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@SteveTheDragon thats not communism or socialism, it is capitalism. Capitalism allows people to give things away for free, and it is their choice under what terms they do so (that is the key). The fact that you can pick 20 different types of open source licenses, or none at all, is capitalism.
If it were communism you wouldnt even have the option to decide to open source your code, the government would just take it from you and then set whatever demands on you they wish on your own code.
The confusion is understandable. The problem is: what does ownership mean in this case. You can't own the Linux kernel. It's impossible to have control over it, as soon an it's on other people's devices.
It's not the software that is property, it's the copyright. The right to exercise the monopoly on the use of this specific piece of code.
That's the right, managed by all the licences. People working on free software, don't want to go into the business of monetising copyright.
Monetising copyright is a specialised business, and it hinders development. It makes economical sense to make free software and make a living installing it or running it.
@SteveTheDragon
What confusion?
Your argument doesnt make sense to me
> What does ownership mean in this case. You can't own the Linux kernel. It's impossible to have control over it, as soon an it's on other people's devices.
Ownership refers to the person who owns the program. you then go into "impossible to control".. thats unrelated to ownership. Ownership does not require one have control over a thing, only that legally it is theirs.
In fact we have plenty of examples where we have seen this not to be true. Microsoft owns windows, and they have no trouble legally exercising that ownership.
in fact we have countless examples of someone else owning something you control, cars (rentals, leases), renting a home.
This whole argument tries to assert things that are true and easily disproven. so its a bad starting point.
> It's not the software that is property, it's the copyright.
copyright is just a technically term for "owning the software" so not really changes anything about what is being said here. Yes the person who **creates** the code has rights over how it is used, thats what is meant by ownership.
> That's the right, managed by all the licences. People working on free software, don't want to go into the business of monetising copyright.
This also is fundamentally incorrect. I open-source virtually all the code I write. I also make a lot of money directly or indirectly off of my open-sourced code. A great many people and companies monetize their copyrights and there are many ways and models to do this within the open-source domain.
> Monetising copyright is a specialised business, and it hinders development. It makes economical sense to make free software and make a living installing it or running it.
While I obviously wont agree that monetising is bad, as we covered open-source includes the ability to monetize as many businesses do, I will agree of course that open-source is good and generally helps everyone economically. More importantly however this isnt the point. You are basically arguing that open source is good for everyone (I agree).. but that does nothing to counter my original point that open-source is fundamentally capitalism in that it goves the author to choice to open-source or not, and under what terms.
You're right, you can sell open source, you just don't have the monopoly.
But the copyright is the monopoly to copy. Microsoft is making money, by allowing manufacturers to copy it's software. That's monetising a copyright.
@SteveTheDragon
No you can have the monopoly. mysql is an example of that. They require everyone who contributes to their particular fork sign over their copyright to have their contributions considered for inclusion. This allows the company to have the mononopoly, they are the **only** ones permitted to change the code base and release it totally closed source and sell it. No one else in the general public has that permission. so they clearly hold the monopoly on those rights.
same is true for individual developers who release their code under open source, they retain the right of the original copyright and the ability to close source variants of the code that the general public is not permitted to to, thus the original author also owns a monopoly on those rights.
Copyright **is** ownership, its just a more specific technical term for ownership of a specific class of things... when someone says "I own this code" they mean (and rightfully so) "I own the copyright on this code" copyright **is** ownership.
