5 ms·

Unlike paintings, FOSS software is critical to many governments and multi-trillion dollar corporations.

robertlagrant 5y ago
Paintings are responsible for the happiness of millions. So what? What people choose to do with your work you gave away (or allowed a museum to hang on a wall) is up to them. Don't give your work away if you don't want people to use it. I know it's not great. But software being used as intended by rich entities is not an intrinsic evil.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  > Don't give your work away if you don't want people to use it. This about sums it up. But at the same time, many people feel like there should be another way to do things. To create code, libraries, frameworks or whatever else that many can benefit from, but there also be some sort of a financial gain to make it sustainable, rather than just a hobby. Recognition is nice, but recognition won't pay your bills or put food on the table (it may help indirectly by opening up new opportunities, but that's a different conversation). That's why some are looking in the direction of software that's free for non-profits or non-commercial usage, but requires a license to use commercially, yet that's not as easy as one might believe (bureaucracy and legal aspects), as opposed to ticking a checkbox in GitHub or wherever that would say "i'd like to charge money for someone using this commercially" and filling out some other data. There's probably a company or two out there to make software licensing easier for developers, though. That said, then we are no longer really talking about "open source" anymore, since we're coming up with limitations of who can or can't use the code and for what, that's more like just source available at that point. That's why licenses like Server Side Public License (SSPL) aren't commonly recognized as open source licenses. So, in summary: - if your goal is money (now or in the near future) then NO, open source is not worth it (at least if you expect a degree of certainty) - if that's not a concern (you have a job) or maybe it's something you just do out of passion or for the experience, then YES, it's probably worth it
  - teddyh 5y ago
    To summarize: What some people are looking for is a business model. Free software is not a business model. Free software is an ethical stance, around which any number of business models may conceivably be constructed.
    - KronisLV 5y ago
      > Free software is an ethical stance, around which any number of business models may conceivably be constructed. Genuine question: where are they? Why do we get articles like the one in this thread, or maybe others like it, for example https://christine.website/blog/open-source-broken-2021-12-11 https://christine.website/blog/open-source-broken-2021-12-11 and https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html Are we not just there yet, as an industry? Or are there models that work really nicely, but just haven't gotten popular enough?
      - robertlagrant 5y ago
        So, for example, the arts have gone in the opposite direction. Play my recording of my song anywhere and you need to pay me. Make a song too similar to mine and pay me. Put my song in the background of your movie and pay me whenever the movie is on, (even if the TV was on mute or the viewer can't hear). Royalties might be the opposite to open source ethically, but they'll let some developers get rich, for sure.
        gatonegro 5y ago
        The key difference here is that for, say, a piece of music, you can very easily point to someone as the creator of said piece. Or a group of people, or a record label, or whoever owns the rights to it. How do you handle royalties for a FOSS project where dozens, or even hundreds of people have contributed various amounts of code over the years?
        zozbot234 5y ago
micromacrofoot 5y ago
If FOSS is critical to your government then your government should participate in maintaining it. They're owed nothing either way.
- watwut 5y ago
  Governments are not demanding that anyone is creating FOSS. There is no labor camp for developers and bi mandate. They are using FOSS as license permits.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    I don't think you're considering the context of my reply.
zozbot234 5y ago
And that's a good thing - I surely would not want governments and corporations to depend on secret, proprietary code! Free software should be a moral obligation, without restrictive "non-commercial use only" or "no use in a public cloud" conditions attached.
bb88 5y ago
That's a choice the governments and those multi-trillion dollar corporations made. They are free to write it themselves if they want. No one held the US Department of Defense over the coals and said, "You MUST use log4j."
jnash 5y ago
bravetraveler 5y ago
If you want in those deep pockets, figure out licensing Once the proverbial cat is out of the bag, it's done. They'll fork and maintain if they have to They could just as well create an equivalent in house. Nothing is owed More sponsorships and such would be great of course... but expecting more than the system requires is excessive by definition
seba_dos1 5y ago
Thankfully, governments and multi-trillion dollar corporations are well equipped to pay for ongoing development and maintenance of FOSS.

Paintings are responsible for the happiness of millions. So what? What people choose to do with your work you gave away (or allowed a museum to hang on a wall) is up to them. Don't give your work away if you don't want people to use it. I know it's not great. But software being used as intended by rich entities is not an intrinsic evil.

KronisLV 5y ago
> Don't give your work away if you don't want people to use it. This about sums it up. But at the same time, many people feel like there should be another way to do things. To create code, libraries, frameworks or whatever else that many can benefit from, but there also be some sort of a financial gain to make it sustainable, rather than just a hobby. Recognition is nice, but recognition won't pay your bills or put food on the table (it may help indirectly by opening up new opportunities, but that's a different conversation). That's why some are looking in the direction of software that's free for non-profits or non-commercial usage, but requires a license to use commercially, yet that's not as easy as one might believe (bureaucracy and legal aspects), as opposed to ticking a checkbox in GitHub or wherever that would say "i'd like to charge money for someone using this commercially" and filling out some other data. There's probably a company or two out there to make software licensing easier for developers, though. That said, then we are no longer really talking about "open source" anymore, since we're coming up with limitations of who can or can't use the code and for what, that's more like just source available at that point. That's why licenses like Server Side Public License (SSPL) aren't commonly recognized as open source licenses. So, in summary: - if your goal is money (now or in the near future) then NO, open source is not worth it (at least if you expect a degree of certainty) - if that's not a concern (you have a job) or maybe it's something you just do out of passion or for the experience, then YES, it's probably worth it
- teddyh 5y ago
  To summarize: What some people are looking for is a business model. Free software is not a business model. Free software is an ethical stance, around which any number of business models may conceivably be constructed.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    > Free software is an ethical stance, around which any number of business models may conceivably be constructed. Genuine question: where are they? Why do we get articles like the one in this thread, or maybe others like it, for example https://christine.website/blog/open-source-broken-2021-12-11 https://christine.website/blog/open-source-broken-2021-12-11 and https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html Are we not just there yet, as an industry? Or are there models that work really nicely, but just haven't gotten popular enough?
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      So, for example, the arts have gone in the opposite direction. Play my recording of my song anywhere and you need to pay me. Make a song too similar to mine and pay me. Put my song in the background of your movie and pay me whenever the movie is on, (even if the TV was on mute or the viewer can't hear). Royalties might be the opposite to open source ethically, but they'll let some developers get rich, for sure.
      - gatonegro 5y ago
        The key difference here is that for, say, a piece of music, you can very easily point to someone as the creator of said piece. Or a group of people, or a record label, or whoever owns the rights to it. How do you handle royalties for a FOSS project where dozens, or even hundreds of people have contributed various amounts of code over the years?
        zozbot234 5y ago

micromacrofoot 5y ago

If FOSS is critical to your government then your government should participate in maintaining it. They're owed nothing either way.

watwut 5y ago
Governments are not demanding that anyone is creating FOSS. There is no labor camp for developers and bi mandate. They are using FOSS as license permits.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  I don't think you're considering the context of my reply.

zozbot234 5y ago

And that's a good thing - I surely would not want governments and corporations to depend on secret, proprietary code! Free software should be a moral obligation, without restrictive "non-commercial use only" or "no use in a public cloud" conditions attached.

bb88 5y ago

That's a choice the governments and those multi-trillion dollar corporations made. They are free to write it themselves if they want. No one held the US Department of Defense over the coals and said, "You MUST use log4j."

jnash 5y ago

bravetraveler 5y ago

If you want in those deep pockets, figure out licensing Once the proverbial cat is out of the bag, it's done. They'll fork and maintain if they have to They could just as well create an equivalent in house. Nothing is owed More sponsorships and such would be great of course... but expecting more than the system requires is excessive by definition

seba_dos1 5y ago

Thankfully, governments and multi-trillion dollar corporations are well equipped to pay for ongoing development and maintenance of FOSS.