Socialism in Software Form

A few days back I was reading some articles from the Leftist literature and suddenly I got the enthusiasm to think deeply about the impact of socialism in our society. Leftist Literatures made me realize the importance of socialism in today's world. Now the entire world is witnessing blood bath at the Wall Street due to global financial meltdown. All the big economies of world are facing the heat of recession. Even the United States, the biggest economy of world, is researching what is wrong with capitalism.

For last few months news of economic crisis has been on media. There was news about surge in sale of books written by Karl Marx across the world. Actually people are trying to find alternative to the capitalist theory.

All these stuff made me explore the areas where socialism has impact. Suddenly I realized that in fact the much talked about open source software is a weapon of socialist movement. As far as open source softwares are concerned the first thing comes to our mind is that these are available free of cost. Anyone with required knowledge about the product can modify the source code. So it saves money and provides better flexibility. Now a question may arise what all these facts have to do with socialism. If you logically relate these facts with the principle of socialism the answer will automatically come. In the system of socialism nobody remains deprived of needs or benefits for want of money. Here when we are talking about open source softwares we are indeed in an attempt to move towards socialism in software form.

Microsoft has made huge money out of software business and the way they made business is formed on the basis of capitalism. The success of Microsoft made other American giants think about something that ruins Microsoft's market. Richard Stallman and Free Software Foundation are doing a great job to spread open source softwares across the world. IBM is now deeply indulged in open source.

Ultimately these initiatives have a great significance from the perspective of a Leftist. Knowingly or unknowingly people are moving towards socialism. Perhaps open source software movement is the most crucial step in favour of socialism taken in the hub of capitalism- the United States of America.

- Arnab Mandal

  Delhi