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Some people are under the impression that the corporate world and open-source are separate, whereas a very significant part of open-source is already corporate.
by pron 6y ago
Some people are under the impression that the corporate world and open-source are separate, whereas a very significant part of open-source is already corporate. Linux, Chromium, OpenJDK, V8, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Tensor Flow, Elastic Search, Kubernetes, Redis, and many, many other of the biggest, most influential open source projects are overwhelmingly developed by people paid by for-profit corporations to work on those projects. Getting corporations to fund smaller, more independent, projects might be a good idea, but those two worlds are already just one.
- erhk 6y agoSo how do you crowd source a project worth keeping right now? A tool that poisons data for Google analytics would hardly be funded by them. At a certain point we simply cannot allow companies to be the only ones holding the reigns.
- wolftune 6y agoNo easy answers. We're trying to address that at Snowdrift.coop but are ourselves struggling volunteers not getting fully launched still (but not giving up, still at it). Most efforts do seem focused on corporate open-source. The under-funding of that stuff is indeed an issue. But it doesn't result in real public goods that treat the public well if it's all upstream stuff that only serves to make proprietary downstream end-user products.
- andrewaylett 6y agoThank you for the work you've put into Snowdrift -- I'm still very excited for the project. Getting fairly close to my first charge now, actually :).
- DetroitThrow 6y agoHey wolftune, is there an open place for road maps and road blocks for Snowdrift? The idea seems to hit on a problem I describe just above you.
- wolftune 6y agoNot sure what you mean by "open place", we (too messily right now) are tracking stuff at https://gitlab.com/groups/snowdrift/-/issues https://gitlab.com/groups/snowdrift/-/issues and there's a needs-updating semi-outdated page https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/planning https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/planning We could certainly use help from anyone who would like to do some project management. In general, we have https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/community/how-to-help https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/community/how-to-help We have weekly audio meetings and have Matrix and IRC discussions, and people are welcome to pop in. Not sure if these are the things you were asking about
- DetroitThrow 6y agoThis structural disadvantage of small experiments which provide no value for market forces or privately owned entities but does provide a perhaps significant public value goes beyond software by the way - and I'm not sure simply stating that the best alternative we have in many or most cases is to decrease the public good in order to yield some level of profitability. In the mean time, if your service can only exist as something outside the public domain, I don't think people will complain much if you're honest in your communications about it.
- karussell 6y agonit-pick: Elastic Search is not open-source (anymore)
- cperciva 6y agoIndeed, that should say Open Distro for Elasticsearch.
- erezsh 6y agonit-pick: Only according to the OSI, whose credibility within the community isn't what it once was.
- karussell 6y agoAlso according to many people in and outside of the community. OSI or free software definitions are meant to give the contributor the same rights which they don't have for a "source available" license. Under a "source available" license ES would have never gained the same popularity nor commercial success. (Don't understand me wrong: ES can do what they want with their code but advertising it as "it is the same for most people" is untrue)
- erezsh 6y agoI'm not saying Elastic's model is the open-source ideal. But a product that can't find a financial model won't exist either. ES may not give their contributors the same rights on paper, but in practice there is no discernable difference, other than that the contributors aren't allowed to directly compete with them (iirc).
- Daho0n 6y agoSo open but not free.
- DetroitThrow 6y agoThe epipen design might have been "open to public inspection", but I think most descriptions of it are accompanied by the term proprietary rather than open because of the nature of it being closed for them to use exclusively. In contrast to the patent on insulin being made open for all to inspect, use, and build upon - SSPL does not smell very "open source" if it's similarly opposed to forking or being the foundation for something someone takes in a different direction.