``If they can not control the software they produce, they are in serious trouble.''
True, but that is no danger to capital as such! Carrol
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I have noticed that capital loses interest very quickly went it can not find a way to control the production and distribution. Capital needs this fundamental monopoly on production and distribution, or otherwise there would be no profit.
What open software threatens at least in principle is to erase that fundamental monopoly and control. If anybody can make software for themselves or others, and through existing technology at practically no cost , and reproduce and distribute that software in _any_ quantity (10s, 100s... 1 X 10^n), then there is no means of control over this particular form of production and distribution for capital.
I think that is the threat, and the form of resistance.
It's a little like terrorizing capital. It may not overthrow them, but they can never win either. Open software threatens stalemate---at least in this very narrow field. But it is an important stalemate to achieve, because this particular technology layer is part of the basis for global level communication. And if there is anything people do more of than talk to each other, I'd like to hear about it. So indirectly the stakes are pretty high.
If capital can control that means of communication at this particular level or on this layer, then they can make huge profits for practically nothing. If they can't then in their minds they will have `lost' huge profits. Sure they will find something else. But it won't be this, and that possibility will add something to the general public good.
Look at it this way. If open source was not a threat, then capital would not be bothered with it. The whole reason they have gone to such lengths to manipulate copyright law, international treaties, criminal law, and been in extraordinary interscene conflict between themselves, is because open source is a threat to their control, which in turn is a treat to their potential profit. This is a little like a game in virtual reality, but then `profit' `loss' `control' and `open source' are virtual realities.
Now Doug chimed in and reminded us, software is 2% of GDP. Nothing much. I would argue, that it is only two percent and should be much higher, precisely because M$uck and others can not control the prod/dist system sufficiently to get more out of it. And 2% of trillions, ain't peanuts. I'd take it.
And there is more. I suspect much of the reasoning behind the Dot.Com boom was involved in the idea that if the prod/dist system of many different kinds of transactions could be controlled and managed through software development and control via the internet, then our Dot.Com boomers could make millions. And they did. But they could not exercise enough of a monopoly control on their narrowly chosen interests to make it work. In other words it wasn't just a fancy stock hype. There was some potential there. And I am almost certain they will back... It is just too tempting. And behind the headlines, big capital interests like banks, did make millions applying some of the dot.com tech to their existing systems, so as to milk their customers in newer and stranger ways.
But a critical layer of this system is already too evenly distributed to be monopolized by any single or small collective interest. And finally, open source is part of the means to keep that layer of the distributed communication system on a relatively more even or horizontal plane---more than it would be without open source.
C