Matt, I want to focus on the part of your argument that FOSS is related to Communism. First, let's define our terms. Hopefully this is not a false accusation, but it seems like you are using "Communism" in the way that conservative politicians and radio hosts use it, i.e. as a straw man political system that is assumed to be restrictive and contrary to free Democratic ideals.
Communism is too loaded of a word, but I think for our purposes "democratic socialism" is a suitable replacement. Democratic Socialism, successfully practiced throughout the world, and very compatible with the goals of many progressive Democrats in the US.
I will contrast Democratic Socialism with Market Liberalism. Market Liberalism is the idea that markets should be unrestricted and do not need to be regulated because they regulate themselves. However there seems to be a consensus among economists that this rosy rhetoric is just not true. The failure of this model may ultimately make the failure of European Communism look like child's play.
I think if I had to define the primary difference between Market Liberalism and Democratic Socialism it would the idea that society should be able guide and shape itself intentionally. This guidance is accomplished by making the structure of society be programmable by the people (instead of the structure being determined by blind market forces).
Market Liberals want to put the future in the hands of complex systems that are not directly related to any human values or guidance. That is the primary difference I think.
Their childish definition of freedom as being able to "do whatever you want" is simply a fairy tale. Freedom has more to with defining the constraints of government, via democratic process, such that the citizenry are maximally empowered, and minimally hampered.
The Market Liberals have no concept of the citizen or duty to cultivate community, the group-level. They only believe in the individual, the selfish gene/meme. They believe in a grossly misguided notion that markets optimize and automatically generate solutions, so that we don't need to choose our own direction as a society. It doesn't take a PhD economist to know how wrong this is. Computer scientists should also know how wrong the market liberalist model is-- optimization does not come for free! At least not in any reasonable amount of time. And as far as government is concerned there is such a thing as "too late".
So, Democratic Socialism does have a relationship to FOSS, though not a necessary one. FOSS shares a philosophy that works well with notions ranging from cooperativist economies (Libertarian Socialism) to Marxism, to plain old vanilla regulated capitalism. The philosophy of government that it clashes with is this permissive "let the market be free" philosophy, in which people can "do whatever they want". The reality of that system is not freedom for people but oppression of the weak by the strong, the gated fortress lifestyle, and gridlock on innovation due to the lower bandwidth of information exchange.
Communism is too loaded of a word, but I think for our purposes "democratic socialism" is a suitable replacement. Democratic Socialism, successfully practiced throughout the world, and very compatible with the goals of many progressive Democrats in the US.
I will contrast Democratic Socialism with Market Liberalism. Market Liberalism is the idea that markets should be unrestricted and do not need to be regulated because they regulate themselves. However there seems to be a consensus among economists that this rosy rhetoric is just not true. The failure of this model may ultimately make the failure of European Communism look like child's play.
I think if I had to define the primary difference between Market Liberalism and Democratic Socialism it would the idea that society should be able guide and shape itself intentionally. This guidance is accomplished by making the structure of society be programmable by the people (instead of the structure being determined by blind market forces).
Market Liberals want to put the future in the hands of complex systems that are not directly related to any human values or guidance. That is the primary difference I think.
Their childish definition of freedom as being able to "do whatever you want" is simply a fairy tale. Freedom has more to with defining the constraints of government, via democratic process, such that the citizenry are maximally empowered, and minimally hampered.
The Market Liberals have no concept of the citizen or duty to cultivate community, the group-level. They only believe in the individual, the selfish gene/meme. They believe in a grossly misguided notion that markets optimize and automatically generate solutions, so that we don't need to choose our own direction as a society. It doesn't take a PhD economist to know how wrong this is. Computer scientists should also know how wrong the market liberalist model is-- optimization does not come for free! At least not in any reasonable amount of time. And as far as government is concerned there is such a thing as "too late".
So, Democratic Socialism does have a relationship to FOSS, though not a necessary one. FOSS shares a philosophy that works well with notions ranging from cooperativist economies (Libertarian Socialism) to Marxism, to plain old vanilla regulated capitalism. The philosophy of government that it clashes with is this permissive "let the market be free" philosophy, in which people can "do whatever they want". The reality of that system is not freedom for people but oppression of the weak by the strong, the gated fortress lifestyle, and gridlock on innovation due to the lower bandwidth of information exchange.