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Okay, almost two weeks after I promised a reply...its time to give one!
I contend that although the open source movement contains elements that are seemingly very socialist in nature, such as community ownership and low/free cost, the open source movement is inherently capitalist, due to the market driven nature of the movement.
<b>Community Ownership</b>
While it is true that licenses such as the GPL and LGPL certainly provide for a large level of community ownership of software and source code, the order of business still comes from the market rather than a controlling authority. In fact, it is precisely because the source code is community owned that the market forces rule: when a developer or group wants to take a project in a new direction, they simply create a fork. The low barrier to entry prevents monopolistic practices and provides a good deal of competition.
<b>Free/Low-cost Products</b>
In a capitalist market, the general trend of prices for a given product is downward, especially when there is little regulation and much competition. Though I doubt many capitalist theorists would have predicted that the market would create products that are purposefully given away completely free permanently, this seems to be the natural progression of market prices: downward to zero. Certainly, there is still room in the market for software which costs money, but the open source movement seems to prefer giving the software away and providing support for a fee.
The key is a lack of a central planner. For example: UPS and FedEx are much more efficient than USPS. Why? USPS is controlled by a central planner, the government, and simply outlaws competition for first class mail. On the other hand, UPS and FedEx (along with a host of other parcel carriers) have to compete for customers business, lowering prices and improving quality. The same occurs within the open source community: constant revision and innovation results in better products.
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