Is free software a communist alternative to capitalist proprietary software?

Is free software a communist alternative to capitalist proprietary software?

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>works because of copyright legislation aka intellectual property as private property
>communist
What the fuck are you smoking, OP? I want some.

>free software
>communist
Nah, its more like american liberal left, very identitarian in practice.

I believe that free software isn't communist in any way (depending on speciffic license) but just a new better way to make good products in a more old-fashioned capitalist manner.

(((Copyright))) and (((copyleft))) are both communist/totalitarian ideas. GLOSS is less communist than proprietary licenses.

Imagine thinking free stuff has anything to do with (((communism))) or leftism for that matter.

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Libre software cannot be capitalist as it places the user's rights higher than the producer's. You as a user are allowed to do as you please with libre software, even give it away for free to everyone after you paid.
Open Source software is capitalist as the only thing separating it from proprietary software is that you could see the guts. But often the restrictions put on the user are similar. You as a user are not allowed to be in full control of the software you use due to someone else's private ownership claim upstream.
Libre is true freedom, open source is a marketing gimmick.

Free software is just like science, all knowledge is free (as in freedom).

Nope. You don't need permission from the Collective to use free software, therefore it respects your individual freedoms. Marxism by definition is the denial of the individual in favor of the collective.
You can also fork FOSS projects and commit with your name.

A lot of scientific developments are done privately where their findings are never released as they are not considered profitable or not in the sponsor's interests. Even science is subordinate to the bourgeoisie.

You can't have capitalism with an infinitely reproducible resource. People forget now that the idea of charging for software was unusual, and the real charge was for the hardware and maintenance.

People voluntarily contribute to freeware projects. This is not Communism. Communism is the one where you are sent to Gulag or shot if you don't work.

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>Marxism by definition is the denial of the individual in favor of the collective
lol

GPL is anarchist, copyright is not capitalism, since intellectual property does not exist outside of the corrupt existence of the (((state))).

>Is free software a communist alternative to capitalist proprietary software?
No, on the contrary. I know a commie who is also a developer, he hates free software licenses because they don't let him restrict commercial use. He doesn't want to write software that serves capitalism.

What does happen is that communists take GPL software and repackages it as proprietary software to serve their own purposes, because when you're killing people by the thousands, nobody cares about a little copyright infringement. Case in point: Red Star OS.

kek

Bourgeois software developers will be the first to go to Gulag, Comrade.

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>lol
lol

Free software is part of the sharing economy. Whether you believe that is communism depends on being educated in ameriga and led to believe communism is when the state takes over things

Capitalism doesn't exist outside the (((state))) either

What are you talking about? The GPL is entirely dependent on centralised a state that enforces copyright. How is that even remotely anarchist?

I suppose maybe you can have a modified GPL that's enforceable through arbitration, but that's more appealing to ancaps, hardly anything any communists would want to be involved in.

FLOSS and other copyleft licences still require the state and copyright/intellectual property laws to strongarm people into into complying with the licence, communist or libertarian capitalist societies which do not have IP laws are fully compatible with proprietary company/industry secrets with the caveat that there's no state to protect you if those secrets are stolen, and it's also compatible with somebody taking your software, modifying it, and refusing to release the source, because again the state doesn't recognise your IP in the first place and isn't going to compel people in order to 'protect' that IP
public domain and wtfpl are the only licences that would have any meaning in such societies, bsd/mit might have some meaning because all they require is that you keep the authorship notice in tact but again there's nobody to enforce this requirement, gpl would be absolutely meaningless

>caveat that there's no state to protect you if those secrets are stolen
ancucks often want to set up an arbitration state like what mentioned. they are irrelevant retards so it doesn't matter, but worth mentioning

no its liberal
pirating software is communism

good point, communist societies of the 'seize the means' type might also consider the software a means of production if it's important or significant enough and you're withholding it from the greater community, but in either ancap/commie societies arbitration still mostly boils down to individuals or your community associating with you or choosing not to associate with you as the case may be which is a little different from the state being able to imprison you for IP violation

Free stuff and sharing isn't communist/socialist
Having the government force you to share is communist

>Having the government force you to share is communist
How do you think free software works? It forces you to share through (((licences)))

>gee whiz Diane, thanks for bringing those cookies to the picnic yesterday
>aw no problem Barb!
>I was wondering if I could maybe have your recipe! I wanna make them for my son and his friends next time they have a playdate, but I know Johnny doesn't like dark chocolate, so I was thinking of making them the same as you except with milk chocolate
>Sure thing Barb! Let me make a photocopy of the recipe I have written down
Pure communism, right?

Intellectual property is contrary to capitalism.
>Sorry, but you can't use your property in this way despite all involved parties consenting because the government says so.
Sounds like communism to me.

Yeah actually. Gift economy is a big part of several communist schools of thought

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>>Sorry, but you can't use your property in this way despite all involved parties consenting because the government says so.
Can you give me an example of that?

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I'm biting.
Does free software seize the means of production? Does RMS goes into MS headquarters with a shotgun and demands everything to be open source?
Probably not. Giving your own shit to the public domain is not in anyway communist.

>imaginary friend doesn't consent

Christcucks being christcucks

Software isn't an endorsement of a political statement. Use what you want
Cold War and other propaganda burned this into people's heads. Getting a free sample of food at the grocery store isn't communism, getting a free coupon for breadsticks when you buy a pizza isn't communism. People get so obsessed with worrying things are communism.
I'm not communist, but I'm also not paranoid

Core concept of intellectual property.
>make thing with my own materials
>sell thing to someone
>assraped because Max Bergstein copyrighted or patented thing already

Based AND redpilled

>Red baiting in the present year

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-baiting

Free software isn't concerned with economic dogma, it is concerned with social oppression by means of restricting user rights with regards to the usage, modification and distribution of software and, more generally, ideas.

Brainlet.

Next you're going to say that we need the state to make sure people don't live unpunished from murdering other people.

>assuming arbitration is handled by the state
You are like little baby. Privatize that shit.

What are you saying? Of course people charged for software. You'd purchase software from a company and they'd send it to you through mail, or you'd buy it from a store. The whole FOSS concept is justified by the FSF by saying "you can STILL charge for your software guys!" Because the FSF comes from a time before the internet was used so liberally.

This is what happens when you let Mises rot your mind.

>Decided to share my code so that people can collaborate or give opinions
>somehow that's communism

Get your politics shit out of programming. Programming has no politics.

Copyright exist because of capitalism, retard

False, it exists because of totalitarianism. Copyright is anti-competitive, anti-freedom and anti-personal ownership. Making it closely resemble communism.

>creator literally owns what he makes
>communism
try telling Alexey Pajitnov that copyrights are communism and he will laugh in your 14 year old face.

there was literally never a stateless society that had private property

The rumors that Jow Forums is full of retarded ancaps that think any existence of government is communism is true.

capitalistic software is cool as long as i can pirate it from the pirate bay :DD

>buyer doesn't own what he buys, creator does
>this isn't communist or totalitarian
>already SHARED/SOLD information is "property" and is illegal to share
>this isn't Orwellian
Literally kys.

it's not illegal to share IP, it's illegal to have people take it from you.
if people are allowed to steal things then isn't that communism?

Copying is not theft, retard.

the fact that you would rather have your ideas stolen than your ability to kick people off your lawn says a lot more about you than everyone else

Ideas can't be stolen.

yes they can autist.

No they can't, retard.

under the current legal they can, but even morally stealing other's ideas is wrong. finder's keepers.

>private property is fine unless it's the type I don't like
>ideas can't be commodified
>the state doesn't uphold capitalism
Ancucks need to be put in private institutions before they hurt themselves

>Artificial monopolies are private property.
lol

Short answer, yes

Long answer, yes, but it pisses Jow Forums off so we'll somehow spin this as a result of muh free market

>private property isn't an artificial concept created by the state
Go back

did somebody hurt you friend?

No. Free Software follows the principles of voluntarism.
Free software is an Objectivist movement.

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>unironically posting Ayn Rand

What if I told you that you can be a proponent of libre/open source software whilst being capitalistic?

>the state doesn't uphold capitalism
It doesn't. It adheres to capitalism just enough so everything don't burn to the ground. Taxes and democracy (aka let's give other people's money to everyone else) are a menace to freedom and capitalism.

But retard, communism tries to secure the situation of producers, not consumers.
Capitalism (at least pure capitalism without State-granted monopolies) proposes not privileging any particular producer. Consumers are the ones who decide what to buy or use.

Besides, making money is not a libertarian value. It is by no means the goal of libertarians, just a consequence. Capitalism simply means having private property, freely using it, and being free to accumulate it (and ideally use it to invest and make more goods/money, which is what usually happens. Although that should be up to the owner)

Libre software is perfectly compatible with a libertarian society, since there is no coaction. No one is forced to developed free software, nor to use it. And if you find a way to make money with it (technical consultancy, SaaS...) you are free to do so.
And that is with copyleft licenses like the GPL.
If we get to the (very common) permissive licenses, you can almost do anything you want with it.

It is exactly the opposite of what collectivist ideologies promote. These survive on violence and central planning (be it from a soviet-like State or a local labor union; the specific does not matter much)

>but even morally stealing other's ideas is wrong
Do you even read the garbage you write?

"There were never humans on the moon, we shouldnt try to send anyone there"

capitalism literally stops functioning when there's no government. you literally need a taxation system to have capitalism.
not an argument

>at least pure capitalism without State-granted monopolies
So a fairytale that's never existed
Discarded

That is not a very good argument.
World peace is also not real and I believe most people in the west would agree to pursue it, for example.

ye lol, the redefinitions about Marxism are brutal.
Reminder that those following Communism and Marxism are following flawed philosophical theorems with very wrong conclusions, this faggots who invented it where low tier intellectuals that extrapolated ideas from Darwinism into a meme political system...
The results of it are very clear but we still persists with their shit because no one fucking reads their books, not even Stalin did.

>It doesn't
Imagine being this retarded.
>Taxes and democracy (aka let's give other people's money to everyone else) are a menace to freedom and capitalism.
The state siphons more money from the poor to the rich than vice versa. The poor have no say in how society should run while the rich have a monopoly. You only want freedom for the masters whos dicks you're cloaking on right now.

Go back and check yourself in.

It's literally impossible for capitalism to exist without a state, capitalism trends towards consolidation of markets and monopolies, and capitalists have every reason to pursue protections for themselves from the state to secure profit and will create a state for themselves where one doesn't exist to do so
You are pursuing shadows on the wall

The institution of copyright itself is anticompetetive. As mentioned in the United State's constitution, if we are to be talking about the US, the pretense for copyright to exist is that granting artists a monopoly on publishing what they create will encourage art to be made. I personally think that it has been thoroughly abused and we should be rid of it entirely, since I trust a system of voluntary donations more than the hope that such a diabolical system as the one that exists today does not arise from a constrained system of copyright.

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