Marxism and FLOSS.
Marxism and FLOSS.
I think that a Marxist society should allow for 0 proprietary software, and instead support for everything in free and open source decentralized technology.
47 comments
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It goes hand-in-hand with a post-revolution socialist society. Proprietary software is essentially private property, which would be eradicated in a worker's state. It would most likely not be a first priority for the new state as there are more pressing matters - for the US for example, the dismantling of the military and the closing down of all international bases - but it would be inevitable with socialism.
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I was trying to figure out how to say what you said so I'll just piggy back. I agree that moving from proprietary to foss is definitely one aspect of the "withering away of the state". Engels didn't explicitly write about software for obvious reasons but yeah lol.
I think, and this is probably preaching to the choir, but one thing that we can keep doing is just supporting foss and try to get more people to use and contribute. Regardless of if the revolution were to happen tomorrow, we've definitely seen a big uptick in open source being used over the last 20-30 years.
I've seen people bring up that Lemmy/Mast/kbin are open source and my thoughts is always "as it should be". We are living through what I think might be a software revolution as more people get fed up with data harvesting and proprietary services. Will this era last? Who knows but I hope it does.
Funny enough, Linux and foss were what actually started my radicalization to the left. Back when I was using Ubuntu 9.10 I just kept asking why this wasn't this the norm? I mean Linux growing pains baggage aside that is.
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This reminds me: it's time to install Linux. But I don't know where to start. I'll open another thread and see if anyone can help.
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We are living through what I think might be a software revolution as more people get fed up with data harvesting and proprietary services
I think the issue is that a lot of people, especially younger kids and older boomers, are not so much "choosing" a social media app as getting addicted to it. No one would "choose" an app like tik-tok just based on how much they enjoy it or how it affects their lives. They get addicted to it because it is an app designed to be addictive.
Because there is no profit motive, open-source, decentralized apps tend to be designed for ethics rather than addiction. But I fear that because these apps are not designed to be addictive, they cannot truly compete with corporate social media for the mass audience.
As nice as it feels to fight back, I don't feel as if anything can compete with the profit motive in a Capitalist system.
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The intellectual property industrial complex in the US is pretty darned severe, which is why we have really draconian maximalist IP laws that lock out any small content creators from becoming large content creators without a challenge or buyout from a large holder like Disney, Warner Brothers or Sony.
It's not that we're worried that they have guns, but they certainly have money with which to hire guns, and routinely do.
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Of course. Without private property there is no longer any possibility of proprietary software existing, nor any benefit. We wouldn't necessarily need licenses anymore, but something like the current copyleft model comes close.
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Thank you for all the up votes and comments folks. Btw, I use Gentoo :D
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I use Gentoo too. But I'm soon installing nix and guide in another machine soon.
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But I think, RMS himself is anti communist
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0 propertiary software is possible when you do programming, IT etc. but not for a mechanical engineer, who needs AutoCAD, Inventor, Catia, Abaqus, etc. I know that there are FOSS alternatives, but they are far less developed, since producing such a software requires hundreds of people and many many hours of work. Such a software could be made by large state owned enterprises, which would make the code public, but rather not by few hobbyst in their spare time.
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As a FOSS fem developer, I disagree with this. Extremely complex tools like Aster, openfoam, calculix, and even now openradioss all exist under open source licenses.
All of these tools are built on state funded research that belonged to the people already, but has been enclosed by capital.
Look at nastran and dyna as the examples of this.
For CAD, Freecad exists and is quite good.
If these volunteer developers had even one hundredth the capital that firms who purchase enterprise CAE tools spend, I bet they would be better than even the things that money currently buys. Look at prepomax, developed by one man to support calculix and its easier to learn how to use than ansys workbench.
Blender is the exception that proves the rule.
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47 comments
"Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your proprietary software" - Karl Marx