Freepers and Open Source? Huh?

[MostlyLurks]

So I'm looking for new themes for Firefox (FYI: the most insidious aspect of Firefox is that most of your time is spent hunting for that "killer extension" that will make your usage of the program 1000 times better). Anyhoo, I click a link that mentions some themes and end up on the "other" site. You know the one.

And it's a long thread that eventually branches into discussions of Open Office and the wonders of open source. So I have to ask: isn't a FreeRepublic ape who believes in free markets and the absolute soul-magic of capitalism just a little, I don't know, hipocritical if they're trying to avoid paying for something? Doesn't the whole idea of open source run absolutely counter to pretty much every economic tenet of conservatism and what I call "mega-capitalism", which is pretty much what FR is all about (when they're not about hating the fags, liberals, non-Christians and black people, I mean)? Am I wrong here?

Thread is here, but I don't recommend visiting the site for any reason:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1289943/posts

Or maybe, just maybe, they believe in "free markets" right up to the point where they have to shell out their own money to support it, then it's all about getting it for free.

Mostly

[trotsky]

1. You hit the nail on the head.

they believe in "free markets" right up to the point where they have to shell out their own money to support it, then it's all about getting it for free.

That's their mindset for virtually everything. They want government services, but they don't want to pay for it (taxes).

Lazy greedy selfish bastards.

[Goldom]

2. Freepers being hypocritical? No!

I am shocked. Shocked I tell you.

[NGU]

3. Exactly

They are selfish people who can't follow through on their beliefs. You are brave to go there.

[MostlyLurks]

6. I didn't go on purpose - just hit the link via the Google results.

Wasn't paying attention to where it lead me. But then when I realized where I was, I read a few posts because, well, it just didn't make any sense.

[NGU]

8. It is difficult to listen to people without wanting to

argue with the lies that are stated. Well, at least you survived the epxerience.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

4. Just like all of those poor red states filled with FReepers who...

don't work and screw around and have many children to feed off of the state. They scream about the evil of taxes yet they steal from the Blue states at any given chance.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. Free/Open Source Software seems to be equally liked by Left and Right.

Amazing. This is probably THE one thing in which the majority of Freepers and the majority of DU agree.

But of course, they twist it their own unique way: for them, Bill Gates is a leftist. :wow: Why? Because their mind works like this: not only everything leftist is evil, but everything evil must be leftist too!

[MostlyLurks]

7. If you're right...

If you're right, and they do see their movement away from MS Office as motivated by "good v. evil" ideas, I think they'd be quite horrified to find that many of the open source developers are liberal and that open source, in and of itself, is uber-liberal, egalitarian, anti-corporate at its very core. What a bunch of idiots.

Having no experience buiding open source (don't have the skills), I wonder: are most open source contributors "liberal" or "left leaning"? My guess is to say "yes", but I don't know if that's true. If it is true, that adds yet another layer of irony/free-stupidity to the issue.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. To be fair...

...there's Eric S. Raymond too. Look him up. Major "I-swear-I'm-not-conservative-nor-Republican-I'm-libertarian-it's-different-HONEST" pro-war gun nut, and founder of the Open Source Initiative, and author of some cool software, including Bayesian (anti-spam) filtering.

But of course, Richard M. Stallman, a wonderfully flaming pinko, mopes the floor with him.

Edit: to answer your question, yes, most are liberals/leftists, but right-leaning people get by in the "community" just fine.