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Comment by magicmu | Hacker News Reader

On one hand it's always cool to see increased adoption of open source, but it strikes me as more than a little subversive for the DoD to adopt an open source methodology. I can't help but see the appropriation of an inherently equitable and socialist means of sharing innovation (FOSS) by a violent, exclusionary, and globally oppressive regime to be a step in a very wrong direction.

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I mean, by the nature of being an army they gotta do controlled violence, but they're the largest organization in America with single-payer health care (Tricare), so I don't know about calling them not socialist

(really flat top/bottom pay ratio too: private E1 gets paid $19k/yr top generals max out at $180k base - I've heard of grads fresh out of master's getting more than that at Google)

I had no idea about the details of Tricare, that's pretty interesting. I suppose it makes sense for a government to be very invested in the healthcare of its armed forces.I was thinking more about the United States army's particular global role as the primary means of the violent perpetuation of capitalism and Western hegemony. You make a great point; I think the main difference in our perspectives could be approaching the question domestically versus globally.

I get the "violent, exclusionary, and globally oppressive" part, but why "socialist"? Open source strikes me as rather ideology neutral. If anything it's perhaps a bit anarchic.

Socialism is all about reducing the effect that direct actions and agreements between individuals can have on society as a whole.

Open source is all about direct action and the unplanned dynamics that may unfold as a result.

That's an interesting definition of socialism; I didn't intend it in that way. Open source seems "socialist" to me by virtue of the pretty much the same attributes that you're (I think correctly) describing as anarchic. It's a broad term, I think we're saying the same thing :)

I believe socialism has a pretty specific definition: government ownership and control of the means of production. Which is easy to grasp for steel mills, power plants, and hospitals. A bit trickier in the creative economy and the gig economy.

I am aware of the definition and I don't dispute it. But consider for a moment why socialism wants the state to own all means of production.

The point is to directly control the effects of economically relevant actions and not leave it to an emergent dynamic that results from direct actions and agreements between individuals (i.e. the invisible hand).

Socialists think that it is in everyone's best interest if the government plans what work needs to be done, what resources to allocate and under what conditions the product should be made available to users, which directly contradicts the way in which open source software is produced.

In my view, the similarities between the DoD and socialism are lot greater than the similarities between open source and socialism. Any particular open source project can of course adopt a military style command and control structure, but not the open source model as a whole.

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