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> 95% of real breakthroughs happen Is it? What hat are you pulling this number from? You don't have to search for very long before you realize how much govern

> 95% of real breakthroughs happen Is it? What hat are you pulling this number from? You don't have to search for very long before you realize how much government-funded research and code has improved our life. Department of Energy labs, National Science Foundation, DARPA, Apollo Space Program, Human Genome Project and more are all publicly funded and responsible for some of the biggest "real breakthroughs" in human history, and that's just projects from the US.

mark-r 6y ago
Didn't you know that 87% of statistics are made up on the spot?
- a1369209993 6y ago
  Actually, it's 97% - I think you're confusing it with the similar but unrelated quote by Abraham Lincoln: "85% of quotes on the internet are made up.".
  - mark-r 6y ago
    Now I know you're making that up. The internet didn't even exist until Al Gore invented it!
berkut 6y ago
I suspect there's not always a complete separation of "government-funded" vs "commercial" labels, especially in the case of things like Apollo and DARPA, where defence contractors essentially work as commercial companies on contracts for the US government / NASA, so it's not completely black and white in that area.
pheug 6y ago
Big tech companies like Google and Facebook avoid touching AGPL software with a ten foot pole. Choosing AGPL is a great way to isolate yourself from any collaboration with that community
- Lammy 6y ago
  Yes, that's exactly the point. I don't want those people around my codebase. Nobody on a Crusade to get you to adopt ProtoBuffers or Thrift. No codes of conduct. No risk of getting abandoned when priorities shift (like HHVM dropping support for PHP code). Heaven! I love software again :D
jiofih 6y ago
I don’t mean that kind of humanity-defining breakthroughs, but the kind that depend on OSS libraries - new social, entertainment, commerce and productivity tools that change our lives incrementally.

mark-r 6y ago

Didn't you know that 87% of statistics are made up on the spot?

a1369209993 6y ago
Actually, it's 97% - I think you're confusing it with the similar but unrelated quote by Abraham Lincoln: "85% of quotes on the internet are made up.".
- mark-r 6y ago
  Now I know you're making that up. The internet didn't even exist until Al Gore invented it!

berkut 6y ago

I suspect there's not always a complete separation of "government-funded" vs "commercial" labels, especially in the case of things like Apollo and DARPA, where defence contractors essentially work as commercial companies on contracts for the US government / NASA, so it's not completely black and white in that area.

pheug 6y ago

Big tech companies like Google and Facebook avoid touching AGPL software with a ten foot pole. Choosing AGPL is a great way to isolate yourself from any collaboration with that community

Lammy 6y ago
Yes, that's exactly the point. I don't want those people around my codebase. Nobody on a Crusade to get you to adopt ProtoBuffers or Thrift. No codes of conduct. No risk of getting abandoned when priorities shift (like HHVM dropping support for PHP code). Heaven! I love software again :D

jiofih 6y ago

I don’t mean that kind of humanity-defining breakthroughs, but the kind that depend on OSS libraries - new social, entertainment, commerce and productivity tools that change our lives incrementally.