I think that a Marxist society should allow for 0 proprietary software, and instead support for everything in free and open source decentralized technology.
I think that a Marxist society should allow for 0 proprietary software, and instead support for everything in free and open source decentralized technology.
0 propertiary software is possible when you do programming, IT etc. but not for a mechanical engineer, who needs AutoCAD, Inventor, Catia, Abaqus, etc. I know that there are FOSS alternatives, but they are far less developed, since producing such a software requires hundreds of people and many many hours of work. Such a software could be made by large state owned enterprises, which would make the code public, but rather not by few hobbyst in their spare time.
As a FOSS fem developer, I disagree with this. Extremely complex tools like Aster, openfoam, calculix, and even now openradioss all exist under open source licenses.
All of these tools are built on state funded research that belonged to the people already, but has been enclosed by capital.
Look at nastran and dyna as the examples of this.
For CAD, Freecad exists and is quite good.
If these volunteer developers had even one hundredth the capital that firms who purchase enterprise CAE tools spend, I bet they would be better than even the things that money currently buys. Look at prepomax, developed by one man to support calculix and its easier to learn how to use than ansys workbench.
Blender is the exception that proves the rule.