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Open Source Is Eternal

linuxjournal.com

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Re: Open Source Is Eternal

#11

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

kemitchell wrote: post #10
cryptica wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Microsoft in the 90's before they used open source was paying its developers quite well.

Re: Open Source Is Eternal

#12

Post by TeMPOraL »

mwfunk wrote: post #7
TeMPOraL wrote: post #4

Earlier 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.

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" mo…

Fair. Maybe I should've worded this differently. While their philosophies and practices are to a large extent overlapping, of the two movements, Open Source is primarily focused on programmer benefits. while Free Software is focused on end-user benefits. FSF is not the movement around end-user benefit, but it's definitely the most known, most visible and most organized - and that does count for something.

Re: Open Source Is Eternal

#13

Post by jondubois »

badsectoracula wrote: post #6
cryptica wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

So true.

Re: Open Source Is Eternal

#14

Post by jondubois »

skybrian wrote: post #8
cryptica wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

>> But, that's the choice you make when you choose to work for free

Choice is a relative thing. A lot of developers go into open source as a last resort because they believe that it's the only way that they can get access to users. Corporations have a near monopoly over users.

Re: Open Source Is Eternal

#15

Post by simonh »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #12
mwfunk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" mo…

Fair. Maybe I should've worded this differently. While their philosophies and practices are to a large extent overlapping, of the two movements, Open Source is primarily focused on programmer benefits. while Free Software is focused on end-user benefits. FSF is not the movement around end-user benefit, but it's definitely the most known, most visible and most organized - and that does count for something.

I don’t really understand how that is so. The main FSF Libre software benefits they tout ‘for users’ are only actually accessible by developers. Specifically freedoms 1 and 3, to study and modify and improve the code and share those improvements.

The other two freedoms, to run it for any purpose and redistribute it aren’t in any way unique to Libre software. They’re important sure, but are really just free beer benefits.

Users can benefit from access to better software, but only as an incidental or indirect benefit if developers happen to release it or if they pay developers to do so. In the latter case now you’re in a commercial relationship and arguably a closed model can give users more rights and control they might want, for example exclusivity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

Re: Open Source Is Eternal

#17

Post by [deleted] »

simonh wrote: post #15
TeMPOraL wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair. Maybe I should've worded this differently. While their philosophies and practices are to a large extent overlapping, of the two movements, Open Source is primarily focused on programmer benefits. while Free Software is focused on end-user benefits. FSF is not the movement around end-user benefit, but it's definitely the most known, most visible and most organized - and that does count for something.

I don’t really understand how that is so. The main FSF Libre software benefits they tout ‘for users’ are only actually accessible by developers. Specifically freedoms 1 and 3, to study and modify and improve the code and share those improvements. The other two freedoms, to run it for any purpose and redistribute it aren’t in any way unique to Libre software. They’re important sure, but are really just free beer benef…

[deleted]

Re: Open Source Is Eternal

#18

Post by skybrian »

simonh wrote: post #15
TeMPOraL wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair. Maybe I should've worded this differently. While their philosophies and practices are to a large extent overlapping, of the two movements, Open Source is primarily focused on programmer benefits. while Free Software is focused on end-user benefits. FSF is not the movement around end-user benefit, but it's definitely the most known, most visible and most organized - and that does count for something.

I don’t really understand how that is so. The main FSF Libre software benefits they tout ‘for users’ are only actually accessible by developers. Specifically freedoms 1 and 3, to study and modify and improve the code and share those improvements. The other two freedoms, to run it for any purpose and redistribute it aren’t in any way unique to Libre software. They’re important sure, but are really just free beer benef…

Part of it is that Free Software dates back to a time when most users were also programmers.

If you look beyond licensing issues, Unix scripting, Emacs, Smalltalk, BASIC interpreters, and HyperCard were other early attempts at helping users become programmers, though spreadsheets turned out to be far more successful.

But if you want to help everybody, even the most nontechnical, even spreadsheets are sort of beside the point and not really what they want. Instead, making things easier to use (as Apple does) is closer to the mark.

Re: Open Source Is Eternal

#19

Post by CM30 »

cryptica wrote: post #5
TeMPOraL wrote: post #4

Earlier 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…

Given many programmers got their careers started by making plugins, themes and sites using open source CMS systems, I'd say those won pretty handily. If you've ever used WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, MediaWiki, Magento, phpBB etc for a project, you've benefited from open source.

Same goes with anyone who used open source programming/scripting languages. The likes of PHP and Python are open source, as are Ruby, JavaScript, C/C++ and even now Java.

Hell, it's probable web development wouldn't exist with anywhere near as much of popularity if most basic components of it weren't open source.

Does that mean some people can't make much like they used to? Sure. But it also means a lot more people can make a living at all.

And given the salaries of many developers/programmers, it's a lot better as a situation than the one journalism is in right now. Or the ones involving creative fields like art, music, media, game development, etc, where the top 0.01% make money and the rest kinda struggle.

Re: Open Source Is Eternal

#20

Post by skybrian »

jondubois wrote: post #14
skybrian wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

>> But, that's the choice you make when you choose to work for free Choice is a relative thing. A lot of developers go into open source as a last resort because they believe that it's the only way that they can get access to users. Corporations have a near monopoly over users.

Since we're on Hacker News, I'll point out that starting your own company is another approach, though it can also be a hard way to go.

Sometimes the real issue is that the market is very competitive and user expectations are high, which is the opposite of a monopoly, though it can still make it very tough to break in.

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