• Cowbee@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    It doesn’t forbid Capitalists from abusing it because to do so is to take the Capitalist stance of protecting Property Rights. By absolutely rejecting the idea of any ownership of FOSS software, it is an explicit stance against ownership of IP.

    Reddit is Capitalist, yes, as they are a privately owned and operated site with dictatorial control, ie Capitalist. The problems with Reddit are precisely due to its Capitalist nature. Reddit competes with Meta, X, and other social media sites for ad revenue.

    A Socialist entity competing with a Capitalist entity does encourage the Capitalist entity to be better, but does not mean the Socialist entity is participating in Capitalism in any way. Competition is not Capitalism.

    What exactly is difficult for you to understand? What do you think Capitalism and Socialism are?

    • MacN'Cheezus
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      11 months ago

      It doesn’t forbid Capitalists from abusing it because to do so is to take the Capitalist stance of protecting Property Rights.

      It’s not abuse if it’s explicitly allowed, as long as they abide by the rest of the terms and provide access to the their modified source code for free. Which they generally are, because the FSF vs. Cisco lawsuit has determined that the license holds up in court.

      By absolutely rejecting the idea of any ownership of FOSS software, it is an explicit stance against ownership of IP.

      But the GPL is not an absolute rejection of ownership, neither are the BSD licenses. Only putting your code in the public domain does that.

      A Socialist entity competing with a Capitalist entity does encourage the Capitalist entity to be better, but does not mean the Socialist entity is participating in Capitalism in any way. Competition is not Capitalism.

      Okay so let me summarize then:

      • Capitalism requires competition and rejects cooperation
      • Capitalism cannot function without competition
      • Competition is NOT Capitalism

      Have I got that right?

      What exactly is difficult for you to understand? What do you think Capitalism and Socialism are?

      What exactly do YOU think that they are? I’m still trying to figure that out. It sounds like communism is basically just capitalism WITH cooperation, which would mean capitalism is communism but without cooperation. Because they seem to share all the same features apart from that.

      • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Capitalism is abuse, regardless of being allowed. It was cheeky, but that’s what I was saying.

        Yes, Capitalism requires competition yet competition is not Capitalism. Thumbs are fingers, but fingers aren’t thumbs.

        Communism is a Stateless, Classless, moneyless society achieved via collective ownership of the Means of Production. Capitalism is private, individual ownership of the Means of Production, with competing entities in a market-based system. Plain and simple.

        • MacN'Cheezus
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          11 months ago

          Okay but in the Fediverse, there’s at least three classes: instance owners (admins), moderators, and users. Four if you count developers. Each have a different level of privilege and responsibilities:

          Users own nothing, except perhaps the right to their content (meaning they can delete or edit their posts or comments whenever they want to), and their privileges extend to where they are allowed to post and can be revoked at any time by an admin or moderator.

          Moderators have a limited privilege to delete user’s content without their consent, and the responsibility to keep their assigned communities clean.

          Admins have the additional privilege of appointing moderators, and deciding who gets to have an account on their instance and under what conditions. In turn they also have a responsibility to keep their instance up and running, and maintain an adequate (to their users) level of federation.

          Developers are the most privileged of all because they get to make decisions about how the entire thing works, what features will be added, etc., but of course that also comes with the most responsibility. If they fuck up, a lot of people might be upset.

          So how is this a classless system?

          The only thing that can be said to be owned collectively here is the source code, because anyone can fork it at any time if they want to. The servers belong to the individual instance owners, the users don’t have any ownership claims on them. That’s literal private property right there.

          Whether it’s stateless is at least debatable, since the developers could be considered a de-facto government, as they can make strategic decisions on a level none of the other classes can.

          Sounds to me like this is more of a hybrid between the two, but I also cannot imagine how it could work if there were no classes at all. Perhaps a peer-to-peer system of some kind that doesn’t require any servers, but that would still leave two classes, users and developers.

          See what I’m getting at?

          • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            Users own the ability to make an instance on their own, you’re confusing moderation with ownership of Lemmy. It’s not like a Capitalist tool, or IP, it’s freely open source code.

            I see what you’re getting at, it’s just nonsense.

            • MacN'Cheezus
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              11 months ago

              Oh, so it’s the theoretical ability that counts, not the actual physical ownership, is it?

              Well, by that definition, everyone in capitalism is a business owner, because everyone has the ability to start one in theory. The knowledge on how to do that is open source as well, you can just go to a library and read a book or better yet, ask someone who owns a business, they’ll tell you enough to get started.

              • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                I literally just explained why digital FOSS is completely different than a Capitalist instance of IP or physical tools, and thus FOSS has no barrier to entry beyond skill, rather than monetary goods, and you completely skipped over that.

                You really can’t answer anything honestly, can you?

                • MacN'Cheezus
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                  11 months ago

                  Servers aren’t free, you know. Just ask your instance owner. And even if you can get manage to somehow get your hands on free hardware you still have to pay for electricity and an Internet connection.

                  You’re making it sound like starting a business requires a minimum capital of a million dollars or something, when the actual barrier of entry is likely far lower than that.

                  • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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                    11 months ago

                    You’re continuing to abstract further and further away. For Lemmy, there is no IP, the structure is free to use. For Reddit, it isn’t. Property Rights are a Capitalist notion, rejecting it is Socialist.

                    You have nothing of value to add, just dodging.