Is free software a communist alternative to capitalist proprietary software?

Is free software a communist alternative to capitalist proprietary software?

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gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html
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gnu.org/philosophy/bill-gates-and-other-communists.en.html
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No

>communist
>capitalist
You use those words without knowing that they mean. Hell you don't even know what free software or proprietary software mean. But nice reddit image anyway.

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Explain how

We have this thread every day.

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free software is good for the soul.
youtube.com/watch?v=2UuZnWPRJrM

cute

Free software isn't about price. It's about freedom to use the software however you like, study the source code and make changes to the software.

Ok, this is the new catgirl thread.

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> Is free software a communist alternative to capitalist proprietary software?
> i don't know what communist means
RETARD
E
T
A
R
D

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Nope.

Free software relies on copyright law to be enforceable, which means it fundamentally relies on the concept of private property rights, which communism does not have.

Exactly this

No, a communist alternative to capitalist proprietary software would be code gulags.

Free software is a rare example of communism actually working. The people do control the means of production (source and build systems), and do produce things for the common good.

>the concept of private property rights, which communism does not have.
Lmao, the classic "I have no idea about communism but someone told me this".

False equivalencies.
Not the same ballpark.
Not even the same fucking sport.
Stop making these stupid threads.

Communism is a stateless society in which the means of production are collectively (publicly) owned. This is antithetical to the concept of private property.

>means of production are collectively (publicly) owned.
Yes, but I don't think you understand what are the means of production.

fpbp
/thread

no. capitalist free sortware is an alternative to criminal proprietary software

no
but free hardware is a communist alternative to capitalist "buy before you try" hardware

>live in a post-manufacturing 3d-printed society
>"we finally took back the means of production!"
>the state still controls the means of distribution

funny how all the corporations filled with anti white leftists keep pumping out proprietary software that spies on its user

FOSS community is socialist

how else are they supposed to know everyone is equal if they can't monitor em at all times?

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Yes it is comrade, ignore the reactionaries.

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Those terms aren't mutually exclusive. Someone can own software and release it for free. They're just not giving you the source.

>reddit image
>says azquotes at the bottom
tell me more about arbitrary use of words

Communism is about freedom, read anything by Marx

/thread

Happy birthday, Dr. Stallman

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spbp

>Communism is about freedom
Lmao.

That discussion only makes sense if software is your mean to do productive work. Though, I don't think free vs proprietary is the correct analogy here.
A closer one, in my opinion, is owning the software you have and running it in your computer VS Service as a Software Substitute. See gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html

TL;DR you own your computer. If your means of work is someone else's computer or SaaSS, then you don't own your mean of production (assuming that you produce software).

Free software isn't necessarily communist at all.

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/

>Jow Forums here, not really into tech at all, but here are my thoughts

No, it's a capitalist alternative to corporatist proprietary software.

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No, free software is capitalism and proprietary software is libertarianism

RMS is Jewish

you got it all wrong
free software is capitalism
proprietary software is communism

>private property is communism

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gnu.org/philosophy/bill-gates-and-other-communists.en.html

>Bill Gates discussed patents with CNET under the heading of “intellectual property,” a term that covers many disparate laws. He said anyone who won't give blanket support to all these laws is a Communist. Since I'm not a Communist but I have criticized software patents, I got to thinking this might be aimed at me.

>When Mr. Gates started hyping his solution to the problem of spam, I suspected this was a plan to use patents to grab control of the net...In 2004 Microsoft asked the IETF to approve a mail protocol that Microsoft was trying to patent. The patent license policy for this protocol was written to forbid free software entirely. No program supporting this mail protocol could be released as free software...

>The IETF rejected Microsoft's protocol, but Microsoft said it would try to convince major ISPs to use it anyway. Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is Communism; it was set up by that famous Communist agent, the US Department of Defense.

>But Capitalism means monopoly; at least, Gates-style Capitalism does. People who think that everyone should be free to program...they are Communists, says Mr. Gates. But these Communists have infiltrated even the Microsoft boardroom. Here's what Bill Gates told Microsoft employees in 1991:

>“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete stand-still today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.”

>Mr. Gates' secret is out now—he too was a “Communist,” he too recognized that software patents were harmful, until Microsoft became one of these giants. Now Microsoft aims to use software patents to impose whatever price it chooses on you and me. And if we object, Mr. Gates will call us “Communists.”

state capitalism = communism
genius rms strikes again

Not free software per se, because it can be used and easily controlled by corporations too.
There's ideal capitalism as it's perceived by well-meaning idealists with their ideal solutions, and really existing capitalism as it's perceived by anyone who's aware of its dialectical, aggressive and catastrophic character. In real capitalism as it exists now, the communist alternative is such software that would be produced for the purpose of liberation of means or production, and therefore liberation of people from a class of technological and ideological parasites in practice - it would change class relations. A corporation can distribute free software as well, but without utilizing critical modes of thought and therefore the politico-economic understanding of class it only strengthens capital's power.
You can see notable corporations like Red Hat or Suse thriving on FOSS, and yet maintaining and spreading their class structure. It's not a fantastic situation if you understand that the human world is dialectical, inconsistent and catastrophic. A software license is not going to change anything fundamentally in capital's amalgam, it's a case of pure idealism that's subverted with ease by really existing capital.

This isn't what he said at all.
Bill Gates implied that anyone against software patents was a communist. He said that as a way to discredit those opposing software patents, because thanks no McCarthy, calling anything you don't like "communism" works in the USA.
However, an older quote from Bill Gates, from when MS was a smaller company. That quote is shown in that post and says the industry would be a stand-still state if people had used software patents that way since the beginning.
Stallman then made an ironic statement saying that Bill Gates was too a "communist", but gave up on that once MS became a monopoly. He's saying Gates recognized software patents were harmful, but embraced the concept once it started benefiting Microsoft.

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communism is by definition state capitalism indeed.

read communists besides mao, retard

RMS is obviously a commie. One thing is to argue that open source is advantageous for n reasons, another thing is to defend that closed sourced is "immoral", and that you should be forced to release to the public code that you worked on if you were to publish/sell the binaries.

Cross-industry collaboration and talent sharing is generally good for the industry as a whole and the easiest way to do that would simply be to make source code public. The problem is it's very easy to accidentally leak some business-sensitive workflow information, other legitimately proprietary information, or to expose security vulnerabilities in the process, so everyone would rather be safe than sorry.

There are very few places where an open source industry would be realistic. Because usually one of the following is true:
-open sourcing their code would undermine their services safety
-the functionality of the code IS their entire product
-their code is terrible and they don't want anyone to look at it

Proprietary software works better unironically.

No. Free software is anti mammonist. It is both anti capital and anti communist. It is the third way

Copyleft doesn't require releasing code to public. What it does require is that you give the code to whoever you sell a binary to. If you sell to the public at large then yes, it is immoral to deny them the ability to use, study and modify it for their own purposes. If you have a problem with this then don't sell to the public.

That's commie shit. If I only want to sell the binaries, that's my prerogative, good luck reverse engineering.

>Giving people freedom is communist
Nope
>good luck reverse engineering
Intentionally creating extra work for your customers to do what they want is a piss poor business strategy

where's the freedom in forcing developers to publish their code? they are free to do so, and free not to do so, that's freedom.

I want to eat her donut

It's the same as asking "where's the freedom to own slaves?"
GPL-like licenses ensures that you have all the freedoms, but also ensures that everyone gets them as well. It's not freedom if one has more freedoms than others.

Actually free software adheres to the capitalist ideal more than proprietary does.

Proprietary uses artificial means to avoid competition, encourage monopolies, and avoids the "free hand".
Free software develops out in the light of day, encourages competition, and evolves according to the free hand.

Having slaves is not freedom

Fpbp

yes and no

none's having slaves here, consumers are free to not buy or to buy the binaries without the code, if they choose to do so.

You deny them their freedom to change the program, so it does their computing as they wish, but keeping the source code to yourself.
There's no reason to not share source code other than exercising control to the users of that program, and that's not freedom.

Communism
>Workers should own collectively the means of production
(((Stallmann))
>I made GNU so programmers collectively could own the tools(compilers, editors, OS) which they need to work

Really makes you think

I'm not denying the freedom to change the program, they can mess with the binaries if they want, good luck. I can't be forced to release the code and then have some fungus eater call it "freedom".

>they can mess with the binaries if they want, good luck.
This is realistically unpractical for any large program. The first Pokémon games took over 20 years to be decompiled from binary to a workable source code.
>I can't be forced to release the code
Indeed you can't, unless you use GPL code. But there's no other reason to do it besides exercising power over the users of your program - the opposite of freedom.
Releasing it under a free license increases the overall freedom, while yours is kept the same.

>exercising power over the users of your program - the opposite of freedom.

the users are free to not buy my program.

> while yours is kept the same.
I don't oppose the existence of so-called free licenses, I oppose the RMS vision that non-free licenses are immoral.

>the users are free to not buy my program.
Any user who values their own freedom will not.
>I oppose the RMS vision that non-free licenses are immoral.
We don't care, this is not the place to suck up to Gates and Ballmer.

>the users are free to not buy my program.
They are free to do many things. What does this have to do with you exercising power over those who do buy your program?

it is retard, read mises

this -

just ask yourself, who is profiting the most today . the worker slaving away his wage slave life or the owner of a business.

there is a thing like common good (like cities, nature, ...) and it needs to be cared for and protected

this

damn its almost like, HOLY SHIT? Are corporations NOT actually full of leftists???

mayocide when?

t. tranny

>Not the same ballpark.
>Not even the same fucking sport.
This honestly.

Only reason "communism of open-source" can work is because information aren't scarce (i guess beyond transaction costs).

If communist state could give bread to everyone without first stealing from other people, communism would be much more acceptable.

B-but muh fully automated luxury gay space communism, bro!
Like Star Trek!

No, free software ascribes to the voluntarist philosphy laid forth by /ourgirl/
Free software is actually an Objectivist movement

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That's a man baby!

Free (as in freedom) software is more libertarian, as in you can do whatever the fuck you want with what you create.

In communism your code would be the state's property and they could distribute it to the population...or not.

>he thinks rich people are leftists

So close sourced is traditional capitalism
Open source is communism
What is anarcho-capitalism form of software?

I agree.