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“Open source” is not broken

nadh.in

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Re: “Open source” is not broken

#191

Post by jrm4 »

tw04 wrote: post #72

>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…

You're simply wrong in a way I can't succinctly summarize historically; you really have to get to know the spirit of the people who made this stuff. But FOSS is the difference between the VERY free and open (at least optionally, if not in practice, but like, basically anyone can put up a website and do anything on it) internet we have vs. what would have happened, which probably would have been slight incremental improvements in phone and TV. More" on demand," but damn sure no Youtube.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#192

Post by megous »

xchaotic wrote: post #141
megous wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all sounds like project specific issues. A lot of FOSS projects are exceptionally well documented. The same with the attitude, some are wrose, some better. It doesn't seem like this is specific to FOSS licensing.

I work with a company that contributes to some open source but most of the code is closed-source. I feel that the reason many enterprises pay for the software is that when there's an exotic bug that only happens with LDAP with a certain cypher being used, they know it will get fixed (because it's funded by support/maintenance fees). While there may be exceptions, I just don't see OSS contributors going out of their w…

Point of FOSS is that you can fix exotic issues yourself, at your timeline and perhaps share your fixes with the original project, if you also want other people to distrute the fix for you via some standard Linux distro.

That's the main freedom you get from FOSS. FOSS != free support. It's empowering.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#193

Post by mcguire »

As an anecdote, all of my work on open source (and I've been working on and with open source software for the better part of 30 years) has been because I had something that needed to be done and writing, adapting, or fixing open source packages was the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way of doing that.

My employers paid me to get things done, not to write software. Writing, adapting, or fixing software is the means, not the end.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#194

Post by watwut »

jodrellblank wrote: post #110
KronisLV wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: another person pointed out that the actual comment sounds like an ad hominem, which i do not condone. However, some of the phrasing made me think, hence the question (more clarification below). > The irony of bashing open source on a website using systems/code/infra containing thousands of open source lines of code which I am sure they haven't paid for... has probably escaped their attention. Hey, what are your…

> Hey, what are your thoughts on the OP's argument, though? An ad-hom insult doesn't make an argument. OP isn't bashing open source, OP is bashing for-profit companies using it without contributing as an overall system, and OP's website isn't a for-profit company, so even the "OP is a dumb hypocrite" isn't only an insult, it's also wrong. > " There is no obligation or anything to encourage anyone to donate to the aut…

> no really, I encourage everyone to make and use free software (but you should FEEL BAD if you do what I encourage

100% this. I remember how open source advocates were literally pushing everyone who would listen to use and trust open source. Literally arguing by free too. Now, the people want to twist it into "and if you got convinced and use it you are asshole freeloader".

Well then, maybe it should have been private licensed software of that is what you want. Which I'd actually fine by me.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#195

Post by jrm4 »

The thing is, the answers for this are all here and old. I'm just kind of waiting for people to figure it out.

If you're creating cool stuff and giving it away, great! No obligation.

If, however, you're creating a paid product or service -- there already exists a ton of law and precedent and ideas about obligations. We just need to remember these and start using them again.

These ideas and law generally point to: If you put a product out there, and make claims about what it can and cannot do (either explicitly or implicitly) then you must be held responsible for the harm if people reasonably rely on it and you screw up. That's it. That's the entirety of it.

FOSS is one of your inputs, could be seen as something like gasoline or trucks or whatever. It's your job as a company to handle those safely and make sure they don't goop out and cause harm, and if you don't get this right, you should be sued.

Edit -- and of course, sometimes the companies are too slow to make this happen and so we need regulation. We perhaps need an EPA or FDA for software.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#196

Post by jt2190 »

nixpulvis wrote: post #60
jt2190 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I typically don't include [a license]… This would be UNLICENSED or NONE then. Unlicensed software can’t be used for too many things, since it’s encumbered by copyright restrictions. (The author’s right to create copies is, in the U.S. at least, implicit , meaning that the simple act of creating a work is enough to have the “copyright” for it.) There is The Unlicense [1] that explicitly transfers copyright to the Pu…

What about the whole concept of Copyleft? Which is something that seemed interesting to me but I never really understood the full implications of.

With “Copyleft” licenses the license terms automatically apply to derivative works. So if you fix a bug in some GPL licensed code, that bug fix is also licensed under the GPL terms. The “deal” is essentially “everyone benefits from everyone’s work.”

The difficult part is enforcement: How can we even know if a user has made a modification?

The older licenses assume that a user can’t really get more than personal benefit from a modification unless they “distribute” a copy of the modified software to someone else. Clearly the recipient of a copy of commercial software can look and see if any Copyleft code was included.

With the rise of software-as-a-service, however, the modified copy never leaves the user’s computers. This seems like it violates the spirit of “everyone benefits from everyone’s work”. This is one of the issues new Open Source licenses are trying to address.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#197

Post by mraza007 »

I have huge respect for Open Source Devs.

Developer Ecosystem wouldn’t be same without them. I truly appreciate their efforts to make amazing software in there free time and it means a lot to me.

As a developer I owe a lot to open source thats why If I can’t contribute to their software I always try to personally thank them when using their software.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#198

Post by smitty1e »

c-smile wrote: post #167
smitty1e wrote: post #145

Earlier 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…

"The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than in theory."--Herb Sutter in C++ User's Journal

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#199

Post by berkeley39 »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #182
berkeley39 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For some types of software, we really do not want students doing it, for free or otherwise. There are whole classes of software, like database engines , that are non-obvious and require many years of real-world domain experience before it is plausible that someone will design a competent, scalable architecture and implementation. Of course as with all things the situation is more nuanced than this. Since you mentio…

Database development has changed quite a lot since then. When I first started working on databases in the 1990s, two things were true that made it much easier for relatively inexperienced developers (like myself at the time) to produce a reasonably good result. First, the state-of-the-art implementations at the time were incredibly well-documented in an accessible way and the academic literature also reflected those…

Regarding your points

  * First, state-of-the-art was accessible and well-documented with designs reflected in academic literature.
  * Second, implementations were relatively simple and straightforward.
  * Neither of these is true today.
Again the situation is more nuanced than this. Before the web systems were expensive, resources were scarce and connections to research were critical. Now anyone with time and a laptop can watch youtube lectures, read recent research, clone a repo and join the party. Different things are hard now. Such is the way of competition. Hardware and economic trends move the state-of-the-art quickly. Ideas offering competitive advantage are rarely documented to the degree one may like. But they do find their way to entrepreneurial practitioners and students. Their time, energy, attention and motivation builds new and better systems and we should welcome their efforts when they advance open-source projects.

> I'm not sure I'd be able to bootstrap the necessary expertise to build database engines today like I did back then.

Don't sell yourself short :-)

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#200

Post by durovo »

c-smile wrote: post #124
tw04 wrote: post #72

>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 is if there is a universal basic income. Essentially honest FOSS will be available when we evolve to "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"[1] type of society. Human race is clearly on asymptotical track to that. But not yet. [1] (C) 1875, Karl Marx.

But each according to their needs in the end devolves into each according to their abilities. There was never a need for computers, there was never a need for the internet. I would say that it is tough to say whether there is any need for a person to live. On the other hand if you let people define their own needs, you end up with the scenario where one needs 1 billion dollars.
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