4 ms·

> I feel this is a mentality change, albeit slow, that is starting to happen. Nah, at best it could be a rediscovery that took an inexplicable amount of time i

> I feel this is a mentality change, albeit slow, that is starting to happen. Nah, at best it could be a rediscovery that took an inexplicable amount of time in the wake of the UNIX wars and dotcom bubble. If you look at paper titles from the 70s, when things were advancing at breakneck speed, you'll see "Open" commonly prefixing proposals - even stuff coming out of IBM (sadly looks over at PS/2 doorstop). Though, I think it is far more likely that businesses have developed a strategy that involves extracting as much free labor possible without actually generating free software: OpenSource® <insert Intel jingle>. I am somewhat sympathetic to their problem though, the early developments occurred in a very different environment - involving companies that couldn't have existed as they did without state sponsorship.

touisteur 5y ago
The people I'm talking about probably weren't there for those epic days, but I get what you're saying...
- sennight 5y ago
  I wonder how much that matters, and how uniformly it applies (primarily on the dimension of industry), when institutional inertia isn't perfectly aligned with employee preference. For example: Microsoft employees... lots of mixed signals. Supposedly their love of opensource has resulted in a Microsoft that no longer plots the destruction of free software, and everybody can rest assured that the bad old days are over. But when they openly protest DoD contract work, they suddenly find themselves impotent to stem the flow of HoloLens units going to the Army. Obviously there are a lot of different things at play - even within that single example, but you can find the same pattern all over the place. So I don't put a lot of weight on the employee sensibility side of the scale... despite the fact that it may diminish, to some degree, the accomplishments of the graybeards - who I venerate more than most.
  - touisteur 5y ago
    I know what you mean and... I don't know. I work in a big company, in an industry where I ask myself moral questions quite often and I know if I'm faced with or if I learn of a sketchy or immoral thing, I'll be sure to talk loudly about it, and feel like I could be heard. But if it were to have no effect, I'd try to vote with my feet asap, but there's also kids to feed etc. I'd sure be less motivated and would be looking for an out. Bye bye Highly invested collaborator, hello 9-5-fuck-you-pay-me. I wasn't saying one team would steer the ship, but rather that the culture of opensource also lives inside Xilinx and I'll take any progress I can. Especially on such emergent tech and after the pains of closed-source AI toolkits and even inside Xilinx, the pain of using their DPU/VITIS-AI offer: oh you want to do X? Too bad, the IP can't be changed or touched (and is or will even be encrypted? Woa).
    - sennight 5y ago
      That would be the absolute free market proposed solution for addressing social externalities in the absence of regulation: companies that make employees unhappy are rendered less competitive due to higher churn and a need for above market wage levels to act as a perpetual retention bonus. I expect that the more readily an industry can convert novel thinking into economic advantage, the greater the strength of that phenomenon, and the more challenging it is to find a global minimum for both individual and organization prosperity. My last 9-5, many years ago, involved writing logistics software in an industry that: didn't present moral dilemmas, didn't especially reward creativity, and certainly didn't leave one feeling any real sense of accomplishment - outside of occasionally conquering another rung on the corporate ladder. It did, however, regularly present interesting problems - so I was pretty happy getting paid to solve non-contrived puzzles. But as I assumed more responsibility I surrendered more independence, and it eventually got to the point were it was a job - so I asked for a pay bump large enough to compensate the loss of intellectually challenging problems. I found myself reading IRS guidance for independent contractors shortly thereafter. Over the years I've considered paths that would eventually necessitate hiring, but I haven't been able to come up with a solution for the problem of balanced interests. One that would have been able to retain my younger self while also maximizing utility. I'm not sure if such a financial instrument exists, one that incentivizes the execution of long term objectives in the company's interest, doesn't collect dead weight silent partners, doesn't leave anyone starving, and doesn't end in a coup.

touisteur 5y ago

The people I'm talking about probably weren't there for those epic days, but I get what you're saying...

sennight 5y ago
I wonder how much that matters, and how uniformly it applies (primarily on the dimension of industry), when institutional inertia isn't perfectly aligned with employee preference. For example: Microsoft employees... lots of mixed signals. Supposedly their love of opensource has resulted in a Microsoft that no longer plots the destruction of free software, and everybody can rest assured that the bad old days are over. But when they openly protest DoD contract work, they suddenly find themselves impotent to stem the flow of HoloLens units going to the Army. Obviously there are a lot of different things at play - even within that single example, but you can find the same pattern all over the place. So I don't put a lot of weight on the employee sensibility side of the scale... despite the fact that it may diminish, to some degree, the accomplishments of the graybeards - who I venerate more than most.
- touisteur 5y ago
  I know what you mean and... I don't know. I work in a big company, in an industry where I ask myself moral questions quite often and I know if I'm faced with or if I learn of a sketchy or immoral thing, I'll be sure to talk loudly about it, and feel like I could be heard. But if it were to have no effect, I'd try to vote with my feet asap, but there's also kids to feed etc. I'd sure be less motivated and would be looking for an out. Bye bye Highly invested collaborator, hello 9-5-fuck-you-pay-me. I wasn't saying one team would steer the ship, but rather that the culture of opensource also lives inside Xilinx and I'll take any progress I can. Especially on such emergent tech and after the pains of closed-source AI toolkits and even inside Xilinx, the pain of using their DPU/VITIS-AI offer: oh you want to do X? Too bad, the IP can't be changed or touched (and is or will even be encrypted? Woa).
  - sennight 5y ago
    That would be the absolute free market proposed solution for addressing social externalities in the absence of regulation: companies that make employees unhappy are rendered less competitive due to higher churn and a need for above market wage levels to act as a perpetual retention bonus. I expect that the more readily an industry can convert novel thinking into economic advantage, the greater the strength of that phenomenon, and the more challenging it is to find a global minimum for both individual and organization prosperity. My last 9-5, many years ago, involved writing logistics software in an industry that: didn't present moral dilemmas, didn't especially reward creativity, and certainly didn't leave one feeling any real sense of accomplishment - outside of occasionally conquering another rung on the corporate ladder. It did, however, regularly present interesting problems - so I was pretty happy getting paid to solve non-contrived puzzles. But as I assumed more responsibility I surrendered more independence, and it eventually got to the point were it was a job - so I asked for a pay bump large enough to compensate the loss of intellectually challenging problems. I found myself reading IRS guidance for independent contractors shortly thereafter. Over the years I've considered paths that would eventually necessitate hiring, but I haven't been able to come up with a solution for the problem of balanced interests. One that would have been able to retain my younger self while also maximizing utility. I'm not sure if such a financial instrument exists, one that incentivizes the execution of long term objectives in the company's interest, doesn't collect dead weight silent partners, doesn't leave anyone starving, and doesn't end in a coup.