A dash of socialism (small "s"), a pinch of anarcho-syndicalism, a smattering of libertarianism, and two heaped tablespoons of pragmatism.

Socialism, because everyone starts off at the same level playing field. (Older/Larger companies don't necessarily have a clear-cut advantage, only if they polish it)

Capitalism, because it encourages small distro companies. I wouldn't mind seeing a local distro in Ottawa. (Corel used to have one, and Xandros is still around but I don't like the way Xandros does things.)

But does it really matter at the end of the day?

sometimes it is, and there are plenty of non-profit organizations in a capitalist system.

Here we go again, this has been discussed before (and the thread ended up closed purty soon by the way ).

Anyway, in a way Steve Balmer was right about calling Linux communist .He just took full advantage of the inherent ambiguity of the term. If you consider early socialism (a.k.a. Utopian Socialism) socialism/communism is essentially about freedom and personal development; control of the means of production was a means to that end. Ironically, it was the same ideal that inspired the free market ideology. But as with the latter, the relationship of means to ends got perverted. The means became the end and the original end got diluted into something that is quite nice to have - as long as it doesn't jar with the new one.

However you look at it, people like Richard Stallman may have a heavily political agenda but I'm sure that someone like Linus didn't give it much thought. For him it probably was just fun.

Linux is organised anarchy.
We have a few simple laws* that are down to you to make sure that you live up to and if you don't then you're ganna' be drummed out of town.

no, they don't sell the linux kernel, they mostly sell support for it, or proprietary programs with it, no company has ever sold the actual kernel for money

i didn't really intend this post to be concerned about the sale (or not) of linux or the various distros.

more of just the community; how is it produced, how is it changed, how is it used by the community.

How about "democracy", in it's pure definition? The freedom to "live your Linux" the way you want?