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

["Paul Fitz" <pfitz dodo com au>]

Paul Fitz wrote:

| Elements of debate that have come up in the group:

| - The existence of 'intellectual property' and an exact defintion
| (thanks brendan)
| - The question of the validity of the extension from lockean property
|  rights to phemenological creations
| - Electronic tools of creation as means of production or disemination
| or both (or neither).
| - To look at what OS/FSW leaders think or what they do to illustrate
| examples.
| - Deifferentiating between OS and FSW communities
| - OS as a corporate plaything!
| - Theoretical and practical differences in what communism
| and anarchy represent.

Jens Wrote:

>An interesting characteristic of OS/FSW was mentioned: once started, a
>project develops some force that tends to keep it together precisely
>because of the possibility of forking. For the maintainers, this means
>they sometimes have to accept things from the community they don't like
>and for the community, they either accept the decisions of the majority,
>fight to convince them otherwise or take pains to start and maintain a
>respectable fork of the project. On both sides, it is natural to try to
>avoid forking, so this would tend to create en equilibrium.

Yes, it's very interesting how open source ventures not only overcome the
huge diversity of agendas by the multitude of programmers and testers
working with the product, but the diferent interests seem make the product
stronger.  Perhaps this is where having a 'benevolent dictator' like Linus
Torvald comes in handy as well..

"It is natural to avoid forking" - I agree, but given the ease in which
users can 'drop off' and join another Open Source developments more to their
liking, it is pretty interesting .  Perhaps there is something to users
aiming for the common good of the collective programmers/users and
(eventually) 'putting up' with elements they are unsatisfied with.


>Perhaps because of the difference in what is commonly called
>'intellectual property' and rivalrous property, there is no central
>omnipotent control, avoiding many of the problems that occur in
>governments (both capitalist and communist) or societies, namely
>corruption and lack of transparency.

Thanks to bringing up the entire concept of rivalrous property, I'll
definitely have a read of that, it may play a very important part in keeping
Open Source projects functioning - found a couple of decent links discussing
the issues -
http://www.wacc.org.uk/our_work/global_study_prog/resources/ip.html
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/001834.html
http://home.uchicago.edu/~ldusek/Econ286/markets_for_ideas.htm

In regards to the central omnipotent control, there often is a form of
central authority (albeit in a different form from the classic authority
structure), depending on the project.  According to Eric Raymond, the
pattern for a successful Open Source venture (his interpretation of the
Linus Torvald Linux model)is for the chief/s initially establish a basic
working product then bring onboard as many people as possible, listen
carefully to them/gently motivate them and get them actively involved in the
project in many ways - testers, programmers, users. (that is greatly
shortened)

But he sees an intelligent, charismatic chief or small group of chiefs as
essential to creating a successful project, to combat the divergent opinions
and opposing directions of the anarchy of the Internet.  Do anybody think
that is always true, or are there completely leaderless projects around?

Cheers,
Paul