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When Libertarians Attack Free Software
binarybits writes 'I've got a new article analyzing the unfortunate tendency of libertarian and free-market organizations to attack free software. The latest example is a policy analyst at the Heartland Institute who attacks network neutrality regulations by arguing that advocates have 'unwittingly bought into' the 'radical agenda' of the free software movement. I argue that in reality, the free market and free software are entirely compatible, and libertarians are shooting themselves in the foot by antagonizing the free software movement.'
I posit that one of the most prized products of Capitalism and the free market is to reduce the cost for the end consumer and raise the quality of the products and services. Now, the scientific formula for deciding the positive effectiveness of this is: (customer's percieved value)/(actual retail cost)
So you can see that as the actual retail cost approaches zero, the positive effects of capitalism approach infinity! Unfortunately when the actual cost is zero, it's undefined and your interpretation may vary.
Basically I suggest open source software people instruct these complaining parties to donate a penny or fraction of a penny to once again make them look like the epitome of our capitalistic system at work. Anyone else (who isn't stupid) may continue to use it for free and -- at least in the case of open source software -- enjoy unparalleled benefits like being able to modify and redistribute the source let alone view it. Problem solved.
My work here is dung.
I would love to hear your rationale behind this fallacious statement.
I'm not sure but a libertarian would be opposed to open source software's free concept as it's anti capitalism.
There's no reason why a libertarian would be opposed to FLOSS, so long as it is not mandated by the government. Most certainly, giving something away for free, with (GPL) or without (BSDL) strings attached is not contrary to libertarianism.
Free as in no monetary value is not a libertarian principal it's a socialist/communist point of view.
Not really. Socialist point of view isn't "free", it's all about "fair": "from everyone according to their abilities, to everyone according to their contribution". This implies some measurement of the "contribution" to allot the proportional share; this needs not be money in usual sense of the word, but in effect it's still money, and the share is therefore definitely not free.
Communism is money-free, true, but its fundamental difference is that it's completely money-free. Short of anarcho-communism (which is fringe even within communism itself), this implies some form of government that keeps an eye on the economy so it stays that way. That is non-libertarian, not the "free" part.
That's amusing, given that libertarians hold precisely the opposite view, in that much like communists, they have a cool theory, and have this deluded notion that it would actually work in practice. It'd be funny, it if weren't for the fact that their bizarre notions have been used to drive economic policy...
Please, correct me if I'm wrong... But I thought Net Neutrality was about preventing providers from choking off the internet to their customers. The government isn't going to regulate anything, they're just saying to the ISPs "hey, you can't regulate the internet, either," and declare the whole thing hands off neutral?
I tend to think of myself as being "libertarian," though there are caveats. I'd rather let the market decide, unless the market has proven itself wholly incapable of regulating itself. I consider big business using money to change laws to their favor at the expense of private citizens to fall into that category and would hope that government would intervene on behalf of its citizens. You're right in that I'm more interested in "My freedom" over "Your freedom," (which is natural) but, again, with caveats. My freedom ends where your nose begins, as they say. When someone starts spouting off about their "Rights," the first question I ask is, "At who's expense?" If you require my participation to enable/enforce your "Rights" then it's not a right. And the reverse is also true. I don't expect (e.g., sense of entitlement) anything that requires others to act.
For the topic at hand, these chuckleheads proclaiming themselves to be "libertarians" are way off base. There's nothing in libertarian ideology that says that all things must be thought of in terms of how much money it'll make the individual. Why have a problem with someone making software free and open source? It's their right to do so. If enough people follow that path and it adversely affects Microsoft's bottom line, then I'd say that Microsoft (just an example) needs to alter its business model to acclimate to the changing times.
and so you will never find a libertarian who is pro union, even though, according to their ideals, they should be.
I consider myself a libertarian, though I don't always espouse the exact party line of the big 'L' Libertarians.
I fully support unions as a group of freely associating group of people.
Also, I don't consider myself better than others, even those who would tell me that I think I am.
I do believe that the freest market possible provides the greatest benefit to the most individuals, though many people who also believe this are unclear that unfettered capitalism will lead to capital concentration and a non-free market. Therefore regulation is required to approximate one. A true free market is simply a thought experiment and target, it can never be achieved anymore than a marxist economy could.
Everybody wants to wrap themselves in the flag of the free market, and claim that their view is the definition of free market. Let me take a quick moment to define a few terms:
Free Market: Objective is to maximize the efficiency of allocation of resources by maximizing the ability of people to make rational, informed, free decisions on how to transact liquid wealth.
Laissez Faire: Believes that the objective of the free market can best be achieved by minimizing government involvement in corporate decision making (typically except those decisions regarding contracts, copyright, trademark, patents, and trade dress).
Libertarian: Believes that the objective of the free market can best be achieved by minimizing government involvement in all decision making (typically except those decisions regarding contracts, copyright, trademark, patents, and trade dress).
Capitalism: Believes that the objective of the free market can best be achieved by maximizing return on capital.
The proponents of each of the latter three beliefs above profess that their belief system is synonymous with the free market. However, since they are all explicitly maximizing or minimizing different things than what the free market maximizes, it is not by definition that they are synonymous. Hence their hypothesis of synonymity is subject to analysis and disproof -- even if you fully accept the primacy of the free market.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
You can believe in 'l'iberatianism without being a 'L'ibertarian. It's unfortunate that party chose that name. The Democrats aren't the 'P'rogressives so you can remain progressive even when the Democrats start shoveling more troops into Afghanistan and raining money on Wall Street. Similarly the Republicans aren't the 'C'onservatives so you can remain conservative even when Republicans are blowing up the size of Federal Government and borrowing every cent they can.
The 'L'ibertarian party lost me several years ago. I still believe social and economic freedom of libertarianism are good goals to pursue. Unfortunately, like most conservatives, I don't have a party. Even worse, the party that has abandoned my beliefs stole the name.
I can't mention believing in 'l'ibertarianism without being directed to lp.org which I pretty much disagree with at least half their platform.
So I pretty much just nod my head and smile when politics comes up these days. Surprisingly people seem to really like that.
The GPL requires copyright to be enforced. You can't place terms (such as releasing the source code) on distribution if distribution is already completely legal.
The GPL exists to fix a problem with Copyright law: If you release a work in the public domain, somebody can make a modified version, copyright THAT, and enforce it against YOU. They can also create a compilation of a number of public domain works and copyright the compilation.
This means, for instance, that some commercial entity could fix a bug in or add a feature to your public-domain software product and you couldn't make the equivalent fix or add the equivalent feature. Or they could construct a distribution (ala Red Had or Debian) and copyright it, and no equivalent could be made - first Linux distribution gets a monopoly on Linux distributions.
GPL and most other FOSS licenses head this off by maintaining the copyright and using the licensing terms on the underlying work to deny adding such restrictions to derived works and compilations.
But without copyright the restrictions couldn't be added. Sure, something like the GPL would be unenforceable. But if someone were to release a bug fix or upgrade, anyone could reverse-engineer it and include the fix/upgrade in another version of the public-domain work. If someone made a compilation, anyone else could make a similar or identical compilation. Or they could just copy the fixed/upgraded version or compilation. So the GPL's purpose - allowing software set free to STAY free - would be realized and the GPL would be unnecessary.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'd like to point out that Libertarians do not all have the same beliefs. We tend not to blindly adhere to every plank of some party platform.
This particular libertarian thinks that if you create a product, you have the right to charge whatever you want for it, including nothing. I personally don't see how a free market proponent can argue differently. Sometimes it takes a free or extremely cheap product to bust up a monopoly, when legal and market maneuvers continue to force a price that the product is no longer worth. I think any real Libertarian would argue against government intervention, but there's something extremely satisfying in watching regular people successfully compete against software giants in their spare time. I would argue strongly that this is how the free market is supposed to work. If you're trying to charge a high price for something that another person is giving away for free, chances are there's something wrong with your business model.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
[Argument that pushing FOSS mandates for government operations is an interference in the free market - consisting of government purchasing agents "expertly" and "freely" choosing proprietary software.]
I was under the impression that the pushing of FOSS in government was about several other things:
1) Keeping public documents and channels of required communications with government in freely readable formats, rather than locked up in proprietary formats that require those governed to purchase compatible software and/or agree to licensing terms in order to communicate.
2) Keeping the details of the operation of government open and auditable, rather than exposing it to malware inside of black-box software products.
3) Cost containment - imposed on the government by its citizens, who are the primary payers of the taxes that pay for the government's IT operation.
1) and 2) are clearly "open information" issues, where it's obvious which choice is "open". Only 3) even touches on either "free market" or "choice in software" ideals that you claim are being violated. And given that governments (in republics at least) are supposed to be agencies of their citizens, this decision is properly the right of those citizens if they chose to issue such policy directives to their hired agents rather than relying solely on the agents' judgement.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You won't see all libertarians support unions, precisely because we believe in free association. Any philosophy taken too far is destructive--and we often believe government intervention has gone too far--which tends to make unions a good alternative.
I'm fairly young--I can't really remember a time when unions appeared to do something beneficial in my life. Teachers unions have prevented me from getting tenured university faculty fired or even meaningfully reprimanded despite clear evidence of academic misconduct and blatant plagiarism.
Teachers unions have prevented my father from investigating outright financial fraud in school districts.
Steel mill unions have prevented friends of mine who graduated from getting meaningful employment without joining them.
Now--I did have *a* friend who worked summers at a steel mill, and because of union regs--when he opted for working double shifts on holiday weekends after a long week, and there was nobody more senior who wanted it--he could get something like 4x pay. He was able to cover two years tuition by working 60 hour weeks each summer. But he also had weird crap he had to do. He *had* to take certain breaks, *had* to take a lunch, couldn't sit down alone with a supervisor to ask questions. Couldn't get training from some individuals. It reminded me of an episode of Futurama where Hermes got a fishing license "Great Scott--it's not a birth certificate--it's a fishing license, and it's Mandatory!" (or something like that)
Unions did a lot of good when they broke the bastards running coal mines, auto plants, and probably some other places. But--they went too far and now interfere with free association to further the unbounded greed of their own members. Sorry...just like the unions broke big industry...it's time to break the unions until they can stop behaving like little children.
Bottom Line/Core Premise:
When a faculty member who had six students expelled in one semester for plagiarism for offense that were mostly really issues of improper citation (not doing it correctly, doing it in the wrong place, putting a footnote on the last paragraph instead of the first in one case...), commits the same offense but far more egregiously--not only ripping off other schools in their course content without attribution, but publishing material from other universities under their own name. They need to be fired. No hearings, no "tenure"--just fire them. Teachers unions need to be broken.
So yes--you won't see libertarians support unions just because we're pro choice. People should be able to think for themselves, act responsibly for themselves, and not be forced to toe some line with bullshit "solidarity" where nobody can be reprimanded because of some sort of mythical status symbol. Unions centralize power--they just do it away from the nominal government of "the state".
Don't blame the above poster, blame the people who have the media's attention that call themselves Libertarians. The Cato Instutute, usually described as the main Libertarian think tank organization, is very pro-corporate and very anti-unions. It sounds like the self-proclaimed Libertarians here on Slashdot need to either take back their name or find a new one because right now, 'libertarian' has become as distorted a label as 'liberal.' If you look up the classic definition of 'liberal,' you'll wonder what the hell people like Limbaugh are on about.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Libertarianism certainly allows for FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software, as I think even RMS calls it these days), in the sense that it does not prohibit either altruism (giving something away), or cooperation (working together).
However, to argue, as RMS does, that non-free software is somehow "immoral", IS anti-libertarian, because libertarians certainly do not prohibit the existence of proprietary software -- many, of the Open Source camp do think it is a bad deal, however.
Now, to effectively compete against proprietary software, when marketed to the masses, FLOSS likely requires advertising and marketing-"spin" around it, if for no other reason than to combat the competition's advertising and FUD. And, this has to be funded somehow, leading to the "support model" of funding FLOSS development.
One either has to reduce one's costs (by developing a program that simplifies some aspect of their life which they might wish to share), or earn revenue (by selling something around something one otherwise gives away), or what one does is unsustainable. A widely popular FLOSS program will die on the vine if the bandwidth costs of it's distribution can not be paid SOMEHOW (donations, becoming part of a larger project, hosted on a site that absorbs these costs (e.g. Sourceforge), etc.
Now, for those of us who have the skills to take, and improve FLOSS, the overhead of advertising and marketing are unnecessary: we know a good thing when we see it. But, programmers, and good programmers in particular, are a rare breed.
I often wonder if the aggregation mechanism that permits FLOSS and Proprietary software to work together (distributed together, but running together only in the most tenuous of relationships) isn't serendipitous: Non-free drivers that permit free applications, while a potentially dangerous trap, at least get those applications USED, and thus NOTICED. It's a form of "free advertising" for the app. It creates an incentive to replace the non-free parts when the app becomes popular. Similarly, "less free" (LGPL) code gets noticed because of all the proprietary apps that can use it. BSD licenses take this to a further degree in that non-free forks of otherwise free code are permitted.
So we get the SUSE vs. GNU/Linux vs. Debian vs. Ubuntu vs. BSD wars where the differences are often ideological.
As a libertarian, I see this choice as HEALTHY for the marketplace of FLOSS, and how it works with, and against, proprietary code, to the benefit of both.
I doubt very much if FLOSS would flourish like it does if copyright law permitted RMS to include anti-aggregation clauses in the GPL, even as he opposes ALL non-free software.
Proprietary software is dangerous, and arguably anti-social, but this does not mean it is not occasionally useful until something better comes along. I wonder how many programmers are paid well enough to produce proprietary code so that they can devote some of their leisure time toward producing FLOSS code. I have produced proprietary code for use in embedded devices (arguably not useful to have free) for decades, and now spend much of my time aggregating FLOSS code, with proper license deference, with much smaller amounts of proprietary code in far more complex embedded devices (where the argument of user control is far more compelling). I could not do this if proprietary code were, as RMS might wish, illegal. I take the libertarian stance that "Let the user chose to accept the license, or not," so long as the choice is an informed one.
In Liberty, Rene
That's because most libertarians are selfish bastards at heart. They are not concerned with such collectivist notions as creating a sustainable free society. Rather, it's all about maximizing their ability to put any chemical or object in their body they want, keep all of their money and hire the cheapest labor they can get.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. I used to be a libertarian in my student days (not anymore - see my sig...). Back then, it was definitely not about about any of the things that you mention.
"Ability to put any chemical or object in their body they want?" - never did that. I don't even smoke, I never even tried any kind of drug, and I drink alcohol very rarely and in small quantities (normally because it's something fairly expensive, too, like liqueur or icewine).
"Keep all of their money" - didn't really have much money to keep. Didn't pay any taxes either as it was.
"Hire the cheapest labor they can get" - as a student, I was the cheapest labor someone could get...
So why was I a libertarian, then? Because I genuinely believed in the underlying philosophy: that freedom is most important, and that the only just society is the one that maximizes freedom, including economic one, even when that has potential negative effect for other people. I was also convinced that it would lead to a more efficient society in utilitarian sense, but that was just icing on the cake. Doing the "right thing" was more important in the end (just like Stallman, who says that you should use FOSS even when it's worse than alternatives, because FOSS is inherently good and ideologically right).
Another part of it was the perceived elegance of the simplicity of libertarian constructs. Supply and demand. Rational choice. Your freedom ends where my nose begins. The idea of a few simple rules, which, together, describe an elegant and seemingly self-consistent system, is extremely attractive to a tech geek.
Where I was wrong? In not accounting for the weirdness of human as an animal, and a social one at that. In not realizing that most people, most of the time, are not rational thinkers (they think they are, but rationalization happens postfactum to explain the choice made - there have been several definite studies on that). In ignoring the fact that most people aren't willing to stand up to defend their slightest freedoms, which opens the door for anyone wishing power to take it, at the costs of other's freedoms, slowly - step by step - until a libertarian paradise transforms into an oligarchical corporatist and/or fascist state. Simply put, libertarianism
That's because most libertarians are selfish bastards at heart. They are not concerned with such collectivist notions as creating a sustainable free society. Rather, it's all about maximizing their ability to put any chemical or object in their body they want, keep all of their money and hire the cheapest labor they can get.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. I used to be a libertarian in my student days (not anymore - see my sig...). Back then, it was definitely not about about any of the things that you mention.
"Ability to put any chemical or object in their body they want?" - never did that. I don't even smoke, I never even tried any kind of drug, and I drink alcohol very rarely and in small quantities (normally because it's something fairly expensive, too, like liqueur or icewine).
"Keep all of their money" - didn't really have much money to keep. Didn't pay any taxes either as it was.
"Hire the cheapest labor they can get" - as a student, I was the cheapest labor someone could get...
So why was I a libertarian, then? Because I genuinely believed in the underlying philosophy: that freedom is most important, and that the only just society is the one that maximizes freedom, including economic one, even when that has potential negative effect for other people. I was also convinced that it would lead to a mo
I have spent many years identifying as a libertarian socialist, or anarchist, or just libertarian. I have never really been much of a conservative....but damn... let me tell you something. I like Barry Goldwater.
When I read his statement on gays in the military ("Homosexuals have served honorably in military service since the time of the ancient Greeks" was, I believe, a pretty good approximation of a direct quote) or on why marijuana should be legalized... I realized I was reading the statements of a sane individual who could be reasoned with.
Sure, any of us may (and I know I am just as guilty as many others) go off and make sensational statements. However, the ability to be just down to earth and willing to discuss the actual issues in a rational manner is something to be looked up to and strived for.
I wish that more of the people who call themselves conservatives today were more like old Barry.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I probably even agree with you that regulation is needed to avoid large boom and bust cycles at the cost of overall efficiency.
Before the Fed there were no "large" boom and bust cycles, there were much smaller "corrections" of the market. The Fed then started attempting to fix "corrections" which would allow the market to over inflate and then burst causing a larger correction than would naturally occur. The large boom bust cycles are a byproduct of market manipulation by the Fed.
I'm not in the abolish the fed camp or in the gold standard camp, but having the Fed maintain a fixed interest rate and a fixed money supply (i.e. no printing extra money) regardless of emergencies in the market would do wonders for the economy.
You're completely out of sync with what most libertarians believe. Many libertarians would abolish corporations completely, as the government does not have the power to grant any "rights" to a non person entity. Given that a libertarian would likely take the argument that far, the idea that they *want* corporate feudalism is just absurd on its face. Please stop espousing ideas that are so far from the truth.
Fine. They want Feudalism.
Or as Kim Stanley Robinson put it, "That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves. "
In order to be talking about a limited government you have to talk about Pre-Civil War economies, since after the civil war the government had lot more federal power. The first railway networks circa 1860, that connected the east to the midwest, were funded by private stock market initiatives.
When people say 'libertarian' they mean 'anarchist.'
No, they mean freedom. The name derives from "liberty". Just because some anarchists equate anarchy with liberty doesn't mean all do.
I may be getting long in the tooth, but I wasn't around in the late 1800s and don't see what people back then called libertarianism has anything at all to do with what I call it today.
In the late 1800s "gay" meant "joyful and carefree". What someone meant by a term two centuries ago has little bearing to today's use of many words. Libertarian means "don't try to protect me from myself".
Free Martian Whores!
You're telling that to the wrong group. It's the progressives that believe the economy follows a set of rules, and this belief leads them to think that centralized regulations are a good answer. I'm not an anarcho-libertarian that believes in a free-as-in-unregulated market, but I believe that very little regulation is required--the vast majority of market abuses are already covered by fraud and other criminal statutes. Putting more regs in place only stifles innovation and, due to the purchasing power of corporate lobbyists, kills small businesses while consolidating and strengthening the large ones.
Even if a libertarian isn't personally racist, they see things like the civil rights act and the fair housing act (and the associated enforcement costs) as the government sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong, so at the very least a libertarian world view enables racism.
Very often the case. But is it necessarily the case?
Remember, the subset of libertarians that are completely opposed to any regulation of any kind at all ever is an extremely small set, the anarcho-libertarians. Almost all libertarians support some regulation.
Is it possible to use regulations of the sort that most libertarians could support to combat racism, sexism, or other prejudices?
I don't intend to provide the answer here (because I don't have time to write a master's thesis right now). But I don't think it has to be impossible.
The angle I'd probably start from is, a lot of times, such prejudices (if actually expressed as behavior) can be regarded as fraud. If you advertise a job with one set of requirements, and then fill it by another set of requirements that you never mentioned, you are doing something fraudulent. And punishment of outright fraud is something that even a lot of fairly extreme libertarians and capitalists (and heck, even Objectivists!) can enthusiastically support.
(Yeah, I know that's just the kernel of the seed of the beginnings of the argument. I know a lot more reasoning than that would be required to make it.)
The reason that libertarianism is under attack is because it's become a haven for all manner of ultra-right, corporatist, and anarchist radicals who've already drowned out any real intellect the libertarian philosophy harbored. These people aren't just genuinely unlikable in general (unless you're willing to acquiesce to their beliefs) and they aren't just angry and dumb, they have genuinely dangerous ideas which, if implemented, would make the past thirty years of thinly veiled corporatism look like a cakewalk. You'd be right if you said that isn't libertarianism, but then, what is? Your philosophy suffers the same 'ism' disease every other ill defined but marketable sounding philosophy has: it has a sexy name, so it means whatever the people abusing the term want it to mean.
Libertarianism is a victim of its own marketability (but not of its substance), and just like liberalism and conservatism, the meaning is completely arbitrary. It's become a blanket term recently for disenfranchised conservatives, who incidentally have hijacked the movement for the time being. If you want libertarians to be treated with respect and if you want the world to acknowledge that you actually have a philosophy that might be, you know, grounded in reality, either take control of your message or get a new name.