Sorry, socialists: Open source is a capitalist's game

I have some unfortunate news for those socialists and communists who still believe that open source is their movement. It's not. Open source is firmly capitalist. Always has been. Always will be.

Sarah Grey, writing in Monthly Review, talks up "open-source anticapitalism", but she's too late. Open source, from its inception, has been avowedly pro-business. That was, after all, the whole point behind changing the terminology from Richard Stallman's preferred "free software" to Eric Raymond and Co.'s "open-source software."

The former term scared off business. The latter term invited it.

Grey writes that "there are alternatives to capitalism." She's right. Unfortunately, open source is not one of them. Open source is the essence of free-market capitalism.

However much one may want to lay the blame of the current economic collapse at capitalism's door, one need only look to Soviet Russia or France's socialism (and the massive unemployment it brings) to be grateful that capitalist, free-market open source is currently reshaping the software industry. It's called open source, and it's a capitalist's game.

We have nothing to lose but our license fees.

Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.

[alegr]

Too late. All old-school and neo-socialist countries, like Cuba and Venezuela, grabbed this freebee. There is a free lunch after all. Capitalists created all those technologies, gizmos and softwares for those backward countries, now the capitalists can go away. The manufacturing plants are in China, anyway; nobody will notice if North America suddenly disappears.

[Penguinisto]

There is a difference between simple copying (e.g. Cuba) and innovating (e.g. SuSE, RedHat, et al).

Without the engines, the copies wither and die (...want an example? How popular and widely-used is Red Flag Linux these days, even in China?) ;)

[alegr]

Penguinisto,

For them it's good enough. Just grab and use. Assuming bit rot won't hit them. "Innovation", "Newer and better" is a capitalist thing, to make money. Communists don't need that.

[Penguinisto]

Ah, but there is no such thing as longevity if all you're doing is copying. We can start with the Unix epoch, IPv4 address exhaustion, localization, customization (or do you think that the likes of Cuba and such actually want P2P and anonymizing tech in their copies?), etc etc.

[alegr]

Penguinisto,

You mean the latests distros don't have 64-bit time_t, IPv6 support, multiple languages included, etc?
And, by the way, nothing prevents them from grabbing latest and greatest free Ubuntu download for years to come.

[french-whistler]

As a regular reader of your posts, this one is pretty disappointing...FYI, France has barely been under a socialist government for 10 years, in the past 50 years, and as for massive unemployment, the figures are, in each country, more related to how much a system is ready to help those in dire needs. Just ask the ones who now need to sleep in their cars in California parks, having their homes taken away, for having being too much relying on a "capitalistic" system, which in that case, was more free lunch for the happy few who drove the system down. You should just keep on Open-Source talks and avoid disgressions in politics. You could drop the "Sorry Socialist" from the title and keep the next part, which I still agree with.

[David Arbogast]

This is an opinion, stated as fact, that I simply cannot agree with. In your previous article you stated: "The secret is to use open source as a means to an end (PDF), not the end itself. " True. Very true. However, selling software has been an "end" for countless companies who simply develop and sell software, for years and years. OpenSource (GPL specifically) does indeed eliminate opportunities for sale. It also releases intellectual property that can be used by competitors. I'm not saying that open source is evil, but if you want to sell software, open source is not the most profitable approach to take. And to suggest that open source is "hardcore capitalism" when it effectively removes profit potential without replacing it... well.. has me wondering what school of capitalism you earned your degree from.

[odubtaig]

Starting with the premise that software is sold (and not licensed) you've gone downhill from there. Red Hat's shares are still goiing to go up no matter what you think.

That said, the idea that F/OSS has any political alignment is a little rediculous. After all, it's just a development model. I'm pretty sure any person of any political stripe could use it to their advantage. The only people who ever complain it's 'communist' are just bitter that they can't jam GPLed code in closed programs and charge money for it while never passing on a penny to the people who did all that work. In the end, no-one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to use it.

[jgodse]

GPL does not eliminate the opportunity for sale. It just eliminates the opportunity to be the exclusive seller after making the first sale, which over time eliminates the opportunity for monopoly rent collection for a GPLed work.

Open source does not release all intellectual property unless you use GPL v3, Apache 2.0, Sun CDDL or similar licenses.

[fazalmajid]

The phrase "Open source" may have been coined by self-promoting huckster Eric Raymond, among others, but the practice of open source is much more ancient and has nothing to do with either socialist anti-capitalism or capitalism, but instead with the culture of open discussion of academia as in Stallman's MIT AI Lab manifesto. GNU, BSD or Linux come from universities, not anarchist communes or corporate America.

[walt828]

I am a college teacher, and if this post were turned in by a student, it would be returned with the comment: "You are making assertions without providing reasons or evidence. Please rewrite and resubmit."

[snesich]

Matt, you're right that Open source is "a capitalist's game". And, it's also equally "a game" for people in non-profit organizations or economic systems. That's the essential quality of Open source. It can't be so easily pigeonholed. Open source can and does work within any nation's economic system.

[electronista]

The truth is that it has elements of both. Obviously, an everyone-can-participate software foundation is going to lend itself to "socialist," community development.

However, the notion that it's primarily there for Stallman worshippers who imagine the end of paying for software is more than a little naive. It's a development method -- not a way of life. A commercial team can use open source to work out kinks in a paid product just as easily (if not moreso given the discipline of full-time employees) as someone coding from his basement.

[adamguillette]

Bravo! Great piece, right on!!!

[patrickfinch]

Many agree with the proposition that open source is not inherently socialist - I am not even sure it is one that Grey asserts. But isn't your position, that it is inherently capitalist, just as absurb?

Software development and licensing methodologies and political economy are orthogonal concepts. Open source can be used to further social equality and it can be used to make money. The latter is clearly proven (and not disputed by Grey in the peice).

But it surely does not take a great deal of imagination to see how the production of software (and the development of other ideas) from a shared commons can contrast with a model of private ownership of the means of production.

[philipdc]

Beautiful.

You are magician with words!

France and US have almost identical unemployment and GDP per capita rates. But a French citizen gets many more holidays (including generous maternity leave), a shorter working week and absolutely free health and education. At this point in time, you're better being born French than American. Your point is valid, but France is not your best example of socialism or inefficiency.

[street_spirit]

I don't disagree to much with your analysis of open source, it's certainly pro business.

I do take issue with your ludicrous accusation that France has ever been a socialist country. Did it ever get rid of the free market at any point? Many parties call themselves socialist but that doesn't make the group socialist, their actions do...

Nor was Russia a Socialist society. Socialism is a international movement and unfortantly after the revolution it got high jacked by Stalinism who turned it into a national movement, removed all democracy, created a brutal regime and created a personality cult which, if you knew a single thing about Socialism you would know how ridiculous it would be to call it socialist, communist or whatever other word you wish to use...

[sergiodeathstar]

Do you even know what socialism is? How have you backed up your agument at all? France is not a socialist state and never has been, and as street spirit says, Russia never was either. Perhaps before getting involved in deriding it, you should understand what socialism is. It is typical of American smugness to assume your superiority over other cultural models. This is particularily stupid when you look at the current state of affairs in your country. Enjoy your ressession, brought on by your own greed, and you can enjoy your competition all the way to the food bank.

[BrnRvrd]

My last comment was censored, so here it is again, plus value and more gentle (...not really). I wholeheartedly support the comments by street_spirit & sergiodeathstar. Socialism in America is bent out of shape by cold war propaganda, and as a result Americans hatefuly attack it, though they know nothing about it.

For instance, they assume that socialism is completely incompatible with markets of all kinds, which is incorrect. Socialism is incompatible with stock markets because they trade in profit ownership, ownership carrying an entitlement to a fraction of a corporation's income that should belong to the workers.

Socialism however is compatible with commodity markets, and markets of goods and services. When implemented, this compatibility embodies Market Socialism, a much discussed concept between socialists today.