slate.com — "This month, SAP's Shai Agassi referred to open-source software as "intellectual property socialism." In January, Bill Gates suggested that free-software developers are communists. A few years earlier, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called the open-source operating system Linux "a cancer."
Nov 22, 2005 View in Crawl 4
heinousjayNov 22, 2005
"OpenOfficeSunOffice don't count?"The word popular might not mean what you think it means.
jmccormNov 22, 2005
Isn't it really more COMMUNE than COMMUNISM?
kris2perNov 22, 2005
Wow look who's talking!!! Well I'd rather b a communist than a totalitarian!!!
joelpNov 22, 2005
The goal of any Blue chip company (such as MS) is to make money.These Blue Chip Companies are woven in and through the American way of Life very tightly.. they are our jobs, our security, our entertainment.. and they make up the core of our economy. They lobby government to push and pull laws in their favor.The problem with a government with a backings like these is that they seem to not know how to handle socialistic ideas. Socialism and Capitalistic/Democracy are fundamentally different. Why do you think America has such a hard time with Social Security? Because no one is willing to give to the greater social good without a guarantee of ROI.
biff198Nov 22, 2005
Bill Gates has never liked the idea of Open source. Even since he was in the Computer club with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
peterthegreat4Nov 22, 2005
I know that Bill Gates isn't a great guy or anything close to it, but its hard to argue that OSS isnt communistic. I mean you have a group of talented programmers or a community working on a program that would be free to the masses. I'm not saying that theres anything wrong with that, but its the truth.
snakeplisskenNov 23, 2005
I'm so surprised!
rlanctotDec 5, 2005
Open Source isn't communist, but it does kill puppies.) Open source gives away software for free.2) Giving something away for free is anti-capitalist.3) Anti-capitalism is Communism!4) Communists don't think like you and I do.5) You or I would never kill a puppy.6) As neither of us would kill a puppy, and communists don't think like you or I do, communists will kill puppies.7) Therefore, Open Source Kills puppies.
peeptopheDec 12, 2005
How does one get "Open Source developers are communists" from the quote "...there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist."It seems more logical to me to assume from the liberties the poster of this digg took with Gates' comments that Open Source developers are propagandists
sunnzOct 9, 2007
Who cares?