Observe that generally, one can set up GPL and various other forms of voluntary communal contracts under capitalism. But that doesn't make capitalism communist/Marxist. It does make capitalism the more flexible system. One in which the GPL linux kernel is indeed doing well, along with countless privately owned projects.
I think you should start seeing human beings working for something they believe they need, money or otherwise. Marx just saw (afaik) people working hard for short term gains they didn't enjoy, their daily bread, knowing their works' true fruits were not their property but their bosses'. The core appeal of communism is that a man should enjoy the fruits of his labor. Interestingly, that's the core appeal of capitalism too!
Marx was worried about endless accumulation of capital by industrialists. I find it rather hilariously amusing that for Marx's commons to work, it has to be in the capitalist framework of intellectual property ownership.
The brilliance of the GPL(v2) is the 'compulsory communal' aspect only kicks in when you sell something. No sale, no compulsion to share with your customers.
It will be interesting to see how the AGPLv3 plays out long-term. I see a lot of code getting released under that license, and I expect at some point it will start eating the market share of closed-source cloud 'service'
?? People don't want to share?? From popularity to appreciation there's reasons aplenty! providers,
because no capital owner can afford to pay engineers when the competition is doing the work for free.
This is definitely affecting some markets. It lowers the barrier for entry, driving competition. But the collaboration between companies outcompetes any private effort, so there is no choice. It's a neat effect, but hardly of relevance to Marx or even the GPL. The GPL is just what made the effect happen "in the wild" so strongly that the MBA's couldn't deny it anymore. The GPL was for people to know what a computer does on their behalves. To own what they depend upon. The ability to alter what they dislike. And most importantly, to saveguard against madness. No arbitrary ristrictions will exist in a open source program for long. For example: Sumatra PDF and respecting PDF DRM rules are an interesting discussion, to say the least.
I guess Marx got trolled by Richard Stallman.
I think everyones trolling himself, first and foremost. Note to all: "give what you can, take what you need" is in no way fair, nor even noble. It's economic suicide.