Those are not problems with FOSS as such - they are problems with the current economic system allowing companies like Google or Facebook to parasitize on society, including FOSS.
Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
141–150 of 284 posts
Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s not what “appropriated” means.
Could you elaborate? I'm not a native speaker.
Appropriated generally means taking without the authority to do so, which isn't true with free software. It can also mean to take exclusive control of, which somewhat works with further changes being proprietary.
I thought the use was fine.
Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
#143The problem is some people are married to old projects that do not offer them nothing anymore. Their contribution has been valuable , there is no need for continued commitment to maintain the social credit. Wish there was some "official" open source title they could print and frame it on their wall as forever proof of their valuable contribution. Just drop them, do something new, life is short.
A lot of contributors are from countries where cost of life is much cheaper, and they are happy to contribute as they don't compare themselves. But in the end, being kept busy maintaining an open source project for the benefit of rich people elsewhere is a bad use of their time resources.
Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Teachers are always developing their stuff on the side, it is part of the job, and either teaching or applying is paid. Also they tend to buy their tools.
You can easily draw parallels to open source where you can easily make a living out of teaching how to use open source software and components and applying open source software at your job. Most people are not paid to develop open source software or for applying or teaching about open software they themselves developed. Very few do. Same with math.
Having had teachers on the family, including my mum, I kindly disagree in regards to math.
Having bought several books from open source projects as means to try to help the authors, I am quite aware how little it brings home to keep a sustainable life.
Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
#145as someone who uses linux and free software as main interaction point with computers, yes it is
Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
#146Just a very tangential note about the last part of the post
> I can't even get a job
IMHO, making a single contribution to an important FOSS project (e.g. Linux kernel, a major programming language or a widely used library), although not easy, will definitely land a job very easily for anyone.
Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
#147For me open source is like math. You don't work on math so that people will thank you for working on math. You don't expect people using math you developed contributing back to math or paying you. You get paid however you managed to organize getting paid. And work on the math for the math and nothing else. If you have other expectations maybe you'll find other endeavours more fulfilling. Which is sad but it is what i…
And that's how you end up with FOSS that has the user experience of math, and the documentation style of math. :)
Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way is solve this is that I release everything under GPL. Companies usually won't touch that, but everybody else might.
To me, it's not a problem that my code is used for commercial gain. I use the MIT licence (a permissive licence). The key thing for me is that it doesn't give companies a competitive advantage, rather it puts companies that don't use it at a competitive disadvantage. It's thanks to Open Source that I'm writing this on a system that uses 100% Open Source software (okay, maybe the BIOS isn't). A good thing about Open S…
> It's thanks to Open Source that I'm writing this on a system that uses 100% Open Source software
no, it's thanks to free software and the GPL. Thanks to open source you get Playstation and macOS which both use BSD to create the most proprietary system possible.
Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
#149Resonates. I just wrote a little script to give me some model geometry numbers. I'm sure others could use this, I wrote mine because all that exists online is half-ass Jskirpt pages that are covered in ads and offer a slightly different form of this calculation than I want. Once upon a time I would've published this somewhere and let anyone else who wanted those numbers for a project of their own at least have a chan…
> got me booted from several platforms
This bothers me. Can I get some more detail and drama?
> Today, I don't have a place for that kind of thing
If you want to share your work with close friends, you could use say, self-hosted Gitea or GitLab.
Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is most certainly Open Source, in that the source is open. In the case where a support contract is available, but not required, it is no less free than any other free software, but there is at least a chance that it might be bankrolled, as well as the projection that this is a professional project. Even where the support is required, it is my understanding of RHS that that won't impede on the title free, since the…
But the GP wrote: “For many, such a license should be required for use in any org which is over X employees” emphasis mine. If this requirement comes from a clause in the license then it violates the open source definition https://opensource.org/osd because it imposes a restriction on the use of the software.
IANL, and am always willing to learn. What clause does this violate exactly?
I would guess that you mean one of the following, but I do not see any violation:
> 8. "not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution."
> 9. "restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. "
> 6. "restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research"
In addition, that is the "The Open Source Definition", but the phrase "open source" cannot be copyrighted (there is legal precedent, IIRC with Lindows) .
According to the DoD, Open Source Software means "software for which the human-readable source code is available for use, study, re-use, modification, enhancement, and re-distribution by the users of such software" [0]
In practice, there are many "Open Source" licenses that allow paid licensing [2]. The most well known competitor, FOSS, only slightly differentiates itself with the phrase "Open Software" and openly allows fees.
[0]: https://dodcio.defense.gov/Open-Source-Software-FAQ/#q-what-... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-so...