Linux Licensing: barriers to developers (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

Linux Licensing: barriers to developers (ZDNet)

Posted Oct 7, 2005 15:54 UTC (Fri) by JamesErik (subscriber, #17417)
In reply to: Linux Licensing: barriers to developers (ZDNet) by Wol
Parent article: Linux Licensing: barriers to developers (ZDNet)

It seems reasonable to me to characterize Stalinism philosophically as a subset of communism. When you look at 20th century **implementations** of communism, you'd be hard pressed to find non-Stallinist varieties, I believe.

I can't speak to Europe, not having lived there, but I did have the good fortune to live in Chile for a while in the 90s, which has many socialist characteristics such as state-owned industries (esp. mining, copper being their largest export), and state-run medical services. At the same time, it has vibrant free-market dynamics in very many sectors. Yes, taxes might be viewed as high (I know a higher percentage of my paycheck went towards taxes than would have in the US at the time), but neither was the state seizing private assets and forcibly redistributing wealth (tax-is-weath-distribution arguments aside for the moment) as is characterized by communism.

So, I don't think of socialism as evil in the same was as I view communism. Also, as another posted out, a barn-raising is completely a voluntary event, which is actually much more similar to the early church descibed in Acts 2, cited by hazelsct, than it is to socialism as a government-imposed policy.

In summary, I don't think you're being very objective, and likely not very informed, when you assert "Americans seem eager to gloss over" something or that "Americans like to forget" something. I may be wrong, but I doubt you've sampled a significantly large group of Americans to credibly make that claim, although you can certainly find individuls in the U.S. or elsehere who do "gloss over" or "forget" whatever you're concerned about.

Something else which Elbonians seem eager to gloss over is that tomatoes are NOT VEGETABLES. They're fruit. I hear about those darn Elbonians all the time on the news.

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