Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

It's collectivist in the sense that it is owned by the people.


Open Source software is owned by the copyright holder. "the people" have no ownership whatsoever. Merely a license to use the software (albeit a very permissive license)


In the case of the GPL, everyone can use, modify and re-distribute it of their own accord, as long as it's distributed under the license the author chose. It's not the same, but effectively pretty close to ownership. It's a public entitlement to a permissive license. Open source != GPL, however; the BSD license creates something indistinguishable from common ownership.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: