This thought came to me in the shower today. Open source checks most of the boxes. It is a collaborative, worker owned (develloper-owned) project, that tries to flatten hierarchy. Especially if you look at something like Debian ), which really tries to have a bottom-up structure.
Of course, there are exceptions, considering there are a lot of corporate open-source projects, that are not democratically maintained and clearly only serve the interest of the company, who created it (like chromium for example).
So I am mainly talking about community-oriented FOSS projects here.
And if you were to agree with my statement, would you say that developing FOSS software is advancing the goals of the anarchist / communist project, because it is laying the groundwork infrastructure needed for a new kind of economy and society?
Thought this could be an interesting discussion!
No. I’m staunchly anti-communist and also a staunch supporter of free software. It’s also possible to have another combination of beliefs on these things, but these are mine.
I suggest reading the section “Why Don’t You Move to Russia?” of this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.en.html
By contrast, I am working to build a system where people are free to decide their own actions; in particular, free to help their neighbors, and free to alter and improve the tools which they use in their daily lives. A system based on voluntary cooperation and on decentralization.
Thus, if we are to judge views by their resemblance to Russian Communism, it is the software owners who are the Communists.
I agree with that. Free software is about building a society more strongly based on individual rights. At least Marxism-Leninism certainly isn’t about that, though anarchism can be argued to be to some extent.
While I agree, that Marxism-Leninism or Russian-Style “communism” have nothing to do with free software, I would also not call them real communism. Marx litteraly defined communism as a classless, stateless society. There is no such thing as a communist state. I also would argue, that free software is fundamentally anti-capitalist, because it rejects the basis of capitalism, which is private ownership of the means of production (which in this case would be software). So, in my opinion you cannot simultaneously believe that capitalism is the best way to organize software development while believing that free software is the best way to organize software development.
Cory Doctorow has a novel “Walkaway” which is basically “what if society but FOSS”. It’s really good!
To answer your question, while it has a lot in common with anarchism I don’t think anyone benefits from trying to fit it into a predefined political box. It’s something new.
Honestly, yes, I think it’s one of the best examples of anarchism in action the world has ever seen. And an especially pertinent example to point out to those who’d say things like, “Why would anyone do work or innovate without a profit motive?” Lots of good and innovative software, made without any profit incentive by a collective of people who are working on it just because they want to and they enjoy it.
