I'm trying to piece together what parts of that comment are serious and what are heavy sarcasm. On balance, though, it seems you think something trudging along because of donations is unsupported by the free market.
Do you think that? Because if you do I want to point out that donations are one of the ultimate expressions of the free market. The open source ecosystem is in fact the most extreme free market we have available in the world today. It is basically peak capitalism, and a go-to example for how an unregulated free market can generate unbelievable amounts of value (who seriously believed in the 90s that the price of software could naturally drop to $0?).
Free software existed in the 90s and the most important free software ever made, the web, came out of a state funded institution.
Open source software is in a market but markets predate capitalism by thousands of years and are part of a variety or political and economic systems most notably communism (and no the USSR cannot be used as an example of communism in action, the first thing that Lenin did was dissolve the Soviets).
Finally open source is highly regulated. Try posting source code someone claims copyright on. Or is deemed illegal. There have been unregulated markets in history. Open source just isn’t one of them.
> Free software existed in the 90s and the most important free software ever made, the web, came out of a state funded institution.
Yeah, governments can do fundamental research fine. Nobody has any idea what is going on in fundamental research, so the government can't be at a disadvantage by being disorganised.
Where an idea comes from doesn't matter. Anyone can have a good idea, even the insane.
> Finally open source is highly regulated.
There isn't any inconsistency between free markets and regulation. Nearly all free markets have to be regulated at some level. Contracts need to be honoured so that people can make deals over time - otherwise it is just a barter system (the only possible theoretically unregulated free market! Even then not a guarentee). There isn't any point giving up products like insurance in the aid of some sort of technical purity.
When people say "deregulate" there is an implied "of regulations I don't agree with". Obviously everyone favours some level of regulation - although the useful level is so far away from where the typical legislative framework lives it is the same thing as calling for no regulation for average debate. People are difficult to dissuaded from putting dictators in charge - it is the naive response to every challenge - and they end up in the regulatory bodies.
> and no the USSR cannot be used as an example of communism in action, the first thing that Lenin did was dissolve the Soviets
You aren't wrong, but the fatal flaw of communism is that there isn't a theoretical way to keep power with the soviets without devolving back to capitalism. Powerful people end up with control of the capital. The only fundamental difference is that capitalism demands powerful people at least, y'know, build and maintain the capital and replaces them if they don't. Communism, when the powerful people didn't properly tend to capital, didn't replace the owning class and people starved.
Do you think that? Because if you do I want to point out that donations are one of the ultimate expressions of the free market. The open source ecosystem is in fact the most extreme free market we have available in the world today. It is basically peak capitalism, and a go-to example for how an unregulated free market can generate unbelievable amounts of value (who seriously believed in the 90s that the price of software could naturally drop to $0?).