OS Libertarian connection.

[Kevin Driscoll <driscoll@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> >(Moreover, a lot of OS-ers are open Libertarians).
>
> Is that true?  It doesn't jive with the anti-Microsoft stance since a
> Libertarian's free market ideology shouldn't allow any criticism of
> Microsoft's business tactics.  Of course the true believers of free market
> dogma have never been strong on logic.  It seems to me that the spirit of
> open source comes more from an anarchist ethic of sharing and specifically
> as an outgrowth of the late hippy / early computer science scene in the Bay
> Area.

Microsoft's business practices are porr examples of free market ideology.
They are propped up by the government support through patenting.  In fact,
I view the entire U.S. economy as more of a state- sponsored economy
rather than free market.  When corporate entities recieved tax cuts,
incentives, and bail-outs - it's hardly "free."

Also, it appears to be a common misconception to distance libertarian and
anarchist ideas as though they represent the furthest extremes of the
right and left.  This is an unfortunate side effect of the common practice
of viewing the political spectrum as a single line rather than a multi-dimensional field.

I think anarchist and libertarian ideas are close siblings- both pursuing
freedom and individual liberty from centralized power structure.  People
may arrive to these conclusions along different paths or envision their
implementation differently -- but the goals are not so different.

Additionally, we have been pretty loose with our usage of the term "open
source."  I direct interested parties to the GNU site for information
concerning the difference between "open source" and "free software" :

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

Kevin

http://crashingjets.nu

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