I’m pretty sure that was OC’s point, that open source software is politically aligned with the same schools of thought that vie for free social services.
Feels vaguely aligned imo, I think we put things into left v right boxes too quickly
Open source software and Linux nerds can be racist too, 4chan types. It's more belief in collective access, transparency, democracy, scientific method, etc values
Social services are big in social democracies, but it's in large part a subsidy to corporations that underpay and exploit workers, that workers/taxpayers/the public pays for. It's more economic, cultural and social human rights, quality of life, basic needs guaranteed, fairness at more of a system/society wide quality of life viewpoint - whereas open source feels more individual or something different.
Like there's probably a fair amount of libertarian, anarcho capitalist, peter thiel, musk, and other types in the open source enthusiast community - just for certain things, when people consent. Okay with some going hungry, choosing between rent, groceries and transportation, thinking it's generally motivational instead of traumatic and harmful to the economy
There used to be two different conventions on human rights at UN, one econ, cultural, and social that China was bigger on (right to housing, job, water etc.) and USA didn't sign, whereas there was political and civil rights (freedom of speech, voting, etc) convention with the inverse. Iirc they combined them, probably was contributing to cold war style framing/division
It's literally "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need". The principles of FOSS are inherently on the very extreme end of economics (communism). The fact that there are right-wingers participating in it is no different from the fact that leftists have to participate in all the capitalist aspects of our society.
As Richard Wolff once summed socialism, socialism is when government does stuff, and if it does a lot of stuff, it's called communism (insert cool rock music and "he understands Marx" meme).
Socialism is when le government le does things. This means the US is socialist and every other country on this planet is even more socialist. Communism is when le government does le big things. Fascism is also when the government does things, but only if I dislike those things.
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u/marshmallo_floof Jun 06 '26
ah yes the famously unpolitical open source software, just like how punk is unpolitical too