Interview: OSI's new president [LWN.net]

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 10, 2005 13:45 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433)
In reply to: Interview: OSI's new president by nix
Parent article: Interview: OSI's new president

I expect Russ is American...

Speaking as a European, I just don't see how Free/Open Software people can be anti-socialist!

Something like linux is a pretty pure form of Popular Socialism (that is, socialism by the people for the people of the people. Where we do it ourselves because we see it is to our personal advantage to share).

Yup, if you equate socialism and Communism, yes I can see where he's coming from. The trouble with America today, as I see it, is it's becoming a fascist state - government of the people, by the corporation for the corporation. Lets hope America rediscovers its SOCIALIST roots again, with things like barn-raisings etc etc.

Cheers,
Wol

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Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 10, 2005 20:53 UTC (Thu) by Brandybuck (guest, #27827) [Link]

Linux is voluntary, socialism is not. Perhaps you meant to use a different word, but when I hear "socialism" the first thing I think of is Karl Marx and a whole slew of political philosophers who argue for state control/ownership of the means/fruits of production.

Free Software is about freely sharing your code, which is a completely different thing from socialism. Free Software does not have a state. There is no government to ensure that people give their fair share of code. No one gets fined if they don't give enough code. There are no bureacracies to determine where best to allocate code contributions. Free Software works because it is about freedom, and not about central management by the state.