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If all the big companies use open source software, that creates a nice level playing field for the whole economy. Anyone with capital can start a rival enterpri

by Tycho 5y ago

If all the big companies use open source software, that creates a nice level playing field for the whole economy. Anyone with capital can start a rival enterprise. Competition breeds innovation and drives down prices. The general public benefits greatly.

burntoutfire 5y ago
If half the carpenters decided to build houses for free, there would be less paid work for the other carpenters though... Society's needs in carpentry would be partially satisfied by the free work.
- Tycho 5y ago
  I don’t think we run out of work. People might need to adapt and do something else. But for software engineers especially, the open source stuff just gives you more tools to leverage for your employers/clients.
  - burntoutfire 5y ago
    I'm not sure about that. For example, if Linux weren't free, but was instead developed by some giant corporation created around it, we'd perhaps have another letter in the FAANG acronym (FLAANG?), and thousands more very high paying jobs.
    - Tycho 5y ago
      But aren’t Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google themselves heavily reliant on things like Unix/Linux? I can imagine a world where all their services exist only as clunky Microsoft offerings that have no rivals except maybe on niche competitor platforms like Mac (pre-OS X)
      - burntoutfire 5y ago
        No, they'd just pay for licences of the commercial UNIX to the uber-global-Unix-vendor company (say something like Redhat, only 100x bigger, because it's not giving away the OS for free), in the same way they for example pay for CPUs to the uber-global-CPU-vendor (i.e. Intel or AMD).
        coliveira 5y ago
        You don't even need to imagine what would be this large UNIX vendor: Sun was the king of UNIX in the late 90s, and in large part it failed because of competition from open source Linux, which benefited Google, Apple, Amazon, and MS.
        burntoutfire 5y ago
        Yeah I was thinking about that example, but wasn't their agenda to tie Solaris to their expensive hardware (whereas Redhat is purely a software company)? And the whole appeal of Linux was - get a "serious" UNIX on a commodity no-brand hardware? I don't know these parts of history that well, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

by Tycho 5y ago

burntoutfire 5y ago

If half the carpenters decided to build houses for free, there would be less paid work for the other carpenters though... Society's needs in carpentry would be partially satisfied by the free work.

Tycho 5y ago
I don’t think we run out of work. People might need to adapt and do something else. But for software engineers especially, the open source stuff just gives you more tools to leverage for your employers/clients.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  I'm not sure about that. For example, if Linux weren't free, but was instead developed by some giant corporation created around it, we'd perhaps have another letter in the FAANG acronym (FLAANG?), and thousands more very high paying jobs.
  - Tycho 5y ago
    But aren’t Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google themselves heavily reliant on things like Unix/Linux? I can imagine a world where all their services exist only as clunky Microsoft offerings that have no rivals except maybe on niche competitor platforms like Mac (pre-OS X)
    - burntoutfire 5y ago
      No, they'd just pay for licences of the commercial UNIX to the uber-global-Unix-vendor company (say something like Redhat, only 100x bigger, because it's not giving away the OS for free), in the same way they for example pay for CPUs to the uber-global-CPU-vendor (i.e. Intel or AMD).
      - coliveira 5y ago
        You don't even need to imagine what would be this large UNIX vendor: Sun was the king of UNIX in the late 90s, and in large part it failed because of competition from open source Linux, which benefited Google, Apple, Amazon, and MS.
        burntoutfire 5y ago
        Yeah I was thinking about that example, but wasn't their agenda to tie Solaris to their expensive hardware (whereas Redhat is purely a software company)? And the whole appeal of Linux was - get a "serious" UNIX on a commodity no-brand hardware? I don't know these parts of history that well, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.