The https://quitter.se anti-capitalist message didn't resonate with me, so I joined the https://gnusocial.no federation. Much friendlier :)
I am asking because to me, to decide to join some (not political) community based on your own political opinion, is a good way to live in your own bubble. The real strength of the Internet is that we are exposed to contrarian positions, even at the expense of our comfort.
Back when they only thing that described free software was the GNU manifesto, we still had the idea that writing software that enabled businesses was a good idea. It may be a consequence of free software that it will become difficult to charge money directly for software (as a product), but that shouldn't stop companies from making money.
Especially now when we see how open source software is almost taken for granted, we can see that companies flourish, not die. It is true that you practically can not charge money for a compiler any more, but are we worse off? No. We have different and arguably better business models for that kind of software -- and we haven't given up capitalism at all. My tools are dramatically better than they were 30 years ago (when I first started in this business). The cost has also dropped to nearly zero. We have become efficient.
It is true that the FSF considers software freedom a moral imperative. While it may be true that some kinds of software will be difficult to produce in this manner, we can see that there are several very large companies that thrive producing virtually every kind of software. Personally, I don't think there are many businesses that will be better off with our old software-as-a-product business models -- games being a probable exception. What we have now is better, more efficient, enabling for the general population -- and much better for businesses. I have a hard time seeing it from an "anti-capitalist" position. And, just from my personal perspective, I don't think RMS ever did either.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
The payoff comes at the very end, "Do your own computing with your own copy of a free program, for your freedom's sake."
Nah, I'll pay someone to do compute (and maintain the API, infrastructure, etc.) for me. I'm a huge free software advocate, but in the SaaS situation, I'm not paying for a program, I'm paying for results.
As such, it's immaterial how I get those results--they could have a roomful of people arranging bits by hand. (What if that's how they were doing it? Would that represent a loss of freedom, if I were paying people to shuffle bits by hand?)
This particular essay seems like the RMS take on that old saw, "if all you have is a hammer..."
If the match is only partial, your choice is between lobbying for tool change from your vendor, or conforming your business to match the tool.
The FSF position is anti-capitalist in at least one technical sense -- in the domain of software, it morally opposes capitalist model of property rights (and, in practice, uses a hack around the mechanism by which that model is implemented to subvert it.)
I think pro-capitalist (mostly libertarian) thought on this matter is divided.
The problem is, you can mount the very same argument even in the case of normal property rights. At the beginnings of capitalism, the scarcity was in fact enforced by means of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure.
IMHO, most libertarians are used to idea normal property and take it for "natural", but not so in the "intellectual" world of ideas. It is partly because they benefit from intellectual world not yet completely owned by rich people. But I think people outside computing (unless they are distinctly leftist) are unfortunately lot more content with the idea of "intellectual property".
In my view, there is always a balance between "property rights" and other needs of society - availability of resources to the needy and the general public, innovation and growth.
The problem with IP is that there isn't any limit to it. A driver license is not more or less a property than a patent, but it acts wastingly different. Can I sell a driver license? can I rent it? Can I cut it into two different part and give a friend half of it? What makes the exclusivity of state granted driver license a non-property, in contrast to the state granted exclusivity of an patent?
I don't see why anyone should "own" natural resources, or beaches for instance. I understand that we all need a place to live and we want to own our personal possessions, but it doesn't seem to me at all natural to extend this to mines, factories or huge tracts of lands on the other side of the planet, that you perhaps even never see. Maybe the scarcity of natural resources isn't such a big deal unless you have people who simply own to much of it.
In the same vein, I agree that authors and inventors should be compensated for the efforts, but the copyrights and patents shouldn't create more scarcity.
The FSF is pro-copyright and pro-trademark. You can literally own software. In fact, one of the things the GPL makes very clear is that once you have given/sold someone the software, you can't suddenly revoke their rights to use it in any way they see fit. In fact the FSF is very outspoken about the dangers of using services which remove that right (for example ebooks where the seller can suddenly revoke your right to read the book).
When you receive software under the GPL, you own that copy. It is literally yours. You can modify it. You can study it. You can give it or sell it (for any amount of money) to someone else. Not only that, but you do not own the copyrights. The copyrights are owned by someone else and are not transferred with the software. So this means that you can not change the license, even with a derived work.
They like it that way. They do not want to change the ability to own software or own copyrights. The GPL does not subvert the notion of software as property -- it enforces the normal rights you would have if it were physical property.
Does it? Or does it take a much more hardline stance in favor of property rights, by saying you should control what is running on your property?
And only idiots think that free markets don't have externalities, so RMS noting that there are environmental or social issues free markets fail to address is itself completely unremarkable. Anyone who denies those facts should be completely disregarded. Even the most staunch free market advocates who have any understanding of reality accept that externalities exist.
You are mixing up anarchism with anti-capitalism.
I understand anti-capitalism as a criticism of the current economic system (or at least aspects of it), so it's independent to anarchism, just like it is, say, independent to Christianity.
> I understand anti-capitalism as a criticism of the current economic system (or at least aspects of it), so it's independent to anarchism, just like it is, say, independent to Christianity.
That's exactly my point (that it's independent). In case of Stallman, he isn't anti-capitalist per se, but he is definitely an anarchist.
Teaching the people to run their own services sounds pretty similar to what happened during the enlightenment, when people were taught to read at a large scale for the first time.
I may be in the minority: I agree with almost everything that Richard says.
Self identification is his personal choice. I'm talking about his ideas however.
Some of it. There are various views on this subject as well as different variants of anarchistic approaches.
> RMS is neither an anarchist nor strictly anti-capitalist
Giving a single label is probably pointless. He definitely has anarchistic ideas.
As F Scott Fitzegerald said:
A test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
Using the Internet just to confirm your existing beliefs sounds a bit too much like tribalism...isn't there something better to aspire to?
Unfortunately I can't give you a verifiable source, but the whole talk will be available at http://video.fosdem.org/2016/ud2218a/ at some point.
The only political opinion you should share about Free Software, is whether the software honors the four freedoms[0]. The rest (open source software, FOSS, etc), are corporate add-on sales attempts.
0.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition
In my debian package for the qvitter plugin that message already gets replaced, but I can also submit a patch upstream.