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We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

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Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#211

Post by anonymou2 »

arctantwo wrote: post #206
scarface74 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those products that you mentioned that are free are backed and for all intents and purposes controlled by commercial backers? Would the community maintain any of them to a re al degree if the backing company abandoned then?

Does it matter? If VSCode gets canned, or WordPress gets ruined, why should I, the user using the software to make a blog, give a damn? If VSCode goes there's another one I can switch to. If WordPress goes there's five million other blogging platforms I can switch to. The format that the content (i.e., the configuration, settings, presentation, etc) may all be proprietary, but so what? I have absolutely no allegiance…

I, I, I, I, I, all I care, .... that's really the problem that we face.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#212

Post by em-bee »

kazinator wrote: post #16
saidajigumi wrote: post #13

– We collaborate inside proprietary environments Why is that? Why have users chosen those environments? Assume they are rational beings, and get at the heart of it. Ask: "How can we address the actual user needs while supporting our goals?" – Many Linux and FOSS geeks today use Linux only professionally Same answer as above. – We're not modeling our values WHY? (Hint: "the use of nonfree" is not, and has never been a…

> Why have users chosen those environments? Because they don't give a rat's ass about the freedom aspect of free software. If software A requires four clicks to do something, but B has a way to do it in 3, they are on B without a second thought. But in this case, those users are not just any old end users; the are actually supposed to be FOSS developers, so there is a heavy irony there. I think what is doing on is th…

good point on the "reluctant" FOSS developers. i see this a lot. big companies have teams that work on FOSS projects, but most of the people in those teams don't understand what the fuss is about. they come to FOSS events to promote their products and treat them no different than their proprietary ones.

the thing is, their leaders may actually understand FOSS and believe in it because they can see the benefits, but they don't understand that for the developers below them it is just another job.

i have argued that exact point in a company where i worked, telling the leaders that if they want to get the developers to make actual voluntary contributions and participate in the FOSS community the leaders need to set an example and actively motivate the developers to do so.

just assigning someone to work on a FOSS project is not enough to help that person to join the FOSS community. there are exceptions of course, where someone interacting with the community realizes that there is more to it and becomes drawn into it, but that's not the norm.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#213

Post by ahartmetz »

groby_b wrote: post #158
kibwen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's not as good as this other (proprietary) software, but it's free" won't cut it. Except that it has to cut it in order for a free software movement to exist, because otherwise free software is starved by a chicken-and-egg problem where developers don't use free software because it's inferior, and free software never improves because developers don't use it. In other words, being willing to use technically infer…

That argument is not holding any water. First, free software doesn't improve "because developers use it". It improves because developers work on it. Blaming the users for that problem is not helping at all, except with a vague sense of moral superiority. Second, people use tools (e.g. software) to achieve things. "Making the engine of free software run" is not on that list of things for the vast majority of people, s…

If you take care of your own interests in a more thoughtful way than "I want what works best and I want it now", Free Software looks much better. Short-term pragmatism can shoot you in the foot long-term. Lock-in and control are very real things.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#214

Post by ahartmetz »

arctantwo wrote: post #206
scarface74 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those products that you mentioned that are free are backed and for all intents and purposes controlled by commercial backers? Would the community maintain any of them to a re al degree if the backing company abandoned then?

Does it matter? If VSCode gets canned, or WordPress gets ruined, why should I, the user using the software to make a blog, give a damn? If VSCode goes there's another one I can switch to. If WordPress goes there's five million other blogging platforms I can switch to. The format that the content (i.e., the configuration, settings, presentation, etc) may all be proprietary, but so what? I have absolutely no allegiance…

By the way, IRC doesn't look like anything. It's a protocol. It looks like your client software.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#215

Post by pjmlp »

arctantwo wrote: post #206
scarface74 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those products that you mentioned that are free are backed and for all intents and purposes controlled by commercial backers? Would the community maintain any of them to a re al degree if the backing company abandoned then?

Does it matter? If VSCode gets canned, or WordPress gets ruined, why should I, the user using the software to make a blog, give a damn? If VSCode goes there's another one I can switch to. If WordPress goes there's five million other blogging platforms I can switch to. The format that the content (i.e., the configuration, settings, presentation, etc) may all be proprietary, but so what? I have absolutely no allegiance…

Yes it does, because someone has actually to do it and given how much FOSS developers get paid back from the community, we end up having lousy tooling, because it always gets implemented from scratch.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#216

Post by michaelmrose »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #203
michaelmrose wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a license that discourages any community participation result in a more polished experience? Got any examples?

Why do you think it discourages any community participation? It does put some restrictions regarding the license for modifications (it must be permissive, or CLA needs to be signed), but anyone can fork, maintain or share their copy. They just can't make money by selling it, without also paying to original authors. Which seems fair to me. Should contributors also be somehow compensated? Bigger ones, absolutely. How?…

There is interest in contributing to open source projects fake open source not so much.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#217

Post by detaro »

arctantwo wrote: post #206
scarface74 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those products that you mentioned that are free are backed and for all intents and purposes controlled by commercial backers? Would the community maintain any of them to a re al degree if the backing company abandoned then?

Does it matter? If VSCode gets canned, or WordPress gets ruined, why should I, the user using the software to make a blog, give a damn? If VSCode goes there's another one I can switch to. If WordPress goes there's five million other blogging platforms I can switch to. The format that the content (i.e., the configuration, settings, presentation, etc) may all be proprietary, but so what? I have absolutely no allegiance…

> If WordPress goes there's five million other blogging platforms I can switch to.

Have you done a full migration of a grown Wordpress blog to another system, without breaking stuff? It's not something you do on a weekend or two. Changing away from a tool that holds lots of data and configuration is expensive.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#218

Post by claudiawerner »

saidajigumi wrote: post #13

– We collaborate inside proprietary environments Why is that? Why have users chosen those environments? Assume they are rational beings, and get at the heart of it. Ask: "How can we address the actual user needs while supporting our goals?" – Many Linux and FOSS geeks today use Linux only professionally Same answer as above. – We're not modeling our values WHY? (Hint: "the use of nonfree" is not, and has never been a…

>Assume they are rational beings, and get at the heart of it.

Why? Why import the concept of homo oeconomicus into this discussion?

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#219

Post by raverbashing »

kazinator wrote: post #16
saidajigumi wrote: post #13

– We collaborate inside proprietary environments Why is that? Why have users chosen those environments? Assume they are rational beings, and get at the heart of it. Ask: "How can we address the actual user needs while supporting our goals?" – Many Linux and FOSS geeks today use Linux only professionally Same answer as above. – We're not modeling our values WHY? (Hint: "the use of nonfree" is not, and has never been a…

> Why have users chosen those environments? Because they don't give a rat's ass about the freedom aspect of free software. If software A requires four clicks to do something, but B has a way to do it in 3, they are on B without a second thought. But in this case, those users are not just any old end users; the are actually supposed to be FOSS developers, so there is a heavy irony there. I think what is doing on is th…

And that's why everything is continue to go downhill in the Free Software world

Because of the mentality that UX problems are just "the user being lazy"

IRC stopped in time. Linux desktop is a mess and have very weird ideas about UX (especially Gnome, they love making things "simple" by shipping a car with no gearbox but only one speed)

"Freedom" is a "cost/quality" like any other, some people might value it the most, some people might value it the least, but it is less important than other factors.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#220

Post by pjmlp »

acd wrote: post #47

A bug in GPL is that it allows SAAS Software as a service built on Open source software which means Software as a service can leech on open source software without contributing back. https://resources.whitesourcesoftware.com/blog-whitesource/t... Using AGPL instead of GPL closes the Saas loop hole. Also due to close to zero bank interest rates the general availability of venture capital is to some extent stopping new…

True, but that is what has driven most business to ignore most GPL libraries and drive back to glory days of PD/Freeware/Shareware, just with the source code for basic funcionality as the modern demo version, instead of the old time limited one.
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