Why Libertarians Should Celebrate Free Software

I often find myself identifying with the libertarian end of the political spectrum.  Especially as I get older and more "dug in" in the family & kids sense of that phrase.  As an open-source/free software addict, I often find myself in debates with my conservative-minded friends about whether or not open-source equals communism or some wacky erosion of capitalism or democracy.  The article below sums up the concepts pretty well.  It's from the CATO institute, I believe.  A modern-day bastion of libertarianism.  Read on...
"There's no reason that free software should make libertarians uneasy. To the contrary, it is precisely the kind of decentralized, voluntary cooperation that libertarians should be holding up as an alternative to the coercive power of the state. Free software is produced by volunteers donating their time, without a government program in sight. If that's not a libertarian success story, I don't know what is."
Why Libertarians Should Celebrate Free Software

Blogged with Flock

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A little about me...

So, for any new readers that I gain via G+ or wherever, here's a quick FAQ about me. 1. Where are you located and what do you do for a living ? - I'm Atlanta-based and I work in the consumer electronics industry (go figure).  I know that anyone who is anyone who blogs about tech needs to live in San Fran or NY, but I figure now is a great time to start bucking that trend.  Atlanta is a huge and growing city, all the major tech players have a presence here, tech startups are everywhere, we have 4G LTE coverage from all the carriers, the food is good and the cost of living is cheap.  You do the math. 2. Why are you blogging about "underground" tech? - Because there's a gap in the tech media right now.  Every other blog is talking about Apple this, or Samsung that.  They are reviewing the latest iteration of five-inch black slab of plastic after five-inch black slab of plastic.  But very FEW blogs are talking about cord-cutting and how the various programs, prot
Read more

Social media madness

Image
I hate Facebook.  I should just be upfront about that.  Back in 2007 I thought it was the coolest thing since Star Trek, but now I loathe everything about it.  From its ever changing privacy policies to how it actually shares data with your "friends" and friends of your friends, its a continuous source of irritation to me. Especially because I can't avoid using it!  My family and close friends are on it. My work peers are on it.  And if you ever meet anyone new, the first thing they want to do is Facebook you.  Nevermind that its only full of lolcats , internet memes, and people's TMI .  It's the juggernaut of social media, and if you want to have a presence online, you gotta be on Facebook. I thought Google+ would supplant Facebook at some point, but that's just not going to happen anytime soon.  Facebook has mastered one half of the law of social media inertia.  In short, once most regular folk are "at rest" on a social media property, they tend
Read more

2017 Guide to Cord-Cutting - Episode 1: The "Free" content

As a TV cord-cutter, I have gone mostly legit.  One of my G+ buddies Keith Wilson , posted an article recently showing the drastic reduction in bittorrent traffic over the course of a decade.  His question was, what happened to all the pirates???  I have never believed that content piracy was about a lifestyle or philosophy.  It's always been about ease of content acquisition.  The classic example is pre-2000 Napster vs post-2010 Spotify.  At it's peak, OG Napster was king of the pirate apps and there were virtually no legal alternatives.  Today, pirating albums is trivially easy, but the vast majority of music consumers buy from iTunes or stream from Spotify.  Why?  Because the legal options are abundant and pervasive.  Spotify works on my phone, car, home and work with zero friction and benefits like social sharing features, playlists and such. It's taken a while, but TV has reached a similar nexus.  Barely five years ago, cord-cutting was synonymous with piracy.  One of
Read more