Live data from Hacker News

Being Thankful for Free Software Developers

fosspost.org

51–60 of 105 posts

Re: Being Thankful for Free Software Developers

#51
Inspired by this I went over to donate money to Arch Linux, since I've just been getting nothing but joy from using it for the last 2 years.

They use Click2Pledge which, frankly, is a UX which is a tad frightening, but I'm not a snob so I carry on.

And then I find that of all the countries in the world they seem to have left Ireland out (Eire, Republic of Ireland, no, nothing). I mean they have the Isle of Man - but not Ireland. So, I cannot complete their payment form.

So what all these guys need is a separate FOSS organisation exclusively dedicated to fund-raising.

Re: Being Thankful for Free Software Developers

#52
post #6

This is a starry-eyed blog post. I like it, and I miss not having more of these. We need more starry-eyed dreamers because they get good things done. I just spent some time with the Debian crew at the last Debconf here in Mtl. I've always liked their attitude and I love their operating system -- and so does everyone else who has ever created a Debian derivative. Others at Debconf felt the same. Bradley Kuhn even said…

Why would someone have to apologize for being a free software supporter? I consider my FSF membership a point of pride.

Re: Being Thankful for Free Software Developers

#53
post #42
post #33

I always like to think Free/Open source Software is the only known occurrnce where socialism works. You give 100% of what you have for free as a programmer, but in that very same moment you make everyone, including yourself, richer and more free. As software does not get consumed, everyone's assets rise.

Socialism isn't the right term because nobody is forced to contribute to any particular project with resources or even use it. It's an economic activity with first order benefits and positive externalities.

Exactly this is capitalism at it's finest. Working on open source projects by itself has rewards :

1) you probably use it, so you use it yourself and your own situation gets better.

2) you get the efforts of others in addition to your own because of the open source nature (e.g. your code gets maintained, fixed, reviewed, ...)

3) There are plenty of companies (Google, FB, Red Hat, ...) that will give you a great job because of open source contributions you have made (and more general, reputational benefits)

Enlightened self interest at it's finest.

Re: Being Thankful for Free Software Developers

#55
post #33

I always like to think Free/Open source Software is the only known occurrnce where socialism works. You give 100% of what you have for free as a programmer, but in that very same moment you make everyone, including yourself, richer and more free. As software does not get consumed, everyone's assets rise.

Because what we have now has no socialist elements? Last time I checked the US military was a pretty large part of the economy, and I would hardly class that as a purely capitalist endeavour.

Re: Being Thankful for Free Software Developers

#56
post #43
post #31

I wish it was that attractive to just switch from “expensive and evil proprietary software” as the author suggests. 1. The article claims that Microsoft Office 365 is $100 a year. In reality it's about $70, home license for up to 5 users is $80. 2. The article does not mention that every Office 365 user gets bunch of additional services. For example, a tebibyte of space in Microsoft OneDrive for each user, 60 Skype m…

And when you start looking at professional level software (e.g. CAD), very often you will find that there is literally no FOSS alternative in existance. If it exists, it will most likely be a buggy mess that has far fewer features and a horrible interface. LibreOffice is a great example. I tried writing my masters thesis in it and it was a complete disaster. I don't regret going back to office.

> And when you start looking at professional level software (e.g. CAD), very often you will find that there is literally no FOSS alternative in existance. If it exists, it will most likely be a buggy mess that has far fewer features and a horrible interface.

We wanted to help FreeCAD[0] grow as a leading FOSS CAD application, to help it reach out to other developers. That is why we invited Yorik van Havre[1], one of its main developers, as a main track speaker to FOSDEM 2015 [2].

I'm not asking you to do something similarly constructive, but... Next time you state your opinion about "professional level FOSS software (eg. CAD)", please think first if it is necessary or even useful to gratuitously throw around negativity. Even if the tools are not useful at all (yet?) for your task, why discourage its users and developers? Chances are, the FOSS app _will_ be useful and even the only option for some.

[0] https://freecad.io [1] https://github.com/yorikvanhavre [2] https://archive.fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/freecad/

Re: Being Thankful for Free Software Developers

#57
post #33

I always like to think Free/Open source Software is the only known occurrnce where socialism works. You give 100% of what you have for free as a programmer, but in that very same moment you make everyone, including yourself, richer and more free. As software does not get consumed, everyone's assets rise.

Tikhon Jelvis, Lead Data Scientist at Target (2016-present) has a very good answer to "Is free software socialism?" at https://www.quora.com/Is-the-open-source-movement-socialism - I will quote the answer in its entirety for the benefit of this thread... No. The two are not related in any useful or meaningful ways. The first thing to note is that there are actually two core ways of thinking about open source software…

I have contributed a lot to open source, and this entire quote is entirely alien to me.

Usually people who don't contribute talk like that (but I do not know if that is true in the case of the quote's author).

Re: Being Thankful for Free Software Developers

#58
post #52
post #6

This is a starry-eyed blog post. I like it, and I miss not having more of these. We need more starry-eyed dreamers because they get good things done. I just spent some time with the Debian crew at the last Debconf here in Mtl. I've always liked their attitude and I love their operating system -- and so does everyone else who has ever created a Debian derivative. Others at Debconf felt the same. Bradley Kuhn even said…

Why would someone have to apologize for being a free software supporter? I consider my FSF membership a point of pride.

We get told many things. That we are fundamentalists, that all software cannot or should not be free, that the GPL is too restrictive, that we are anti-business, that we spend more time arguing politics than getting things done, that we are passé because Apple and Microsoft are releasing some free software. Someone like bkuhn gets to hear things like that all the time. It's nice for a change to not have to argue against each of those points.

Re: Being Thankful for Free Software Developers

#60
post #33

I always like to think Free/Open source Software is the only known occurrnce where socialism works. You give 100% of what you have for free as a programmer, but in that very same moment you make everyone, including yourself, richer and more free. As software does not get consumed, everyone's assets rise.

The only known? I guess the problem is that "socialism" means a billion things to people, from "don't be so greedy all the time and help others out" to "specific governments Eastern Europe etc.". But I don't even buy that early Christians were the first example of that, I think exploitation is the invention, not socialism. Anyway, open source software is really just an example of this:

> If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac McPherson (13 Aug. 1813)

And if you look at the date you'll notice these thoughts are real old hats :P Doesn't take away from them of course, to the contrary... it's about time we actually implement the wisdom we have. But let's not think any of it is or should be new.

Post reply on HN