Linux

It's a real shame that generally lefties don't really care about or 'get' software freedom. You should be pushing for free software on all levels. In your personal life and in government. It's crazy how much power a company like Apple, Microsoft or Google has over everyone.

Well, there is also a more right leaning take. You take care of your self and scratch your own itch, and you should not be a liability to the society, but make your self useful and contribute back. And I think this is kind of the reason FLOSS works well, it can be aligned with many philosophies.

Anyone can fork it and do what they want, people respect Linus and follow suit because he's good at what he does and knows it best. He holds no power or authority beyond the willful respect and acknowledgement of the people.

Listen, strange penguins biting people is no basis for a system of government.

There's a book called Opt-Out from Rory Price about a future where humanity starts using AR more and more to the point that it's almost obligatory to have a device of this kind for everything, even as ID. It then talks about a group that develops a free/libre version of this device's OS and they have to decide about personal issues or try to maintain their views. It's entertaining and not too long, but I think it shows a very possible future.

I haven't heard from its author in some time, but I think they discovered they were someone else too ;), that's why I love this book.

Linus' power doesn't come from Ownership, but respect. Anyone can fork it and do what they want, but because Linus is respected, everyone else follows suit.

Anarchism would function in a similar manner, it wouldn't be a bunch of opinionated people doing whatever they want, but people generally listening to experts who don't actually hold systemic power.

You can fork it, sure Linus is very respected and his decisions are considered very important but you can fork it and change however you want so it's still compatible with Anarchism.

Free software doesn't have owners. If someone else did a better job of being the "benevolent dictator" of a fork of Linux, everyone would start using that fork. Arguably this is a more free-market system than non-free software.

A big part of the confusion comes from the fact that different people will use these terms differently.

In a capitalist framework, there's private property and public property. Either an individual (or or specific group) own something, anything, or it's owned by the government.

In a socialist framework, private property is distinguished from personal property. Personal property is your stuff that you use for yourself. Your coat, your car, your TV, etc. Private property is the means of production, or capital—things that increase a worker's ability to do useful work. Think factories or companies, where ownership in and of itself, regardless of labor, would make the owner money. Socialists think that kind of private property shouldn't exist, because it means wealthy people can just own stuff for a living, profiting off of the people who do the work.

Housing can go either way. Owning a home for yourself and your family would be far closer to personal property, while owning an apartment building to collect rent would be far closer to private property.

Socialism, for the most part and historically, is an umbrella term describing social rather than private ownership. That would include anarchism, which largely synonymous with "libertarian socialism." Lenin, on the other hand, used it to more specifically refer to an intermediate stage between capitalism in communism, so you might see people using that more narrow definition to exclude anarchists, democratic socialists, etc.

I've never heard anyone argue against personal property. Usually the difference is that Anarchists want to skip the workers' state, while other Communists think it's a necessity to achieve Communism.

A few things draw significant differences.

Anarchism is fundamentally a firm rejection of unjust hierarchy, including the state, via building up of bottom-up structures using networks of Mutual Aid or other strategies (like Syndicalism).

Communism is fundamentally about advancing beyond Capitalism into Socialism and eventually Communism. It's fundamentally Marxist, unlike most forms of Anarchism (which don't necessarily reject Marx, but also don't accept everything Marx wrote). Communists are generally perfectly fine with using the state in order to eventually achieve a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society, as each becomes unnecessary and whithers away.

In essence, Anarchism rejects that a state is necessary at all, and seeks to directly replace current systems with the end-goal of an Anarchist structure, whereas Communists tend to agree more with gradual change, rapidly building up the productive forces, and achieving a global, international Communism.

Anarcho-Communism seeks to combine these into directly implementing full Communism without going through Socialism first.

All of this is from a generally Leftist perspective, without leaning into any given tendency, as I believe the most critical battles now are building up a sizable leftist coalition. Everyone should focus on organizing, unionizing, reading, learning, sympathizing, empathizing, and improving themselves and those around them.

Anarcho-Capitalism isn't a thing, it's just Libertarian Capitalists LARPing with Leftist aesthetics. The very rejection of individual ownership rejects Capitalism, it's like saying Worker Co-operatives are an example of Capitalism because markets tend to not care what makes them up.

Just because FOSS would be "allowed" in Capitalism doesn't mean it's an example of Capitalist principles.

Anarcho-capitalism is a contradictory term that is mostly used to imagine neofeudalism.