> Meanwhile present day Linux desktop is still dead. Sure, but that's just pointing to one area where Free and Open Source software hasn't taken over the world

> Meanwhile present day Linux desktop is still dead. Sure, but that's just pointing to one area where Free and Open Source software hasn't taken over the world. It's rather pessimistic to treat this as a sign of FOSS being on the decline. > Open source maintainers abandoning projects due to lack of time and interest. Hasn't this always been so? FOSS doesn't offer a guarantee that a package will see continual improvement forever. Unlike closed-source software, it's at least possible to fork. > They say why not just use GPL but if you license your code using GPL you will not have users. This might be true for a certain narrow category of server-side software. It hasn't stopped GNU/Linux from taking over the world. It also depends on your goals. The GPL isn't about maximal uptake, it's about preserving software freedom. > Developers can’t even share the name of the software they are putting your code into because of these NDA they signed. Unless licence terms are being broken, I don't see a problem here. FOSS licences never give the original author any special right to know how their software is being used by others. Rightly so. I recall reading of how the FreeBSD guys figured out that Sony were using their code for the PlayStation 3, from the way there were asking technical questions. They found it rather funny, but they didn't really mind. Sony weren't breaking the BSD licence, so it was fine. > Sometimes it’s just a simple request like attribution and compliance is still uncommon. Where? > Life as a open source maintainer is sometimes a life threatening endeavor Anyone with an email address could receive a life-threatening email from some deranged adversary. > Society, Conglomerates, and Capitalism killed free software and nobody cared. It’s all about 10x ROI and taking advantage of some poor idiot programmer clueless in business. I'm not seeing anything to back that up. There are some new concerns in the FOSS world such as cloud providers forking projects and making piles of money selling SaaS while the original project gets nothing. It's not good that MongoDB switched to a licence which is neither an FSF-approved Free Software licence nor an OSI-approved Open Source licence. Still though, there's nothing at the level of an existential threat.