> If an artist chooses non-redistribution as a license, it should be honored
I agree with you. Real life is not that simple however.
Ideally, the good thing about an artist being allowed to choose whatever licence they please is that many will choose different licenses and that, together perhaps with the price and the quality of the product will allow consumers to decide which product is best for them. A problem arises though when most of a market is controlled by one company (or many cooperating companies) because they find themselces able to charge higher prices and use more restrictive licenses and the consumers don't have much choice. What you have is something resebling a monopoly by it's nature.
When this happens to the point that the market doesn't like it, the market will do something about it. If the industry wasn't contorlled by en elite few this would probably involve boycotting certain products or brands for example in order to avoid certain licenses, but in the case of the music industry that's just not possible due to the tight control held by a few very powerful ppl. It seems the consumers have taken what they see as the only other option left. To ignore the license and break the law.
I am not saying that is the best solution, but if someone knowingly breaks the law and it prepared to do whatever it takes including jail as a result of their actions then I won't stop them. Some ppl think it's worth the risk in order to highlight the problem to others.
Re:Napster vs. The GPL
on
Napster Wars
·
· Score: 1
not this again!
Explain this to me then:
I will not work for free. I will not have my work taken from me without my consent. I will not work unless I am free to decide (within reasonable limits) the terms of it's use and distribution.
I will however work unpaid for the GPL community. I am not working for free; my reward is to use the work of others or their changes to my work without paying them. Without the GPL I could not be certain this would work. I might work and others would not repay my efforts by giving me (and others) the improvements they have made to my work.
How can I be sure I get 'paid' without the the copyright that allows the GPL to exist?
Re:Napster vs. The GPL
on
Napster Wars
·
· Score: 1
> Contrast that [the GPL] to what Copyright stands for
You can't contrast it. It is orthogonal. The GNU GPL is a license. Copyright it not.
That said, the GNU GPL stands for most of the things you mention. eg sharing, growth of knowledge.
What copyright stands for is the right for the creator (uaually) of a work to decide how it is licenced.
HOW MANY TIMES!?!?! will people keep thinking that copyright and GPL somehow opposites, or conflict with each other.
Without copyright the GNU GPL would not exist.
Re:Napster vs. The GPL
on
Napster Wars
·
· Score: 1
Whoever owns the copyright to a piece of work gets to decide the license others have to use that work. Anyone who breaks the terms of that license is liable to be in trouble and could be taken to court by the copyright owner.
This is a good system usually, as the consumers get to choose whether they like a product, its price and its license before they buy it. If they dont like the product or the price they can choose another one. If they dont like the license they can choose a similar product with a license they like more.
The problem comes when most of any given product or type of product are owned/controlled by one large company or group of collaborating companies. They then become free to use restrictive licenses, and overpriced products. There is also a risk of liwer quality products, and the consumer is left with no real choice.
I am not saying it it okay to break the law and ignore licenses when you don't like them, but I find it difficult to recommend a course of action to those asking what to do about overpriced and restrictively licensed music. Althogh I cannot fully condone the actions of Napster users stealing music, perhaps it will provide the much needed wake up call required by the music industry right now.
Well stop shouting and think for a minute. Security is not a simple subject and there is no such thing as a totally secure system. All you have is more secure systems and less secure systems. IMO, these are the important questions:
Q: Are security flaws like this easier to find in open source operating systems such as linux? A: yes!
Q: Does this make linux more secure than closed source systems? A: No!
Q: How many potential flaws exist in closed systems? A: Nobody knows.
Q: How many more flaws will be found in linux: A: Nobody knows.
Q: Is linux more secure or less secure than other systems? A: There is no clear answer. Weigh up the pros/cons of the security records of each OS you are considering, and the areas in which they have had security problems and decide for yourself.
Please people, every time a flaw is found in Linux, people shout "Linux is not secure!" and when its in NT, we hear "NT sux. Linux rules" and similar for other OS's. Stop it.
>journalistic responsibility has to extend to >thinking about the ability of servers to take >an increased hit before they are ready. I don't need slashdot to hold my hand and decide for me when the servers are "ready" They can tell me what they know and I will decide for myself what I consider to be responsible behaviour. We are not (all) children. I actually agree with most of what you say but I think I'm right when I say that (at least) a significant number of people do not want you or me or slashdot deciding for them what is of is not responsible. MartinG.
We can't merge Motif and Lesstif as the licences are incompatible. Lesstif is under the GNU GPL and Open Motif is not even open source. (despite being called Open Motif)
This release however is a Good Thing as it means the user now has a greater choice of free (beer) Motif-like toolkits.
If they eventually release this as "proper" open source as their FAQ suggests then that will be even better.
To all napster users who have used the napster service to steal Metallica's music (or anybody elses for that matter) - you deserve to be prosecuted.
To all legitimate napster users, (and non-napster users,) and/or Metallica fans who agree that the approach Metallica is taking in trying to stop the theft of their music is wrong - I suggest the following:
- Do not buy any (more) Metallica music.
- Contact Metallica in any way you can letting them know that you will not buy their music in future and tell them why.
That is what happens in a free market. If it is the wrong thing to have happened then the solution is to educate the consumers on how to choose the best product for them, not to start complaining when a new competing product comes out that you personally don't like.
I entirely agree, I'm not commenting on how cheap or expensive it is overall. I'm simply saying that it's good to have the choice - even if many people (myself included) would not choose a software modem or software DSL.
I agree that the user should be aware of what they are buying and what it's limitations are, but I think that is true when buying _any_ hardware or software. This is an education issue and will probably we covered adequately by magazines and online reviews etc.
It is not neccesarily an issue of cluelessness - I might well specifically decide that this software driven modem is better _for me_ because I have limited cash, but don't mind my machine being slowed down. It represents a greater choice for the consumer, that is my point.
I also agree though that from an engineering point of view, this approach may not be the best, but there are always other things to consider in real life - not least the price. If the engineering considerations we're given more preference, I for one would not be using an x86 based machine.
All kinds of things make manufacturers decide to do many things that I believe are far from ideal, which is why choice is important (even when I personally hate some of the choices available) and this move in my view represents a greater choice.
I really don't see why people think this is a bad thing. In exactly the same way that the existance of winmodems is not bad IMO. As long as "normal" modems and "normal" DSL modems are still available also, this can only bring more choice to consumers. It is good IMO that someone who only ever uses operating systems for which drivers are available, and who can spare the CPU time can have the choice of cheaper hardware. Okay, in an ideal world all OSs would be supported and the specs would be freely available, but better that some people have the choice of cheaper hardware then none at all.
I can think of a couple of "interesting" ways to help this catch 22 situation. Write a clever squid plugin to do one of the following: (and get as mand people as possible to install it.)
1) A squid (or other www proxy) plugin that converts all pngs it encounters to uncompressed gifs on the fly, allowing all browsers to see the images, but also allowing web developers to start using pngs now without worrying. Once browsers catch up, the new plugin can be deleted.
2) A squid plugin that converts all gifs to pngs. Meaning nobody will be able to see any images and pressure will increase on the browser developers to improve png support.
Okay, so point 2 wasn't serious, but point 1 _could_ help if enough people did it.
I think anything that offers the user a greater choice is a good thing, as long as it is not at the expense of decent performace.
I would say though that many themes are implemented in the wrong place IMO. Themeable widget sets for example are an excellent idea (even better if the theme can be selected at application level like with MUI for the amiga for example (does gtk+ allow this?)), because the application programmer doesn't have to do any extra work to make his/her app themeable (and ithe code is also therefore smaller and probably more easily maintained)
On the other hand, themeable individual apps (winamp, xmms, etc) seem a bit daft to me. If your widget set doesn't allow the themeability you want in your app, why not propose some changes to it, or consider a new/different widget set instead of potentially effectively bypassing a users desired appearance.
Sorry to continue this offtopic thread but what about: 10 PRINT "THIS IS MY SIG... ";:POKE 23692,0:GOTO 10 (for all those old spectrum basic programmers whose memories are just a little bit too good)
Whether ISPs are seen as telecoms operators is IMO not the important issue in this bill.
If I have understood it correctly (and unfortunately I think I have) then it will mean suspects are NOT innocent until proven guilty. If a suspect has encrypted data and has lost the key, it is up to him/her to prove they have lost the key. It is NOT up to the prosecution to prove that they haven't. If they can't prove it they face jail.
The important point here is where the burden of proof lies. It should NOT lie with the defendant in this case IHMO.
Richard Stallman talks about some upcoming laws that could be disasterous for British citizens." Guilty until you prove you're innocent, no right to remain silent, no right to a jury trial, produce your encryption keys or go to jail..
"... it can be demanded as potential evidence during litigation."
Isn't this one of the things that has got Microsoft into so much trouble throughout the court case? I wonder how much of what they now stand accused of would not even have seen the light of day without forcing them to disclose their emails?
Before anybody starts to port it, why not have a look at Worker at freshmeat. It's described there as follows:
Worker is a file-manager exclusive for X based on the famous filemanager "DirectoryOpus" on the AmigaOS. It is configurable on the fly without restarting Worker. Any extern program can be easily integrated in the GUI, including a button and a hotkey. Worker uses real file-recognition on file-content AND/OR file-ending, where each file-type can get an own action.
> Katz should have at LEAST responded to the allegations
Of course. I think i responded to something slightly different to what you meant.
I think we seem to agree on what we want actaully. We're probably just heading toward it from different directions.
I want exactly the same people gone that you do. The question is how best to get rid of them? Is it to remove them somehow (ie, tell them "get out") Or to try to enlighten them (ie, tell them "listen or you won't be listened to - or get out!"
The thing is though, if you believe the latter is best, as I do, you might find as I have, that it's most effective if you welcome those types of people into the kinds of situations in which you will have the most to learn from each other. Often this can be your "private space"
I fully appreciate your not wanting to invite ppl info your private space, but I guess I might just be a bit different there. I sometimes find conversation can get dull if everyone agrees too often, but maybe I'm a bit wierd. (well, I'm definitely a bit wierd, but not neccesarily for that reason)
> There've been HOW many comments saying he's wrong?
Are you suggesting that the number of people saying or doing something imply whether it is more or less right?
(Hmm, wow, that means macdonalds makes the best food, and Beos is "wrong" because most of my friends tell me windows is better)
Assuming the answer is yes above, meaning that Katz is "wrong" in "our" view, does that mean he should cease to voice his opinion?
> They exist, they're hard to find - AND WE LIKE IT THAT WAY
Can you please explain exactly who "WE" is in the above statement? It sounds like a crowd of bullys to me.
> Things start to suck when they get crowded.
Yes, but thats not a problem, it's a symptom of one. And one that I believe you and I and many other are part of. The problem is people's intolerence to other people's different views. You see views you don't like (those of Katz) and you immediately attack them. It's exactly the same when the "morons" you describe see views that they don't like on slashdot, so rather than listen and discuss, they just attack the whole thing in the form of hot grits and goatse.cx links.
The solution is not for one or more people to shut up. Far from it. The solution is education. Each individual must learn to tolerate and respect the views of other no matter how stringly they disagree. Only then might they begin to believe that they may be afforded the same in return.
The second point raises another question (maybe everyone but me already knows the answer, but..)
Are the *BSD developers allowed to hold on the the advertising clause? The GPL certainly says that ppl are allowed to use/distribute the software according to "either version 2 of the License, (at your option) any later version."
Is their a similar clause in the BSD licence (I don't think I have ever even read the BSD licence) If there is, then the debian ppl could choose a later version than the one it was released with. ie. they could choose the one without the advertising clause. -- MartinG.
Many people have said that the GPL is a virus, as it 'infects' any program its code it copied to, meaning that it too must be released as GPL.
I don't agree with this description though - The GPL is not like a virus because it does not spread itself and it makes no attempt to replicate. The only way it can 'spread' is if an author chooses to release their code as GPL or chooses to include existing GPL code in their program. This process is entirely under the control of the programmer. A virus would not offer such choice.
There are many very important differences. Probably the most important is that we all have a CHOICE whether to release our work as open source and users have a CHOICE whether or not to accept it (or any other licence for that matter.) It's the element of choice that open source brings that means in very well in a capitalist system.
Under Marx's communism (if I understood you correctly), everything would be effectively open source regardless of the authors wishes and everyone would have to accept that licence (even if they believed in closed source development [for example])
IMO _CHOICE_ is what matters here. If everyone chooses the licence they prefer to release their work under, then the masses who get to decide which they prefer. Exactly the way it should be. Not some person (like Marx) or group of people deciding whats best for everyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
> If an artist chooses non-redistribution as a license, it should be honored
I agree with you. Real life is not that simple however.
Ideally, the good thing about an artist being allowed to choose whatever licence they please is that many will choose different licenses and that, together perhaps with the price and the quality of the product will allow consumers to decide which product is best for them. A problem arises though when most of a market is controlled by one company (or many cooperating companies) because they find themselces able to charge higher prices and use more restrictive licenses and the consumers don't have much choice. What you have is something resebling a monopoly by it's nature.
When this happens to the point that the market doesn't like it, the market will do something about it. If the industry wasn't contorlled by en elite few this would probably involve boycotting certain products or brands for example in order to avoid certain licenses, but in the case of the music industry that's just not possible due to the tight control held by a few very powerful ppl. It seems the consumers have taken what they see as the only other option left. To ignore the license and break the law.
I am not saying that is the best solution, but if someone knowingly breaks the law and it prepared to do whatever it takes including jail as a result of their actions then I won't stop them. Some ppl think it's worth the risk in order to highlight the problem to others.
not this again!
Explain this to me then:
I will not work for free. I will not have my work taken from me without my consent. I will not work unless I am free to decide (within reasonable limits) the terms of it's use and distribution.
I will however work unpaid for the GPL community. I am not working for free; my reward is to use the work of others or their changes to my work without paying them. Without the GPL I could not be certain this would work. I might work and others would not repay my efforts by giving me (and others) the improvements they have made to my work.
How can I be sure I get 'paid' without the the copyright that allows the GPL to exist?
> Contrast that [the GPL] to what Copyright stands for
You can't contrast it. It is orthogonal. The GNU GPL is a license. Copyright it not.
That said, the GNU GPL stands for most of the things you mention. eg sharing, growth of knowledge.
What copyright stands for is the right for the creator (uaually) of a work to decide how it is licenced.
HOW MANY TIMES!?!?! will people keep thinking that copyright and GPL somehow opposites, or conflict with each other.
Without copyright the GNU GPL would not exist.
Whoever owns the copyright to a piece of work gets to decide the license others have to use that work. Anyone who breaks the terms of that license is liable to be in trouble and could be taken to court by the copyright owner.
This is a good system usually, as the consumers get to choose whether they like a product, its price and its license before they buy it. If they dont like the product or the price they can choose another one. If they dont like the license they can choose a similar product with a license they like more.
The problem comes when most of any given product or type of product are owned/controlled by one large company or group of collaborating companies. They then become free to use restrictive licenses, and overpriced products. There is also a risk of liwer quality products, and the consumer is left with no real choice.
I am not saying it it okay to break the law and ignore licenses when you don't like them, but I find it difficult to recommend a course of action to those asking what to do about overpriced and restrictively licensed music. Althogh I cannot fully condone the actions of Napster users stealing music, perhaps it will provide the much needed wake up call required by the music industry right now.
> They complain that MS products are difficult to use
That's because "they" are over-generalising about MS products. There is some truth in what "they" say, but it is generally untrue.
> they dismiss people who complain linux is difficult to use as "ignorant newbies"
That's because "they" are over-generalising about new linux users. There is some truth in what "they" say, but it is generally untrue.
As you say, "they" want it both ways. But you are overgeneralising about linux users. There is some truth in what you say, but it is generally untrue.
.. by the predictable responses from people here.
Linux is not secure!
Linux can't be trusted!
Well stop shouting and think for a minute. Security is not a simple subject and there is no such thing as a totally secure system. All you have is more secure systems and less secure systems. IMO, these are the important questions:
Q: Are security flaws like this easier to find in open source operating systems such as linux?
A: yes!
Q: Does this make linux more secure than closed source systems?
A: No!
Q: How many potential flaws exist in closed systems?
A: Nobody knows.
Q: How many more flaws will be found in linux:
A: Nobody knows.
Q: Is linux more secure or less secure than other systems?
A: There is no clear answer. Weigh up the pros/cons of the security records of each OS you are considering, and the areas in which they have had security problems and decide for yourself.
Please people, every time a flaw is found in Linux, people shout "Linux is not secure!" and when its in NT, we hear "NT sux. Linux rules"
and similar for other OS's. Stop it.
>journalistic responsibility has to extend to >thinking about the ability of servers to take >an increased hit before they are ready. I don't need slashdot to hold my hand and decide for me when the servers are "ready" They can tell me what they know and I will decide for myself what I consider to be responsible behaviour. We are not (all) children. I actually agree with most of what you say but I think I'm right when I say that (at least) a significant number of people do not want you or me or slashdot deciding for them what is of is not responsible. MartinG.
We can't merge Motif and Lesstif as the licences are incompatible. Lesstif is under the GNU GPL and Open Motif is not even open source. (despite being called Open Motif)
This release however is a Good Thing as it means the user now has a greater choice of free (beer) Motif-like toolkits.
If they eventually release this as "proper" open source as their FAQ suggests then that will be even better.
To all napster users who have used the napster service to steal Metallica's music (or anybody elses for that matter) - you deserve to be prosecuted.
To all legitimate napster users, (and non-napster users,) and/or Metallica fans who agree that the approach Metallica is taking in trying to stop the theft of their music is wrong - I suggest the following:
- Do not buy any (more) Metallica music.
- Contact Metallica in any way you can letting them know that you will not buy their music in future and tell them why.
Fewer real modems sold.
That is what happens in a free market. If it is the wrong thing to have happened then the solution is to educate the consumers on how to choose the best product for them, not to start complaining when a new competing product comes out that you personally don't like.
I entirely agree, I'm not commenting on how cheap or expensive it is overall. I'm simply saying that it's good to have the choice - even if many people (myself included) would not choose a software modem or software DSL.
I agree that the user should be aware of what they are buying and what it's limitations are, but I think that is true when buying _any_ hardware or software. This is an education issue and will probably we covered adequately by magazines and online reviews etc.
It is not neccesarily an issue of cluelessness - I might well specifically decide that this software driven modem is better _for me_ because I have limited cash, but don't mind my machine being slowed down. It represents a greater choice for the consumer, that is my point.
I also agree though that from an engineering point of view, this approach may not be the best, but there are always other things to consider in real life - not least the price. If the engineering considerations we're given more preference, I for one would not be using an x86 based machine.
All kinds of things make manufacturers decide to do many things that I believe are far from ideal, which is why choice is important (even when I personally hate some of the choices available) and this move in my view represents a greater choice.
I really don't see why people think this is a bad thing. In exactly the same way that the existance of winmodems is not bad IMO.
As long as "normal" modems and "normal" DSL modems are still available also, this can only bring more choice to consumers.
It is good IMO that someone who only ever uses operating systems for which drivers are available, and who can spare the CPU time can have the choice of cheaper hardware.
Okay, in an ideal world all OSs would be supported and the specs would be freely available, but better that some people have the choice of cheaper hardware then none at all.
I can think of a couple of "interesting" ways to help this catch 22 situation. Write a clever squid plugin to do one of the following: (and get as mand people as possible to install it.)
1) A squid (or other www proxy) plugin that converts all pngs it encounters to uncompressed gifs on the fly, allowing all browsers to see the images, but also allowing web developers to start using pngs now without worrying. Once browsers catch up, the new plugin can be deleted.
2) A squid plugin that converts all gifs to pngs. Meaning nobody will be able to see any images and pressure will increase on the browser developers to improve png support.
Okay, so point 2 wasn't serious, but point 1 _could_ help if enough people did it.
I think anything that offers the user a greater choice is a good thing, as long as it is not at the expense of decent performace.
I would say though that many themes are implemented in the wrong place IMO. Themeable widget sets for example are an excellent idea (even better if the theme can be selected at application level like with MUI for the amiga for example (does gtk+ allow this?)), because the application programmer doesn't have to do any extra work to make his/her app themeable (and ithe code is also therefore smaller and probably more easily maintained)
On the other hand, themeable individual apps (winamp, xmms, etc) seem a bit daft to me. If your widget set doesn't allow the themeability you want in your app, why not propose some changes to it, or consider a new/different widget set instead of potentially effectively bypassing a users desired appearance.
Sorry to continue this offtopic thread but what about:
10 PRINT "THIS IS MY SIG... ";:POKE 23692,0:GOTO 10
(for all those old spectrum basic programmers whose memories are just a little bit too good)
Whether ISPs are seen as telecoms operators is IMO not the important issue in this bill.
If I have understood it correctly (and unfortunately I think I have) then it will mean suspects are NOT innocent until proven guilty. If a suspect has encrypted data and has lost the key, it is up to him/her to prove they have lost the key. It is NOT up to the prosecution to prove that they haven't. If they can't prove it they face jail.
The important point here is where the burden of proof lies. It should NOT lie with the defendant in this case IHMO.
Realistically you can't be expected to deliver information that you don't have.
Who said the authorities would behave "realistically" ?
See this previous slashdot story:
Richard Stallman talks about some upcoming laws that could be disasterous for British citizens." Guilty until you prove you're innocent, no right to remain silent, no right to a jury trial, produce your encryption keys or go to jail..
"... it can be demanded as potential evidence during litigation."
Isn't this one of the things that has got Microsoft into so much trouble throughout the court case? I wonder how much of what they now stand accused of would not even have seen the light of day without forcing them to disclose their emails?
> Please, can someone port it?
Before anybody starts to port it, why not have a look at Worker at freshmeat. It's described there as follows:
Worker is a file-manager exclusive for X based on the famous filemanager "DirectoryOpus" on the AmigaOS. It is configurable on the fly without restarting Worker. Any extern program can be easily integrated in the GUI, including a button and a hotkey. Worker uses real file-recognition on file-content AND/OR file-ending, where each file-type can get an own action.
--
MartinG.
> Katz should have at LEAST responded to the allegations
Of course. I think i responded to something slightly different to what you meant.
I think we seem to agree on what we want actaully. We're probably just heading toward it from different directions.
I want exactly the same people gone that you do. The question is how best to get rid of them? Is it to remove them somehow (ie, tell them "get out") Or to try to enlighten them (ie, tell them "listen or you won't be listened to - or get out!"
The thing is though, if you believe the latter is best, as I do, you might find as I have, that it's most effective if you welcome those types of people into the kinds of situations in which you will have the most to learn from each other. Often this can be your "private space"
I fully appreciate your not wanting to invite ppl info your private space, but I guess I might just be a bit different there. I sometimes find conversation can get dull if everyone agrees too often, but maybe I'm a bit wierd. (well, I'm definitely a bit wierd, but not neccesarily for that reason)
> There've been HOW many comments saying he's wrong?
Are you suggesting that the number of people saying or doing something imply whether it is more or less right?
(Hmm, wow, that means macdonalds makes the best food, and Beos is "wrong" because most of my friends tell me windows is better)
Assuming the answer is yes above, meaning that Katz is "wrong" in "our" view, does that mean he should cease to voice his opinion?
> They exist, they're hard to find - AND WE LIKE IT THAT WAY
Can you please explain exactly who "WE" is in the above statement? It sounds like a crowd of bullys to me.
> Things start to suck when they get crowded.
Yes, but thats not a problem, it's a symptom of one. And one that I believe you and I and many other are part of. The problem is people's intolerence to other people's different views. You see views you don't like (those of Katz) and you immediately attack them. It's exactly the same when the "morons" you describe see views that they don't like on slashdot, so rather than listen and discuss, they just attack the whole thing in the form of hot grits and goatse.cx links.
The solution is not for one or more people to shut up. Far from it. The solution is education. Each individual must learn to tolerate and respect the views of other no matter how stringly they disagree. Only then might they begin to believe that they may be afforded the same in return.
The second point raises another question (maybe everyone but me already knows the answer, but..)
Are the *BSD developers allowed to hold on the the advertising clause? The GPL certainly says that ppl are allowed to use/distribute the software according to "either version 2 of the License, (at your option) any later version."
Is their a similar clause in the BSD licence (I don't think I have ever even read the BSD licence) If there is, then the debian ppl could choose a later version than the one it was released with. ie. they could choose the one without the advertising clause.
--
MartinG.
Many people have said that the GPL is a virus, as it 'infects' any program its code it copied to, meaning that it too must be released as GPL.
I don't agree with this description though - The GPL is not like a virus because it does not spread itself and it makes no attempt to replicate. The only way it can 'spread' is if an author chooses to release their code as GPL or chooses to include existing GPL code in their program. This process is entirely under the control of the programmer. A virus would not offer such choice.
--
MartinG.
IMO Open source is NOT like Marx's communism.
There are many very important differences. Probably the most important is that we all have a CHOICE whether to release our work as open source and users have a CHOICE whether or not to accept it (or any other licence for that matter.) It's the element of choice that open source brings that means in very well in a capitalist system.
Under Marx's communism (if I understood you correctly), everything would be effectively open source regardless of the authors wishes and everyone would have to accept that licence (even if they believed in closed source development [for example])
IMO _CHOICE_ is what matters here. If everyone chooses the licence they prefer to release their work under, then the masses who get to decide which they prefer. Exactly the way it should be. Not some person (like Marx) or group of people deciding whats best for everyone else.
--
MartinG