Professional maintainers: a wake-up call • Hacker News Board

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#461

Post by MadcapJake » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

mbrodersen wrote: post #345

MadcapJake wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs me $0 to walk to work but i pay for transportation because it gets me there faster and more comfortably. You just are looking at cost too narrowly.

I don't understand your argument at all. Companies and people in general only pay for things they have to pay for. So if you ask for $0 that is exactly what they will pay. It is not a difficult point I am making.

You're making a simple point when this is a complex issue. Software costs more than just the price tag on the box.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#462

Post by MadcapJake » Wed, Dec 15, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

mbrodersen wrote: post #345

MadcapJake wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs me $0 to walk to work but i pay for transportation because it gets me there faster and more comfortably. You just are looking at cost too narrowly.

I don't understand your argument at all. Companies and people in general only pay for things they have to pay for. So if you ask for $0 that is exactly what they will pay. It is not a difficult point I am making.

Let's assume that I did decide to walk to work for $0. Even though the cost is free, I may have to pay for better walking shoes. Additionally, I may have to buy a umbrella to prevent getting rained on. I also may want to think about the safety and security of the streets that I walk down. And lastly, I may after some time walking, have a foot/leg injury that requires either medical attention or physical therapy. My point is that even though the cost was $0 up-front there is additional costs that show up because of my prior decision to walk. These indirect/future costs need to be considered especially as a business deciding to utilize OSS for some operational need.

In a way, you should evaluate each OSS tool/library as if it was a business which further corroborates the blog post's point.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#463

Post by alsetmusic » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 3:00 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #415

mbrodersen wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you are saying. Groups cooperate internally and go to war with other groups externally. However that has nothing to do with my point. I am basically making an economic statement about how modern companies work.

No, you made a claim about "how humans function" over "millions of years of evolution". I guess you're abandoning that claim now? If so, maybe do it honestly.

> I guess you're abandoning that claim now? If so, maybe do it honestly.

This is unnecessarily aggressive. Also, it’s not fun reading a thread dominated by one or more people who are combative.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#464

Post by webmaven » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 7:28 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #377

webmaven wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is like that, because economic system is designed to work that way. "Designed" is probably putting it too strongly. But however you characterize the process that got it that way, people did it, and people can change it with enough effort. In fact it is constantly changing, and each of us can decide the direction we are going to push it, and how hard. "And friends, they may thinks it's a movement." — Arlo Guthrie…

There were economists articles literally claiming this is good and pushing for reforms to that effect. Neoliberslism is literally theory that claims the companies should seek profit and only profit and then everything else will be good. They got their reforms, so yes it was designed.

You can certainly make the case that the proposed reforms were designed, but to claim that for the economy as a whole would require that all such proposals were adopted with no changes, and that no changes to the economy that weren't in those proposals happened.

The neoliberal faction certainly has had an outsized influence (funny how proposals that the 0.1% want done end up getting a lot of positive attention more often than not), but even so, the economy as a whole is the result of a lot of political compromise and dealmaking, not to mention undirected evolution.