Re: [Marxism] Socialism and free software

[David Picón Álvarez <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
"Actually, the article makes a distinction between free software and open
source software. With the latter, you get more involved with corporate
America. I myself am very involved with Struts, an open source
technology. Struts is a "framework" for developing Java internet
applications. Columbia brought in an instructor to introduce us to
Struts about 5 years ago. He was a Navy veteran and a first-class jerk.
He went on so rapturously about open source to the point where I began
to talk up Microsoft to my co-workers. I guess I was being sectarian."

The article correctly distinguishes between free software (an ethical call 
against proprietary software) and open source (a technical call for 
distributed development). But in practical terms, although the philosophical 
bases are different, the actions are alike. Thus the free software 
definition (which one can find on the FSF or GNU site) is more or less in 
accordance with the open source definition (which can be found on the OSI 
site). The GPL is, then, both a Free Software and an Open Source licence.

What happens with projects like Linux (the kernel) and others, is though 
although the GPL makes it impossible to make the software proprietary, it is 
still exploited by profit-making enterprises. For example, if you are the 
CIO of a big company, you're not going to download Linux from the Internet 
and put it on your servers, you're going to ask for Red Hat, or IBM, to 
consult for you, analyze your requirements, and give you a big fat support 
contract. Thus, the open source/free software-based service industry profits 
from the value created by people who might or might not receive fair 
compensation (in fairness, entities like IBM or Red Hat do contribute code 
themselves too, and today most free software development is probably done in 
the corporate world). The point is that, this way, software becomes 
comoditized (a good thing) and independent software developers who might 
have contributed to it receive no compensation (they're too small to start a 
big consultancy). If they try to produce proprietary software, they'll have 
to compete against 0-cost goods, which is a tough one.

So, although I am a free software supporter, and I try to use it as much as 
I can, and if I ever write any code worth publishing it will probably be 
under the GPL, there are certain aspects of it which I find problematic.

--David.

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