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capitalism and open sourcecapitalism and open sourcePosted Oct 22, 2004 20:19 UTC (Fri) by vsp (guest, #1893)Parent article: Why open source is unsustainable (Financial Times)
As a believer in both capitalism (today's political correct term "free-markets") and open source, I tried to explain to myself their "controversial" coexistence. Reading Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and Last Man" got me thinking: maybe the "struggle for recognition", the third component part of human nature (along with desire and reason), is responsible for the ability of people to work for no material gain.
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capitalism and open source Posted Oct 22, 2004 21:58 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] " "struggle for recognition" "
Its only a gut-feeling but i belive, that is the 3th reason, *reason*, that is the major propeller of Open Source...
Dont want and or need to get philosophical, be full of references... because most of times, reasons to revolutionary or deep changing events are very simple in nature...
What would do thounsand of programmers sorting every year from Universitys arround the world, or casual *lovers* involved by it, and that simply just *LOVE* their craft, in a closed monopolitic world ?...
...they will simply code, no matter what... they are compeled to code, not for political, economical, social, recognition reasons, but because of coding itself... because that is what they love to do...
And i'm not implying that was Microsoft that inadvertly triggered Open -Source... more or less billion, liking or not, Microsoft is just *ONE* resistance force, nothing more, in a similar way as the road is the resistance to a car tire, by which the *love* of computer coding will move foward...
Love (Latin: Amors = without dead ; so please dont confound it with desire or any sexual emotion) is the true everlasting energie behind any *reason*.
One can say that Open Source was just meant to be... because there was an irresistible energie with it... if you can define so subtle and yet so overwhelming powerfull reason!
capitalism and free markets Posted Oct 23, 2004 12:03 UTC (Sat) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] >As a believer in both capitalism (today's political correct term> "free-markets")
This implies you are unaware of the massive difference between these 2 concepts. Capitalism is about how, through corporate cannibalism, a tiny minority becomes powerful enough to buy laws, subsidies and governments in the pursuit of monopoly privilege. The engineering of monopolies is all about the _prevention_ of free and competitive markets. The problem monopolists have with free markets is that these lessen the scope for unfair profits.
capitalism and free markets Posted Oct 26, 2004 2:22 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] > free markets ... lessen the scope for unfair profitsPosit a truly free market and yes, for the first generation, unfair profits will have a limited scope. But markets *by their nature* engender inequality. They allocate scarce goods to those with the ability to pay, not to the needy. Even if all market players are supposed to have precisely equal abilities to profit, the moment someone accumulates enough capital to invest -- not very much is required -- he or she has an advantage over people who have less. A few generations down the track and free markets will bring you back to the present -- capitalist -- situation.
capitalism and free markets Posted Oct 26, 2004 18:46 UTC (Tue) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] " The engineering of monopolies is all about the _prevention_ of free and competitive markets. The problem monopolists have with free markets is that these lessen the scope for unfair profits "
I belive, and with a stricking clear logic, at least to me, that monopolies are not engineered, that is, they are not a different approach from the general 'free, wild and deregulated pursuit of profit' but simply a consequence of it... being so 'free markets' never realy existed(only in concept), and could never exist in this model, because the model tends to cannibalize itself,... and equilibrium is always temporary and distorted...
I'm not advocating any political theory, only a racional, unpassionated and logic analysis... economics is *NOT A TRUE SCIENCE*, only a theory based on some rather simple mathematics... a benchmark tool mostly, with some previsability presumptions... (urgh!... and we live, die and kill based on it... how unsanely stupid the earth must look like to an E.T.)
Evidence is everywhere... of how cannabilizing the model can be... of how much injustice and poverty it can produce... and it is not because of any political regime by itself(China is a capitalist nation), but because the model tends to a null system, that is, money has more value than the people, so people tend to be marginalized or cast out of the model, but it is *generaly* people that are the *buyers* the *consumers*, the essencial element to the sustainability of the system...
... so a system that tend to 'cast out' what is essencial to itself (it even kills its potencial costumers/consumers if need, for a quicker profit), can only tend to the nullity...
... actual Western Economic model could only be 'forever' sustainable if production is made on a complete automatic fashion, with never ending resources and power supply, and the consumers *Robots* with always incrising needs, and with an infinite credit so they could take the eternity paying for it !!... ( that is the anatomy of *financial* profit )
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