141–150 of 413 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the current state of birth rates is that even a normal state for most developers how many developers have children or even desire children
Not RMS! http://www.art.net/studios/hackers/hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-d...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know that's not how central planning worked, right? You were told to live in a specific place, with a few (narrow) options on where to work at (unless you were (un)specialised, then there was sometimes zero choice), for meagre but sufficient compensation. You could have a place to live, food to eat. The place to live might be a room in an apartment shared with other families, the food to eat might be bread with b…
And by everyone you of course mean everyone that wasn't arrested because he thought maybe bread with bread and a shared appartment is kinda shitty.
The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable. If someone releases code then that's it. You have it. Do what you want with it (within it's licence). Be thankful. Unless that guy specifically says he's going to maintain it for free you are entitled to exactly absolutely nothing more you ungrateful little git. If you add this code to your project, you should fix and share any problems you e…
Imagine visiting a coffee shop and telling the barista: "hey, by the way, I can make my own coffee at home for free, you know?"
People seem somehow OK with thinking this way when it comes to software.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people. One reason is that you're being told that that's an awful thing to do by basically every resource on "proper open-source" you can find. Another is that these people are pretty good at starting shit storms trying to ruin your reputation if you don't comply with their unreasonable demands. It's also worth nothing that some requests/issues/questi…
> Another is that these people are pretty good at starting shit storms trying to ruin your reputation if you don't comply with their unreasonable demands. If you go on social media and offer your well-thought-out opinions about some controversial subject, you are very likely to get large number of people sending you offensive messages, arguing with you objectionably, trying to start pile-ons, attempting to dox you, e…
For instance, I think it would be awesome if everyone sending an email to my main account had to send me $1. If what they are sending me isn't worth $1 to them, why should I get a buzz on my phone? Spam would be solved instantly.
I certainly don't think that every corner of the internet should be pay-to-play, and I generally don't think that the fees should be substantial to users participating in good faith. But I've got about five emails in the past two days from an airline bugging me to upgrade my seat. It costs me time and attention to weed through my inbox.
I'm sure this principle could be applied to sites like HN or reddit to raise the bar and put even just a little bit of skin in the game.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It still beats having a central planner from the politburo tell you to work in the mines for zero compensation.
You know that's not how central planning worked, right? You were told to live in a specific place, with a few (narrow) options on where to work at (unless you were (un)specialised, then there was sometimes zero choice), for meagre but sufficient compensation. You could have a place to live, food to eat. The place to live might be a room in an apartment shared with other families, the food to eat might be bread with b…
This isn't the choice. Socialism (actual socialism) repeatedly starves its populations. Capitalism repeatedly creates situations where new things are created that make everyone's lives better, and existing things get cheaper and better over time.
I.e. you can't just ignore the opportunity cost of innovation and prioritisation via a decentralised market. An innovation-focused dichotomy is: should we spend lots of effort trying to precisely spread around what we have today, while still having a privileged class based on politics, or should we encourage people to do things that raises the floor and the ceiling for everyone, and have a privileged class based on value they created?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do companies use open source because it's free? Cost may be a component. But not the only component, and cost doesn't have to be binary. You can charge and still be less than the alternatives.
The main benefit of using open source in a corporate environment is that there is usually zero paperwork involved. As long as the licence is approved, have at it! As soon as you pay money for something, either a fee or a donation, you've got to email someone. Almost certainly someone outside your team. Companies don't make decisions on individual OSS dependencies. Individual engineers and engineering teams do. That's…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just look around forums and socials like Reddit. I see people bitching how OBS Studio doesn't work for them the exact way they want it while contributing nothing to the project almost daily. This happens less where the FOSS choice is a drop in a sea of established proprietary packages (FreeCAD, KiCad, Godot) but way way more when they have already established themselves as the popular pick (OBS Studio, Blender) so th…
> so they get flooded by less tech-savy, more casual users that don't really see the value of open source other than they don't pay for it this was solved 30 years ago by an important socio-technical invention called the FAQ, used together with a social convention of not elevating or rewarding vexatious messages.
It's a bit annoying as from an accounting point of view I'd rather they just invoiced me for a service.
As a similar sort of person, now on my second child, with the first now 4yo, my advice is this;
Focus on yourself and your family. Get that rest, when the baby is sleeping, get some sleep, it gets harder before it gets easier.
Presumably paternity has finished now, and your partner (again I'm going to make an assumption) may be able to do much of the heavy lifted on maternity, but that'll end; at that point you'll both be working, you'll both have a massive sleep deficit, and in all likelihood (in my experience) you'll have a ~1yo who doesn't sleep through the night yet.
There were times where it got really difficult for me, and the passion projects became a source of depression because family life just didn't allow them to happen. Different people work differently, but for me, it took a while for me to realise that my priorities have changed, looking after and enjoying my life and my family became passion projects of a significantly higher priority than anything I build in software or hardware. The time will come (I assume, too early yet) when my children can take part in those with me.
The projects people are using to keep their companies running, on the back of your work, without paying for it, fuck them, let them be someone else's problem for a while.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those two things are connected. People will spend $10 on a coffee drink at Starbucks without blinking. Suggest that they spend $10 on a piece of software and they’ll throw a fit and claim you are taking away their rights.
People will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on proprietary software. Most of those people won’t spend $100 on open source software.