| It's a thought-provoking article, but contains several serious contractions in terms. > For reasons that are complicated and that I don't fully understand, the software development community in the eighties and nineties developed a culture of anti-capitalism and liberal values that put technology on a pedestal for its own sake. Liberalism is by definition pro-capitalism. It's not pro-capitalism in the libertarian sense of "free markets", of course, but it's not like Silicon Valley doesn't have its right-libertarians, too. I think this analysis has it exactly backward. I find the position proposed in The Californian Ideology much more compelling: The culture Mark is talking about was a fusion of market liberalism, countercultural signifiers, and techno-utopianism. > The idea of free software, for example, has led to a software economy where you, the user, are no longer the customer, but the product. This is almost exactly what the notion of "free software" was invented to oppose. "Freedom" in software isn't supposed to be about price, but about liberty. Free software can absolutely cost money, but if it starts treating its users like products, it is by definition no longer free software. Of course, this is exactly why "open source" became so popular... > The idea of open source, too, seems largely defunct as a means of 'sticking it to the man'. Open source was never about "sticking it to the man". Open source is a defanged version of free software, where the only freedom left is the one which hurts the man the least when exercised. Post-Open Source by Melody Horn is also recommended reading here. |