Marxist theory and free software

Mikael Pawlo writes, “First Monday published an article by Johan Soderberg where Soderberg explores free software from a Marxist perspective. Soderberg is very ambitious in his efforts to apply Marxist theory to free software development. It is not easy to sum the article up in a few sentences, but basically Soderberg sees software as a showcase of the productive force of the general intellect, foreseen by Marx 150 years ago. Hence, production becomes more social, thus the hacker movement can – according to Soderberg – challenge capital’s domination over technological development. This is interesting food for thought, even if you do not share Soderberg political views on computer program development.

A related political message furnished by Gnuheter.

Stallman on why software should be free.”