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I feel like FOSS is growing/winning for developers and shrinking/losing for users. FOSS is used a lot by the major SaaS companies to deliver their solutions, b

I feel like FOSS is growing/winning for developers and shrinking/losing for users. FOSS is used a lot by the major SaaS companies to deliver their solutions, but none of their solutions are themselves FOSS. For example: Google search, Google email (I mean why not?) Facebook E-bay Amazon SalesForce LinkedIN All of these companies now believe in Open Source for developers, and not for users. And I think that division has firmed up over time, a new generation of Web-centric developers have come through. Challenger app developers are highly in favour of FOSS for infrastructure, but I don't think they even consider it for the application [0]. For example, Asana, <and a bunch of stuff I don't use> If anything, I think the steady move towards apps/closed-gardens is a big risk to FOSS as a vision for users, though the vision for developers continues to grow. [0] what everyone is doing may well be rational from their perspective, we've learnt since the 90's that open source is a development methodology not a business model.

andrewmcwatters 10y ago
> I feel like FOSS is growing/winning for developers and shrinking/losing for users. I think this is the top highlight of the thread. If software can become free, businesses will use it as leverage to obtain greater margins.
rekado 10y ago
This is why I find it important to use AGPL3+ for my code. We need more developers who are committed to user freedom and who work not only on free software but specifically software with a strong copyleft.
- serge2k 10y ago
  Yeah but the FOSS guys decided it would be too hard on companies to make the AGPL provisions part of the GPLv3. I think that makes them hypocrites, but oh well.
akvadrako 10y ago
I feel that the direction things are moving, those two categories of software will eventually be the same thing. FOSS was most prominent at the bottom of the stack, first kernels, then major libraries, then UI engines, toolkits, game engines and so on. Once open source reaches the level of web-app, the users will be directly interacting with a program that's open source from top to bottom. The things on top of that are data, content, support and other things businesses add. Maybe next those will be become open too. Or maybe a new layer of proprietary solutions will emerge above the current stack (VR?), and open source will scramble to catch up.
stinkytaco 10y ago
And this is because the experience for users is no longer in the software. Whether I use Firefox or IE matters little when what I actually want is Google Maps and the massive amount of information it provides me. The FSF needs to shift from free software to focusing on "free (as in freedom) service". Cloud services that respect your freedom and privacy. I don't know how that world would look, but I suspect it will involve heavy government regulation of things like data protection processes and data usage restrictions.

andrewmcwatters 10y ago

> I feel like FOSS is growing/winning for developers and shrinking/losing for users. I think this is the top highlight of the thread. If software can become free, businesses will use it as leverage to obtain greater margins.

rekado 10y ago

This is why I find it important to use AGPL3+ for my code. We need more developers who are committed to user freedom and who work not only on free software but specifically software with a strong copyleft.

serge2k 10y ago
Yeah but the FOSS guys decided it would be too hard on companies to make the AGPL provisions part of the GPLv3. I think that makes them hypocrites, but oh well.

akvadrako 10y ago

I feel that the direction things are moving, those two categories of software will eventually be the same thing. FOSS was most prominent at the bottom of the stack, first kernels, then major libraries, then UI engines, toolkits, game engines and so on. Once open source reaches the level of web-app, the users will be directly interacting with a program that's open source from top to bottom. The things on top of that are data, content, support and other things businesses add. Maybe next those will be become open too. Or maybe a new layer of proprietary solutions will emerge above the current stack (VR?), and open source will scramble to catch up.

stinkytaco 10y ago

And this is because the experience for users is no longer in the software. Whether I use Firefox or IE matters little when what I actually want is Google Maps and the massive amount of information it provides me. The FSF needs to shift from free software to focusing on "free (as in freedom) service". Cloud services that respect your freedom and privacy. I don't know how that world would look, but I suspect it will involve heavy government regulation of things like data protection processes and data usage restrictions.