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For more context, in case anyone is wondering what I was trying to communicate amidst the torrent of downvotes. Feross is a meaningful voice in open source. I'

by ramzyo 7y ago

For more context, in case anyone is wondering what I was trying to communicate amidst the torrent of downvotes. Feross is a meaningful voice in open source. I've admired him for a long time, and still do. He's written some thoughtful posts in the past about FOSS specifically, hence the specificity of my comment (see his post from 2010 here: https://feross.org/stallman-stanford/ https://feross.org/stallman-stanford/). Reading his justification for the "funding" experiment (here: https://feross.org/funding-experiment-recap/ https://feross.org/funding-experiment-recap/), I was struck by the fact that he didn't address an obvious slippery slope in his argument for what he was experimenting with, namely, "For the record, funding had absolutely no tracking, no data collection, and no code from untrusted third parties. It was a console.log with some fancy formatting. Think of it like a newspaper classified ad. We just print it and hope that maybe some folks will see it." I don't knock his attempt at experimentation with funding models for FOSS developers; however, there's an ongoing history lesson we're all living that serves as a cautionary tale for where ad-funded monetization models can go. Considering corporations are largely involved in FOSS today, could the normalization of monetization of FOSS with the wholly positive intentions of rewarding those who have dedicated their time to developing FOSS software, not evolve into a model wherein for-profit companies use this as a backdoor to monetize their FOSS contributions? For example, imagine compiling Kubernetes and getting an ad for Google Cloud services. Or compiling the Linux Kernel with features committed to the kernel source primarily by Google and getting an ad for a Chromebook as part of the boot sequence. Sure this is all a bit dystopian, but I'm surprised someone as thoughtful as Feross didn't address the possible unintended consequences of his experiment, even if his original intentions were in no way nefarious.

liability 7y ago
> Think of it like a newspaper classified ad. Consider also the quality of advertising those organizations (newspapers, magazines, etc) submit their readers to in the digital domain. The worst sort. That newspapers printed on paper lack telemetry is not attributable to pure motivations on the part of the publishers. Rather, print newspapers lack telemetry simply because nobody has figured out how to put telemetry in them. Were it's possible, those same organizations eagerly adopt telemetry because of the nature of the economic incentives in the advertising industry.

by ramzyo 7y ago

liability 7y ago

> Think of it like a newspaper classified ad. Consider also the quality of advertising those organizations (newspapers, magazines, etc) submit their readers to in the digital domain. The worst sort. That newspapers printed on paper lack telemetry is not attributable to pure motivations on the part of the publishers. Rather, print newspapers lack telemetry simply because nobody has figured out how to put telemetry in them. Were it's possible, those same organizations eagerly adopt telemetry because of the nature of the economic incentives in the advertising industry.