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It seems like a tragedy of the commons situation, which we have been able to fix in other instances with organized funding. We've seen some organizations spring

It seems like a tragedy of the commons situation, which we have been able to fix in other instances with organized funding. We've seen some organizations spring up around funding open source projects, but if e.g. the US government authorized federal grant funding for open source projects, I think it would set an example for industry (and other governments) across the world. The challenge is getting historically scarcity-mindset institutions to recognize the value of letting the rising tide of free information lift every ship in the world. They don't like this on its face because they have divided the world into "us" and "not us" and open source provides more utility (in aggregate) to "not us" than to any "us" defined as narrowly as a single company or country. Until Big Finance, Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Manufacturing, and Big Government embrace a broader definition of "us" beyond their own conglomerates, they will continue to see open source as a threat. This gets at a broader cultural movement toward abundance, that in the US has strong roots in coastal western cities like LA, SF, and Portland, and strong opponents in the Midwest, South, and East. If the US federal government were to invest heavily in open source, it would send a message to the rest of the country that we are now in an age of abundance, where we recognize the value of lifting all ships, because we know that our strength is in the strength of all of us, not the strength of our few strongest players. It would signal a cultural shift toward collaborative ownership and, I believe, spur investment in many commons. It's difficult to speak the truth of this mindset to power, because incumbents recognize that there are real competitive threats. The hope is that governments will recognize that there are far fewer threats in a world where people have the basics covered, and companies will recognize that defining and advancing the state of the art makes you look pretty good to the best talent and best customers.

simonh 8y ago
I think tragedy of the commons isn’t really a problem for the development side, though I think I get what you mean, but it comes in the form of excessive fragmentation of the ecosystem. Do we really need dozens of Linux distros when most of them are really just tweaks and could easily be packages on other distros? Do we really need all the little incompatible changes, new UI shells, multiple marketplace stores and multiple messaging clients and crapware on Android OEM phones? I think that’s a very different problem though. Plenty of big companies absolutely get open source and leverage it to great effect. Not just in an abusive way (although how is simply exercising a right in Libre terms abusive?), but also to mutual advantage. Plenty of big companies contribute significantly to open source, but where it genuinely serves a need. The fact is sometimes you need to invest more into creating software than you could ever capture via an OS business model, even indirectly. Plenty of software products cost millions of $ to develop, are needed in short time scales, require massive input from highly skilled non-programmers and there are people who will pay well to get it. Open source models are not well adapted to that sort of requirement.
- pferde 8y ago
  "Do we really need all the little incompatible changes, new UI shells, multiple marketplace stores and multiple messaging clients and crapware on Android OEM phones?" Yes, we do. If different people did not try doing new things (or just old things done differently), there wouldn't be as much progress, and we would all be poorer for it. Sure, some things stick, some don't, but that's how it's supposed to be.
  - simonh 8y ago
    The problem is the motivation of most of these differences is not improvement but just differentiation. They are literally only different for the sake of being different, for marketing purposes.

simonh 8y ago

I think tragedy of the commons isn’t really a problem for the development side, though I think I get what you mean, but it comes in the form of excessive fragmentation of the ecosystem. Do we really need dozens of Linux distros when most of them are really just tweaks and could easily be packages on other distros? Do we really need all the little incompatible changes, new UI shells, multiple marketplace stores and multiple messaging clients and crapware on Android OEM phones? I think that’s a very different problem though. Plenty of big companies absolutely get open source and leverage it to great effect. Not just in an abusive way (although how is simply exercising a right in Libre terms abusive?), but also to mutual advantage. Plenty of big companies contribute significantly to open source, but where it genuinely serves a need. The fact is sometimes you need to invest more into creating software than you could ever capture via an OS business model, even indirectly. Plenty of software products cost millions of $ to develop, are needed in short time scales, require massive input from highly skilled non-programmers and there are people who will pay well to get it. Open source models are not well adapted to that sort of requirement.

pferde 8y ago
"Do we really need all the little incompatible changes, new UI shells, multiple marketplace stores and multiple messaging clients and crapware on Android OEM phones?" Yes, we do. If different people did not try doing new things (or just old things done differently), there wouldn't be as much progress, and we would all be poorer for it. Sure, some things stick, some don't, but that's how it's supposed to be.
- simonh 8y ago
  The problem is the motivation of most of these differences is not improvement but just differentiation. They are literally only different for the sake of being different, for marketing purposes.