quote:
The true American way is that of real competition.
Whether or not you think the US is an inherently ultra-capitalistic country (most conservative Americans would probably proudly say that it is) Free Software is socialistic and thus contrary to its values. The capitalist ideal is about ensuring the freedom of individuals and corporations to make money. Thus it's a capitalist/producer oriented philosophy, not a society/consumer-centric one. Competition doesn't really figure in it. Competition is what's good for society, and what's best for the consumers is rarely what's best for the producers.
Free Software, quite simply, is not good for business, but very good for consumers/society, which is why it's intrinsically anti-capitalistic. The companies who are making money out of GNU/Linux are making a fraction of what they would if it were proprietary software and they could licence it like Microsoft do with Windows. As it is, they can't do that so they're not making so much money. Which is the way it should be.
quote:
Socialism: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy
That definition should really have "...for the good of society" bolted on the end. In a socialist system the idea is that all production is purely for the good of society as a whole - obviously Microsoft's monopoly of the software industry can't be claimed to be for that purpose. You can't just read that definition and then say that anyone who controls any part of the economy is socialistic. To call the RIAA/Microsoft etc. socialistic is ridiculous. Read a politics text book.
