[ox-en] Brave GNU World
- From: grok sprint.ca
- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 08:11:11 -0500
At 04:11 AM 12/14/01 -0600, steve tekell muttered:
BTW I find the phrasing in the introduction to the list a bit awkward or a
little off the mark.
"principles of Gnu/Linux may serve as a foundation of a new society."
That is, how can it be sufficient for a "foundation"? Do you mean something
more like "a gateway to" or "key element of transformation and revolution"
or "part of a foundation" or "points to a foundation"?
It seems like when you are dealing with food, shelter, and the essentials
certain "principles" of Free software development wouldn't necessarily match
up or be sufficient to something which can't be duplicated without cost.
Maybe it's useless nitpicking, but it just sounds weird to me.
What are all these "principles" exactly?
Are they not simply a particular manifestation of something which came
before? Such as anarchist morality - Free Association, Mutial Aid, etc.
These are basically the same questions I've had regarding what is still a
very laudable attempt IMO to extend marxist theory into the 'Information Age'.
I agree that, no matter the theorizing over machines replacing people, or
about
some fabled 'new economy', the fact of the matter is: that world capitalism
is *still* based primarily on *cheap factory labor* -- in factories,
however, which are quickly being removed to the 'Third World' 'periphery'
(even while becoming more computer-automated than ever before); and to the
extent that commodities are produced *without* human intervention, the _old_
'rules of the game' are being subverted (dialectically, of course) -- and
the capitalist machine comes that more 'off the rails' (immiserating effects
on real people aside...)
What I think is interesting about GNU/FSF/GPL is how it manages to work
within Capitalism. Generally, most ideas to transform society out of
capitalism depend on total revolution. I don't have a lot of faith in all
the companies trying to make a profit off Linux, capitalist success runs
contrary to some of the principles here. But it doesn't matter, you can't
stop it. They may depend on Linux, but Linux doesn't depend on them.
The lesson they are only now just learning.
However, I don't really believe we can say that the 'Linux phenomenon' works
'within capitalism'. I believe that it would be more accurate to
characterize this as 'existing in embryo within' the system -- and
representing some future alternate system which will be fully 'unfolded' upon
'maturation'.
This also begs the question of the likely _impossibility_ of changing the
present system 'peacefully', by increment -- which is alluded-to above as
an expression of the _present_ state of the phenomenon.
;>
There isn't really success/failure for Linux just degrees of
popularity. The GPL,
although I have had mixed feelings about it, lately it seems like a remarkly
smart defensive move (until we outnumber them) to ensure Mutial Aid. How
else can we apply these principles which ensure and encourage Mutial Aid,
Free Association and Direct Action (in this case DIY)? It's manages to work
against the alienation and exploitation of capitalism without requiring an
entire social revolution. We can be hopeful, that it will bring about such
transformation over time.
AFAIC there is not much of a future to this GPL movement without its being
tied to the general 'old-fashioned' need to transform society *at its base*
-- and all recent attempts to decouple these have IMO revealed the
anarchistic/libertarian/idealist base of this mode of thinking/ideology...
These don't even make sense to me logically -- you might as well talk about
decoupling the phenomenon of entropy from the energy flows of the universe.
It would remain nothing more than an interesting experiment (which the
venture capitalists, of course, have tried to hijack for immediate gain) in
this case.
But of course, AFAIC, the GNU/Free Software movement will not long remain a
'toy' to be played with; and I believe that it will indeed provide us some
clues regarding how to organize production and other matters in our
wished-for future society.
What I am curious to watch what will happen as OpenOffice and other
OSS/GPL desktop tools become of sufficient quality, while at the same time
the economic downturns encourage cost cutting. If it catches on in any
significant degree, as a replacement for Windows, MS Office, and other
commercial software in order to save money, then there is this potential for
it to spiral out into something bigger, if critical mass were reached it
would radically alter the economy. All universities, gov't agencies, and
other tax based institutions could be the critical mass, dunno.
Already GNU/Linux is rapidly becoming the secure OS-of-choice the world over
-- most especially for all those governments, corporations and institutions
which
*compete* with the U.S.-based monopolists (supply, backdoors, etc.)
As for 'critical mass' -- well, that is *our* job to see that it happens.
And, I believe that it _will_ happen (barring world fascist dictatorship,
FI), because indeed we are NOT doing this for petty gain, and this is a
trend towards socialism that is as 'natural' as all human progress is. We
*will* see to it that we get the very best software our little minds can
come up with..!
;>
But at some
point there's much less money going into Capitalists Corperate software
companies. Who then have to cut costs, especially with MS licensing getting
worse and worse, and so on and so on. If radically enough, we end up with
some of the birth pains of revolution. On the other hand, with Corperations
owning/controlling most all the farm land and food, I am not sure how this
leads to a solution there. And really, something which doesn't liberate
land (and food) doesn't go very far.
...getting back to the point that the decoupling of this phenomenon from the
*physical reality* of human society and life is a manifestation of
'bourgeois-idealist' (i.e. libertarian) trends which still permeate much of
the 'progressive' and 'Open Source' movements. It is _not_ based on the
facts of the entire real situation, which are quite material -- and always
will be.
And it's why I myself don't give more than a moment's thought to any
possibility of transforming society without forcibly removing these vested
interests -- because they simply ain't gonna go away on their own.
Maybe all the laid-off programmers
will just end up in prison with all the other no longer needed workers in
the U.S. Hopefully we wont' have to have half the population in prison
before we realize how little we could all work if we cooperated outside of
capitalism.
We could always *live* the 'futuristic' dystopia there...
Maybe even flog the screenplay in Bollywood.
;>
-- grok.
The Revolution will not be televised: News at 11...
grok
Independent canadian marxist
The U.S. ruling class: A godzilla monster
that stalks the world, devouring everything.
(apologies to Godzilla and friends)
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