3 ms·

If we think of open source as an ideology that drove people to plant trees and tend them so that users get fruits for free at a time when fruits are only commer

by throw2016 8y ago

If we think of open source as an ideology that drove people to plant trees and tend them so that users get fruits for free at a time when fruits are only commercially available then the point becomes a bit more complicated. We now have a cottage industry of people who harvest the fruits and sell them so end users don't have to pick them themselves and also others who use the free fruits to manufacture and sell milkshakes at higher margins than if they would have to grow their own fruits or buy them. The relationship with end users and ideology is broken as is the pipeline of new contributors as end users do not anymore see the value and ideas that drove the initial plantations as they deal with fruit pickers and milkshake makers. At this point open source loses its reason to exist and the people still planting and offering fruits for free will inevitably question what they are doing if they are only enabling third party businesses, but inertia means they will continue as that's their life work. But there is unlikely to be a second generation after them so that's the end of the movement. The story here is the commercial interests have cut the branch on which they and everyone else sit. For them it doesn't matter its just money not ideology and they will find ways to profit but the loss is to end users. So for open source to be meaningful its has to think carefully about how it will interact with commercial interests as mix and match will kill it in a generation.

jchw 8y ago
I hope nobody takes strong offense to this, but I don't really care for the hippie-esque philosophical reasoning behind open source. My own open source contributions are probably weak compared to many here, but I've been at least involved in a fair few open source projects since quite a young age. Bottom line: I don't use open source because it makes me feel good, I use it because it's better. Linux is the canonical example. It gets contributions from everyone. Why? Well, I'm no expert, but it looks like it's because everyone wants to benefit from the latest changes, and the easiest way to do that is if everyone commits. Diverging forks are expensive, and get less peer review. Open Source is a weird beast inside capitalism; it's this common ground between a bunch of varied corporations and a pool of random users. The fact that this amazing piece of infrastructure is just available and constantly maintained by its own users is more amazing than any rant about software freedom I've ever read. Best of luck to all the FOSS developers trying to put food on the table through their open source work, I really do wish them the best, but let's at least be fair; traditional open source projects are doing great. Better than ever, imo. Whether it's desktop apps like Krita and Blender, infrastructure like the Linux kernel, web frameworks, programming languages, virtual machines...
ummonk 8y ago
This fruits analogy is really good!
est31 8y ago
There are free milkshake plants, it's the distros. The distributors take all of the open source projects, combine them, root out the bad fruits (DFSG non-compliant, etc.), and offer it to everyone for free. I don't have to pick my fruit from the AOSP tree and build my own image. I can just go to Lineage OS and get prebuilt images for a multitude of phones. These projects of course only reach a minority of people: Lineage OS has about 2 million users, while the entire Android market has > 2 billions. But they exist. The free milkshakes set a minimum bar that every milkshake plant has to meet. Another thing to consider is the aspect of tree tending. If you are a professional tree planter who has worked at a tree plantation with a big wall around it, once you left, you won't be able to point at the tree any more and say "look, I planted it". E.g. when trying to get hired at another tree plantation. The only thing left of your own creation would be the diminishing memories you had of the tree growing, having its first leaves, first real bark, etc. Maybe your company won't like your tree for some reason and burn it. If it's outside, it can't be logged. If the company pays you to tend the tree, if they fire you you will still be able to tend it at a different company. Red Hat or Sun can be bought but the trees were outside of the walls, so the damages to the community were comparatively minor.

jchw 8y ago

I hope nobody takes strong offense to this, but I don't really care for the hippie-esque philosophical reasoning behind open source. My own open source contributions are probably weak compared to many here, but I've been at least involved in a fair few open source projects since quite a young age. Bottom line: I don't use open source because it makes me feel good, I use it because it's better. Linux is the canonical example. It gets contributions from everyone. Why? Well, I'm no expert, but it looks like it's because everyone wants to benefit from the latest changes, and the easiest way to do that is if everyone commits. Diverging forks are expensive, and get less peer review. Open Source is a weird beast inside capitalism; it's this common ground between a bunch of varied corporations and a pool of random users. The fact that this amazing piece of infrastructure is just available and constantly maintained by its own users is more amazing than any rant about software freedom I've ever read. Best of luck to all the FOSS developers trying to put food on the table through their open source work, I really do wish them the best, but let's at least be fair; traditional open source projects are doing great. Better than ever, imo. Whether it's desktop apps like Krita and Blender, infrastructure like the Linux kernel, web frameworks, programming languages, virtual machines...

ummonk 8y ago

This fruits analogy is really good!

est31 8y ago

There are free milkshake plants, it's the distros. The distributors take all of the open source projects, combine them, root out the bad fruits (DFSG non-compliant, etc.), and offer it to everyone for free. I don't have to pick my fruit from the AOSP tree and build my own image. I can just go to Lineage OS and get prebuilt images for a multitude of phones. These projects of course only reach a minority of people: Lineage OS has about 2 million users, while the entire Android market has > 2 billions. But they exist. The free milkshakes set a minimum bar that every milkshake plant has to meet. Another thing to consider is the aspect of tree tending. If you are a professional tree planter who has worked at a tree plantation with a big wall around it, once you left, you won't be able to point at the tree any more and say "look, I planted it". E.g. when trying to get hired at another tree plantation. The only thing left of your own creation would be the diminishing memories you had of the tree growing, having its first leaves, first real bark, etc. Maybe your company won't like your tree for some reason and burn it. If it's outside, it can't be logged. If the company pays you to tend the tree, if they fire you you will still be able to tend it at a different company. Red Hat or Sun can be bought but the trees were outside of the walls, so the damages to the community were comparatively minor.