3 ms·

In the old days, big companies spent gazillions to buy companies when they wanted to add their software to their product lineup. Amazon just takes it regards o

In the old days, big companies spent gazillions to buy companies when they wanted to add their software to their product lineup. Amazon just takes it regards of whether or not the original developer is happy or hostile. This is going to redefine open source.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
e1ven 8y ago
I don't get it - How is this different than Oracle forking RHEL or any number of other times this has happened?
- berbec 8y ago
  Yup. Lost of successful companies are "forks". Ubuntu & Debian. Pfsense & freebsd. Linux & SCO Group.
  - sjansen 8y ago
    > Linux & SCO Group There are still people who believe this? Or did you forget to add </sarcasm>?
    - berbec 8y ago
      I figured saying this on HN would have the </sarcasm> taken as given :)
whoisjuan 8y ago
I don't understand this rationale. So it's Open Source for everyone, but not for Amazon because is Amazon, so fuck Amazon? You can't have it both ways. That defeats the whole purpose of FOSS.
- anth_anm 8y ago
  Then maybe FOSS was a mistake.
  - analognoise 8y ago
    FOSS is a huge mistake, and has been for years; it's the fumbling combination of starry-eyed Utopian visions and faux-community applied to code, with no feedback loop from reality. Good software is paid for, by someone. The divorce from reality comes in when people realize that Big-Co (in this case Amazon) is actually abiding by the license - what should cause zero cognitive dissonance is instead reverberating against the ideals that FOSS never "grew up" to encompass. The dream of the WWW is dying, computers are truly no more "free" than they've ever been - but they're so much cheaper that we don't really care, or even notice. A few will notice the disconnect, but cannot work together to solve it - they're too busy polishing whatever "freedom" Totem stands in its place, oblivious to the foundation built on sand; ironic, given sand's place in semiconductors.
    - paulcarroty 8y ago
      > FOSS is a huge mistake, and has been for years; Stupid conclusion. Without FOSS you're forced to pay $99.99 for text editor and email client, and it's just beginning. Open collaborations works IRL, not only in your "utopical dreams".
      - analognoise 8y ago
        Most used email client: Gmail. Freedom: 0, and you are the product. Notepad, originally released in 1983, free as in beer since Windows 1.0 in 1985. I'd rather pay for a text editor and email client than be the product. Open collaboration is a joke - it's always a very small group of highly technical people, paid by someone, only useful if it can be funded as a loss leader for some other part of the business. The ideological foundations are untenable at best as very little of the actual requirements of computing (graphics cards, processors, ethernet PHYs, etc) are in any way "free" - this is what I meant by people stroking their Freedom Totem, and why the whole thing is built on sand, and that computers are too cheap for them to notice. People focus on whatever their pet project is, rather than band together to actually FREE (as in freedom) computing. We all gave up well before the Freedom dream was achieved, and in its place we got free text editors, email clients, and a surveillance based web. It's depressing.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

e1ven 8y ago

I don't get it - How is this different than Oracle forking RHEL or any number of other times this has happened?

berbec 8y ago
Yup. Lost of successful companies are "forks". Ubuntu & Debian. Pfsense & freebsd. Linux & SCO Group.
- sjansen 8y ago
  > Linux & SCO Group There are still people who believe this? Or did you forget to add </sarcasm>?
  - berbec 8y ago
    I figured saying this on HN would have the </sarcasm> taken as given :)

whoisjuan 8y ago

I don't understand this rationale. So it's Open Source for everyone, but not for Amazon because is Amazon, so fuck Amazon? You can't have it both ways. That defeats the whole purpose of FOSS.

anth_anm 8y ago
Then maybe FOSS was a mistake.
- analognoise 8y ago
  FOSS is a huge mistake, and has been for years; it's the fumbling combination of starry-eyed Utopian visions and faux-community applied to code, with no feedback loop from reality. Good software is paid for, by someone. The divorce from reality comes in when people realize that Big-Co (in this case Amazon) is actually abiding by the license - what should cause zero cognitive dissonance is instead reverberating against the ideals that FOSS never "grew up" to encompass. The dream of the WWW is dying, computers are truly no more "free" than they've ever been - but they're so much cheaper that we don't really care, or even notice. A few will notice the disconnect, but cannot work together to solve it - they're too busy polishing whatever "freedom" Totem stands in its place, oblivious to the foundation built on sand; ironic, given sand's place in semiconductors.
  - paulcarroty 8y ago
    > FOSS is a huge mistake, and has been for years; Stupid conclusion. Without FOSS you're forced to pay $99.99 for text editor and email client, and it's just beginning. Open collaborations works IRL, not only in your "utopical dreams".
    - analognoise 8y ago
      Most used email client: Gmail. Freedom: 0, and you are the product. Notepad, originally released in 1983, free as in beer since Windows 1.0 in 1985. I'd rather pay for a text editor and email client than be the product. Open collaboration is a joke - it's always a very small group of highly technical people, paid by someone, only useful if it can be funded as a loss leader for some other part of the business. The ideological foundations are untenable at best as very little of the actual requirements of computing (graphics cards, processors, ethernet PHYs, etc) are in any way "free" - this is what I meant by people stroking their Freedom Totem, and why the whole thing is built on sand, and that computers are too cheap for them to notice. People focus on whatever their pet project is, rather than band together to actually FREE (as in freedom) computing. We all gave up well before the Freedom dream was achieved, and in its place we got free text editors, email clients, and a surveillance based web. It's depressing.