Newsforge says:

A recent bus trip and tour of Oregon State University's Open Source Lab (OSL), and its cavernous collection of "the most important racks in open source," had political and technological progressives sitting side by side.

The Bus Project, a progressive political non-profit organization, got together with the Portland Open Source Software Entrepreneurs (POSSE) and others in Portland's open source community, and organized the three-hour trip to OSL to illustrate the need for change in politics and software.

The Bus Project website won't load, so I can't tell what the agenda is. But I will hazard a guess that it is not pro-property and markets.

So, once again, open source software as a commercial strategy is fine. But as a religion or a political movement, it is a very bad idea indeed. Somewhere, somehow, all production requires a revenue stream. The idea that software is somehow different is not rational.

Also - at the top of the Open Source Lab website is the motto: "It's about community." That may well be -- thought meaning of "it" is a bit unclear -- but why do the open source people, and those who believe in "progressive politics," fail so completely to understand that markets are an excellent and just way to achieve community. Why do they assume that community means legions of volunteers supported by their parents or by scut work, or -- even worse -- controlled by the vanguard of the party?

posted by James DeLong @ 8:28 AM |

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