Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)

Is "Vulgar Marxism" a legitimate scientific term ?

Yes, it is. In My response to the letter by Paolo Pumilia to the FM  I tried to answer this question in the following way:

I would like to reiterate that ERS's views on the economic superiority of open source are close to Vulgar Marxism with it's economic determinism. Contrary to your impression "Vulgar Marxism " is a legitimate scientific term. As Professor Robert M. Young stated in his work "Marxism and the history of science" [see R.C. Olby, G.N. Cantor, J.R.R. Christie and M.J.S. Hodge (editors), Companion to the History of Modern Science. (1996), pp. 77-86.]:

"The defining feature of Marxist approaches to the history of science is that the history of scientific ideas, of research priorities, of concepts of nature and of the parameters of discoveries are all rooted in historical forces which are, in the last instance, socio-economic. There are variations in how literally this is taken and various Marxist-inspired and Marxist-related positions define the interrelations among science and other historical forces more or less loosely. There is a continuum of positions. The most orthodox provides one-to-one correlations between the socio-economic base and the intellectual superstructure. This is referred to as economism or vulgar Marxism."

Claims that open source is a new development paradigm that is superiors to all others paradigms of software development are pretty close to Vulgar Marxism.