[LINK] Is free software ³ communist=?ISO-8859-1?B?sg==?=? Maybe yes...

[Stilgherrian]

On 7/8/06 11:24 AM, "Kim Holburn" <kim at holburn.net> wrote:
> For the wing nut:
> 
> Is free software ³communist²? Maybe yes...
> http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/1707
> 
> And some interesting discussion of it (unusual for digg)
> http://digg.com/software/Is_free_software_communist_Maybe_yes

OK, I'll buy into this... I am getting WAY over this comparison of free
open-source software with Communism.

Communism as intended by its proponents is/was a specific political
philosophy and practice with many, many aspects that bear no relationship to
FOSS.

Communism as implemented by certain regimes over the last century or so was
something else again -- in various flavours, none of which ended up working
very well.

FOSS is a hell of a lot more than the GPL and the specific viewpoints of Mr
Stallman.

But FOSS is no more Communism than four mothers deciding to share the duty
of driving the kids to the soccer on rotating Saturday mornings. No more
than a couple of guys giving a neighbour a hand putting up his shed -- and
maybe one day that neighbour doing a favour in return.

The only difference is that the "neighbours" might be people completely
unknown on the other side of the world.

Anyone who compares *anything* with Communism is only demonstrating their
abysmal ignorance of political science and their abject inability to move
past the political rhetoric of the Cold War -- so last century! -- neither
of them a good look for Link.

Now, can we all move on to something more relevant to Australia in the 21st
Century?


Oh... *sudden thought*... Or am I the wing nut...?

*shudders*

Stil


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