I’ve seen so much confusion between the two, at first I thought it was trolls, but it’s so consistent that I’ve begun to wonder if they actually don’t understand.

  • cabb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    I see your confusion, I just said FOSS and I should have said FOSS movement to be more clear. Double-checking myself shows that the FOSS orgs tend to be apolitical, so I should have instead said compatible with communist views.

    You state that communism is all about forcing people, however communism is defined as a stateless classless society. How would you force people in such a situation?

    IBM is most certainly capitalist, they just realized they could benefit from open source software once they fell behind MS. Being able to share development costs is still beneficial in a capitalist economy, even if you don’t privately own the end product. Just like how sharing the cost of healthcare can be beneficial for the social welfare.

      • cabb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 hours ago

        Since you didn’t disagree, it sounds like we both agree that the FOSS movement is compatible with communist ideals.

        Only the theory impacts the founding of the FOSS movement so communism in practice is irrelevant.

        I’ve been talking about the FOSS movement this entire time, which dates to 1983. IBM only started interacting with the modern FOSS movement in a significant way in the 90s per https://www.ibm.com/opensource/story/

        • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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          4 hours ago

          Foss is neither communist nor capitalist. It’s just a way to distribute software. If anything it’s capitalist since to survive they sell support and other things. It’s just one model of many. If you look it’s mainly for profit companies investing in it. Look at the top contributors for many projects and they are for profit companies donating to the project.

          • cabb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 hours ago

            Why are the donors relevant? This is like arguing that Yugoslavia wasn’t communist because they received foreign aid from the US.

            “They sell support and other things” Most (all?) theories of communism don’t have currency when they reach the communist stage but if you’re trying to make a socialist structure work in capitalism it would look like free open source projects.

            • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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              1 hour ago

              There is nothing socialist about foss. I have worked on foss projects for twenty years. I get paid. We charge for our product. What is socialist about that?

              The workers don’t control anything. The large companies contributing are in control.