Open source does not imply open community • Hacker News Board

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#91

Post by jraph » Mon, May 04, 2026, 8:11 AM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #71

JimDabell wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re getting open source and free software mixed up. As I said, Open Source was a reformulation of Free Software to make it more business-friendly. Free Software is fundamentally a moral stance (it is wrong to prevent sharing); Open Source is fundamentally a pragmatic stance (building software is better when it is publicly collaborative).

that's an interesting point. how important was user participation in the development of software for RMS? he wanted to be able to share his modifications with anyone. presumably that includes upstream. so even if not said explicitly, i'd argue that collaboration was implied.

Not really. RMS wanted to guarantee user freedom, first and foremost.

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#92

Post by sshine » Mon, May 04, 2026, 9:50 AM UTC

jolmg wrote: post #84

sillysaurusx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I laughed at “back when there were only 1’s and they had to forge about half of them into 0’s manually.” Stealing that one.

Weren't holes 1's? Were there machines where it was backwards?

This is the time before punchcard holes.

Those holes were forged from Auðumbla, the primeval cow, licking salt off a stone.

Before then there was only Ginnungagap, the primordial void (yes, it predates C89).

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#93

Post by zvr » Mon, May 04, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #7

Greybeard here... let me start by saying I like the cut of the author's jib. I'm old enough to have sat before the elders of the arpanet when there were only 1's and they had to forge about half of them into 0's manually. Another thing about the old ways of making software is projects were often written or maintained by one or two people at a time. The intarwebs at large had their email addresses and mailed them bug…

I concur completely. Back in those days, the very basic stuff you mention (awk, sed, make) were being built by a handful of people, all sitting together, and the few outsiders who were submitting enhancements (even before these were called "patches") knew the email addresses to send these to. For Sendmail, you should contact the people at Berkeley, for most of the others you sent to Bell Labs.

Then software started appearing from other points. We were getting new versions of software after email announcements -- and later on, on comp.sources.unix -- and we were reading the comments to see that other people were contributing, too.

The way you publish your software (especially today) essentially boils down to how much you are looking for contributors vs. users (vs. no one at all).

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#94

Post by OhMeadhbh » Mon, May 04, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

sshine wrote: post #92

jolmg wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't holes 1's? Were there machines where it was backwards?

This is the time before punchcard holes. Those holes were forged from Auðumbla, the primeval cow, licking salt off a stone. Before then there was only Ginnungagap, the primordial void (yes, it predates C89).

But it does not predate COBOL ;)