ziq - Beware of Open Source Absolutists

Open Source Is Not the Same Thing as Liberation There is a peculiar form of ideological dogmatism that has emerged within parts of the FOSS movement. Even in anarchist circles, some people seem to believe that opposition to intellectual property must take precedence over virtually every other ethical consideration. After all, if copyright, patents, and other forms of intellectual property are inherently illegitimate, then any attempt to place limits on how the things we create are used or distributed must necessarily be reactionary, right? Even when those limits are intended to protect workers, creators, and wider communities from exploitation by capital? Anarchists do not seek to abolish one particular category of property while leaving other relations of domination untouched. Nor do we advocate stripping workers of control over the fruits of their labor in the name of an ideological dogma that ultimately has little to do with fostering anarchism. The rise of so-called “generative AI” has made this contradiction impossible to