellectual property) have become socialized, in the words of Marx. However, this is fundamentally different from Communism as I have defined it because socialized doesn't mean "owned by the state" but rather "owned by the producers and users." In other words this is a move towards community ownership which on the surface seems more like communism. To be fair to Marx he seemed to indicate that capitalist institutions such as corporations and the free market would likely continue to exist in his vision of communism.
I am willing to admit (as Wilhelm Reich quite strongly advocates) that Lenninism is NOT to be equated with the theories of Marx, and that Communist parties are simply wishful thinkers and daydreamers. In this theory cooperative businesses are the true manifestation of Marx's ideas of communism, but the term communism can't be used because of confusion with the communist party and the Soviet regime. He uses the term "Work Democracy" in his book "Mass Psychology of Fascism."
Of course what we have here is a strange way in which work democracy is implimented here where the "workers" including "corporations" own the means of production. This is something which could be equated with Marx's communism but bears no relation to the state-controlled Feudal political philosophy which has started in Russia during WWI. Indeed, when compared to the ideas of the "Communist Party," open source more closely resembles capitalism because it assumes no state ownership and the operation of a free market.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
What kind of an idiotic falicious argument is that? Communism is bad because communists killed people. Doesn't that mean that christians should also be abhored? After all, Christians have killed millions of people over the past couple of thousand years in its attempt to rid the world of "primitives" and "heretics". And the USA killed MILLIONS of aboriginal Americans over the last few hundred years. So USA == Chrisitianity == Communism == Evil and deadly.
Although my own political beliefs tell me that Socialism (a nicer word for Communism) is better for the majority, my human nature to compete asks me to move toward Capitalism in order to better myself financially; this issue will plague us for generations.
Just to clarify... By strict economic definition:
* Capitalism = ownership of money/property by one or more private individuals, absent (or mostly-absent) government intervention
* Socialism = ownership of money/property by the government, as a sort of trust granted by the citizens to the government
* Communism = ownership of money/property by the collective public-at-large, absent (or mostly-absent) government intervention
Pure capitalism and pure communism, in actuality, have more in-common with anarchy than any sort of government control.
Under capitalism, nobody has the right to walk on your land. Under socialism, the government tells you whether you have the right to walk on a piece of land. Under communism, anybody can walk anywhere because everybody has the same right to the land as anybody else does.
Pure capitalism has never existed (although the U.S. was closest to it at the nation's founding), nor has pure communism has ever existed either.
The greatest mistake of the Cold War by pro-capitalists was to mistakenly refer to "socialism" as "communism" (that is, Soviet Russia, China, N. Korea, Vietnam, and so on, are not, in fact, communist, they are Socialist (it was even in the Soviet's full national name! USSR = "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics") -- despite the dogma espoused during the anti-communist hysteria of the 1930s-1980s).
I personally am very strongly Capitalist; yet, I am actually more-opposed to socialism than communism, due to the oppressive power that only a supposedly-trustworthy, strong central government can have (just look at the current U.S. government!)...
Communism and socialism fail for the same reason however -- a failure to harness the greed and desire for power inherent in every human being that has ever lived (including those who claim to be free of those influences).
Thus far, the only economic system to take advantage of those traits is capitalism, and as a result, the yearly GDP growth of relatively-capitalist countries almost-invariably outpaces that of relatively-socialist countries. It is no coincidence...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
To expand on the parent's post, there are four types of free market competition: perfect competition, monopoly, oligarchy (monopoly by a group), monopolistic competition (imperfect substitutes). The traditional economic models are perfect competition and monopoly, but these are hard to find in the real world.
The economic ideal is perfect competition, as this results in zero economic profits (note that economic profits subtract out a reasonable rate of return to the investor, so a zero economic profit will coexist with a positive accounting profit) and maximum production. Government run price systems (what is commonly described as communism) are the worst, as they both under- and over-produce goods. Monopoly is next worst, as it underproduces (consistently).
The trick is to push oligarchy and monopolistic competition to act more like perfect competition and less like a monopoly. Open source supports this (by allowing anyone to redistribute, making software into a commodity); closed source does not (redistribution limits make closed source act like a monopoly, e.g. Microsoft).
The weakness of open source is that it makes it difficult for users to exchange money for ease of use. Open source works best for developers, as it makes our job easier. If we need further ease of use, we can develop it. This model does not work for most users, as they don't do development. Thus, open source's high market penetration in servers, which should be administered by technically proficient people, and low penetration in desktops, which are mostly run by those who are not technically proficient.
Oh I don't know, by holding elections and voting a leader in. That's democracy. Socialism just evolves around the goverment taking control of some social programs like health and education. It has nothing to do with how they gained power. You can have a socialist dictatorship, monarcy, and yes, even democracy.