12 ms·

I disagree with "One of the ideals of open-source was to make it easy to modify [...] software". I think the ideal is/should be "make it possible to modify soft

by pbalau 7y ago

I disagree with "One of the ideals of open-source was to make it easy to modify [...] software". I think the ideal is/should be "make it possible to modify software".

hinkley 7y ago
That's the kind of bar you trip over. We can do better than that. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance around "why are you creating your own when X exists" and then saying, "Well I don't have to do a good job on X because it's free. If you don't like it make your own." We can't actually handle an infinite number of solutions in a space. If I enter that space and do not leave, I'm carving out territory whether I want to or not. There's an opportunity cost to me producing a library, the way there's an opportunity cost of throwing a party (don't think so? Throw a party the same time as your friend's birthday party and see how that goes over). And like a party, you owe it to your guests to put in a modicum of effort. They are perfectly entitled to badmouth you if you show up and do a lousy enough job. Showing up is step one. It's the most important step, but it's not the only important step. If I were going to hire full timers to maintain a piece of FOSS software, I think I might start with a designer. You need conceptual coherence and a designer is one of several ways to get that. Next I might hire a toolsmith. Someone to create a coherent system for contributing. If there's any money left over after that I'd start courting some of my most prolific contributors (although they may be prolific because of the project they work on, and taking them off that project may kill the oracle.)
userbinator 7y ago
It was always "possible to modify software". PC magazines from the 80s and early 90s even published patches of the form "change bytes at offset X from Y to Z", almost always discovered by someone with a debugger and not the original author. There are quite a few unofficial Windows patches around too, and that was never open-source. Perhaps it's time we rid ourselves of the misconception that source code is necessary to understand and modify software. It may make it easier, but it may also make it harder (by, among other things, helping to propagate the misconception.) Imagine if RMS didn't base the GPL on the availability of source, but simply enforced the legality of understanding and distributing software. I suspect the "free software" movement could've become something far more interesting and powerful, and reverse-engineering techniques would also become far more advanced than they are today.

by pbalau 7y ago

I disagree with "One of the ideals of open-source was to make it easy to modify [...] software". I think the ideal is/should be "make it possible to modify software".

hinkley 7y ago

That's the kind of bar you trip over. We can do better than that. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance around "why are you creating your own when X exists" and then saying, "Well I don't have to do a good job on X because it's free. If you don't like it make your own." We can't actually handle an infinite number of solutions in a space. If I enter that space and do not leave, I'm carving out territory whether I want to or not. There's an opportunity cost to me producing a library, the way there's an opportunity cost of throwing a party (don't think so? Throw a party the same time as your friend's birthday party and see how that goes over). And like a party, you owe it to your guests to put in a modicum of effort. They are perfectly entitled to badmouth you if you show up and do a lousy enough job. Showing up is step one. It's the most important step, but it's not the only important step. If I were going to hire full timers to maintain a piece of FOSS software, I think I might start with a designer. You need conceptual coherence and a designer is one of several ways to get that. Next I might hire a toolsmith. Someone to create a coherent system for contributing. If there's any money left over after that I'd start courting some of my most prolific contributors (although they may be prolific because of the project they work on, and taking them off that project may kill the oracle.)

userbinator 7y ago

It was always "possible to modify software". PC magazines from the 80s and early 90s even published patches of the form "change bytes at offset X from Y to Z", almost always discovered by someone with a debugger and not the original author. There are quite a few unofficial Windows patches around too, and that was never open-source. Perhaps it's time we rid ourselves of the misconception that source code is necessary to understand and modify software. It may make it easier, but it may also make it harder (by, among other things, helping to propagate the misconception.) Imagine if RMS didn't base the GPL on the availability of source, but simply enforced the legality of understanding and distributing software. I suspect the "free software" movement could've become something far more interesting and powerful, and reverse-engineering techniques would also become far more advanced than they are today.