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Posting this on Hacker News seems kind of ironic to me. I can count on one hand the number of startups that even put a serious effort to live up to this, and I

Posting this on Hacker News seems kind of ironic to me. I can count on one hand the number of startups that even put a serious effort to live up to this, and I wonder if any exist that succeed. If you required "open" and "honest" as defined by the manifesto, almost the entire marketing industry and the industries it supports would have to shut down. Even supposedly-altruistic nonprofits are tricking people into subscribing to their mailing lists and then stockpiling the emails in opaque databases these days.

stareatgoats 7y ago
> whole segments of the software industry would have to close their doors. I read this more as an incentive to improve, not as a requirement to operate.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  Incentives? What incentives? Hacker news folks can just sign this for virtue signalling[1] and then go back to doing exactly the opposite of every one of the principles. The people actually fighting for these principles are Richard Stallman types that Hacker News generally considers fringe nuts. Talking about openness and honesty (as defined in this manifesto) at Hacker News is like talking about clean fuels at the place where people go to burn tires. I'm not criticizing the manifesto. I'm criticizing Hacker News and hypocrisy here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling
  - tannhaeuser 7y ago
    Not my impression at all that RMS is considered "fringe nuts" here, especially very recently as folks are waking up to what this decade's megatrends (webapps, cloud, ubiquitous mobile) has done to our industry and beyond. It's also a place where sustainability (as in "economical") can be discussed, in particular wrt F/OSS licensing models.
Yetanfou 7y ago
Don't forget the biggest gorilla of them all started with "Don't be evil" as their motto. They dropped it later but it did help to give them this sheen of being "good citizens" while it lasted.
davidivadavid 7y ago
I think Hacker News might need to take a chill pill and stop calling complete industries dishonest with so little to back it up. Most of the marketing industry is just as honest as most of the tech industry. In fact, it's far easier to argue that many products labeled as "tech" are far more manipulative than your average marketing agency.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > Most of the marketing industry is just as honest as most of the tech industry. Yes. Both are generally pretty dishonest. Pointing to another industry's guilt doesn't make the first industry innocent. Are you disagreeing with my example? How many companies actually DON'T try to trick people into giving them their mailing address, and then stockpile the emails?

stareatgoats 7y ago

> whole segments of the software industry would have to close their doors. I read this more as an incentive to improve, not as a requirement to operate.

kerkeslager 7y ago
Incentives? What incentives? Hacker news folks can just sign this for virtue signalling[1] and then go back to doing exactly the opposite of every one of the principles. The people actually fighting for these principles are Richard Stallman types that Hacker News generally considers fringe nuts. Talking about openness and honesty (as defined in this manifesto) at Hacker News is like talking about clean fuels at the place where people go to burn tires. I'm not criticizing the manifesto. I'm criticizing Hacker News and hypocrisy here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling
- tannhaeuser 7y ago
  Not my impression at all that RMS is considered "fringe nuts" here, especially very recently as folks are waking up to what this decade's megatrends (webapps, cloud, ubiquitous mobile) has done to our industry and beyond. It's also a place where sustainability (as in "economical") can be discussed, in particular wrt F/OSS licensing models.

Yetanfou 7y ago

Don't forget the biggest gorilla of them all started with "Don't be evil" as their motto. They dropped it later but it did help to give them this sheen of being "good citizens" while it lasted.

davidivadavid 7y ago

I think Hacker News might need to take a chill pill and stop calling complete industries dishonest with so little to back it up. Most of the marketing industry is just as honest as most of the tech industry. In fact, it's far easier to argue that many products labeled as "tech" are far more manipulative than your average marketing agency.

kerkeslager 7y ago
> Most of the marketing industry is just as honest as most of the tech industry. Yes. Both are generally pretty dishonest. Pointing to another industry's guilt doesn't make the first industry innocent. Are you disagreeing with my example? How many companies actually DON'T try to trick people into giving them their mailing address, and then stockpile the emails?