This thought came to me in the shower today. Open source checks most of the boxes. It is a collaborative, worker owned (develloper-owned) project, that tries to flatten hierarchy. Especially if you look at something like Debian ), which really tries to have a bottom-up structure.
Of course, there are exceptions, considering there are a lot of corporate open-source projects, that are not democratically maintained and clearly only serve the interest of the company, who created it (like chromium for example).
So I am mainly talking about community-oriented FOSS projects here.
And if you were to agree with my statement, would you say that developing FOSS software is advancing the goals of the anarchist / communist project, because it is laying the groundwork infrastructure needed for a new kind of economy and society?
Thought this could be an interesting discussion!
I had the same exact thought after Steve balmer called it communist cancer, but then I came to a conclusion. Open source, and fair source software is communist, but free software is not. Free is as freedom and not price. You can make money off of it, but why is it different than OSS. The difference is that Free software protects the user’s rights as opposed to OSS. Protecting the user’s rights and freedoms is important.
Yes. It is pretty much exactly how we would do software development.
I think FOSS enable those kind of communities but I don’t think FOSS as a concept is any of those things. those communities could equally work with a non FOSS license (eg one that prevents commercial use or a license that allow usage only by members of a specific community). They uses existing licenses because they go momentum and have legal precedents that allows people to defend their rights.
Most FOSS licenses were specifically designed to allow profiting from the wok of others, even the GPL. Just see how many billion dollar companies (think Azure, AWS, etc) profit from projects without giving anything back.
Yes, as an anarchist I regularly point to FOSS as a plausible example of it working
Cory Doctorow has a novel “Walkaway” which is basically “what if society but FOSS”. It’s really good!
To answer your question, while it has a lot in common with anarchism I don’t think anyone benefits from trying to fit it into a predefined political box. It’s something new.
It’s a great book, and very relevant.
Wow, I didn’t think, I would get such an interesting book recommendation out of this. Thank you so much!
My pleasure! It kind of reminds me of Snow Crash in that it’s really fun and adventurous but also made me think deep thoughts.
Honestly, yes, I think it’s one of the best examples of anarchism in action the world has ever seen. And an especially pertinent example to point out to those who’d say things like, “Why would anyone do work or innovate without a profit motive?” Lots of good and innovative software, made without any profit incentive by a collective of people who are working on it just because they want to and they enjoy it.
I think it’s more of a socialist mindset that is spreading with FOSS, because it focuses it’s workings on the common good, Most FOSS projects can be named socialist by nature; they encourage working together to create something bigger, something that doesn’t let the small guy fall through the created network. I believe a lot of anarchistic workings are socialist at their core, and FOSS is an embodiment of these workings.
Open source is not literally communism, but I do think it’s one of the best examples to demonstrate that anarcho-communism is plausible.
In Soviet Russia, code programs you!
Only if you use GPL, not MIT.
I think MIT is anarchistic license. You can do whatever the fuck you want with it, but for this shit to work for both of us, you really should collaborate
Further, GPL relies on enforcement from an authority on copyrights, which is exactly the opposite of what anarchists suggest
Yes although what tends to happen is the capitalists just take MIT licenced code and make bank off it.
This is all moot now that LLMs can launder the code anyway.
Yeah we do live in a capitalist world
You obviously want WTFPL instead of MIT for that.
Yeah that’s even better
But I believe in a world where no license would be equal to that
It can definitely be a form of praxis.
Sorry for being a bit of an idiot, but what is praxis?
The textbook definition would be the application of theory to action. It’s basically leftist slang for putting the theories of socialism/communism/humanism into practice in a real way.
Alright, thanks ;)
It’s an observation of Marx, I think correct, that society organises in a manner aligned around the means of production. Agrarian -> feudal, industrial -> capitalist etc. I think the essential distinguishing feature of software vs capital goods is that software can be copied without the loss of the original. Hence I think the concept of ownership fails and the mode of production becomes anarchist.
Anarcho Communism
Well who lives in that castle over there?
No one lives there.
On second thought, lets not go to Camelot, 'tis a silly place
While not explicitly so, FOSS as a concept aligns very closely with far left anti-capitalist principles. The existence of corporate and right-winger-owned FOSS projects is a bit of an oxymoron, but doesn’t discredit the fact that it’s inherently a far left concept.
It’s a non-market way of doing things, so sure it fits the definition, but labels are dumb, and the people who really like labels are worse.
You’ll also notice that you still have to pay for whatever device Linux goes on, which is a strong hint about the economics at play.
