
I read something in one of the comments for an OSNews posting a couple weeks ago that sent me thinking. It wasn't an original or profound thought. In fact, it's a rather commonly-held opinion that happens to be quite misguided. It's an opinion summed up by the "open source = communist" meme that gets thrown around in thousands of flamewars all over the internet. In this essay, I will explore why this idea is wrong and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.
possibly a more relevant discussion is to consider what islamic societies and doctrines make of the economics (or lack thereof) of open source "works". many people might be surprised at how similar free-market liberal christian-democratic (in the european sense) economics is to islamic economics and jurisprudence on intellectual property.