Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement. Open source ecosystem primarily run by volunteers has produces some of the most interesting and innovative technologies that we’ve seen. The reality is that people make interesting things because they’re curious and they enjoy making stuff. Pretty much nobody makes anything interesting with profit being the primary motive.

      • axsyse@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        It wouldn’t necessarily collapse (it wasn’t exactly suffering before FOSS stuff “hit the shelves”, so to speak) but the gatekeeping that comes with it would certainly cause a tremendous amount of stagnation

            • fox [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Half the user-facing internet broke for a few hours when one guy withdrew a shitty one-liner piece of JavaScript (the whole leftpad thing) because someone somewhere added it as a dependency to a dependency to a dependency until it was pulled into an enormous frontend library. The internet relies more on random open source contributions than a lot of people are aware of.

          • axsyse@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            I do too. To be clear, I did NOT mean that we could go without it today. What I meant was that if we didn’t have it to start with, things would’ve likely still developed albeit much more slowly.

            I’ll also preface this by saying I definitely slightly misread everything before and so my reply was kinda crappy

            • What I meant was that if we didn’t have it to start with, things would’ve likely still developed albeit much more slowly.

              I dont think we will ever know, but Im not sure I agree. I dont know what the landscape would look like without relying on open source and patent theft. A lot of the stuff would probably not be financially viable.

    • FaeDrifter@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement

      I don’t know who is arguing this because it’s incredibly stupid. The greatest scientific minds of history, the mathematicians, the physicists, the inventors, were not capitalists, they’re people with passion for their work.

      If we move to a society that guarantees basic human needs and good education, we’re only going to have more scientists and engineers that progress technology even faster.

      • Thorned_Rose@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        Capitalists argue this because it gives them the appearance of a moral high ground.

        Enshittification shows how untrue this - capitalism by its very nature will always devolve into worse and worse offerings because it’s reliant on squeezing out ever more profit.

        Capitalism will only ever puh out the bare minimum of technological advancement. And keeping people in indentured labour (aka employees) to the capitalist system so that they either have no time to come up with innovations themselves or they own the intellectual property of any indentured workers means that the overwhelming majority of innovation is monopolised by capitalism too. Which also contributes to the appearance of pushing advancement.

    • S_H_K@lemmy.fmhy.net
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      1 year ago

      The innovation argument is shaky at best many of the corporations innovations are brought or copied really. Is a story that became pretty common in the latest decades one guy come with a good idea some other mofo takes it and profits with it.

      • ConfusedLlama@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        That’s why it’s important to use hard copyleft licenses like the GPLv3 instead of merely open-source MIT or BSD licenses wherever possible when you publish software.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        What’s more is that corporate driven research is necessarily biased towards whatever is profitable which is often at odds with what’s socially useful. For example, it’s more profitable to research drugs that help maintain disease and can be sold over a long time than drugs that cure it. Profit motive here ends up being completely at odds with what’s beneficial for people who get sick.

        And of course, any research that doesn’t have a clear path towards monetization isn’t going to be pursued. This is precisely why pretty much all fundamental research comes out of the public sector.

    • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      This is true to some extent, but the best, most successful open source software is nowadays to a large extent made by for-profit businesses developing it for their own use but sharing it with the world.

      There is a strong correlation between “is this kind of software mainly used by businesses vs. individuals” and “does this kind of software tend to be open source”. Hardly anyone uses proprietary version control or web server software anymore. But (other extreme) in the area of video games, nearly all of them are still proprietary and probably will be for a long time. Software such as web browsers or office suites sits somewhere in between, both kinds exist there.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Biggest and most popular projects are attractive to companies as well as individuals for the same reasons. However, the original point was that companies are not needed for open source to exist or for innovation to happen.

    • zabadoh@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I disagree somewhat.

      A lot of high tech development comes with a greed motive, e.g. IPO, or getting bought out by a large company seeking to enter the space, e.g. Google buying Android, or Facebook buying Instagram and Oculus.

      And conversely, a lot of open source software are copies of commercially successful products, albeit they only become widely adopted after the originals have entered the enshittified phase of their life.

      Is there a Lemmy without Reddit? Is there a Mastodon without Twitter? Is there LibreOffice without Microsoft Office and decades of commercial word processors and spreadsheets before that? Or OpenOffice becoming enshittified for that matter? Is there qBittorrent without uTorrent enshittified? Is there postgreSQL without IBM’s DB2?

      The exception that I can see is social media and networked services that require active network and server resources, like Facebook YouTube, or even Dropbox and Evernote.

      Okay, The WELL is still around and is arguably the granddaddy of all online services, and has avoided enshittification, but it isn’t really open source.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The idea that these things wouldn’t exist without commercial analogs is silly. You do realize that things like BBS boards and IRC existed long before commercial social media platforms right? In fact, we might’ve seen things like social media evolve in completely different directions if not for commercial platforms setting standards based on attracting clicks, and monetizing users.

        • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          all the for profit things we use are worse because they are for profit.

          most of the time a site or service UI is made worse it’s because AB testing found the worse UI wastes user’s time and the metrics read that as engagement.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Exactly, most of the bloat on commercial sites isn’t there for the benefit of the user, but rather in order to monetize them. It’s ads, trackers, metrics, and all the other garbage that you don’t actually want.

    • anarchotaoist@links.hackliberty.org
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      1 year ago

      Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive

      Wrong! Linux and open source only shows that the profit motive is not the only motive. One should broaden the definition of profit to encompass value in all its forms. ie A person can gain value from the satisfaction of DIY as it can be self-empowering. One can gain emotional value from sharing. It also invokes the law of reciprocation - value exchange but without a $ sign. The Open source ecosystem is also heavily funded by business who relies on open source components. It is a capital investment.

      • yogo@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        If the profit motive is not the only motive that drives innovation, as you just agreed, then it isn’t necessary, logically. And not sure why you would then go on to expand the definition of profit into meaninglessness after agreeing there are other motives.

        • anarchotaoist@links.hackliberty.org
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          1 year ago

          What? How the f do you transition from ‘not only’ to ‘isn’t necessary’? That is not logic - that is mental gymnastics with a triple back flip! Profit is the PRIMARY motivator! People wish to move away from discomfort more than anything else. Currency is the best way of alleviating discomfort!

          • yogo@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago
            1. If X is a necessary motive for Y, then in the absence of X, Y cannot happen.
            2. Innovation can happen in the absence of a profit motive.
            3. Therefore, the profit motive is not necessary for innovation.
            • anarchotaoist@links.hackliberty.org
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              1 year ago

              People can grow food in the absence of technology - but subsistence living is a hell of time!

              nb. Marxists still have no answer for the calculation problem.

              • yogo@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                So I guess you agree that the profit motive isn’t necessary, because you moved to a completely unrelated point

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The profit motive as used in capitalist sense strictly refers to financial gain. My whole point was that people do open source development for broader reasons than just base financial gain.

        And while companies do some funding, the ecosystem can exist without them perfectly fine.

    • Auli@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      This is so wrong. It’s not volunteers writing this code it is people employed by companies who are paid to write this code. You do know people have to eat.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Open source has existed long before companies started getting involved with it. Meanwhile, people having to eat has nothing to do with the argument being made which is that capitalism and profit motive are not required for creativity and technological progress.

    • Barbarian
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      1 year ago

      Doesn’t read like he’s an actual communist, more insulting people (rightly so) that would call liberals communists.

    • darcy
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      1 year ago

      er… did torvalds just say trans rights? based alert

      • spitfire@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think it’s that controversial unless you’re hardcore conservative. Realistically he just laid out the view of most of the Libertarian party. Nothing he said denotes woke or communist except for the part or him claiming to be one. I’d like to see the full context, because that woke communist comment probably wasn’t directed at Linus’ views

        • Keith@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          The communist part reads as sarcasm because he was accused of being one

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      I’m definitely woke af. And proud of it.

      I have come to think that when profits are at odds with health, happiness, the good of society and humanity, then either a non profit foundation needs to be running it or it needs to be in the hands of the government—but a much less corrupt one. And I believe oligopolies need to be broken up and anti trust laws greatly expanded and enforced. Then we can deal with the oligopoly / plutocracy. We set a maximum wage (including all earnings) and tax 100% above that. Penalties for regulatory breaches include jail time. For corporations. With corporations reigned in, oligopolies and oligarchies crumbled, we can prevent regulatory capture and corruption. Campaign finance is abolished and it is paid for out of public funds. We abolish first past the post voting in favor of scientifically determined better alternatives to ensure voters actually have a variety of choices.

      Idk wtf that makes me except maybe a ranting lunatic lol

    • TopRamenBinLaden
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      1 year ago

      I personally think communism especially Marxism sounds really good on paper. The problem is that just about every time it has been attempted things didn’t really seem to work like they are supposed to.

      Its like every state that attempts communism just ends up being a perpetual Vanguard state, and it ends up being authoritarian and terrible.

      I really think there are several good ideas in Marx theories, but the actual implementation of those theories needs some work to figure out how they should be incorporated without being corrupted and overtaken by tyrants.

      • clover@slrpnk.net
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        Capitalism didn’t appear over night. It took several attempts and iterations to get it anywhere near what it is today. Most modern theories on the implementation of Marxism focus less on centralized government authority and more on democracy in the work place, and eliminating 3rd party shareholders’ control. Much of the struggle with implementation of this, is that the existing financial structures aren’t set up to handle this type of thing well.

        • 0_0@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          What we have today isn’t really even capitalism anymore. It is becoming something else. We don’t have free markets, for example, because large corporate players are not allowed to fail. Under a central banking system, the state can simply print money to fund its corporate protectorates while artificially suppressing interest rates to avoid paying any interest on the debt. And then we use tariffs and policy to pick and choose winners, suppressing competition. This is about as far from capitalism as one can imagine.

          • clover@slrpnk.net
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            10 months ago

            Can you point me to a time when capitalism did happen? Where governments and outside forces weren’t picking winners and losers in the market? In such a time what was the plight of the common worker? Did we see overwork, workplace safety, and child labor issues?

            Third wave communism doesn’t seek to abandon the “free market” (which is free within bounds), it instead favors democracy in the workplace. Where all members of the organization are employee-owners including ceos and middle management and the “Board” is dissolved into either a representative or direct democracy made up of employee-owners. In this way one increases the incentives for each individual to perform and see the company perform well. This also mitigates much income inequality by allowing the workers a say in the compensation of middle and upper management.

      • Kühe sind toll@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        You’re right. Communism is like the greatest social form a society can possibly achieve. The Problem is, that humans are dumb and will always try to get the best out of it for themselves so the concept of communism is ruined by those people. It maybe is practicable in small “society’s” (your family as example) but fails in big societies like states.

        • anarchotaoist@links.hackliberty.org
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          Yes, Communism fails to acknowledge human psychology and will therefore never work. People are individuals with self interests. This can never be controlled (without violence) by a socialist/communist society. The good news is you only need selfishness in a free market society. In order for people to get their needs met they need to offer value. Value exchange means all people are better off (on average).

      • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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        Look up coop business model, it’s the closest thing to workers owning the means of production that I’m aware of.

        Apartment building ownership is done with a similar model in my country and we got like 80% of people owning their home here. Our anarchist group is trying to push for policies that encourage businesses with that model too.

      • 0_0@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I personally think communism especially Marxism sounds really good on paper. The problem is that just about every time it has been attempted things didn’t really seem to work like they are supposed to.

        Boy, that’s the understatement of the century. Not only did it not work, it often results in mass murder and the ushering in of a totalitarian regime.

    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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      I liked the take by the utterly clueless Polish guy in the comment. I think his complete lack of understanding of any context is quite typical of online political conversation, especially when semantics come into play.

      Also Linus did call for “Total world domination” (I have the tshirt).

      • Sneaky Bastard@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Yes of course, who doesn’t remember how woke Lenin created a woke revolution based on woke teachings of woke Marx and even woker Engels.

    • The_Jewish_Cuban [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      unfortunately I think this is just him saying he’s a “woke communist” if being a woke communist is atheism, women’s rights, and gun control. I don’t think he’s a marxist of any stripe it seems. However, I am willing to be corrected here. I’ve only seen this post regarding to him

    • nxfsi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Guy’s Finnish. The chances of him being actually communist are pretty much zero.

      • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        This might be a dumb question: what do you mean? I know very little about Finland, so I’m just genuinely curious. Are the Finns in particular well-known for being anti-communist or is it more like a geopolitical thing since they share a border with Russia?

        • teemuki@sopuli.xyz
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          I don’t know where this idea that all Finns are anti-communist comes from. Finland had one of the strongest communist movements in Western Europe during the cold war. At the height of their popularity about one in four Finns voted for communists in elections. Card carrying communists sat as ministers in multiple cabinets, up to the early 1980s. Like many young people of his generation, Linus Torvalds’ father was a member of the Communist Party of Finland in the 1970s. And all this happened after Finland had fought against the Soviet Union in the 2nd world war.

  • Patapon Enjoyer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The Linux to trans anarchocommunist catgirl pipeline is very real. The moment you move to Arch it’s already over.

  • ConfusedLlama@kbin.social
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    rant:

    I have been using Linux since 2006, a lefty and against the super-rich and big corporations since I remember (to the point of avoiding their products like the plague), also never having understood or accepted gender roles and other stupid traditional concepts, yet never turned into a communist 🤷

    It baffles me that so many people think that respecting gender equality, understanding the evil in big corporations and avoiding them, valuing community and being tolerant (except for intolerance) and against discrimination somehow equals communism… I say this because I’ve been called a communist by many people who know me, while I have always rejected it explicitly!

    /rant

      • ConfusedLlama@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I can’t really say I believe in a specific model, but to my knowledge, and for the current version of our world, welfare states seem to be doing the least worse currently. But really, I think our world is kinda too fucked up right now to be able to have any good social-economic system (in terms of maximum equality and minimum suffering, I guess.)

        Ideally, I’d prefer no state, only local communities managing themselves (something like city states, maybe?) and their relations to other communities… but I know it’s just a dream, at least for the foreseeable future, considering the current realities and the ass-people in power. Because that would need many really peaceful, non-greedy and non-selfish people, which… well, never mind.

        P.s. Sorry for the pessimism, and I might be wrong of course, which I really hope I am.

          • ConfusedLlama@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Thanks. Maybe, kind of. My knowledge on the topic is limited, but I think communalism (or some version of it) could involve some form of loyalty to one’s ethnic group or community, which absolutely disagree with.
            Social responsibility: Yes. But loyalty, especially towards something ultimately meaningless such as ethnicity: No.
            My values are respecting individual choices, rights and well-being of others (which also entails some responsibility).

            • Prunebutt@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              I completely agree. However, as I understand, the tradition as it stems from Murray Bookchin explicitly condemns this arbitrary categorisation.

        • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          local communities managing themselves (something like city states maybe?) and their relations to other communities

          Your describing a Soviet you filthy commie.

          But for real what your describing is communism as marx originally thought of it. The one example marx gave as a model for what communism would be was the Paris commune which adheres to a lot of what you said. Most leftist agree that that’s the end goal it’s just a matter of how to get there. Lenin originally pitched the Soviet Union as just that, a bunch of local councils(soviets) freely cooperating and making there own rules. He saw how the Paris commune’s openness and military indecisiveness led to it being brutally suppressed though and wanted an interim top down dictatorship and rapid brutal industrialization to handle this threat. The threat never went away though, first with the Nazis almost annihilating them then the u.s. pointing nukes at them, so neither did the dictatorship.

          Their end goal was still avowedly the same though, and communism, to me at least, is about that goal. Their are a bunch of different theoretical paths to it, and there’s tonnes of infighting as to which ones the best, but all communists agree that the commune/Soviet/city state should have all the power.

          • ConfusedLlama@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Thanks for the explanation.

            The problem is exactly the “how”, as you described. And personally, I don’t really have any idea, since all the possible ways seem to involve somehow contradicting that goal “temporarily” (by using violence, limiting individual liberties, etc.), which I don’t like. I think maybe over time, (a very long time, perhaps?) the way of thinking of human societies will slowly (and through a painful process) shift to that direction (and maybe not! who knows!).

            Either way, life is painful and world is cruel.

          • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
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            Lenin did not seize absolute power out of some lofty ideal of protecting the workers. He was very motivated about reclaiming the Russian Empire and murdering any workers or separatists that were in his way. Even contemporary communists like Rosa Luxembourg recognized that. Lenin and Stalin had over 20 years to dismantle the state before the Nazis became a threat. Not to mention, the original plan was to ally with the Nazis! The leaders never had any interest in helping workers.

            • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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              On your first point you should read the question of nationalities which Lenin wrote shortly before his death. He clearly wanted to take down the tsarist apparatus after all the existential threats to the Soviet Union were gone.

              Where did Luxembourg say Lenin was trying to recreate the tsarist empire? She was critical of the Bolsheviks authoritarianism but If anything she was also critical of the Bolsheviks limited allowance for nationalism and would’ve suppressed nationalism further, she was a strict internationalist.

              If they did dismantle the state apparatus before the Nazis came what do you think would happen? The Soviet Union was barely able to turn the tide of the war with a united front and 20 years of intense, brutal industrialization. If they had dismantled the state and Russia was just a bunch of rural locally run villages in a loose confederation in 1939 the Nazis would’ve steamrolled over them and genocided the population.

        • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
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          1 year ago

          That’s pretty similar to the social democratic system that they had in Sweden before the 90s. Many critical services were government agencies, such as the railroad, the phone network, and the pharmacies. Health care and rental housing were handled by the municipality or the county.

            • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
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              1 year ago

              I’m sure that it could be argued that Sweden had Soviet influence, there was definitely a soviet-backed communist party in Sweden from 1917 until 1977.

              But at the same time, Swedish Social Democracy is a completely separate ideology from Soviet Communism, and the parties that implemented these “folkhemmet” policies were 100% hostile to the Soviet Union and any Soviet influence. Sweden has never had any system of communism, nor any USSR-friendly prime ministers or ministers.

              Specifically, Per Albin Hansson’s “the people’s home” ideology that he advocated for as prime minister was a reformist, anti-marxist form of social liberalism.

        • Gamey@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          I would say you are somewhere between arnachism and socialism with that view but I am no expert ether!

          • Prunebutt@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            Those two have big overlaps. “Libertarian socialism” used to be another term for anarchism.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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      Sounds a lot like me. That’s not communism, that’s just being a decent person. One that respects others and just wants everyone to live a good life without being the target of hate and harassment.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    Linus Torvalds is a “full-blown woke communist”? Citation needed.

    I have been a FOSS enthusiast since my preteen or early teenage years (mid-to-late 2000s), yet I am not in any sense a communist.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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        1 year ago

        The term you want is social democrat, which isn’t socialism but hey, it tries to like, stop people starving to death on the street, if only because it looks ugly.

      • anarchotaoist@links.hackliberty.org
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        1 year ago

        Did you know the Scandanavian countries have more economic freedom than the USA! Its their saving grace. They also have many private roads. The early 20th c saw capitalist Nordic countries become very wealthy and store up sovereign funds. These funds were than blown dry in the later half of the century as they became more socialist. They have now abandoned many socialist policies and again adopted freedom. They do however still have high taxation.

      • The_Jewish_Cuban [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        unfortunately I think this is just him saying he’s a “woke communist” if being a woke communist is atheism, women’s rights, and gun control. I don’t think he’s a marxist of any stripe it seems. However, I am willing to be corrected here. I’ve only seen this post regarding to him.

        But Linux is programming-communism

            • I don’t think it has a meaningful effect. Libs call themselves socialists all the time. For every case you’re able to argue for socialism and not have people’s brains shut down, you get 10 “those tankies aren’t real socialists! Socialism is when you vote for food stamps and means-tested college subsidies”

        • TopRamenBinLaden
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          I think his point is that people who call things “woke communism”, in a negative way, have no idea what communism actually is. To those people, everything from the center to the left of politics is woke communism.

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      His dad was a straight up member of the Finnish Communist Party. He’s still alive, and is even a member of the European Parliament, but seems more liberal/centrist these days.

      Linus himself seems to be pretty mum on politics.

    • akulium@feddit.de
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      To me it always seemed like Linus Torvalds is mostly a pragmatist.

      Richard M Stallman on the other hand…

    • Metatronz@lemmy.world
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      I think the dates are more relevant than the software. COVID pandemic was probably more impactful here than Linux.

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      10 months ago

      He made a comment sarcastically and replied to an accusation labeling himself as such

  • whou@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I too just turned into a Marxist after finding out about Linux and software freedom in 2020 lol

    I think there might be more than a handful of us. Welcome, comrade.

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    Fine, but dont defend tyranical regimes. They are bad no mather who they say they read. They could could claim to be following the teachings of fucking Mr Roggers but if they have concentration camps then thats not utopic or very humanitarian in my opinion, specially if ther is some mad dictator in power with everything no matter how manny extra steps are in between.

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    https://moneyinc.com/linus-torvalds-net-worth/

    How Linus Torvalds Achieved a Net Worth of $150 Million

    Red Hat and VA Linux went public, and since they acknowledged it would not have been possible without the programmer, Torvalds received shares reportedly worth $20 million. Before it went public, Red Hat had allegedly paid Torvalds $1 million in stock, which the programmer claims was the only big payout he received.

    He revealed that the rest of the stock Transmeta and another Linux startup awarded him were not worth much by the time he could sell them. However, in the case of his Red Hat stock, it must have been worth his while because, in 2012, Red Hat became the first $1 billion open-source company when it reached the billion-dollar mark in annual revenue.

    Whether he exercised his stock options is unclear, but the money he makes from the gains could be the reason why his net worth has continued to soar.

    Well, that’s one definition of being communist, I suppose. Myself, I think that it’s fairly safe to say that Torvalds is okay with private ownership of industry.

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    1 year ago

    Yeah, I love the FOSS philosophy and I would be a communist if I didn’t know that in my country and in every other country where communism is/was, it became a dictatorship doing reallly horrible things. I simply don’t have the trust in people to believe communism is possible without violation of human rights. It’s sad.

    • Shatur@lemmy.ml
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      in every other country where communism is/was

      There is not a single country that has achieved communism.

      • stepanzak@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        Sorry then, I should have written In every other country ruled by communists saying they are building communism, banning every other political party then the communist one, killing people in the name of communism. I see their unability to achieve communism even when they’ve had full control over country for decades as a proof of that it’s not really possible.

        • Shatur@lemmy.ml
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          It is incorrect to say that there was/is communism in the country. There are only countries that trying/tried building communism.

          In every other country ruled by communists saying they are building communism, banning every other political party then the communist one, killing people in the name of communism

          Having a single party is the one of several approaches. But the only one that survived. I think the idea is that you don’t need other parties if you building communism (like why do you need any liberal party driven by rich people?). And It’s not like regular people can’t join this party (unlike now when only rich people can be in politics).

          proof of that it’s not really possible.

          I’m not saying that it’s possible, but I wouldn’t say that it’s impossible given a certain level of technology.

      • ConfusedLlama@kbin.social
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        Then what is it? A teapot in the sky?
        If it’s a viable plan which can be realized, then how to achieve it, without killing people and creating a dictatorship? Is it possible?

        I might be wrong, but it seems to me that any effort to establish communism will eventually fail with a lot paid in vain, and many lives lost, as has happened so far.

        If that viable plan needs time to be accepted more widely, then maybe we should simply wait and try to be decent people in the meantime, instead of trying now to establish a “temporary” dictatorship actively as a way of “transition”. And if the plan can be acted upon right now, then again the question is how (without resorting to violence and tyranny, of course). That question remains open to me. And it’s a big one.

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          Then what is it? A teapot in the sky?

          In such countries there was/is socialism. They only tried/trying to build communism. This is a common misconception.

          If it’s a viable plan which can be realized, then how to achieve it, without killing people and creating a dictatorship? Is it possible?

          I don’t know. But I doubt that the state will give up its powers without any fight.

    • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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      My understanding is that these days people treat it more like an ideal to strive toward under current democratic systems. For instance, how would you feel about UBI being introduced under your current system of governance?

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      1 year ago

      Communism = fascism. We have plenty of historical data to support that.

      • fishinthecalculator@lemmy.ml
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        No. They are not equal and neither same. If you understand Italian I suggest you to search for Prof. Barbero videos on the topic. They are quite better than anything I’ll be able to convey.

        Fascism:

        It’s an authoritarian dictatorship happened between 1914 and 1945 in Italy. The fascist regime and ideology was strictly based on Mussolini’s figure, people marched in straight lines down the streets, everyone wearing the same uniforms and Italy was a great imperialist nation (lol jk it wasn’t but they quite believed it). Fascism and the fascist party stopped existing after partisans overthrew the regime. Fascism is a 20 years long dictatorship. After that there were some regimes around the world that were inspired by Mussolini such as the current ruling party Italy Fratelli d’Italia, Marine le Pen’s party in France, those shitty AFD in Germany, orban’s Regime, franco in Spain etc etc. They are called neofascists, because Fascism was a 20 years long regime happened in Italy between 1914 and 1945.

        Communism:

        Communism is a model of governace that’s never been achieved in human history, as someone above said it’s about classless, stateless, governance models. It’s been around for like 200 years (the Communist Party Manifesto is from 1848), and in every country of the world there is/ has been a Communist Party and as we know they were always persecuted for being communist, stopped from going to the government and stopped from bulding a classless society when they managed to get to govern. Just see what the USA did in the last 50/60 years in every country that risked a communist government: Chile and latin America in general, Italy and so on an so forth.

        Fascism =/= communism, and if you say the contrary you just don’t know how they work.

      • stepanzak@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        I live in the central europe and I have plenty of historical data about every country that was part of the Soviet Union being authoritarian at the same time. You probably couldn’t imagine what was happening here. I don’t have so much knowledge about the rest of the world, but I think I heard about some genocide and concentration camps in china recently…

        • Urist@lemmy.ml
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          I might be a little confused here… Are you calling yourself a fascist?

          • Urist@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            In the absence of an answer I would just like to remind you that dbzer0 seems to not be the place for you. Maybe fascists cannot read very well, but on the signup screen it says explicitly:

            Note that this is an anarchist server. If you start promoting right-wing rhetoric, expect to be banned.

            I do not think you should feel very welcome here at all. Maybe just leave Lemmy altogether?

            • Urist@lemmy.ml
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              No, the comment I replied to was removed. See my message for context.

            • Urist@lemmy.ml
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              Looked through your comments and seems you are just not very bright. Funny you play that nationalist shit while at the same time being a disgrace to your own nation.