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I think you've hinted at a more beneficial model. This idea is something I've been tossing around for a bit as well. What if there was no proprietary code? What

I think you've hinted at a more beneficial model. This idea is something I've been tossing around for a bit as well. What if there was no proprietary code? What if every company that uses software has a team of devs? Not to build stuff just for that company, but to contribute to the open source projects that the company relies on. They would be able to handle the features they need entirely in house, and if multiple companies need the same or similar features this allows more resources to be put towards that thing FOSS software would be actively maintained but a massive network of the companies that use the software, instead of relying on the small teams or individuals for whom its a pet project I think this system would generate far more robust software and the ecosystem to support it

2Gkashmiri 5y ago
yeah. I contribute to libreoffice with any bug i encounter during my daily work, i report it. If i had the dev chops, i would've fixed this myself. Now, if i were an organisation like the the german government. Why can't they hire local developers and fix immediate problems, push the fix and everyone is happy?
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  That's exactly the idea! The government and companies generally have IT Dept's now, sometimes with a dev team. Those resources can be geared towards supporting and contributing to open source (that they use internally) instead of giving money to these corporations for shit support and "maybe we'll add the feature you want (but probably not, and we're increasing the cost BTW ^^)"
  - Matthias247 5y ago
    that's a theory. But then those develping departs might be very understaffed and get swamped with feature requests, which means end users might still not get what they want. That happens even for any central tools in the big tech companies, which likely have more resources to work on those. And there's the additional challenge of actually getting contributions landed upsream, which requires work from other maintainers.
908B64B197 5y ago
What would you choose between being a Microsoft Employee or a German Government employee? One of them is 4x the compensation of the other one...
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  You seem to be assuming that pay would not change along with everything else. If everyone is supporting FOSS with their own developers, which they can pay more wages to because they aren't shelling out to Microsoft and apple, then Microsoft won't have as much income with which to pay exorbitant salaries. Multiple parts of the system interact, dont assume nothing else changes with this massive shift (I'm not only talking about the German gov doing this, but all companies)
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > If everyone is supporting FOSS with their own developers, which they can pay more wages to because they aren't shelling out to Microsoft and apple, then Microsoft won't have as much income with which to pay exorbitant salaries. That would require a huge coordination effort. There's going to be several companies that want different features and have their own devs on payroll (at different rates). VS Microsoft that can just organize a meeting with the leads for Office and plan out the roadmap. Also, exorbitant is one way of seeing it, but does it hold when you consider the insane added value these devs bring to millions of businesses? > I'm not only talking about the German gov doing this, but all companies The other issue, specifically with government, is that salaries are capped to public servant scales. There's no way they can hire Microsoft or Google talent at these rates.

2Gkashmiri 5y ago

yeah. I contribute to libreoffice with any bug i encounter during my daily work, i report it. If i had the dev chops, i would've fixed this myself. Now, if i were an organisation like the the german government. Why can't they hire local developers and fix immediate problems, push the fix and everyone is happy?

netizen-936824 5y ago
That's exactly the idea! The government and companies generally have IT Dept's now, sometimes with a dev team. Those resources can be geared towards supporting and contributing to open source (that they use internally) instead of giving money to these corporations for shit support and "maybe we'll add the feature you want (but probably not, and we're increasing the cost BTW ^^)"
- Matthias247 5y ago
  that's a theory. But then those develping departs might be very understaffed and get swamped with feature requests, which means end users might still not get what they want. That happens even for any central tools in the big tech companies, which likely have more resources to work on those. And there's the additional challenge of actually getting contributions landed upsream, which requires work from other maintainers.

908B64B197 5y ago

What would you choose between being a Microsoft Employee or a German Government employee? One of them is 4x the compensation of the other one...

netizen-936824 5y ago
You seem to be assuming that pay would not change along with everything else. If everyone is supporting FOSS with their own developers, which they can pay more wages to because they aren't shelling out to Microsoft and apple, then Microsoft won't have as much income with which to pay exorbitant salaries. Multiple parts of the system interact, dont assume nothing else changes with this massive shift (I'm not only talking about the German gov doing this, but all companies)
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > If everyone is supporting FOSS with their own developers, which they can pay more wages to because they aren't shelling out to Microsoft and apple, then Microsoft won't have as much income with which to pay exorbitant salaries. That would require a huge coordination effort. There's going to be several companies that want different features and have their own devs on payroll (at different rates). VS Microsoft that can just organize a meeting with the leads for Office and plan out the roadmap. Also, exorbitant is one way of seeing it, but does it hold when you consider the insane added value these devs bring to millions of businesses? > I'm not only talking about the German gov doing this, but all companies The other issue, specifically with government, is that salaries are capped to public servant scales. There's no way they can hire Microsoft or Google talent at these rates.