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Free software doesn't mean you get to see all the hard work that went into it, though, or that you get to see all the UML diagrams, or napkins, or other design
by dwringer 5y ago
Free software doesn't mean you get to see all the hard work that went into it, though, or that you get to see all the UML diagrams, or napkins, or other design documents. You might not even get all the supporting code, if it isn't required to build the software from the freely-released source (think about what kind of emacs configs developers might use in developing free software, but never release). That's not really what's at issue.
Those things you mentioned behind the scenes of a film do not have ongoing side-effects on the audience. The hidden algorithms and obfuscated execution of non-free software do.
- ineedasername 5y agoWell, to avoid stretching the metaphor too far, I'll just say that the movie/book/music equivalent of open source requires more than just the final product, which is essentially the compiled binary. Where you draw the line between between all production materials and the final output may vary. But if Avengers: Endgame was put under a permissive creative commons license, that would no more make it the equivalent of open source than if Microsoft allowed free distribution of MS Office & derivative works, but not the actual source code. At this point though we're debating the analogy more than the issue, not always productive (though sometimes it is). Maybe we've (I) stretched it too far.