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Imagine if Nintendo gave away their devices just so they could have the “feeling” of knowing people are using it, rather than selling it for money. It’s weird

Imagine if Nintendo gave away their devices just so they could have the “feeling” of knowing people are using it, rather than selling it for money. It’s weird to me that developers write code that other companies use to make profits, while they just get paid with a “feeling” of satisfaction.

tartoran 6y ago
Hehe, I see what you did here. But it's a bit different in some ways. The developer decided in the first place to opensource the software while absolutely no one could produce a gaming platform that was free. And in this case the developer got acknowledged which is a big deal, generally big companies use FOSS without even bothering to do so. That acknowledgement may help improve the career for FOSS developers and raise the potential of obtaining really well paid commercial gigs. I wish FOSS were paid but then it wouldn't really be FOSS. At least being acknowledged is the first step towards fairness.
malnourish 6y ago
The developer was free to choose a different license.
jgwil2 6y ago
Well, for one thing, we've all benefitted enormously from open source projects in our careers, so it's nice to be able to contribute something back.
- randmeerkat 6y ago
  Sure, but what does it mean to contribute something back? Is a for-profit entity taking your code and profiting off of it what the original idea behind open source was? Or was the idea more something like creating computer labs in Africa with Raspberry PIs? https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/building-computer-labs-in-western-africa/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/building-computer-labs-in-w...
  - pabs3 6y ago
    The goal of the open source offshoot of the Free Software movement was initially to make Free Software more palatable for businesses to adopt. That aspect of it has been wildly successful.
    - randmeerkat 6y ago
      Do you have a source for this?
      - tirpen 6y ago
        The Wikipedia page "Free and open-source software" agrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software#Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software#... "Netscape's act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring the FSF's Free software ideas and perceived benefits to the commercial software industry. They concluded that FSF's social activism was not appealing to companies like Netscape, and looked for a way to rebrand the Free software movement to emphasize the business potential of sharing and collaborating on software source code. The new name they chose was "Open-source", and quickly Bruce Perens, publisher Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds, and others signed on to the rebranding. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage the use of the new term and evangelize open-source principles." It states this as a source: https://opensource.org/history https://opensource.org/history
throwaway09223 6y ago
Creation isn't zero sum. I make things all the time which create shared benefit. I spent this Saturday morning working in my front yard. It looks nice for my benefit, but it also benefits my neighbors. It would be really strange for me to approach my neighbors and ask for financial remuneration because they've been enriched by my yardwork. Yardwork is enjoyable and I like making the world better in this fashion. I wouldn't join a yardwork company and work for free. Software is similar. We can use OSS to share the benefit when we do something we want or need to do anyway.
greggman3 6y ago
I guess it must be weird to you that people volunteer free labor and money for anything. People give free money to charity. Lawyers give free time to various causes. People give free stuff to Goodwill, a for profit company, and to Salvation Army (NPO). The volunteer to clean parks even though they're already paying taxes that are suppose to cover that. They give gifts to neighbors. There's nothing wrong with giving. My open source is my way of volunteering to make the world a better place. Whether some for profit company uses it is irrelevant to me. Plenty of companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, ...) give back way more than they take and even though I have about 100-160 original repos on github my free output pales in comparison to the amount of stuff I take for free. Nintendo might give less today but lead by example and that might change. Though if it never changes it still doesn't bother me in the least.
- strbean 6y ago
  Goodwill is a 501c3 nonprofit.
- andrepd 6y ago
  > People give free money to charity. Oh no. > Plenty of companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, ...) give back way more than they take OH NO. In what planet is donating to a charity the same as "donating" code to a for-profit enterprise, but even more insane (in my opinion ofc) in what planet do google and facebook "give more than they take"??
  - nickff 6y ago
    >"In what planet is donating to a charity the same as "donating" code to a for-profit enterprise, but even more insane (in my opinion ofc) in what planet do google and facebook "give more than they take"??" Consumer surplus?
  - Stupulous 6y ago
    I don't know how to estimate how much Google uses other's OSS, but they certainly have generated quite a lot. Chromium, Android, TensorFlow, Go, WebM, Kubernetes, and Angular are no small contributions.
javajosh 6y ago
A bit too close to a troll, but there is a germ of a good point, which is whether its ethical for Nintendo to profit from this code. I think the answer is clearly yes, for the simple reason that the author chose to release his code for the world to use. Most projects will die in obscurity, unused (and unmourned). There are a ton of project owners who would love nothing more than to be used by a big, popular platform. That's a pretty big win with hardly any risk. It means their thing beat out something that could have been made in-house by the world's best devs. Can you imagine discovering that your little thousand-star github library is present in, I don't know, Gmail? Presumably, at the very least, it means an auto-hire if you apply to any of the biggies for a very high total comp. (And if you refuse on principle to cash in on that endorsement? I say good for you and I would like to hire you to be on my "wizard council". These are people I subscribe to to be diligent, principled, skeptical, and open about any software update I consume. This would include, BTW, a holistic definition of "software" to include firmware, FPGAs and so on. Please talk to me like an adult about InfoSec! Thank youuuu!)
- jrumbut 6y ago
  It's about participating in the spirit of generosity that makes open source possible. Yes of course they are under no obligation outside the license, but I'd like to see them send the author a toy anyway. A company like Nintendo sends out tons of swag to people who have collaborated with the company in some way, just add the author to the list.
  - gpapilion 6y ago
    Or contribute back to the project.
- randmeerkat 6y ago
  I’m skeptical that the author would be hired and given any sort of competitive compensation. The creator of homebrew was famously rejected by Google. https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?s=20 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?s=20 I used to be a big believer in open source software, but as for profit enterprises continue to pillage the community without giving anything back more and more I feel that it’s not worth the time or effort involved, unless the work is protected by a proper GPLv3 license.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
People also write comments/blogs (journalism) for free.
disordinary 6y ago
Well, it gets added to your CV too. But, theoretically the company contributes back to the codebase for any enhancements they require making the code better for all users.
- randmeerkat 6y ago
  Isn’t that weird though? A for profit enterprise profits off of your code and all you get is a CV boost?
  - disordinary 6y ago
    What should happen is the company also contributes libraries back to the community, although Nintendo doesn't seem to https://github.com/Nintendo https://github.com/Nintendo. The reason that the internet is as big as it is and as accessible to small and scrappy development teams is because of open source. A lot of the internet is built on code which is given away by companies like Google and Facebook so there is a bit of give and take in this.
  - bromonkey 6y ago
    Weird as in exactly what you allow by assigning an open source license to your code? I'm not sure when the mentality of "the little guys can use my code but companies better pay me" crept into common discussion around open source, but it's never worked that way. If Nintendo didn't find a library up to their standards, they would have just created their own (likely not open source) version.
    - phkahler 6y ago
      >> I'm not sure when the mentality of "the little guys can use my code but companies better pay me" crept into common discussion around open source, but it's never worked that way. Yeah that's weird. I think it's partly people realizing the difference between MIT/BSD and GPL (or even AGPL) licenses. Or the diff between some ideal "how open source works" and what the licenses actually say. This is a good thing. People may realise that the choice of license actually matters.

tartoran 6y ago

Hehe, I see what you did here. But it's a bit different in some ways. The developer decided in the first place to opensource the software while absolutely no one could produce a gaming platform that was free. And in this case the developer got acknowledged which is a big deal, generally big companies use FOSS without even bothering to do so. That acknowledgement may help improve the career for FOSS developers and raise the potential of obtaining really well paid commercial gigs. I wish FOSS were paid but then it wouldn't really be FOSS. At least being acknowledged is the first step towards fairness.

malnourish 6y ago

The developer was free to choose a different license.

jgwil2 6y ago

Well, for one thing, we've all benefitted enormously from open source projects in our careers, so it's nice to be able to contribute something back.

randmeerkat 6y ago
Sure, but what does it mean to contribute something back? Is a for-profit entity taking your code and profiting off of it what the original idea behind open source was? Or was the idea more something like creating computer labs in Africa with Raspberry PIs? https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/building-computer-labs-in-western-africa/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/building-computer-labs-in-w...
- pabs3 6y ago
  The goal of the open source offshoot of the Free Software movement was initially to make Free Software more palatable for businesses to adopt. That aspect of it has been wildly successful.
  - randmeerkat 6y ago
    Do you have a source for this?
    - tirpen 6y ago
      The Wikipedia page "Free and open-source software" agrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software#Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software#... "Netscape's act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring the FSF's Free software ideas and perceived benefits to the commercial software industry. They concluded that FSF's social activism was not appealing to companies like Netscape, and looked for a way to rebrand the Free software movement to emphasize the business potential of sharing and collaborating on software source code. The new name they chose was "Open-source", and quickly Bruce Perens, publisher Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds, and others signed on to the rebranding. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage the use of the new term and evangelize open-source principles." It states this as a source: https://opensource.org/history https://opensource.org/history

throwaway09223 6y ago

Creation isn't zero sum. I make things all the time which create shared benefit. I spent this Saturday morning working in my front yard. It looks nice for my benefit, but it also benefits my neighbors. It would be really strange for me to approach my neighbors and ask for financial remuneration because they've been enriched by my yardwork. Yardwork is enjoyable and I like making the world better in this fashion. I wouldn't join a yardwork company and work for free. Software is similar. We can use OSS to share the benefit when we do something we want or need to do anyway.

greggman3 6y ago

I guess it must be weird to you that people volunteer free labor and money for anything. People give free money to charity. Lawyers give free time to various causes. People give free stuff to Goodwill, a for profit company, and to Salvation Army (NPO). The volunteer to clean parks even though they're already paying taxes that are suppose to cover that. They give gifts to neighbors. There's nothing wrong with giving. My open source is my way of volunteering to make the world a better place. Whether some for profit company uses it is irrelevant to me. Plenty of companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, ...) give back way more than they take and even though I have about 100-160 original repos on github my free output pales in comparison to the amount of stuff I take for free. Nintendo might give less today but lead by example and that might change. Though if it never changes it still doesn't bother me in the least.

strbean 6y ago
Goodwill is a 501c3 nonprofit.
andrepd 6y ago
> People give free money to charity. Oh no. > Plenty of companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, ...) give back way more than they take OH NO. In what planet is donating to a charity the same as "donating" code to a for-profit enterprise, but even more insane (in my opinion ofc) in what planet do google and facebook "give more than they take"??
- nickff 6y ago
  >"In what planet is donating to a charity the same as "donating" code to a for-profit enterprise, but even more insane (in my opinion ofc) in what planet do google and facebook "give more than they take"??" Consumer surplus?
- Stupulous 6y ago
  I don't know how to estimate how much Google uses other's OSS, but they certainly have generated quite a lot. Chromium, Android, TensorFlow, Go, WebM, Kubernetes, and Angular are no small contributions.

javajosh 6y ago

A bit too close to a troll, but there is a germ of a good point, which is whether its ethical for Nintendo to profit from this code. I think the answer is clearly yes, for the simple reason that the author chose to release his code for the world to use. Most projects will die in obscurity, unused (and unmourned). There are a ton of project owners who would love nothing more than to be used by a big, popular platform. That's a pretty big win with hardly any risk. It means their thing beat out something that could have been made in-house by the world's best devs. Can you imagine discovering that your little thousand-star github library is present in, I don't know, Gmail? Presumably, at the very least, it means an auto-hire if you apply to any of the biggies for a very high total comp. (And if you refuse on principle to cash in on that endorsement? I say good for you and I would like to hire you to be on my "wizard council". These are people I subscribe to to be diligent, principled, skeptical, and open about any software update I consume. This would include, BTW, a holistic definition of "software" to include firmware, FPGAs and so on. Please talk to me like an adult about InfoSec! Thank youuuu!)

jrumbut 6y ago
It's about participating in the spirit of generosity that makes open source possible. Yes of course they are under no obligation outside the license, but I'd like to see them send the author a toy anyway. A company like Nintendo sends out tons of swag to people who have collaborated with the company in some way, just add the author to the list.
- gpapilion 6y ago
  Or contribute back to the project.
randmeerkat 6y ago
I’m skeptical that the author would be hired and given any sort of competitive compensation. The creator of homebrew was famously rejected by Google. https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?s=20 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?s=20 I used to be a big believer in open source software, but as for profit enterprises continue to pillage the community without giving anything back more and more I feel that it’s not worth the time or effort involved, unless the work is protected by a proper GPLv3 license.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

People also write comments/blogs (journalism) for free.

disordinary 6y ago

Well, it gets added to your CV too. But, theoretically the company contributes back to the codebase for any enhancements they require making the code better for all users.

randmeerkat 6y ago
Isn’t that weird though? A for profit enterprise profits off of your code and all you get is a CV boost?
- disordinary 6y ago
  What should happen is the company also contributes libraries back to the community, although Nintendo doesn't seem to https://github.com/Nintendo https://github.com/Nintendo. The reason that the internet is as big as it is and as accessible to small and scrappy development teams is because of open source. A lot of the internet is built on code which is given away by companies like Google and Facebook so there is a bit of give and take in this.
- bromonkey 6y ago
  Weird as in exactly what you allow by assigning an open source license to your code? I'm not sure when the mentality of "the little guys can use my code but companies better pay me" crept into common discussion around open source, but it's never worked that way. If Nintendo didn't find a library up to their standards, they would have just created their own (likely not open source) version.
  - phkahler 6y ago
    >> I'm not sure when the mentality of "the little guys can use my code but companies better pay me" crept into common discussion around open source, but it's never worked that way. Yeah that's weird. I think it's partly people realizing the difference between MIT/BSD and GPL (or even AGPL) licenses. Or the diff between some ideal "how open source works" and what the licenses actually say. This is a good thing. People may realise that the choice of license actually matters.