[Linux4christians] Massachusetts, OpenDocument & The Church

[Don Parris]

JD Runyan wrote:

> Samuel Clough wrote:
>
>> People call the open source/free software movement
>> communist because the focus is on making sure
>> technology is open to everyone, rather than making
>> a profit.  Since the focus is on sharing,
>> community, and accessibility to all, it's easy to
>> just label it communism since so much of grass
>> roots open source/free software is driven this way
>> rather than by the almighty dollar which drives
>> most other forms of software development.
>
>
> Socialistic maybe, but not communist.
>
>> Of course, Richard Stallman and some others are
>> pretty different characters, so who knows they may
>> actually have a little communist bent in their
>> political beliefs.  Open Source does seem to have
>> some very strange characters floating around, and
>> unfortunately many are quite hostile to
>> Christianity.  Just reading slashdot can be pretty
>> offensive for a Christian.  
>
>
>
> Stallman may very well act like a commy, but others are simply 
> benevolent, and most believe in the old ideals of science. The 
> software world has a split personality; those who view software as 
> product, and those who see software as formula. It is very much the 
> engineer vs the scientist. The only industry that I see parallels with 
> is the chemical/pharmaceutical industry.
>
>> One thing to remember:  depending on what version
>> of communism you are talking about, its ideals are
>> not that far off the way the early church
>> operated.  There are some very noble ideas in some
>> of the communist's beliefs.  The problem with pure
>> communism is that it will never work because
>> people are too selfish.  The only reason that
>> capitalism works to an extent is because it
>> leverages the selfishness that is built into man. Of course, I'll 
>> probably get flamed for saying
>> that, but I believe it is true.  And no, I am not
>> a communist.
>
>
> I don't believe the Christians were communist. Communism replaces God 
> with the state, and essentially says all things come from the state. 
> They were very much socialists. The difference between them, and other 
> socialists is that it was voluntary. If it is compulsory, then the 
> value is lost. When people share freely, then the blessings are 
> shared. I do believe, whether the FOSS community realizes it or not, 
> the mainline thinking is very similar to the early Christians.
>
I believe that Stallman, after the manner of Cyrus, did the Lord's 
bidding (whether he realizes that or not)  and gave us a license that 
demonstrates grace - the license replaces the harsh terminology of "thou 
shalt not" with the much more gracious terminology of freedom.  The 
resulting freedom empowers users to accomplish things that the old 
restrictive licenses forbade (more because of people's overly 
restrictive interpretation of the law), and benefits everyone in the 
process.  It's more analogy than anything.  But that's my view.

As for Stallman, I think he's probably more a Libertarian than anything, 
though I do think he holds socialism in some esteem.