An interesting article, but the author doesn't seem to understand some basic political concepts. There are different types of socialism. The author is thinking about state socialism/communism and misses the fact that there is a significant anti-statist or libertarian socialist tendency around the world. In fact, around most of the world, "libertarian" is synonymous with "anarchist." Libertarian socialism is another phrase that is equivalent to anarchism.
Um, I disagree with that statement. An anarchist believes in no authority and no government at all. Everyone for themselves with no one controlling anything or anyone. A true survival of the fittest, dog-eat-dog, Mad Max kind of world.
A Libertarian Socialist still believes there needs to be a government, but a very limited one. They would need a government to enforce the liberty of others and make sure everyone can do what they want when they want to, so far as they don't impede on the rights of others. The socialist part makes sure that the wealth and capital is evenly spread out among the people so that no one group of people has more power than the other.
Those two beliefs are completely separate, and I wouldn't invite either of them to a dinner party...
I'm working on a paper which will explain how the free software and open source movements, as well as much of Web 2.0, are examples of anarchism in action. This has been pointed out by writers several years ago, but really hasn't gained widespread recognition.
Well, it wouldn't be a very accurate paper. As the software you mentioned couldn't possibly be anarchist movements as no one would be in control of what contributor code gets accepted and included and what doesn't. There has to be a governing party that enforces proper code standards, vulnerability and bug checking, runaway feature creep, and bloated code. Someone has to be in control, and control and authority is what anarchism despises. A truly anarchist open source software would have no control and anyone end everyone could add anything into the final product. It would always be broken and development would stall and go nowhere or everywhere fast.
Free software like Linux are examples of anarchism in action in that they are cooperative, decentralized, anti-capitalist (to some extent), anti-property (anti-IP), non-government, anti-hierarchical and much more. The free software movement is "socialist" in so far as it reflects the anti-statist socialism of anarchism.
Linux has Linus Torvalds as its sole governing party's executive, and he makes all final decisions. So, Linux is hardly anarchism in action. Plus there is a hierarchical structure of developers. Those in the higher levels get more code accepted and included than those in the lower levels. It is cooperative and decentralized, however those aren't anarchism specific properties. If Linux was truly anti-property, it wouldn't even have a license. You could use it however you want, with zero restrictions. I fear your argument is pretty weak.