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“Open source” is not broken

nadh.in

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Re: “Open source” is not broken

#91

Post by k__ »

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…

This.

OSS is broken, but I'd even go so far and say that most of software is, because money is often an after thought.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#92

Post by haukem »

sidlls wrote: post #32

Open source is most certainly broken, and not just due to the various financial, freedom and security issues these two articles focus on. My biggest peeve: documentation is often minimal (e.g. API docs only) or filled with useless toy examples that are effectively just rephrasing of API docs. The entire underpinning of free and open source software is silly: software in this context isn't an academic pursuit producin…

Writing documentation is boring, adding new features is more fun to do.

Someone working on open source to have fun is more likely to invest their time in more features instead of better documentation.

Here companies or users like you could step in and contribute better documentation or pay the original authors to improve the documentation.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#93

Post by rightbyte »

eminence32 wrote: post #71
progval wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't need the added burden of responding to issues and pull requests You don't have to. open sourcing does not mean putting it on Github with an open bug tracker, you could simply offer tarball downloads, mention you don't support it, and ignore any email about it.

Or host it on gitlab, which lets you entirely disable forking, merge requests, and the issue tracker

> disable forking

That seems mean?

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#94

Post by sneak »

progval wrote: post #68
sneak wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's free as in freedom then the first downloader to pay $1 can just mirror it and allow free downloads. Free as in freedom always necessarily denotes free as in beer as well. It's not an accident or side effect.

But the mirror may be less convenient. This works for OsmAnd+ for example: it's FOSS, free (as in beer) on FDroid, but costs 25$ on Google Play.

Yeah, the Blink ssh/mosh client for iOS is GPL3 but costs $19.99 in the App Store. I'm about to pay someone with a developer account a few hundred bucks just to publish a free renamed build of it to the App Store, because that's ridiculous.

https://blink.sh/

https://github.com/blinksh/blink

https://apps.apple.com/app/id1156707581

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#95

Post by kklisura »

The great thing about open source is that anyone can participate for free and for whatever reason: some for the feeling of giving back, some for creating something useful for others, some like it as challenge, some for the street cred., etc. and most people don't expect to be paid. The idea of paying for OS cannot exist in such environment until everyone is on board with that idea. If you create something and demand to be paid, someone will most definitely create something similar and release it for free.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#96

Post by secondcoming »

chasd00 wrote: post #84
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… 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.

This is great if you have the financial resources to find and legally pursue licence violators.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#97

Post by rdpintqogeogsaa »

loic-sharma wrote: post #43
sidlls wrote: post #32

Open source is most certainly broken, and not just due to the various financial, freedom and security issues these two articles focus on. My biggest peeve: documentation is often minimal (e.g. API docs only) or filled with useless toy examples that are effectively just rephrasing of API docs. The entire underpinning of free and open source software is silly: software in this context isn't an academic pursuit producin…

I agree with what you say, but FYI docs is one of the easiest yet most valuable thing a person can contribute. As a maintainer, I wish I had more feedback and contributions to the docs!

As someone who wrote large parts of the docs for a project: The reason that I imagine few people do it is because if you get involved with the documentation, you will be on the hook for tracking the library closely and keeping the documentation up to date; there will be an implicit, external pressure that the documentation continues working.

That becomes a lot of work very quickly, so I tend to only get involved in libraries that will quickly hit some kind of stable maintenance mode or in which I have personal stake and thus just need to polish up my own notes for how to get off the ground.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#98

Post by em-bee »

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…

universities are going to continue to exist and students will be attending them. what exactly suggests that this will not continue forever?

of course FOSS has always depended on people who had the resources to work on it. in the beginning this was only universities and as FOSS got more popular more funding sources appeared.

the problem that we are facing is not one of funding. there is plenty of funding available. the problem is a generational shift of that funding.

people who used to be able to afford working on FOSS no longer can because their life changed. they are no longer students, they have a family and so on.

FOSS development will continue. the fallacy is to believe that an individual contributor will always be able to keep contributing for the rest of their life. we need to acknowledge that unpaid FOSS contributions are limited to a few years of an individuals life. and after that they need to move on. and most do. those that didn't move on but continued contributing were those who managed to find additional funding sources.

the problem and the difficulty is that we get more and more software that is not new but needs to be maintained. most of those using their own funds will want to work on their own new software and not maintain someone elses.

so the questions is not how do we fund FOSS development, but rather how do we fund FOSS maintenance. that is the new thing that we didn't have to deal with a few decades ago

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#99

Post by ChrisLomont »

ren_engineer wrote: post #87
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…

>professors paid by the university universities were being paid by the military, who get their money from the taxpayers.

Far more private money went into open source than the military put it via professors. Almost of the big successful projects would be viable without significant private investment into them.

Re: “Open source” is not broken

#100

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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