by shprd on 9/27/24, 1:56 PM with 90 comments
by like_any_other on 9/27/24, 4:20 PM
The concern is not theoretical, as protesters in Hong Kong discovered when "their" phones refused to run software they used to organize: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-apple-i...
The FSF is clear on the motivations: A proprietary program puts its developer or owner in a position of power over its users. This power is in itself an injustice. - https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.html
The links on that page give many other examples of why free software is necessary.
by jph on 9/27/24, 3:40 PM
The secret (IMHO) is keep it simple, so people know what they're getting and can figure out how to be successful.
70M downloads of my oldest project, Ruby unaccent port: https://github.com/sixarm/sixarm_ruby_unaccent
200K downloads of my newest project, Rust testing macros: https://github.com/sixarm/assertables-rust-crate
Open source authors inspire me every day to create, improve, and share. The point isn't money; the point is helping each other learn, explore, and grow.
by cortesoft on 9/27/24, 3:28 PM
I personally think open source works the best when it is created by developers working for a company who are writing software that supports, but is not core, to the company’s actual product.
A company decides to allow the developers to open source it so they get free, outside, collaboration and the prestige and publicity of having open source projects.
Ideally, a majority of the contributions will be from developers working on the clock at their main jobs, where they use the open source project.
It is fine if some people contribute on their own time, but the bulk of the work should ideally be paid for by an employer.
by krunck on 9/27/24, 3:16 PM
by mmcgaha on 9/27/24, 3:15 PM
by thesuperbigfrog on 9/27/24, 3:29 PM
It is not an obligation to maintain the project: Read the license terms.
It is not an invitation for others to contribute, though many projects welcome bug reports, feature requests, and contributions.
Rich Hickey's "Open Source is Not About You" provides some great thoughts about it: https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba95...
by camgunz on 9/27/24, 3:40 PM
I do question the kind of "open source project takes over the world" model, the GCCs, the Apaches, the Linuxes. Those projects are of great importance, so even if you have a small group of contributors the responsibility is still large and weighty. It's even more so if you've suddenly got a huge community to manage. That kind of thing feels a lot less like a hobby and more like either a job or a lifestyle (e.g. you hang out in an IRC/email window all day and manage the community, and you like it), and I'm not sure how sustainable a lifestyle it is. So maybe I agree with OP here.
I wonder if there's something to like, creating some kind of barrier to interact. Like, if I want to file an OpenBSD bug I have to work pretty hard, so some filtering is happening. Filing a bug on GitHub is very easy, so anyone can jump on there and demand whatever they want.
by ncruces on 9/27/24, 4:06 PM
Just let that sink in.
by diggan on 9/27/24, 3:00 PM
That is indeed a sour take. What about in-between, where me and lots of other people are happily sitting?
> if that code becomes too useful, you have somehow fucked up because you now have a second job
It only becomes a second job if you allow it to. You can tell people "No, I don't want that feature" or "No, please don't send any unsolicited PRs", and no one can do anything (to you) about it.
The world is rarely black and white with clear lines, and same with open source. No, it won't solve capitalism, and no my code isn't exactly the holy grail, but neither I or users of the code I wrote expect that either. And that's fine.
by woodruffw on 9/27/24, 3:50 PM
If you don't want your projects to be important, there are well-trodden ways to send that message to companies that attempt to extract wealth from your free labor: you can close and ignore their issues, send them nastygrams, etc. But if you do put effort into making your projects easily adoptable, I don't think it's crazy that companies do in fact come knocking.
(This is a non-normative position: I don't think any of this is particularly fair. But I think it's telling that there is a huge pool of OSS that companies mostly ignore, since it gives of "go away and don't rely on me" signals.)
by bachmeier on 9/27/24, 4:08 PM
"If you release your code under the GPL, large companies won't touch it."
"The GPL isn't as free as these corporate-friendly licenses."
It's too bad the corporate talking points took hold and convinced so many people that open source means "free as in free labor". I've seen people berated for choosing the GPL. Use the GPL if your goal is to contribute to the open source ecosystem. Choose another license if your goal is the honor of having a company with billions in revenue using your software for free.
by Mathnerd314 on 9/27/24, 3:42 PM
But it's also true that it is easy to buy into some strange ideas like "sharing is caring" and end up going past reciprocal altruism and into territory where you are working for free.
by lordkrandel on 9/27/24, 2:28 PM
by retropragma on 9/29/24, 8:18 AM
Forking is a thing. People don't do it enough. GitHub doesn't make it easy to find active forks.
by sergiotapia on 9/27/24, 3:13 PM
by senko on 9/27/24, 3:14 PM
FFS if you don't like it, just don't do it. You don't owe anyone anything.
If you want to get paid, find a business model that works for you. Open source is not a business model.
If I had a dime for every time someone complains they can't make a living volunteering, it'd fund my own open source efforts.
by mindslight on 9/27/24, 3:31 PM
"Open source" puts narrow emphasis on the code itself, downplaying how that code is actually used, and the resulting abilities of its users. In the "open source" paradigm it makes perfect sense that you can study a piece of source code and even modify and run it locally, but then when you want to actually practically use that software, often to interact with other people, you're strongly incentivized to use the centrally controlled (aka proprietary) SaaS instance/copy/fork. This dynamic of stripping user agency and providing a canned product in its place is what allows businesses to view your project and your effort as a raw materials to be mined.
"Libre software" keeps the emphasis on user freedom. Having the ability to modify and run the code is a necessary, but not sufficient part of that. SaaS is an attack on user freedom from shortcomings of the GPL3, just the way Tivoization was an attack on user freedom from (perceived and commonly held) shortcomings of the GPL2. By keeping the emphasis on user freedom, we can easily perceive these types of attacks as taking away user freedom. Whereas by focusing on one mechanism "open source" encourages identifying with operations of the attackers - eg that common fallacious refrain that you can always make your own centrally-controlled clone of a given site.
by woodrowbarlow on 9/27/24, 3:36 PM
by gavinhoward on 9/27/24, 3:11 PM
by bsnnkv on 9/27/24, 3:03 PM
Open source is how software developers are conditioned and socialized into participating in their own exploitation under capitalism.
by BeetleB on 9/27/24, 3:08 PM
Open source is just fine. Your expectations around it were not.
by carapace on 9/27/24, 6:22 PM
> but y'all, capitalism is winning, and Open Source isn't changing that fact by an appreciable margin.
Open Source was a capitulation to capitalism. That's what differentiates it from the Free Software movement. The whole point was to woo business interests.
> you have somehow fucked up because you now have a second job. A second job that doesn't pay,
That's a classic case of "Don't do that." Charge people money to write and maintain software, of course! That is valuable economic activity.
Don't charge people to copy software that is already written. That is regressive and holds back human progress and economic wealth creation.
The entire point of computers and software is that it makes wealth easy to duplicate! You write a machine and then everyone can use it for free (technically there is a cost but it's so incredibly tiny that it's negligible.)
We should take advantage of this to reconfigure the economic system to take care of everybody (and the global ecology) and live happily ever after.
by 000ooo000 on 9/27/24, 3:11 PM