Politics of Linux

[RichardET]

Back in the 1970's a survey was done of foreign car owners vs. American car owners; the result was that if someone owned a Saab or a Volvo, he was more likely to be politically left. What do you think? Is someone who uses Linux more likely to be politically left? This is a tricky question because many programmers are definitely Libertarian, at least they were in the 1990's and many of these people are probably Linux users.

[hendersj]

Hard to say, but it's going to be interesting to see how this discussion
stays away from topics of a political nature. ;-)

Jim

[microchip8]

Don't know for the programmers themself but in a broader way, I see Linux resembling more of a syndicalistic system, eg Linux is owned and managed by all those who participate one way or another in its eco-system, no one claims full ownership of the system.

[hcvv]

Originally Posted by RichardET

Back in the 1970's a survey was done of foreign car owners vs. American car owners; the result was that if someone owned a Saab or a Volvo, he was more likely to be politically left. What do you think? Is someone who uses Linux more likely to be politically left? This is a tricky question because many programmers are definitely Libertarian, at least they were in the 1990's and many of these people are probably Linux users.

Swedish members of the forums might be embarrassed by this statement about 'foreign car owners vs. American'. It seems that you forgot this is an international forum.

And as a non USA citizen I do not understand this connection between swedish cars and political preference.

When you want to direct your question to the USA citizen part of the forum members please say so clearly.

[oldcpu]

Some of my friends, on ocassion, jokingly accuse me of being politically a bit to the right of Attila the Hun ... of course that is in jest, and I don't agree with that (I see myself as being more middle road).

My view is there is no "left nor right" leanings in Linux users.

But I do know I use Linux in large part due to sort of "political" reasons, as I am a reasonably strong believer in the open source free software movement. Accordingly I am happy SuSE-GmbH, in their implementation of openSUSE under Novell's ownership, are pushing the implementation of large aspects of that philsophy: Free Software Philosophy - openSUSE

[RichardET]

Yes, I apologize; I should have qualified and stipulated that these polls from the 1970's were from a USA context only, but the concept could be universal. At least in the USA currently, much of the Linux user wrath is directed at Microsoft in a clearly anti-corporate way which at least in the USA tends to be associated with one side of the spectrum, but quite honestly, I have never openly contemplated whether use of a particular OS could be a correlating factor' it probably is weakly correlated though, but I refuse to state my prejudices here.

[hcvv]

I pointed this out because what in some countries is thought to be rightist in other countries this would be judged as leftist. So any talking about this in an international context is a bit useless.

[Prexy]

Originally Posted by oldcpu

...
My view is there is no "left nor right" leanings in Linux users.
...

I had to unsubscribe from Planet SuSE because it had little or nothing to do with linux and focused mostly on America-hating. Oh, wait..... I guess it was just George Bush hating. So, maybe its safe to go back.

[Suse-Beginner]

Originally Posted by RichardET

Back in the 1970's a survey was done of foreign car owners vs. American car owners; the result was that if someone owned a Saab or a Volvo, he was more likely to be politically left. What do you think? Is someone who uses Linux more likely to be politically left? This is a tricky question because many programmers are definitely Libertarian, at least they were in the 1990's and many of these people are probably Linux users.

He is talking about Linux,from the start up from the top the trees.
Which Linux OS was the first was it openSuse,Slackware...

[69_rs_ss]

On 4/7/2009 5:16 AM, Suse-Beginner wrote:
> RichardET;1966694 Wrote:
>> Back in the 1970's a survey was done of foreign car owners vs. American
>> car owners; the result was that if someone owned a Saab or a Volvo, he
>> was more likely to be politically left. What do you think? Is someone
>> who uses Linux more likely to be politically left? This is a tricky
>> question because many programmers are definitely Libertarian, at least
>> they were in the 1990's and many of these people are probably Linux
>> users.
>
> He is talking about Linux,from the start up from the top the trees.
> Which Linux OS was the first was it openSuse,Slackware...
>
>
Here you go.....
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