RE: [OS:N:] Open Source as a form of Anarcho-Communism?

["Rafael Sanchez" <rsanchez metilinx com>]

Regarding the following sentences

> Anarcho-communism places a great emphasis on the workers owning the means of
> production.  In the case of the Internet, this would be the networks, and
> software running on them (OS's - Linux, servers - apache, languages - php,
> perl etc., databases -postgres mysql etc)  Open source shares the belief
> that the users should own the electornic means of production, as oposed to a
> corporation owning the networks and software to access them.
> 
> Communist belief endorsing Good of the all over the few - All can benefit
> from open source product, only relatively affluent can afford to even use
> microsoft and even then, the source code is copyrighted intellectual
> property

I think the definition or extrapolation to internet of communinst emphasis about the means of production is not correct. Basically in communist countries you are not the owner of the computers or the software used to develop, actually it is the goverment.

Rafael


-----Original Message-----
From: Brendan Scott [mailto:bscott gtlaw com au]
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 8:37 PM
To: open-source-now-list redhat com
Subject: Re: [OS:N:] Open Source as a form of Anarcho-Communism?




Paul Fitz wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm writing a paper at university anout the philosophy behind the creation
> of open source material.  It's actually a case study, using linux as the
> primary case in question.
> 
> The main idea is that the Open source community is actually a mini
> anarch-communist community existing within the Internet - for a number of
> reasons - please read below.

For the reasons I set out below I think the open source community is more capitalist than communist. Primarily because 
they (effectively) oppose government intervention in the software market.

> 
> I'd like to hear some thoughts/feedback if anyone has time.
> 
> My main reasoning is -
> 
> Anarcho-communism disregards Lockean concepts of private property, which
> Open source does (to an extent) by opposing intellectual copyright -
> copyleft instead of copyright.

The fundamental problem with your reasoning is that you assume there is some relevant "property", which there isn't. 
It's one thing to say there's no property in a hammer, it's another to say there's no property in speech.  In the first 
there is a long history of common usage and precedent.  That history is absent in the second. As long ago as the 1800s 
the (US) Supreme Court stated categorically that there is no such thing as copyright within US commmon law (Wheaton v 
Peters). "Intellectual Property" is a political term which has been invented to justify non monetary subsidies to 
specific industries, in the absence of property rhetoric copyright protectionism would have gone the way of other 
government market intervention over the past 20 years.

See also Machlup and Penrose in the ?50s? Journal of Ecomonic History? on patents.

> Open sourcers reject capitalist ideology of supply-demand economics, open
> source programmers actively give their Intellectual property away - to 1 or
> 10'000'000 people.

Again, what they give away is the result of their programming.  To say they give away "intellectual property" implies 
that there is property to give away in the first place.

> Anarcho-communism places a great emphasis on the workers owning the means of
> production.  In the case of the Internet, this would be the networks, and
> software running on them (OS's - Linux, servers - apache, languages - php,
> perl etc., databases -postgres mysql etc)  Open source shares the belief
> that the users should own the electornic means of production, as oposed to a
> corporation owning the networks and software to access them.
> 
> Communist belief endorsing Good of the all over the few - All can benefit
> from open source product, only relatively affluent can afford to even use
> microsoft and even then, the source code is copyrighted intellectual
> property
> 
> In ideal anarchist communities, the collective creates enough material to be
> independent from the states, open source is actively creating enough
> electronic material to be free of capitalist endorsed proprietary software.
> 
> However, open source communities are also technocracies (to an extent -
> governed by technicians: a social system in which scientists, engineers, and
> technicians have high social  standing and political power).
> 
> The open source commnity appears to be a 'gift economy' - where giving away
> code/ideas/advice is highly desirable and valuable. The more code and
> information the user creates/reproduces and gives to others, the more valued
> they are in the community.

I think the "gift economy" is comparatively old philosophy these days.  Copyright is a legislative monopoly. 
Legislative monopolies are ananthema to Chicago school economists/economic rationalists. By attempting to neutralise the 
anti-competitive elements of copyright you can characterise the community as opposing government intervention in the 
content/software industries. On this analysis they're not communist, they're capitalist - and extremely so. Effectively 
  open source/free software says that competition in the software industry ought to be services based competition 
without any government intervention, not product based competition running off the back of government non monetary 
subsidies (ie the copyright monopoly).

> It seems that, if the open source community is a mini-anarcho-communist
> community, it co-exists within a larger capitalist owned structure called
> the Internet.  It actually depends on it for it's existence to an extent -
> would Linux be where it is today without the Internet?  It is unlikely - the
> net has allowed hundreds of thousands of motivated programmers/testers/users
> to help develop and refine many forms of open source software.
> 
> Pretty basic thoughts at this stage, just curious to see what others think.
> Disagree/agree whatever, it's all useful :)

I think you need to think about it more.

Brendan

> 
> Cheers,
> Paul
> 



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