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I think my issue is that a nobleish idea that supported the freedom of everyone to be a creator has morphed into something (an ideology, a secular religion) tha

I think my issue is that a nobleish idea that supported the freedom of everyone to be a creator has morphed into something (an ideology, a secular religion) that demands that creators not be able to make a living off their creation even if (or especially if) they are providing tooling for corporations that give nothing, or at least very little proportionally, back.

tsimionescu 6y ago
Sure, that is a valid position, and I mostly believe the same that you do. To me, the OSS movement seems to be split between a minority of extreme idealism (Richard Stallman's position on the importance of software Freedom), and a majority of mostly big corporate pragmatists, which have realized that is far more lucrative to share the burden of developing common infrastructure between themselves than the previous status quo; and who greatly dislike anyone who tries to co-opt the OSS movement into something which does not serve this purpose. There is also a 3rd camp of companies that want to sell proprietary software, but who have noticed that open source variants of their software are a better marketing strategy than the shareware and freeware of old. I believe that this third group is the biggest annoyance to both of the traditional OSS communities, but also the only ones who can actually make money by selling software whe also showing users exactly what code they are actually running.
josephcsible 6y ago
If you dual-license your work under the AGPL and a paid non-copyleft license, then your product will be 100% FOSS, and you'll still be able to make a living from it instead of the Amazons of the world selling your product and giving nothing back.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  That's what Mongo thought as well, and it turned out not to be true in their case (well, s/make a living/turn the profit your investors expect/g).

tsimionescu 6y ago

Sure, that is a valid position, and I mostly believe the same that you do. To me, the OSS movement seems to be split between a minority of extreme idealism (Richard Stallman's position on the importance of software Freedom), and a majority of mostly big corporate pragmatists, which have realized that is far more lucrative to share the burden of developing common infrastructure between themselves than the previous status quo; and who greatly dislike anyone who tries to co-opt the OSS movement into something which does not serve this purpose. There is also a 3rd camp of companies that want to sell proprietary software, but who have noticed that open source variants of their software are a better marketing strategy than the shareware and freeware of old. I believe that this third group is the biggest annoyance to both of the traditional OSS communities, but also the only ones who can actually make money by selling software whe also showing users exactly what code they are actually running.

josephcsible 6y ago

If you dual-license your work under the AGPL and a paid non-copyleft license, then your product will be 100% FOSS, and you'll still be able to make a living from it instead of the Amazons of the world selling your product and giving nothing back.

tsimionescu 6y ago
That's what Mongo thought as well, and it turned out not to be true in their case (well, s/make a living/turn the profit your investors expect/g).