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Linux and Socialism: a summary
Hi all.
Yuval asked me to make a short summary of my talk "Linux: Socialism in
the
software sphere?" that was given under the auspices of Khadash/Kampus
(this is a
leftist students' group in TAU) a few weeks ago. This is more of an
appetizer
than a real summary, but here goes anyway:
The main topic was the discussion of Linux as a contra-hegemonic
movement in
the field of Producer-Consumer relations. Hegemony is a popular concept
in Neo-
Marxist thinking, you can read about it, e.g. in Raymond Williams'es
"Marxism
and Literature", chapters 6-8. Understanding hegemony is especially
recommended
to those that think that the evils of the software world today are a
result of
the Micro$oft monopoly. They are not, and Micro$oft was hardly ever
mentioned in
my talk.
So, to extend the one-liner above just a little bit, the relation of the
Open
Source movement to the following axioms of the hegemony was discussed:
The axiom of consumption - the axiom that consumption is positive in
itself,
i.e. regardless of the object of consumption, or put in other words,
that the
question is not what is needed but rather what can be afforded. To
demonstrate
that this is not really an axiom, let me just say that it is typically
attacked
via environmental and moral arguments and that it was not, historically,
always
so.
The axiom of fashion - the axiom that new is inherently better than old,
again
regardless of the actual objects.
The axiom of advertising - the automatic assumption that advertising
products
is a necessary part of the economy and a fact of life. Again, let me
note that
the fact that lawyers are not allowed to advertise their services has
not led
to a collapse of law and lawyers.
(more specifically, in the field of High-Tech Producer-Consumer
relations)
The axiom of nonfixability - we discussed in length why high-tech
product are so
difficult/expensive to fix and whether this is really an "axiom" i.e. an
inherent part of their nature.
(most specifically, in the field of Software)
The axiom of price - that software cannot be written unless it is sold
(the
fact that Linux disproves this "axiom" I hope I do not need to explain).
"Complicated software must always have bugs"
"Advanced software requires advanced hardware to run on"
I hope this helps anybody. Have fun all.
Gady.