[CS-FSLUG] FOSS Communists {WAS} WHY THE TEN COMM...

[Ed Hurst]

On Friday 02 July 2004 08:06, Josiah Ritchie wrote:
> Interesting, as an off-shoot discussion... Aren't communism values
> much the same mindset as OpenSource software? Perhaps communism just
> has a bad name because fallible humans are the only beings we've seen
> try to make it work.
>
> Of course, FOSS could also be seen as a democratic effort. In
> general, developers on a project only are there if they want to be
> and they have a say in the direction of the project. Still, there
> efforts support the entirety of the community with little return
> beyond gratitude in most cases.

I prefer to think of FOSS development as taking something from several 
models, but not wholly one thing or another. If anything, I'd say it 
comes closer to libertarian philosophy, in that there is hardly any 
regimentation at all. What there is of that is strictly internally 
derived, and anyone is free to depart the structure if they can't work 
with it. Communism assumes there must be a final veto from someone or 
some committee somewhere, and it covers every aspect of life.

Fallible humans are probably the only ones who would *want* to make 
communism work.


-- 
Ed Hurst
-----------
Software Freedom Day, 28 August 2004
Got Freedom?
http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/
---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]