Open Source Is Eternal
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Open Source Is Eternal
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Re: Open Source Is Eternal
#2Plain text is eternal. If you’re worried about prose formats, use that.
I can’t help quibbling with the lead:
> Open source has won the present, but what about the future?
Open source has only “won” for programmers. With rare, beautiful exception, open stops just shy of end users, at the point where they have to pull out their credit cards. And GDPR notwithstanding, it’s still impractical for most end users to get most data about them in any practical, continuous fashion.
Great time to be a software producer. Not such a great time to be a software consumer. Unless you’re willing to trade nearly everything off for convenience and more freemium.
Re: Open Source Is Eternal
#3The last few paragraphs discuss file format conversion. Unfortunately, many companies have weaponized data representation as a way to force customer lock-in. What should have been simple data has been muddied in a way that prevents users from switching to other applications. The only real answer is to do what many people do: keep old machines running the software necessary to open the old data.
Re: Open Source Is Eternal
#4Plain text is eternal. If you’re worried about prose formats, use that. I can’t help quibbling with the lead: > Open source has won the present, but what about the future? Open source has only “won” for programmers. With rare, beautiful exception, open stops just shy of end users, at the point where they have to pull out their credit cards. And GDPR notwithstanding, it’s still impractical for most end users to get mo…
>> Open source has won the present
> Open source has only “won” for programmers
Both statements are true.
Open Source was always about developer benefit. The movement around end-user benefit is called Free Software. The one promoted by Stallman and the FSF, the one practiced by people releasing software under GPL family of licenses. This movement has definitely not won.
Re: Open Source Is Eternal
#5Plain text is eternal. If you’re worried about prose formats, use that. I can’t help quibbling with the lead: > Open source has won the present, but what about the future? Open source has only “won” for programmers. With rare, beautiful exception, open stops just shy of end users, at the point where they have to pull out their credit cards. And GDPR notwithstanding, it’s still impractical for most end users to get mo…
>> Open source has won the present > Open source has only “won” for programmers Both statements are true. Open Source was always about developer benefit. The movement around end-user benefit is called Free Software. The one promoted by Stallman and the FSF, the one practiced by people releasing software under GPL family of licenses. This movement has definitely not won.
> Open source has only “won” for programmers
This is completely false. Corporations and Venture Capitalists are the ones who capture most of the value from open source projects. Independent developers got screwed over big time. We are the biggest losers. To the point that we probably would have been better off without open source. I've met popular, very skilled open source developers who can't even make a living as developers.
The top 10 open source developers in the world only earn a high/normal salary (e.g. Evan You of VueJS earns about $200K from Patreon; probably less than what he got at Google as a regular employee). He probably also makes money from conferences and talks; it's not bad, but if you look at the top musicians in the world, the 200th most popular musician alive probably earns millions per year.
The 200th most popular open source developer alive is probably a homeless person.
Re: Open Source Is Eternal
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Open source has won the present > Open source has only “won” for programmers Both statements are true. Open Source was always about developer benefit. The movement around end-user benefit is called Free Software. The one promoted by Stallman and the FSF, the one practiced by people releasing software under GPL family of licenses. This movement has definitely not won.
> Open source has only “won” for programmers This is completely false. Corporations and Venture Capitalists are the ones who capture most of the value from open source projects. Independent developers got screwed over big time. We are the biggest losers. To the point that we probably would have been better off without open source. I've met popular, very skilled open source developers who can't even make a living as d…
They say capitalists will sell you the rope to hang them with. But programmers do not understand business, so instead of selling ropes they made their own hanging ropes and freely shared them with everyone for a nice communal hanging.
(capitalists ended up selling hanging platforms instead, the ropes come with the platform for free)
Re: Open Source Is Eternal
#7Plain text is eternal. If you’re worried about prose formats, use that. I can’t help quibbling with the lead: > Open source has won the present, but what about the future? Open source has only “won” for programmers. With rare, beautiful exception, open stops just shy of end users, at the point where they have to pull out their credit cards. And GDPR notwithstanding, it’s still impractical for most end users to get mo…
>> Open source has won the present > Open source has only “won” for programmers Both statements are true. Open Source was always about developer benefit. The movement around end-user benefit is called Free Software. The one promoted by Stallman and the FSF, the one practiced by people releasing software under GPL family of licenses. This movement has definitely not won.
It hasn't won yet, but relatively few people would agree that the FSF approach results in the end-user benefits that the FSF claims it does. A large group of people for sure, but it's a long way off from being a consensus view. The FSF tends to drive away more people than it draws, even among those who are naturally drawn to a lot of what they advocate.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that Free Software is "a" movement around end-user benefit, with a very specific perspective about what that means and how to accomplish it that may or may not make sense to a lot of people, but it is not "the" movement around end-user benefit. I'm certain that the FSF and RMS see themselves as "the" movement, but that's actually their #1 problem in a nutshell IMO.
Re: Open Source Is Eternal
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Open source has won the present > Open source has only “won” for programmers Both statements are true. Open Source was always about developer benefit. The movement around end-user benefit is called Free Software. The one promoted by Stallman and the FSF, the one practiced by people releasing software under GPL family of licenses. This movement has definitely not won.
> Open source has only “won” for programmers This is completely false. Corporations and Venture Capitalists are the ones who capture most of the value from open source projects. Independent developers got screwed over big time. We are the biggest losers. To the point that we probably would have been better off without open source. I've met popular, very skilled open source developers who can't even make a living as d…
This is sort of like saying the only people who benefit from music are the music industry. A lot of the benefit of open source isn't easily measured in dollars, so it's difficult to say who benefits more, businesses or users.
Nearly everyone builds their software on top of open source libraries, so the beneficiaries or "free riders" if you prefer include both lots of other programmers and the end users who download their software.
But, that's the choice you make when you choose to work for free and give away your stuff. Isn't it a bit weird that we expect anything else? And yet occasionally it works, you can sometimes capture a small fraction of the value through Patreon or whatever.
If you want a less precarious income, there are jobs working on open source software. The 200th most popular open source developer probably works at Google.
Re: Open Source Is Eternal
#9Plain text is eternal. If you’re worried about prose formats, use that. I can’t help quibbling with the lead: > Open source has won the present, but what about the future? Open source has only “won” for programmers. With rare, beautiful exception, open stops just shy of end users, at the point where they have to pull out their credit cards. And GDPR notwithstanding, it’s still impractical for most end users to get mo…
>> Open source has won the present > Open source has only “won” for programmers Both statements are true. Open Source was always about developer benefit. The movement around end-user benefit is called Free Software. The one promoted by Stallman and the FSF, the one practiced by people releasing software under GPL family of licenses. This movement has definitely not won.
> Open Source was always about developer benefit. The movement around end-user benefit is called Free Software.
It's complicated.
I think you're right as far as the effect of "open source", and probably also perception of "open source". And perception is of course nine tenths of reality.
But if you ask some of the folks who were around early at OSI, and some who are around now, like Simon Phipps and Bruce Perens, I think they'll tell you "open source" is just a rebranding of free software. Having totally eclipsed FSF for their intended audience, OSI are now reaching back to that idea more and more explicitly, as by making "software freedom" a (vague) part of their license review criteria:
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists....
Very recently updated: https://opensource.org/approval
The barrier has always been fluid. Earlier on, when Bruce was feeling edged out of OSI:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/02/msg01641.html
So there's a cycle in the history. How much that history really matters, and how much is just palace intrigue or inside baseball, stands wide open to interpretation.
Re: Open Source Is Eternal
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Open source has won the present > Open source has only “won” for programmers Both statements are true. Open Source was always about developer benefit. The movement around end-user benefit is called Free Software. The one promoted by Stallman and the FSF, the one practiced by people releasing software under GPL family of licenses. This movement has definitely not won.
> Open source has only “won” for programmers This is completely false. Corporations and Venture Capitalists are the ones who capture most of the value from open source projects. Independent developers got screwed over big time. We are the biggest losers. To the point that we probably would have been better off without open source. I've met popular, very skilled open source developers who can't even make a living as d…
The ability to dip into the sea of preexisting (permissive) open source software to deliver value justifies higher developer pay. More thoughts on that here:
https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/01/22/largesse-oblige.html