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A world where people pay for software

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Re: A world where people pay for software

#421

Post by SequoiaHope »

scottyah wrote: post #400
ilyt wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the point that some jobs are boring and need actual materialistic motivation to be done but... I'm absolutely sure someone would design one out of sheer annoyance with existing solution (if existing solution would be bad). It would be interesting if system with very short copyright (say 3-5 years) would work. You'd still have leader's advantage for investing in development, but overall winner would be companies…

There would be a perfect design for that one person, and everyone else would either do it themselves (not many could) or suffer

Actually I think the way this works is you have a series of forks. You will have a variety of weirdos who spend a lot of time on their fork of a design which is close but needs some tweaks. Regular people then can choose from a bunch of different forks with different pros and cons. This is similar to design and production in a capitalist system only it takes way less effort to design a similar but slightly different fork. Most vacuum cleaners are pretty similar but each company has to design their first machine from scratch and there’s a high barrier to entry for that. With forks, it’s easy. And we see with 3D printed objects that when someone is in demand you will have a popular option that a lot of people have downloaded, and then someone comes along and makes their own fork, and someone sees that and improves upon it too, and now you’ve got three options but only one person had to design it from scratch.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#422

Post by TaylorAlexander »

999900000999 wrote: post #417
ben0x539 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 200% convinced there are plenty of people out there who could easily be nerdsniped into building an open source dishwasher! Hackers get up to all kinds of stuff that doesn't seem traditionally fun!

Does QAing Dishwasher firmware sound fun to you ? Even if you imagine software development to be generally fun, even the mundane, the rest of the workflow can be God awful boring. While Communism is a cool idea , it never works since you need incentives to motivate people.

Funny you say that because the most popular 3D printer firmwares are open source. Does QA’ing 3D printer firmware sound fun to you? No? Great well you don’t have to do that someone else is literally doing that right now because they thought it was fun.

By the way this is a decent job for an apprentice under supervision. It’s a good way to learn with minimal risk and young people are often willing to do this kind of thing. Then the veteran comes in and makes a few improvements to the QA system and hopefully it’s good for a while.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#423

Post by austinsharp »

guidoism wrote: post #396
smolder wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it seems crazy on its face. And I'm sure those leftists you refer to didn't have a coherent concept of how such a system would actually work . There's no way we could just replace paychecks today with rations and social credits and have a functioning system. It'd be an extreme destabilizing change to a system we built incrementally over a long time to be self reinforcing. But I also have the view that people a…

I like to think about how this works at smaller scales. When there is an office full of people all being paid about the same and (critically) where they all want and care about the same outcome, the shit jobs will get done. I have often called myself a "code janitor" since I clean up shit that was left behind. It's not because I didn't want to be working on fun greenfield projects but because it was shit that just ne…

Seems like the key shared characteristic of these examples are small communities where people care about each other. As you say, it works at smaller scales. But free rider problems are a lot tougher in a community of millions or more.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#424

Post by lend000 »

smolder wrote: post #355
thorncorona wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same answer every leftist I've talked to says when I ask them who will run the garbage system, and who will clean the sewers.

I know it seems crazy on its face. And I'm sure those leftists you refer to didn't have a coherent concept of how such a system would actually work . There's no way we could just replace paychecks today with rations and social credits and have a functioning system. It'd be an extreme destabilizing change to a system we built incrementally over a long time to be self reinforcing. But I also have the view that people a…

You seem smart and it always amazes me how popular communist concepts are with smart people on HN.

Didn't you have some assigned group projects in school? Perhaps some people are easily satisfied by carrying the burden of other people who they don't know and who don't appreciate them, but I'd wager a ridiculously high majority of value producers would not be. Humans are social animals, but we're individuals first and foremost and self-interest will always be the best motivator.

Is there some future where humans are engineered to be satisfied with a predefined role and purpose, amongst other traits? Sure. But until we get to that point, commune-style living is an absolute dud.

By the way, I recommend you visit and try living in an actual commune. My girlfriend told me it was the most disgusting living situation she's ever seen.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#425

Post by TaylorAlexander »

thorncorona wrote: post #342
smolder wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are potentially other carrots aside from material wealth that can motivate people to do unpleasant work. Currently it takes significant pay to get people to do certain important but thankless jobs. We could thank them. A legacy is important to many people. They may enjoy an immutable commemoration of their work, if they're secure in a material sense.

This is the exact same answer every leftist I've talked to says when I ask them who will run the garbage system, and who will clean the sewers.

Umm running the garbage system sounds rad?? I currently design open source farming robots but I would absolutely love designing open source garbage robots. Of course what’s better is community level management of waste production so we don’t even have a lot of garbage to deal with! Reusable washable containers for food, etc.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#426

Post by matu3ba »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #306

Computers have an unprecedented ability to reproduce value for free. Programmers need a relatively fixed amount of resources to thrive. (The value of resources varies by location but we all need things like food, shelter, transportation, clothing, tools, etc etc) If we can find a way to make sure every person has what they need to thrive regardless of their income, programmers can open source all of their software an…

Unfortunately that is not how human nature works. Value itself depends on the necessity or desire of people for a product and is distributed via the money printing debt system.

In other words: Necessary value can only exist, if other humans have a problem and depend on somebody/something to solve it (temporarily).

Explaining valuation from individual desire is hard, but group desire depends on techniques to control the masses and in between are many layers of uncertainty.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#427

Post by dminvs »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #422
999900000999 wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does QAing Dishwasher firmware sound fun to you ? Even if you imagine software development to be generally fun, even the mundane, the rest of the workflow can be God awful boring. While Communism is a cool idea , it never works since you need incentives to motivate people.

Funny you say that because the most popular 3D printer firmwares are open source. Does QA’ing 3D printer firmware sound fun to you? No? Great well you don’t have to do that someone else is literally doing that right now because they thought it was fun. By the way this is a decent job for an apprentice under supervision. It’s a good way to learn with minimal risk and young people are often willing to do this kind of t…

printers can’t flood your kitchen

Re: A world where people pay for software

#428

Post by typon »

999900000999 wrote: post #417
ben0x539 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 200% convinced there are plenty of people out there who could easily be nerdsniped into building an open source dishwasher! Hackers get up to all kinds of stuff that doesn't seem traditionally fun!

Does QAing Dishwasher firmware sound fun to you ? Even if you imagine software development to be generally fun, even the mundane, the rest of the workflow can be God awful boring. While Communism is a cool idea , it never works since you need incentives to motivate people.

Working on a Word Processor, especially one that is mature and stable, sounds like the most boring, awful thing I could work on.

However, here are the list of release notes for LibreOffice: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/release-notes/

You can see man bugs were fixed in the latest release.

What may sound dreadful to you might be interesting for someone else.

While capitalism sounds nice in practice, it results in the destruction of the planet because the profit motive eats everything alive and leaves nothing behind for future generations.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#429

Post by mixmastamyk »

dbrueck wrote: post #370
mixmastamyk wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to think about. However, for that to be feasible I believe the draconian "copyright forever" laws would have to have never happened. I'm against paying rent to corporations to access the work of dead people on principle. Or past say, fifty years even if they lived.

I think I'm in the same boat as you, but can you articulate the 'why' behind that sentiment? (saying it's "on principle" could also be a way to not have to address that question, haha) As in, if someone created something and you derive value (utility, enjoyment, etc.) from it, what is the basis for at some point no longer providing compensation for that utility? FWIW, I haven't come up with a completely convincing an…

The main goal of copyright is to provide an incentive for the creator to continue creating. Permanent royalties are in direct opposition to that goal. If anything they’re an incentive to retire.

Then there’s public domain, which you alluded to.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#430

Post by patrec »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #384
patrec wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like an excellent idea that will work really well because it's incredibly well aligned with how humans actually function. I really wonder why no one else has thought of communism before.

, obviously. A couple remarks: Just because someone is proposing something for a small slice of society, doesn’t mean they intend to propose something similar for all of society. For instance, insisting on free schools, free (rail) roads, free health care, free water, and nationalised energy plants doesn’t mean they want to make everything free, or that they want to nationalise everything, or that they are nostalgic…

> Just because someone is proposing something for a small slice of society, doesn’t mean they intend to propose something similar for all of society

Yup, a "small slice of society" that's just proverbially eating the world.

> remember that as Thatcher was saying capitalism/neoliberalism was natural, she did "nudge" things along by having the army pay a visit to workers on strike.

Unfortunately things never happening at times gets in the way of me remembering them.

> Even communism isn’t a monolith. It took various forms, which failed for various reasons [...such as] direct outside interference

Similarly to how perpetual motion machines took various forms and failed for various reasons, including direct outside interference.

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