| |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
On AnarchyOn AnarchyPosted Jul 4, 2005 16:02 UTC (Mon) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463)Parent article: ESR: 'We Don't Need the GPL Anymore' (O'ReillyNet)
Anarchy in the original sense of "a state without a government" is actually also a hugely superior system of production. The few times it was tried out, like in cataluna in the 30ies, production rose to incredible heights, because everyone was doing what he liked (and could do) best. Still, anarchies didn't last, they were destroyed from within, or even more often, from the outside.
Just because something works in itself, and is more successful than everything else does not make it immune to attack and destruction.
There is no "free market" out there in which "demand determines supply"; instead there are hundreds of thousands of suppliers out there trying to fuck up their competition with whatever means they have access to, most notably by making the governement write laws which will kill off the competition. If you can't compete on the market, wage war against your competitors, or make them give you a monopoly, one on ideas for instance (it's called "patents"; and they have been used for crushing competition since they were invented in the 18th century). And so on. (I won't go into the patents debate, I only use this as an example to show that there is no "free market").
So the GPL is a necessary defense, for the writers themselves, and for the public as a guarantee that what is free will remain free.
(Log in to post comments)
On Anarchy Posted Jul 4, 2005 23:42 UTC (Mon) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link] "instead there are hundreds of thousands of suppliers out there trying to fuck up their competition with whatever means they have access to,"
Why doesn't this apply moreso in an anarchy? Rather than trying to get government monopoly, instead just kill the competitors?
I think the problem with anarchy is that it is inherently unstable due to people's tendency to want to be led. Until you solve this there is no point in trying to move towards anarchy. (and if you solve it it will no longer be an anarchy ;) Furthermore, it is far too easy to kill any opposition without some kind of state monopoly on violence.
On Anarchy Posted Jul 5, 2005 4:51 UTC (Tue) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link] The GPL provides an equal foundation to build upon. The equality of the GPL doesn't depend on the political state of society. I imagine the GPL is very disturbing to most selfish leaders, for how will they take the work of others and make it their own? The GPL also depends on the forward thinking people that use it for their work, I am very grateful to those people, they have given me hope.
Do people really want to be led, or is it more that they fear being alone? Those are learned behaviors anyway, if a person was always alone and that is all they knew, they wouldn't fear it and I doubt they would want someone else to lead them. And because they are learned behaviors, they can be
I think humans can generally do better than our traditions, governments and social structures would suggest or have allowed. Violence committed by a government is just changing the wrapper, the result is the same.
|
|
||||||||||||