is it not possible to have a licence that says if you want to use this code to sell a service for a profit you must contact the owner and negociate a deal? this way if you are developing in the open source bubble you get to use software for free. if you want to build a service you get to test the software for free and if your company takes off then you must pay for your foundation.
“Open source” is not broken
171–180 of 259 posts
Re: “Open source” is not broken
#172>If FOSS was broken, the internet as we know it today wouldn’t exist; the countless marvels of technology that we take for granted and techno-economies that thrive on them wouldn’t exist; I guess I just vehemently disagree. Nearly all of the early open-source software that made the internet possible was produced in universities. The only reason it was sustainable was because it was professors being paid by the univer…
In rebuttal I'll paraphrase a little from Paul Ramsey (maintainer of 20-year open source project PostGIS)[0] His basic view is that Open Source is the dominant model today, but tension comes as very little of the value produced comes back to the community that creates this value. He argues this will always be 'the bare minimum' by virtue of economics, but that if something important slows down too much someone will p…
This personally rings true for me. My company is getting literally billions of dollars worth of value from a couple of applications (one of which I created and maintain) built upon the foundation of Postgres and PostGIS. And we benefit immensely from active development of it: PostGIS version 3.1 released a new more efficient overlay algorithm which probably saves us $5k a year in compute costs alone, and untold thousands with the ability to deprecate a hacked house of cards that was ready to crumble.
And yet every time I have mentioned to my management that it would be great if we could take 1% of our consulting budget and funnel it towards PostGIS, they respond almost bewildered...why willingly pay for something that we already get for free? It's frustrating and I have no idea how to remedy it.
Re: “Open source” is not broken
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The irony of bashing open source... This is literally the 'yet you participate in society' argument.
No, this is a falacy. As a living being you don't really stand any chance of not participating in society in some way or another. However the author has the following options: - pay for proprietary stack of technology to publish their website - pay for the open source software they are using (donate) - not do any websites and publish their opinion on other social media or even physical print. Write a papper, print fl…
Is it even possible to completely avoid open source software nowadays though? Windows itself might not be completely open source but it has a bunch of open source components and/or is based on open source components (even the TCP/IP stack has its roots on BSD :-P). Even your CPU (especially Intel with its IME using Minix) and UEFI might have some open source code.
Perhaps if you find some 20 year old PC with an obscure proprietary operating system that has its own network stack you could do it. Though that "proprietary purity" will break down as soon as you step out of that PC box and connect it to a router or whatever since chances are it will run open source software and your purely proprietary signal will be contaminated way before reaching some end user's browser :-P
Re: “Open source” is not broken
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moltke seems more credible than Marx: “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.” http://connect2amc.com/118-strategic-planning-moltke-the-eld...
That citation appears as irrelevant completely to the topic. If you want more relevant citation then this: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" (C) Lao Tzu For that matter I would say that first major step to real FOSS was made in 1917. But it was too early and shouldn't that brutally enforced. Evolution is the only reasonable way to get anywhere in such complex systems. Relevant fact: all hardwa…
"That citation appears as irrelevant completely to the topic."
The point was, that marxism as a theory is only a plan - and that plan did not really worked out in reality so far.
And if you want to paint the USSR in a golden FOSS picture, well I would suggest talking with people who actually lived there and were not in a privileged party position. And it would be news to me, that the USSR published their tank, aircraft or rockets schematics.
Re: “Open source” is not broken
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
You want good documentation from an (ostensibly hypothetical) piece of open source software that you use. But you will neither pay for nor contribute better documentation. You see where the problem is, right? I'll give you a hint, it's not the developer...
No, it absolutely is the fault of the developer, both for poor practice of the craft and for contributing to a toxic, exploitative labor environment by giving away his work for free.
You don't have to use his project then.
Is someone release code because he liked to code but don't write any docs because that's boring, that's perfectly fine. No abuse there. The abuse is when you requests docs for free.
Re: “Open source” is not broken
#176>If FOSS was broken, the internet as we know it today wouldn’t exist; the countless marvels of technology that we take for granted and techno-economies that thrive on them wouldn’t exist; I guess I just vehemently disagree. Nearly all of the early open-source software that made the internet possible was produced in universities. The only reason it was sustainable was because it was professors being paid by the univer…
> …the only way I can foresee open source working in the way the purists want… Well the point of open source is it works however the person opening the work wants. There’s a license compatible with every philosophy out there. Take your pick. Open source isn’t broken because it can’t really break at all. For something to break it would have to have a concrete form to begin with.
Agreed. It's only broken if there were some ideal Utopian open source world that we were falling short of, where if only everyone can work out some issues, then that world will come into existence.
When people are growing up it's easy to get swept up in ideas like, "if only everyone saw things the way I did, everything would be perfect and so much better than it is right now".
There will always be lots of conflicting ideas about how software should be developed and distributed and so far none of them have proven so effective that all of the others have fallen by the wayside. IMO the best anyone can do is advocate for whatever makes the most sense to them, but not make the mistake of thinking that anyone has all the answers.
Re: “Open source” is not broken
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, this is a falacy. As a living being you don't really stand any chance of not participating in society in some way or another. However the author has the following options: - pay for proprietary stack of technology to publish their website - pay for the open source software they are using (donate) - not do any websites and publish their opinion on other social media or even physical print. Write a papper, print fl…
Is it even possible to completely avoid open source software nowadays though? Windows itself might not be completely open source but it has a bunch of open source components and/or is based on open source components (even the TCP/IP stack has its roots on BSD :-P). Even your CPU (especially Intel with its IME using Minix) and UEFI might have some open source code. Perhaps if you find some 20 year old PC with an obscu…
You're most likely right, but my argument has been misinterpreted in a classic fashion. I never implied that they should have used open source at all. I said that they used a bunch of open source software that I doubt they had ever paid for (even donating).
Re: “Open source” is not broken
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a lot of people who are very good at coding who don't care for high salaries. Despite mainstream pop being the most profitable, many musicians pursue niche genres.
This still doesn't make UBI relevant to this discussion. It's already fairly trivial for a talented SWE to make UBI-level income working 10 hours a week by picking up software contracts here and there. Eng already have access to the levels of income that UBI would provide, with plenty of time left over to dedicate to open source, and yet this path is relatively untrodden. Plenty of engineers (myself included) already…
> It's already fairly trivial for a talented SWE to make UBI-level income working 10 hours a week by picking up software contracts here and there.
What about less talented ones that can still contribute, but need to work 20 hours a week? Or 30 hours a week? Or gasp 40 hours a week?
> Eng already have access to the levels of income that UBI would provide, with plenty of time left over
No. There isn't plenty of time left over. Moreover, why wouldn't I want to work on something full time, and not in my "left over time"?
> Plenty of engineers
Which means: not even the majority of engineers.
> I don't see what UBI would materially contribute to this dynamic.
"I don't see how giving all engineers, and not some percent of engineers, the option to pursue projects they like would materially contribute to this dynamic".
Do also read this short article, "Software below the poverty line", https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html
Re: “Open source” is not broken
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a lot of people who are very good at coding who don't care for high salaries. Despite mainstream pop being the most profitable, many musicians pursue niche genres.
This still doesn't make UBI relevant to this discussion. It's already fairly trivial for a talented SWE to make UBI-level income working 10 hours a week by picking up software contracts here and there. Eng already have access to the levels of income that UBI would provide, with plenty of time left over to dedicate to open source, and yet this path is relatively untrodden. Plenty of engineers (myself included) already…
If picking up software contracts here and there is consistent enough for you to count on then it's either already a full time job or the end result of years of networking and experience.
UBI would let people devoted to a subject pursue only that.
Re: “Open source” is not broken
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
That citation appears as irrelevant completely to the topic. If you want more relevant citation then this: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" (C) Lao Tzu For that matter I would say that first major step to real FOSS was made in 1917. But it was too early and shouldn't that brutally enforced. Evolution is the only reasonable way to get anywhere in such complex systems. Relevant fact: all hardwa…
"That citation appears as irrelevant completely to the topic." The point was, that marxism as a theory is only a plan - and that plan did not really worked out in reality so far. And if you want to paint the USSR in a golden FOSS picture, well I would suggest talking with people who actually lived there and were not in a privileged party position. And it would be news to me, that the USSR published their tank, aircra…
> USSR in a golden FOSS picture
I do not have such intention. I just wanted to point out particular fact.
> I would suggest talking with people who actually lived there
I do that every day. With myself.
> privileged party position
That's definitely not about myself.
> the USSR published their tank, aircraft or rockets schematics.
I had a rank of Lieutenant (Reserve) of Strategic Forces of USSR and specialty "Control Systems of Ballistic Missiles".
Trust me, end users of these devices had full schematics :)