Posted on 08/27/2005 7:10:39 AM PDT by Golden Eagle
And what, in your opinion, are the true underpinnings of OSS?
RedHat makes money
Communism requires one central authority that tells you what to do, no such thing is involved in OSS>.
Not in true communism. That's why I said OSS is probably as close as we'll ever get to working communism.
In hind-sight as I should change working to REAL. I can see where working communism might be inferred to mean, what currently exists in the world today. What I meant is the end-state of communism, the one that Karl spoke of.
Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the foreman, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labor, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex....The growing competition among the bourgeoisie, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious...The modern laborer, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth....
I can see communism taking hold in America if we are forced to compete with Chinese labor. This includes Microsoft outsourcing to China. People will look for another way and unfortunately what is described by Karl Marx is a very easy out for many people when they are out of work.
Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has
developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society---after the deductions have been made---exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, he receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal. But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly---only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!" - Karl Marx"
Except, no one is FORCED to submit free software to the open source movement. So the quote applied here would be"
From each according to his abilities IF IT IS NOT COERCED (AND USUALLY WITH TE EXPECTATION OF RETURN), to each according to his needs.
So you see, your analogy is facile and inaccurate, a strawman if you will. Plenty of money being made off open source by people at all levels of the chain. If you haven't figured out how to be an OSS capitalist, that is your problem.
Read what communism REALLY is. OSS movement is just at a more advanced state of communism than the world has ever seen on a large scale.
I posted some Karl Marx to help explain it; however, do a little research and you'll realize OSS is a lot like communism. I'm not saying that's bad--a lot of people think communism is a great idea that fails to work. It looks like OSS may be the model to make it work. Many people would love to be a part of making communism work.
WIth OSS somethign is motivating people to write code in their house after-hours. Maybe it's fame, or just the willingness to help stop M$; but whatever it is OSS has a unique way of motivating developers to release their code for free.
Well, it would probably be the longest titled ping list on FR, that's for sure.
No, B2000 and GE just like to bark at the moon.
Isn't that what coyotes do? =)
"WIth OSS somethign is motivating people to write code in their house after-hours. Maybe it's fame, or just the willingness to help stop M$; but whatever it is OSS has a unique way of motivating developers to release their code for free."
There is plenty of motivation, just not all is monetary. Perversely, a lot of programmers (like me) have realized that anything they write will be copied anyway, so why not release and make money through consulting and general computer expertise. The software becomes a loss leader.
I wonder if hollywood will adopt that philosophy? If they do I will bet you the quality of movies will go down hill.
Nobody is forcing OSS programmers to provide code for those who cant. OSS programmers are more like volunteers at a child charity than communist because they do something they enjoy and the get to see others enriched by it. If tomorrow an OSS programmer wanted to start writing CSS code and selling it he could and nobody in the community (minus the 5% of nuts you'll find in any community) would begrudge them of that. Linus could go work for MS tomorrow and I would not care..
has anyone ever hinted to you that you are obnoxious, childish, boorish, and so damn predictable that you are almost as interesting as watching water drip out of a faucet?
just curious.
If you live in a communist country you very well could be.
Yeah I'm sure every last OSS programmer in Vietnam and Cuba is doing it out the goodness of their heart, and not because their communist leaders told them to. /SARCASM
Obviously all the time, since you guys don't have any response to my facts other than your pathetic insults. LOL.
As I've stated before (not sure if it was on this thread)...that just means OSS is more advanced in communism than China and Russia ever were. Read about communism and the end state of communism. Only after the forced work to break people of "property rights" type attitude will people realize the value of helping each other and no longer be held down with the idea of owning things. OSS is just more advanced communism than we have ever seen on earth.
Now I'm not saying that's bad. Many people have said communism is great on paper, but poor in execution because people need to be motivated and communism actually stifles motivation. However, OSS has found a way to motivate intelligent people to give freely to the greater good of the collective. Don't be ashamed for getting to advanced stages of communism philosophy...you've accomplished what millions have been killed trying to accomplish.
I just had to add on...
I can see it know. Steven Spielberg makes movies for free, but he'll make his money on telling you how to watch the movie. That's the real lucrative part of the movie biz anyway. LOL!
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