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I've come to realize that open source is the only type of software worth investing into. No matter how great a commercial piece of software might be, sooner or

I've come to realize that open source is the only type of software worth investing into. No matter how great a commercial piece of software might be, sooner or later it's going to either disappear or change in a way that doesn't suit you. Commercial software has to constantly chase profit for the company to stick around. This necessarily means that the product has to continue evolving to chase what's currently in vogue. And if a company fails to do that, then it will die and the software will stopped being developed. This is a bad situation to be in as a user since you have little control over the evolution of a product that you rely on. Instead of the product being adapted to your needs, it's you who has to adapt to the way the product evolves, or spend the time investing in a different product. On the other hand, open source has a very different dynamic. Projects can survive with little or no commercial incentive because they're often developed by the users who themselves benefit from these projects. Projects can also be easily forked and taken in different directions by different groups of users. Even when projects become abandoned, they can be picked up again by new teams. Evolution of GNOME is a great example of this. There are now many flavors of GNOME all catering to different workflows, and users don't have to compromise their preferred way of doing things to chase how GNOME is evolving. Meanwhile, users of Windows or MacOS have very little choice but to continue adjusting to the ways Apple and Microsoft choose to evolve the desktop. Microsoft even uses DMCA to prevent users from doing customization. [1] [1] https://torrentfreak.com/removing-annoying-windows-10-features-is-a-dmca-violation-microsoft-says-200611/ https://torrentfreak.com/removing-annoying-windows-10-featur...

msla 6y ago
> Projects can survive with little or no commercial incentive because they're often developed by the users who themselves benefit from these projects. That's true, but I want to point out a different dynamic, which is very important as well: Projects can survive with multiple commercial contributors all active in it at once, and remain useful and not locked down due to a combination of copyleft licensing and companies being willing to share work if it benefits them. The Linux kernel is a prime example of this. > Evolution of GNOME is a great example of this. There are now many flavors of GNOME all catering to different workflows, and users don't have to compromise their preferred way of doing things to chase how GNOME is evolving. Zooming out, any user of an OS which uses X for its GUI can choose from a huge number of different window managers without someone coming along and deleting the ones "nobody uses" in the name of "streamlining the offering" or whatever "marketing synergy" or "confluent paradigm" is in vogue this month.
anderspitman 6y ago
I basically agree, but note that open source software (especially popular projects and complicated codebases) can also change in ways you don't like. You can further mitigate this risk by using simple programs that have reached a "finished" state.
- jffhn 6y ago
  >complicated codebases) can also change in ways you don't like. You can further mitigate this risk by using simple programs that have reached a "finished" state. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm working on, to be able to do simple 2D GUIs without having to directly depend on the complex depths and uncertain future of any specific GUI library: https://github.com/jeffhain/jolikit/blob/master/README-BWD.md https://github.com/jeffhain/jolikit/blob/master/README-BWD.m... I often had personal GUIs idea but never implemented them due to not wanting to depend on a particular library. Now that I built this abstraction layer, I'm starting to create GUIs. I feel like building some software for you that depends on proprietary code, or on code too vast and deep to be easily "kept afloat" on the platforms of the day, is basically enslaving yourself to others, or building your house inside of a prison or on the Titanic.
  - vulcan01 6y ago
    > or building your house ... on the Titanic Or rather, building your house on a ship, which may or may not sink.
  - compressedgas 6y ago
    On sand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Wise_and_the_Foolish_Builders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Wise_and_the_Fo...
- serf 6y ago
  >but note that open source software (especially popular projects and complicated codebases) can also change in ways you don't like. that's true, but most OSS gives you the option to fork at that revision.
api 6y ago
Open source is great for tech-savvy professionals. Pick what you like, change it if you want, and it will never be taken away from you. Open source has completely and consistently failed in the consumer market, and its adoption in the enterprise market has been mixed. In those markets users are either not knowledgeable enough or too busy to do the things open source asks of them. Syncthing is cherry picked as an example in the original article because it's very atypical for open source. For open source it has a superb degree of polish and is quite easy to use. Still I wonder how it would fare in a professional environment. How do I invite someone to syncthing the way I can with dropbox? How do I integrate it with my corporate management or IAM solution? How do I...? I assume there would be a long tail of weaknesses. I also wonder what happens if syncthing gets abandoned or needs to undergo some major redesign to cope with some significant change to UI technology, OSes, or platforms. Who will do that? Don't get me wrong. I like that syncthing exists and even that it lacks those features, but I also realize that it does not address the whole market and probably never will. Open source as it stands has some fairly significant limits. BTW the pathology described in this article is also seen in open source projects vying for mindshare, adoption, contributors, sponsorship, etc. It's not specific to commercial software. I do agree that it's more prevalent in commercial software because companies need to find a steady source of revenue, but it's gotten worse in recent years because nobody pays for the most basic core features of software that they want anymore. People only pay for fluff, or pay if they're wrangled into a closed ecosystem and then brought to the point of payment via some kind of dark pattern. You get what you pay for, and people no longer pay for just good software.
- yogthos 6y ago
  It's worth noting that open source isn't directly at odds with commercial funding. There are lots of open source products out there like Android, GitLab, Nextcloud, IntelliJ,and many others that are developed commercially, but also have an open source core. I think that's a good model since it ensures that the project has funding for full time development and polish, while also leaving the option for the users to take the source and fork it if the product goes in a direction they don't like. Another approach is open source foundations like Firefox or Linux foundation, and donations funded projects like Mastodon. All of these are solid and polished pieces of software. If syncthing got abandoned then the source is still going to be there, and if there's a community of users around it then development can be picked up by somebody else. This happens all the time in open source world. I already gave GNOME as an example of a project where the original project went in a directions users didn't agree with, and now there are forks of it with Mate and Cinnamon that went their own way. Meanwhile, if syncthing was a closed source product and the company went under, that would be the end of it definitively. The users would be hung out to dry, and there would be no possibility to adapt it to new OSes, or platforms. It would just be dead. And syncthing is clearly meant for use cases where you're sharing files between personal devices. However, Nextcloud is a great answer for professional environment. In fact it's so great that German Federal Administration relies on it https://nextcloud.com/blog/german-federal-administration-relies-on-nextcloud-as-a-secure-file-exchange-solution/ https://nextcloud.com/blog/german-federal-administration-rel... So, I don't actually see any significant limits in open source compared to commercial software. There are some trade offs, but open source has certainly been demonstrated to work well in a very wide variety of environments including enterprise and consumer products. And the core point here is that open source leaves uses with more options than commercial software. Yes, projects can move in new directions, become abandoned, and so on. However, there is at least the possibility of users being able to keep using the version of the project they like, and that's what's missing with closed source software.
woah 6y ago
I would argue that the opposite is the case for most people. Commercial software is adapted to the needs of the greatest number of people who will pay for it. If you are an average user, this is you. Open source, on the other hand, is generally adapted to the needs of whoever wants to do some unpaid work on it. This is why open source text editors are great. The users are the developers. This is also why open source applications (graphics, office, etc) are so horrible. Most developers don't use that stuff, or don't use it enough to put in some free work fixing GIMP. Desktop OS's are somewhere in the middle. Developers use them, but the things that would make an open source OS easy for the common user aren't fixed. As a result, they are generally only used by those who get enjoyment out of fixing their desktop, sort of like a classic car enthusiast who loves to spend a Sunday afternoon in the garage with a wrench.
- amelius 6y ago
  > Open source, on the other hand, is generally adapted to the needs of whoever wants to do some unpaid work on it. Ironically, even commercial software has headed in the direction of "unpaid work", with its ad-based monetization.
- yogthos 6y ago
  My whole point is that what people pay for changes over time. So, if you invest in a piece of software, then it's very likely going to continue evolving to stay profitable and chase whatever new fads happen to be. This has been the case with literally every piece of commercial software I've ever used. And a lot of the time the changes either have absolutely no value for me, or they're actually detrimental to my workflow. And clearly I'm not alone, because every time a major version change happens with popular commercial products a lot of users will complain about it. However, they have no power to do anything since they just have to follow whatever the current trend is, or find a new piece of software to use. It's also a false dichotomy to claim that software is either commercial or open source. There are plenty of companies making money from open source products. This is a good combination since it provides commercial funding for the project, but also ensures that the users can always fork it if it and move it in a different direction from the original developers. I also disagree that open source applications are in any ways horrible. GIMP and Libre Office are both excellent piece of software that work perfectly fine. I use GIMP all the time, and I have much easier time getting around it than Photoshop. Also, would like to hear more about what specifically needs to be fixed on Linux. For example, what deficiencies does Elementary OS have compared to Windows?
MisterTea 6y ago
I fight with this in the industrial automation space where a machine might last for decades but the control software is Windows based and lucky if its supported for 5 years. Maddening. I've had to retrofit machines with new controllers, write new GUI software to talk to lasers via serial protocols, and run various things in VM's on Xp. Then the Dos controlled machine with ISA cards -_- Though there is no easy answer when it comes to this. How does a manufacturer support software reliably for 10+ years? Meanwhile we have three old machines here with all electromechanical controls. I will still be able to buy relays for them in 50 years. I'll be dead by then.
- darkteflon 6y ago
  If your competence and competitive edge is long-lived hardware, why not open source the control software? Are there any downsides to doing this? Perhaps incorporating some binary blobs to hide proprietary IP where / if necessary.
  - MisterTea 6y ago
    Industrial stuff has traditionally been proprietary and high priced. I suppose the volume is so low they have to charge such high prices for the development. I was once quoted 15,000 USD for a windows based HMI from a laser manufacturer. Also, to may, "open source" is still a phrase which to them means anything from low quality to "pirated". Seriously, someone thought open source was cracked pirated software. But the good news is a lot of the protocols and standards are opening up and open source stacks are common now. Many manufactures are also using Linux and even FreeBSD. But their software remains proprietary.
gwern 6y ago
> I've come to realize that open source is the only type of software worth investing into. No matter how great a commercial piece of software might be, sooner or later it's going to either disappear or change in a way that doesn't suit you. Otherwise known as Pilgrim's law: "In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software approaches zero. All non-Free software is a dead end."
- awakeasleep 6y ago
  The utility one derives from non-Free software is profit the vendor has not yet captured?
  - gwern 6y ago
    And their incentive is to capture as much of it as possible no matter how large the deadweight losses are; Free Software is a positive-sum game, and, unfortunately, proprietary software increasingly tends towards negative-sum games.
tonsky 6y ago
I think it only depends on product and team and has nothing to do with OSS/commertial/corp. Sublime Text is fantastic and closed-source. Inkscape is horrible and open-source. Syncthing is both. Photoshop is neither. Good pieces are here and there, not in OSS only.
- coffeeling 6y ago
  > Photoshop is neither. Clearly, professionals pay money to Adobe for fun.
  - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
    Lots of people pay for Windows and the Microsoft Office suite, which are even worse than the Adobe software suite. Entrenchment pays dividends.

msla 6y ago

> Projects can survive with little or no commercial incentive because they're often developed by the users who themselves benefit from these projects. That's true, but I want to point out a different dynamic, which is very important as well: Projects can survive with multiple commercial contributors all active in it at once, and remain useful and not locked down due to a combination of copyleft licensing and companies being willing to share work if it benefits them. The Linux kernel is a prime example of this. > Evolution of GNOME is a great example of this. There are now many flavors of GNOME all catering to different workflows, and users don't have to compromise their preferred way of doing things to chase how GNOME is evolving. Zooming out, any user of an OS which uses X for its GUI can choose from a huge number of different window managers without someone coming along and deleting the ones "nobody uses" in the name of "streamlining the offering" or whatever "marketing synergy" or "confluent paradigm" is in vogue this month.

anderspitman 6y ago

I basically agree, but note that open source software (especially popular projects and complicated codebases) can also change in ways you don't like. You can further mitigate this risk by using simple programs that have reached a "finished" state.

jffhn 6y ago
>complicated codebases) can also change in ways you don't like. You can further mitigate this risk by using simple programs that have reached a "finished" state. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm working on, to be able to do simple 2D GUIs without having to directly depend on the complex depths and uncertain future of any specific GUI library: https://github.com/jeffhain/jolikit/blob/master/README-BWD.md https://github.com/jeffhain/jolikit/blob/master/README-BWD.m... I often had personal GUIs idea but never implemented them due to not wanting to depend on a particular library. Now that I built this abstraction layer, I'm starting to create GUIs. I feel like building some software for you that depends on proprietary code, or on code too vast and deep to be easily "kept afloat" on the platforms of the day, is basically enslaving yourself to others, or building your house inside of a prison or on the Titanic.
- vulcan01 6y ago
  > or building your house ... on the Titanic Or rather, building your house on a ship, which may or may not sink.
- compressedgas 6y ago
  On sand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Wise_and_the_Foolish_Builders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Wise_and_the_Fo...
serf 6y ago
>but note that open source software (especially popular projects and complicated codebases) can also change in ways you don't like. that's true, but most OSS gives you the option to fork at that revision.

api 6y ago

Open source is great for tech-savvy professionals. Pick what you like, change it if you want, and it will never be taken away from you. Open source has completely and consistently failed in the consumer market, and its adoption in the enterprise market has been mixed. In those markets users are either not knowledgeable enough or too busy to do the things open source asks of them. Syncthing is cherry picked as an example in the original article because it's very atypical for open source. For open source it has a superb degree of polish and is quite easy to use. Still I wonder how it would fare in a professional environment. How do I invite someone to syncthing the way I can with dropbox? How do I integrate it with my corporate management or IAM solution? How do I...? I assume there would be a long tail of weaknesses. I also wonder what happens if syncthing gets abandoned or needs to undergo some major redesign to cope with some significant change to UI technology, OSes, or platforms. Who will do that? Don't get me wrong. I like that syncthing exists and even that it lacks those features, but I also realize that it does not address the whole market and probably never will. Open source as it stands has some fairly significant limits. BTW the pathology described in this article is also seen in open source projects vying for mindshare, adoption, contributors, sponsorship, etc. It's not specific to commercial software. I do agree that it's more prevalent in commercial software because companies need to find a steady source of revenue, but it's gotten worse in recent years because nobody pays for the most basic core features of software that they want anymore. People only pay for fluff, or pay if they're wrangled into a closed ecosystem and then brought to the point of payment via some kind of dark pattern. You get what you pay for, and people no longer pay for just good software.

yogthos 6y ago
It's worth noting that open source isn't directly at odds with commercial funding. There are lots of open source products out there like Android, GitLab, Nextcloud, IntelliJ,and many others that are developed commercially, but also have an open source core. I think that's a good model since it ensures that the project has funding for full time development and polish, while also leaving the option for the users to take the source and fork it if the product goes in a direction they don't like. Another approach is open source foundations like Firefox or Linux foundation, and donations funded projects like Mastodon. All of these are solid and polished pieces of software. If syncthing got abandoned then the source is still going to be there, and if there's a community of users around it then development can be picked up by somebody else. This happens all the time in open source world. I already gave GNOME as an example of a project where the original project went in a directions users didn't agree with, and now there are forks of it with Mate and Cinnamon that went their own way. Meanwhile, if syncthing was a closed source product and the company went under, that would be the end of it definitively. The users would be hung out to dry, and there would be no possibility to adapt it to new OSes, or platforms. It would just be dead. And syncthing is clearly meant for use cases where you're sharing files between personal devices. However, Nextcloud is a great answer for professional environment. In fact it's so great that German Federal Administration relies on it https://nextcloud.com/blog/german-federal-administration-relies-on-nextcloud-as-a-secure-file-exchange-solution/ https://nextcloud.com/blog/german-federal-administration-rel... So, I don't actually see any significant limits in open source compared to commercial software. There are some trade offs, but open source has certainly been demonstrated to work well in a very wide variety of environments including enterprise and consumer products. And the core point here is that open source leaves uses with more options than commercial software. Yes, projects can move in new directions, become abandoned, and so on. However, there is at least the possibility of users being able to keep using the version of the project they like, and that's what's missing with closed source software.

woah 6y ago

I would argue that the opposite is the case for most people. Commercial software is adapted to the needs of the greatest number of people who will pay for it. If you are an average user, this is you. Open source, on the other hand, is generally adapted to the needs of whoever wants to do some unpaid work on it. This is why open source text editors are great. The users are the developers. This is also why open source applications (graphics, office, etc) are so horrible. Most developers don't use that stuff, or don't use it enough to put in some free work fixing GIMP. Desktop OS's are somewhere in the middle. Developers use them, but the things that would make an open source OS easy for the common user aren't fixed. As a result, they are generally only used by those who get enjoyment out of fixing their desktop, sort of like a classic car enthusiast who loves to spend a Sunday afternoon in the garage with a wrench.

amelius 6y ago
> Open source, on the other hand, is generally adapted to the needs of whoever wants to do some unpaid work on it. Ironically, even commercial software has headed in the direction of "unpaid work", with its ad-based monetization.
yogthos 6y ago
My whole point is that what people pay for changes over time. So, if you invest in a piece of software, then it's very likely going to continue evolving to stay profitable and chase whatever new fads happen to be. This has been the case with literally every piece of commercial software I've ever used. And a lot of the time the changes either have absolutely no value for me, or they're actually detrimental to my workflow. And clearly I'm not alone, because every time a major version change happens with popular commercial products a lot of users will complain about it. However, they have no power to do anything since they just have to follow whatever the current trend is, or find a new piece of software to use. It's also a false dichotomy to claim that software is either commercial or open source. There are plenty of companies making money from open source products. This is a good combination since it provides commercial funding for the project, but also ensures that the users can always fork it if it and move it in a different direction from the original developers. I also disagree that open source applications are in any ways horrible. GIMP and Libre Office are both excellent piece of software that work perfectly fine. I use GIMP all the time, and I have much easier time getting around it than Photoshop. Also, would like to hear more about what specifically needs to be fixed on Linux. For example, what deficiencies does Elementary OS have compared to Windows?

MisterTea 6y ago

I fight with this in the industrial automation space where a machine might last for decades but the control software is Windows based and lucky if its supported for 5 years. Maddening. I've had to retrofit machines with new controllers, write new GUI software to talk to lasers via serial protocols, and run various things in VM's on Xp. Then the Dos controlled machine with ISA cards -_- Though there is no easy answer when it comes to this. How does a manufacturer support software reliably for 10+ years? Meanwhile we have three old machines here with all electromechanical controls. I will still be able to buy relays for them in 50 years. I'll be dead by then.

darkteflon 6y ago
If your competence and competitive edge is long-lived hardware, why not open source the control software? Are there any downsides to doing this? Perhaps incorporating some binary blobs to hide proprietary IP where / if necessary.
- MisterTea 6y ago
  Industrial stuff has traditionally been proprietary and high priced. I suppose the volume is so low they have to charge such high prices for the development. I was once quoted 15,000 USD for a windows based HMI from a laser manufacturer. Also, to may, "open source" is still a phrase which to them means anything from low quality to "pirated". Seriously, someone thought open source was cracked pirated software. But the good news is a lot of the protocols and standards are opening up and open source stacks are common now. Many manufactures are also using Linux and even FreeBSD. But their software remains proprietary.

gwern 6y ago

> I've come to realize that open source is the only type of software worth investing into. No matter how great a commercial piece of software might be, sooner or later it's going to either disappear or change in a way that doesn't suit you. Otherwise known as Pilgrim's law: "In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software approaches zero. All non-Free software is a dead end."

awakeasleep 6y ago
The utility one derives from non-Free software is profit the vendor has not yet captured?
- gwern 6y ago
  And their incentive is to capture as much of it as possible no matter how large the deadweight losses are; Free Software is a positive-sum game, and, unfortunately, proprietary software increasingly tends towards negative-sum games.

tonsky 6y ago

I think it only depends on product and team and has nothing to do with OSS/commertial/corp. Sublime Text is fantastic and closed-source. Inkscape is horrible and open-source. Syncthing is both. Photoshop is neither. Good pieces are here and there, not in OSS only.

coffeeling 6y ago
> Photoshop is neither. Clearly, professionals pay money to Adobe for fun.
- _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
  Lots of people pay for Windows and the Microsoft Office suite, which are even worse than the Adobe software suite. Entrenchment pays dividends.