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As someone who works at an open-source-focused business, I respectfully disagree. Unlike proprietary software, open source software doesn't depend on the broken

As someone who works at an open-source-focused business, I respectfully disagree. Unlike proprietary software, open source software doesn't depend on the broken window fallacy. As a result, it's really hard to make open source profitable. There's lots of different avenues to get there, and I don't like to fault someone for their efforts if the bulk of their work goes towards improving open source software, as I think Keybase did.

asdkhadsj 7y ago
Possibly, but in this case I didn't expect them to make Keybase profitable, if anything I expect the opposite. I expect Keybase to be a FOSS, foundation for profitable extensions that the company builds and sells. Arguably I think they agree with me, about the extensions at least. As seen by their seemingly random directions of feature extensions that Keybase was prone to. My issue is not that they chose random features to try to make profitable, but rather that the core premise, a public keystore, was tied so closely to a for profit company. It would be like losing Git because Github went under. (Though, terrible example because Git works without a centralized repo, but it's just the first company <-> FOSS relationship that came to mind lol.)
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  Maybe "losing Ubuntu if Canonical went under" is a better analogy then?
- 411111111111111 7y ago
  It's actually a pretty good example to be honest. Keybase was a centralized key storage with value-add services such as file storage and chat. That was absolutely comparable to github, as you could've just gone back to manually syncing pubkeys and encrypting msgs. If github went away, you'd be without a lot of value-add services as well such as wiki, issues user management etc Realistically speaking, nobody is going to do that... And tbh, it was already dead in the water when they added crypto currencies... Just took a while for their money to run out. The actual difference is that there are enough competing products for github, not for keybase however, as that is just too niche
zomglings 7y ago
I didn't follow your reasoning about proprietary software depending on the broken window fallacy. I don't see how Google's proprietary search engine or Facebook's proprietary interface to our social network rely on the broken window fallacy. Would you mind elaborating?
- coldpie 7y ago
  Sure! The idea is that each proprietary project is wasting effort implementing their own clones of everyone else's software. To use your example, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Yandex etc etc are all developing their own search engines. Instead they could all be contributing to one search engine to push the state of search engine software forward, instead of all spinning their wheels re-doing what everyone else is doing. How many devs are employed doing what someone else in some other company has already done? That's the broken window: someone else has already done the work, but it must be wastefully re-done because of the license. There's a lot of room for profit in all that extra waste.
  - rstupek 7y ago
    That's not what the broken window fallacy is though. It references the idea that breaking a window generates economic activity which is good for everyone.
  - snowwrestler 7y ago
    Aside from whether this matches the typical meaning of "broken window fallacy," I think the substance of what you're saying doesn't match reality. Open source is famous for fostering a bunch of different approaches to the same problem, and slightly different forks of the same concept. That's the "bazaar" in the famous metaphor, as opposed to the "cathedral" of monolithic, hierarchical, linear proprietary development within a closed-source company. "Everyone working on the same thing" only works well when there is broad agreement on what that thing should be, and strong governance to resolve disputes. National highway systems, militaries, and power grids are good examples. I don't think search engines are a good example of where this would work; it's not clear in advance what will make a given search engine better. Thus we benefit from a variety of competing approaches, essentially to expand the space in which we're searching for the optimum.
fao_ 7y ago
I mean, there's a fatal flaw in the broken window fallacy anyway: > It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.[1] Capitalism is about acquiring capital, i.e. money. There's no such evidence that people with money actually spend it in ways other than investment, and the sole purpose of that isn't to donate to companies that need it, it's to profit off it and essentially hoard more capital. Sure, poor people with either very little or no capital spend that capital on necessities, and thus drive the economy, but there's no evidence that people with large amounts of capital spend that on anything at all, there's more evidence that they hoard it and seek only to acquire more capital. The entire system is built to favour those people.
- uHuge 7y ago
  That feels like strict oposit of the falacy claim, which would hold in case of perfectly stable and suppied currency is employed. Still would be rational to invest research, diversify against theft etc.
- djrogers 7y ago
  We're getting way off topic here, but you have a horribly misguided premise here. A typical shopkeeper is not in the .1% 'cash hoarding' class. Small businesses are mostly run by people with average resources, and their capital is typically spent on their business and personal needs.
- carapace 7y ago
  I think you're reading too much into it. If you have to pay to replace a window that should have lasted, say, ten more years, that's money you now cannot spend on improving your factory somehow. It is still economic activity (and the glazier doesn't mind the work) but it's remedial rather than generative. (The glazier that repairs the window could have been installing a new one in a new factory, eh?)

asdkhadsj 7y ago

Possibly, but in this case I didn't expect them to make Keybase profitable, if anything I expect the opposite. I expect Keybase to be a FOSS, foundation for profitable extensions that the company builds and sells. Arguably I think they agree with me, about the extensions at least. As seen by their seemingly random directions of feature extensions that Keybase was prone to. My issue is not that they chose random features to try to make profitable, but rather that the core premise, a public keystore, was tied so closely to a for profit company. It would be like losing Git because Github went under. (Though, terrible example because Git works without a centralized repo, but it's just the first company <-> FOSS relationship that came to mind lol.)

semi-extrinsic 7y ago
Maybe "losing Ubuntu if Canonical went under" is a better analogy then?
411111111111111 7y ago
It's actually a pretty good example to be honest. Keybase was a centralized key storage with value-add services such as file storage and chat. That was absolutely comparable to github, as you could've just gone back to manually syncing pubkeys and encrypting msgs. If github went away, you'd be without a lot of value-add services as well such as wiki, issues user management etc Realistically speaking, nobody is going to do that... And tbh, it was already dead in the water when they added crypto currencies... Just took a while for their money to run out. The actual difference is that there are enough competing products for github, not for keybase however, as that is just too niche

zomglings 7y ago

I didn't follow your reasoning about proprietary software depending on the broken window fallacy. I don't see how Google's proprietary search engine or Facebook's proprietary interface to our social network rely on the broken window fallacy. Would you mind elaborating?

coldpie 7y ago
Sure! The idea is that each proprietary project is wasting effort implementing their own clones of everyone else's software. To use your example, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Yandex etc etc are all developing their own search engines. Instead they could all be contributing to one search engine to push the state of search engine software forward, instead of all spinning their wheels re-doing what everyone else is doing. How many devs are employed doing what someone else in some other company has already done? That's the broken window: someone else has already done the work, but it must be wastefully re-done because of the license. There's a lot of room for profit in all that extra waste.
- rstupek 7y ago
  That's not what the broken window fallacy is though. It references the idea that breaking a window generates economic activity which is good for everyone.
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  Aside from whether this matches the typical meaning of "broken window fallacy," I think the substance of what you're saying doesn't match reality. Open source is famous for fostering a bunch of different approaches to the same problem, and slightly different forks of the same concept. That's the "bazaar" in the famous metaphor, as opposed to the "cathedral" of monolithic, hierarchical, linear proprietary development within a closed-source company. "Everyone working on the same thing" only works well when there is broad agreement on what that thing should be, and strong governance to resolve disputes. National highway systems, militaries, and power grids are good examples. I don't think search engines are a good example of where this would work; it's not clear in advance what will make a given search engine better. Thus we benefit from a variety of competing approaches, essentially to expand the space in which we're searching for the optimum.

fao_ 7y ago

I mean, there's a fatal flaw in the broken window fallacy anyway: > It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.[1] Capitalism is about acquiring capital, i.e. money. There's no such evidence that people with money actually spend it in ways other than investment, and the sole purpose of that isn't to donate to companies that need it, it's to profit off it and essentially hoard more capital. Sure, poor people with either very little or no capital spend that capital on necessities, and thus drive the economy, but there's no evidence that people with large amounts of capital spend that on anything at all, there's more evidence that they hoard it and seek only to acquire more capital. The entire system is built to favour those people.

uHuge 7y ago
That feels like strict oposit of the falacy claim, which would hold in case of perfectly stable and suppied currency is employed. Still would be rational to invest research, diversify against theft etc.
djrogers 7y ago
We're getting way off topic here, but you have a horribly misguided premise here. A typical shopkeeper is not in the .1% 'cash hoarding' class. Small businesses are mostly run by people with average resources, and their capital is typically spent on their business and personal needs.
carapace 7y ago
I think you're reading too much into it. If you have to pay to replace a window that should have lasted, say, ten more years, that's money you now cannot spend on improving your factory somehow. It is still economic activity (and the glazier doesn't mind the work) but it's remedial rather than generative. (The glazier that repairs the window could have been installing a new one in a new factory, eh?)