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I’m not sure if he’s completely serious about the roads analogy. IMO roads are funded like OSS, but in OSS we just skip the whole elected officials part and go
by nemothekid 7y ago
I’m not sure if he’s completely serious about the roads analogy. IMO roads are funded like OSS, but in OSS we just skip the whole elected officials part and go straight to oligarchy.
In other terms the oligarchs (Google, the auto industry) put money into projects that they directly benefit them (k8s, roads) while sidelining popular projects that don’t (public transit, $your_favorite_OSS).
I don’t really see the advantage of moving the gatekeepers from a set of corporate engineers to an “elected” group of people who will likely be completely made up of people who work at those same corporate jobs who have the time to do OSS politics.
Maybe there is another way, but this post is really critical of the “roads” analogy.
- zapita 7y agoI agree with your first two paragraphs completely. But your conclusion surprised me and I disagree with it. If the current OSS is funded by oligarchs, and we agree that is not ideal, wouldn’t it make sense to look at how democratic governments mitigate the oligarch problem by funding their infrastructure in a way that better represents the interests of all their constituents? I think that’s the point of the roads analogy.
- amylene 7y agoOne explanation is that democracies have sufficient friction built in that oligarchs can’t take control. The more broadly inefficient something is, the harder it is to take full control.
- zapita 7y agoI don’t think that idea holds up in practice. If you know anyone who has lived under non-democratic government, ask them how efficient it was.
- eesmith 7y agoConcerning the roads analogy, see https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-reports/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/ https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-report... - "Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure"