Open Source is a very unique phenomenon which invokes extreme reactions from both the supporters and opponents. Open Source movement has a very passionate group of developers and users. It also provokes similar reaction from the opposing camps (proprietary software developers and users). The open source movement was considered as socialistic movement by some and communist movement by some other people. Bill Gates has called the pro-open source campaigners as modern day communists and Shai Agassi from SAP management team has compared open source with socialism. There has been some talk about how different countries consider open source based on their ideologies. Few days back, the state of Kerala in India decided to take the open source route and the communist led govt. in the state justified this by saying that the ideology of open source matched with that of their own. Many capitalists in America and elsewhere are opposed to open source because they think that the ideology of open source matches with that of communism. They also feel that open source will eventually kill capitalism. I have heard this from many Libertarians in India and a big chunk of them strongly feel that open source is yet another manifestation of communist ideas. Similarly, there are many communists who prefer open source just because they feel that it matches with their own Marxist ideology. However, both the capitalists and communists have got the concept totally wrong. Read more of this post