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If Amazon employees started tipping 0% at restaurants in Seattle, they would be legally correct. But that would certainly impact the way restaurants needed to o

If Amazon employees started tipping 0% at restaurants in Seattle, they would be legally correct. But that would certainly impact the way restaurants needed to operate. Sometimes communities get built up on a shared system that involves a certain amount of shame, embarrassment and feelings of communal good and following norms in order to continue. Open source software seems to be that type of community. Sure, you can be a freerider and tip 0%, but at a certain point others in the community may glare at you with a "really?" face and of course restaurants will eventually just raise their prices.

qvrjuec 6y ago
Interesting analogy, because a growing trend in Seattle restaurants is eschewing tipping entirely for a fixed % gratuity included in the bill. I agree with the other commenters in the thread - if you're peeved because you didn't get something your permissive license didn't require, choose a new license.
sequoia 6y ago
Fantastic analogy: tipping is a vestige of a culture of patronage and servitude and a practice that doesn't exist (in the same form) in most of Europe for example, where servers rely on an explicit obligation of payment rather than "whatever the customer feels like giving." Just as tipping is a shitty system and the explicit & transparent European model is better, so is using a license that clearly spells out (requires) the type of attribution you want better than relying on vague implicit expectations.
xigency 6y ago
I hear you, but tipping is a widely accepted practice. As a software developer I use tons of open source software and I'm aware of how much open source software is used in commercial products I use as well. And still I can't recall seeing credits with the original developers' names ever outside of a license file. I'm not saying that is good or bad, but it doesn't seem to be standard practice.

qvrjuec 6y ago

Interesting analogy, because a growing trend in Seattle restaurants is eschewing tipping entirely for a fixed % gratuity included in the bill. I agree with the other commenters in the thread - if you're peeved because you didn't get something your permissive license didn't require, choose a new license.

sequoia 6y ago

Fantastic analogy: tipping is a vestige of a culture of patronage and servitude and a practice that doesn't exist (in the same form) in most of Europe for example, where servers rely on an explicit obligation of payment rather than "whatever the customer feels like giving." Just as tipping is a shitty system and the explicit & transparent European model is better, so is using a license that clearly spells out (requires) the type of attribution you want better than relying on vague implicit expectations.

xigency 6y ago

I hear you, but tipping is a widely accepted practice. As a software developer I use tons of open source software and I'm aware of how much open source software is used in commercial products I use as well. And still I can't recall seeing credits with the original developers' names ever outside of a license file. I'm not saying that is good or bad, but it doesn't seem to be standard practice.