Without the mention of FOSS, these types of pro-market “solutions” will always end up dead in the water.
This is not just a matter of competition for its own sake. This is about guaranteeing users the fundamental right to technological self-determination, a right that corporate monopolists will not yield willingly. This is nothing less than empowering users to seize the means of computation.
Can’t have tech self-determination if everything’s a black box controlled by corporate entities.
To be honest, after 20+ years of using Linux and working in tech I’ve concluded it is not the openness of the tech that matters, but the governance of the providers. I’ve been tinkering with running a little ISP doing email, nextcloud hosting, etc, and running it as a cooperative.
That’s to say that the socialist thing is public ownership, and the nearest we can come to that is coops, at the moment. Governing provision is much more interesting on the basis that it enables people who aren’t terminally online to make good choices.
I think so. Moreover, I think doing FOSS is waste of energy and time under capitalism. If it will be less developed, almost nobody will use it. If it will be competitive to comercial products, it will be seized by capitalists in some way. Why reinvent the wheel, when we can pirate something? It hurts companies the most. And yes, the most important factor is who owns the software code, big data and the like. This should be publicly owned. Making FOSS under capitalism is wasteful since this time and energy can be better used to fight capitalism by other means. Unless someone does it for fun as a hobby.