Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)
Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement. Open source ecosystem primarily run by volunteers has produces some of the most interesting and innovative technologies that we’ve seen. The reality is that people make interesting things because they’re curious and they enjoy making stuff. Pretty much nobody makes anything interesting with profit being the primary motive.
Also without open source the capitalist tech sector would collapse
It wouldn’t necessarily collapse (it wasn’t exactly suffering before FOSS stuff “hit the shelves”, so to speak) but the gatekeeping that comes with it would certainly cause a tremendous amount of stagnation
I work in software development. Almost all modern architecture would collapse without the open source ecosystem.
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Half the user-facing internet broke for a few hours when one guy withdrew a shitty one-liner piece of JavaScript (the whole leftpad thing) because someone somewhere added it as a dependency to a dependency to a dependency until it was pulled into an enormous frontend library. The internet relies more on random open source contributions than a lot of people are aware of.
This is true to some extent, but the best, most successful open source software is nowadays to a large extent made by for-profit businesses developing it for their own use but sharing it with the world.
There is a strong correlation between “is this kind of software mainly used by businesses vs. individuals” and “does this kind of software tend to be open source”. Hardly anyone uses proprietary version control or web server software anymore. But (other extreme) in the area of video games, nearly all of them are still proprietary and probably will be for a long time. Software such as web browsers or office suites sits somewhere in between, both kinds exist there.
Biggest and most popular projects are attractive to companies as well as individuals for the same reasons. However, the original point was that companies are not needed for open source to exist or for innovation to happen.
The innovation argument is shaky at best many of the corporations innovations are brought or copied really. Is a story that became pretty common in the latest decades one guy come with a good idea some other mofo takes it and profits with it.
What’s more is that corporate driven research is necessarily biased towards whatever is profitable which is often at odds with what’s socially useful. For example, it’s more profitable to research drugs that help maintain disease and can be sold over a long time than drugs that cure it. Profit motive here ends up being completely at odds with what’s beneficial for people who get sick.
And of course, any research that doesn’t have a clear path towards monetization isn’t going to be pursued. This is precisely why pretty much all fundamental research comes out of the public sector.
That’s why it’s important to use hard copyleft licenses like the GPLv3 instead of merely open-source MIT or BSD licenses wherever possible when you publish software.
Indeed, the corps did a whole campaign lobbying for permissive licenses precisely so they could plunder open source work. Hard copyleft should be used for any serious project.
capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement
I don’t know who is arguing this because it’s incredibly stupid. The greatest scientific minds of history, the mathematicians, the physicists, the inventors, were not capitalists, they’re people with passion for their work.
If we move to a society that guarantees basic human needs and good education, we’re only going to have more scientists and engineers that progress technology even faster.
And while we are at it… novelists, poets, painters, musicians, philosophers, …
Capitalists argue this because it gives them the appearance of a moral high ground.
Eshittification shows how untrue this - capitalism by its very nature will always devolve into worse and worse offerings because it’s reliant on squeezing out ever more profit.
Capitalism will only ever puh out the bare minimum of technological advancement. And keeping people in indentured labour (aka employees) to the capitalist system so that they either have no time to come up with innovations themselves or they own the intellectual property of any indentured workers means that the overwhelming majority of innovation is monopolised by capitalism too. Which also contributes to the appearance of pushing advancement.
I disagree somewhat.
A lot of high tech development comes with a greed motive, e.g. IPO, or getting bought out by a large company seeking to enter the space, e.g. Google buying Android, or Facebook buying Instagram and Oculus.
And conversely, a lot of open source software are copies of commercially successful products, albeit they only become widely adopted after the originals have entered the enshittified phase of their life.
Is there a Lemmy without Reddit? Is there a Mastodon without Twitter? Is there LibreOffice without Microsoft Office and decades of commercial word processors and spreadsheets before that? Or OpenOffice becoming enshittified for that matter? Is there qBittorrent without uTorrent enshittified? Is there postgreSQL without IBM’s DB2?
The exception that I can see is social media and networked services that require active network and server resources, like Facebook YouTube, or even Dropbox and Evernote.
Okay, The WELL is still around and is arguably the granddaddy of all online services, and has avoided enshittification, but it isn’t really open source.
The idea that these things wouldn’t exist without commercial analogs is silly. You do realize that things like BBS boards and IRC existed long before commercial social media platforms right? In fact, we might’ve seen things like social media evolve in completely different directions if not for commercial platforms setting standards based on attracting clicks, and monetizing users.
all the for profit things we use are worse because they are for profit.
most of the time a site or service UI is made worse it’s because AB testing found the worse UI wastes user’s time and the metrics read that as engagement.
Exactly, most of the bloat on commercial sites isn’t there for the benefit of the user, but rather in order to monetize them. It’s ads, trackers, metrics, and all the other garbage that you don’t actually want.
Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive
Wrong! Linux and open source only shows that the profit motive is not the only motive. One should broaden the definition of profit to encompass value in all its forms. ie A person can gain value from the satisfaction of DIY as it can be self-empowering. One can gain emotional value from sharing. It also invokes the law of reciprocation - value exchange but without a $ sign. The Open source ecosystem is also heavily funded by business who relies on open source components. It is a capital investment.
The profit motive as used in capitalist sense strictly refers to financial gain. My whole point was that people do open source development for broader reasons than just base financial gain.
And while companies do some funding, the ecosystem can exist without them perfectly fine.
If the profit motive is not the only motive that drives innovation, as you just agreed, then it isn’t necessary, logically. And not sure why you would then go on to expand the definition of profit into meaninglessness after agreeing there are other motives.
What? How the f do you transition from ‘not only’ to ‘isn’t necessary’? That is not logic - that is mental gymnastics with a triple back flip! Profit is the PRIMARY motivator! People wish to move away from discomfort more than anything else. Currency is the best way of alleviating discomfort!
- If X is a necessary motive for Y, then in the absence of X, Y cannot happen.
- Innovation can happen in the absence of a profit motive.
- Therefore, the profit motive is not necessary for innovation.
People can grow food in the absence of technology - but subsistence living is a hell of time!
nb. Marxists still have no answer for the calculation problem.
So I guess you agree that the profit motive isn’t necessary, because you moved to a completely unrelated point
So I guess you cannot process anything other than black/white logical fallacies let alone analogies.
This is so wrong. It’s not volunteers writing this code it is people employed by companies who are paid to write this code. You do know people have to eat.
Open source has existed long before companies started getting involved with it. Meanwhile, people having to eat has nothing to do with the argument being made which is that capitalism and profit motive are not required for creativity and technological progress.
Context for those who are baffled (I was)
https://news.itsfoss.com/linus-torvalds-woke-communists/
No Linus hasn’t grabbed a red rag and isn’t off to foment revolution
unfortunately I think this is just him saying he’s a “woke communist” if being a woke communist is atheism, women’s rights, and gun control. I don’t think he’s a marxist of any stripe it seems. However, I am willing to be corrected here. I’ve only seen this post regarding to him
Guy’s Finnish. The chances of him being actually communist are pretty much zero.
I was feeling the last part had some more story behind it so I went ahead and found this:
Seems like I’m a full-blown woke communist too
Doesn’t read like he’s an actual communist, more insulting people (rightly so) that would call liberals communists.
I personally think communism especially Marxism sounds really good on paper. The problem is that just about every time it has been attempted things didn’t really seem to work like they are supposed to.
Its like every state that attempts communism just ends up being a perpetual Vanguard state, and it ends up being authoritarian and terrible.
I really think there are several good ideas in Marx theories, but the actual implementation of those theories needs some work to figure out how they should be incorporated without being corrupted and overtaken by tyrants.
Capitalism didn’t appear over night. It took several attempts and iterations to get it anywhere near what it is today. Most modern theories on the implementation of Marxism focus less on centralized government authority and more on democracy in the work place, and eliminating 3rd party shareholders’ control. Much of the struggle with implementation of this, is that the existing financial structures aren’t set up to handle this type of thing well.
Just when I thought I couldn’t admire him more…
Common sense on the internet in this economy 😮
Other way around for me - got into Linux because some comrades were saying real commies use it, I was really mad at Windows that day to begin with, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it out. Found out it’s… sucky in different ways, but in ways that frustrate me less and where I tend to be angry at myself for screwing something up rather than angry at a corporation for being hostile to its customers, which is something I’m angry about far too often as it is.
Part of how I got here involves reading an assload of textfiles from the '90s and growing disillusioned with the fruits of that optimistic '90s techno-libertarianism
The Linux to trans anarchocommunist catgirl pipeline is very real. The moment you move to Arch it’s already over.
I just installed pop!_os am I safe?
that’s how I started. nobody’s safe.
welcome comrade!I honestly don’t even know what a Marxist is.
I encourage you to go over to c/askchapo on hexbear.net if you are curious.
I think there is something fundamental about the pull of investigating, understanding, and reading that leads to so much crossover between the two.
In my experience I’ve noticed Linux tends to (disproportionately) attract both libertarians and socialists/communists. I feel like I run into more of both within the Linux community than I do in other communities.
I started using Linux because I couldn’t force myself to use Windows 8. Up to that point I used whatever version of Windows came right before the graphical interface but 8 was too awful so I started playing with mint and never went back…
I got off the capitalism train in the middle of that but that was only because I decided to major in business and when I saw how the sausage was made I jumped ship but I didn’t know anything about socialism or communism or marxism or whatever you want to call it. I was so not into politics or economics that I literally had to search the Internet and ask people on social media what was an alternative to the crap I was reading for my classes… And then I went down that rabbit hole. If was enlightening. I learned a lot.
Also… for people who think college is Marxist indoctrination…Marx was brought up for one paragraph in one book at the very very end of my 4 years. But by that point I already knew who he was just from the rabbit hole I went down when I was curious for some alternative to what I was being taught.
Just wait for the next stage as a libertarian socialist, without a leading communist party, because we can take care of us ourselves - it’s usually called anarchy (which doesn’t mean no social norms, just self-organisation without leadership)
Just began using Linux, was already Marxist
Ironic as I went the other way. I was a Communist when I got into FOSS and as I got older I realized I could never defend the historical record of Communism.
This is what happens when everything you know is based on vibes instead of actually reading any theory or history from primary source historians instead of third.
Not really sure what you’re trying to say here.
I’m saying I don’t believe you’ve ever engaged with communism. I don’t believe you’ve read a single book. I don’t believe you’ve even read a single pamphlet. I don’t think you could give me a simplified breakdown of what historical materialism is and I don’t believe you could tell me what the 5 basic classes are that marxists define, along with a simple 1 sentence description of their scientific definition. I don’t think you were a communist and I don’t think you know anything about the “historical record of communism” beyond what you have passively consumed from the far right wing fuckwads that you’ve surrounded yourself with and allowed to rot your brain. I’m saying that the confident manner in which you bullshit about these things is a severe personal failing.
All of these are 101 things that anyone who has actually engaged with the topic of socialism for more than like 1 single week would be able to answer instantly and easily.
I’m saying that your political opinions and knowledge of history is based on vibes that you have attained from the massive quantity of propaganda you uncritically consume and not from any actual meaningful knowledge.
Clear enough?
You’ve not looked into Communism too much have you?
Marx had the opportunity to see Communist movements rise in his own timeline. And he opposed the implementation of Communism in a Democratic manner. And wrote about it in his criticiques of the Germany’s Communist movements source. In his criticiques he lays out how he believes a transitional state should be laid out, how it should be organized. And later Lenin refers extensively to this blueprint in his written works and it’s clear to me upon reading that he truly believes what he says.
In my experience about almost every modern day Communist hear arguments made about the USSR not being based in Communism and have failed to even hear of this critique of the mythic Democratic Communism they believe I’m so much.
Read the critique, and given everything you know about human beings tell me honestly, do you truly believe a multi-generational dictatorship of the proletariat, led by you (or someone whom you’d champion), would really work?
I’m saying that your political opinions and knowledge of history is based on vibes…
I’ve been on the internet a very long time. But this is the first time I’ve seen a Communist (or anyone really) ague their position based on the vibes of the person their arguing against.
Yeah so you’re avoiding everything I said and injecting a completely different topic that you also don’t understand.
Marx’s critique isn’t with democracy it’s with bourgeoise-democracy. You would understand this if you understood even the basic bare minimum about marxist theory. All you are doing here is demonstrating that you do not understand the difference between what marxists refer to as a bourgeoise-democracy and what marxists refer to as a proletarian-democracy. Or if you prefer, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie vs the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Marx’s “opposition to democracy” that you are utilising for bullshit propaganda here is opposition to using the mechanisms of bourgeoise-democracy to achieve socialism (because they’re designed for the bourgeoisie and to produce outcomes the bourgeoisie want) and instead advocates for revolution to destroy that dictatorship-of-class and install a new democracy of the workers, a new dictatorship of class but one instead run by the working class (the vast majority) instead of the former ruling class (the bourgeoisie, the vast minority).
These are incredibly basic 101 concepts that, if you were a communist as you claim, you would already be aware of and understand. You were not a communist. You haven’t even read a pamphlet like the manifesto, let alone the Critique Gotha Programme that you’re linking to. I have though. And to anyone that actually HAS read these things that you’re pretending to have read you look like and absolute clown who is winging it.
Marx’s critique isn’t with democracy it’s with bourgeoise-democracy.
Marx’s critique isn’t with democracy, it’s with democracy that disagrees with him.
All you are doing here is demonstrating that you do not understand the difference between what marxists refer to as a bourgeoise-democracy and what marxists refer to as a proletarian-democracy.
I do understand the difference. The difference is that to transition from the former to the later, Marx advocates for violent revolution and the establishment of a dictatorship to “re-educate” the populace. It’s practically hand waved over by Marx and modern Communists, but it’s the most important part of the process. Who controls that dictatorship has all the effective powers of a dictatorship and has the ability to make life for the people they rule hell. Essentially Marx unironically created a worse version of Feudalism where there was no check on the power of the ruler(s) on the assumption that compassion.
a new dictatorship of class but one instead run by the working class (the vast majority) instead of the former ruling class (the bourgeoisie, the vast minority).
Unfortunately, even in a post revolution environment; the working class will never voluntarily choose to rule in the fashion that Marx things they would. No matter the re-education instilled.
You haven’t even read a pamphlet like the manifesto, let alone the Critique Gotha Programme that you’re linking to. I have though. And to anyone that actually HAS read these things that you’re pretending to have read you look like and absolute clown who is winging it.
My interpretation of it is essentially Lenin and Mao’s interpretation of it, just with the benefits of historical hindsight. I imagine, a younger, more idealistic me in 1920s St. Petersburg would have been a proud Bolshevik with the utmost confidence in the party leadership to lead us into a glorious, worker led future. If that makes me a clown whose winging it; my only request is that I get some ranch dipping sauce so at least I can get my vibes right.
“Dictatorship” doesn’t mean the same thing when Marx uses it vs what you understand the word to mean. Marx is talking about a dictatorship of CLASS. IE a large group of people within society. In liberal democracy the “ruling class” are the bourgeoisie, the capitalists, the billionaires and millionaires. They are the ruling class because when they led the revolutions to overthrow feudalism they designed the new system so that they would be the ruling class. That’s how it works. A dictatorship of CLASS.
Marx calls for exactly the same thing. A revolution that overthrows the current ruling class and installs a new ruling class. When the bourgeoisie overthrew the monarchs and their aristocracy they installed themselves as the ruling class, Marx calls for overthrowing the bourgeoisie and installing the proletariat as the new ruling class.
This isn’t a downgrade to democracy it is an UPGRADE to democracy. The current system only produces the results that the bourgeoisie wants. Socialism on the other hand with the proletariat in charge produces the results that the proletariat want.
My interpretation of it is essentially Lenin and Mao’s interpretation of it, just with the benefits of historical hindsight.
No it isn’t because your description above is fucking wrong. I’m telling you what Lenin and Mao’s interpretation is literally right now. This is basic as fuck stuff.
Who controls that dictatorship has all the effective powers of a dictatorship and has the ability to make life for the people they rule hell.
You’re acting like socialist countries don’t objectively provide a better quality of life than capitalist countries when compared at an equal level of development lmao. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/
Your understanding of any of these topics is incredibly vulgar. A warped and contorted understanding that you’ve only learned through extremely passive engagement with the topic.
you don’t have to defend the history of communism-aspiring countries to be in favor of communism ;)
ITT: people who have no idea what communism is
I am a full blown capitalist, and I despise google and the entire online ad industry and its tracking, I’d say all of my apps (except for games) are foss or atleast somewhat open source
You’re not a full blown capitalist my friend
Im sure you know more about me then I do, But I wont get into this argument, seems pointless
You are probably right, it does seem kinda pointless. A full blown capitalist embraces capitalism to its fullest and believes in its values. FOSS kinda contradicts that and hurts capitalism. You should support the economy and pay other companies to develop, manage, license, (…) your software.
Did you see me ask for regulation againts it? I dont think so, again, this seems pointless
What kind of argument is seeing you pushing regulations against it? The question was if you are a full blown capitalist and if you support FOSS, you are most certainly not. You have to stop coming off as an american.
Im not an american.
Supporting foss doesnt make me not a capitalist, capitalism in its root is personal choice, and I choose FOSS over proprietery, and its fine
The root oft capitalism is not having options to freely choose …
