3 ms·

> You seem to believe that (...) Free Software developers to overextend themselves, (...) and that society then ought to somehow repay these selfless acts of sa

> You seem to believe that (...) Free Software developers to overextend themselves, (...) and that society then ought to somehow repay these selfless acts of sacrifice. No, the exact opposite. I'd like to have a society that values sustainability and their civil liberties more than they value consumerism and short-term thinking based on immediate conveniences. Software is increasingly a crucial part of everyone's lives and we can not just wait that others will make stuff for us out of goodness of their hearts. As consumers, we should be more selective about what kind of business we patronize and we should vote with our wallets to indicate what should be at premium. If we wait for Companies to develop a conscience or "The Government" to fix these problems, it's never going to happen. But we can collective take action and start demanding F/OSS alternatives and software that does not lock us into any trap and we should be ready to pay for it. > I instead want to improve society to the point that developers have enough spare time This is the worldview that implies that F/OSS is something that should be only a hobby, and something to be practiced only by amateurs (in the good sense of the word). Apologies for the language, but fuck that worldview. I do not want to do FOSS in my spare time. I want to use my spare time with my family, pursuing other interests and hobbies, do something else besides writing software. This is not to say that all software should be written only in a "professional" context. If there are people that want to write software for their own interests and self-expression, great. If they want to make that F/OSS, even better! But if the majority of software being written is meant to solve actual problems that people/business are willing to pay actual money for it, why can't that be F/OSS as well?

teddyh 4y ago
I think we are mostly talking past each other. > But we can collective take action and start demanding F/OSS alternatives and software that does not lock us into any trap and we should be ready to pay for it. A nice sentiment, but I don’t think this has any realistic chance of happening. Individuals boycotting something has, as far as I know, never worked to achieve anything, and that is, in effect, what it is that you are proposing – boycotting proprietary software in favor of paying for free software. > This is the worldview that implies that F/OSS is something that should be only a hobby, and something to be practiced only by amateurs (in the good sense of the word). Oh, no. Software will probably be written all over the place, both for pay and not, to solve people’s specific problems (either their own problems, or the problems of their immediate customers or associates). What does require spare time and effort, however, is generalizing this software to be useful for a wide class of people in general. Also general polish, manuals, error checking, etc. This work is what will never have an incentive to happen except the minor recognition and job satisfaction which I mentioned. And for people to spend the effort for this minor reward, they must have an abundance of effort and time to spare on it. And somehow supplying this to developers is, I believe, the only solution.
- rglullis 4y ago
  I don't see it as boycotting something, I see it as a creating a market segment. Like electric cars or organic food, we just need to find a way to spread the message that FOSS is better for people, even if (at first) is less convenient or more expensive.
  - teddyh 4y ago
    I wish I could believe that, but, like worrying about “personal carbon footprint” is useless for solving the climate crisis, I think trying to get people en masse to care, personally, about this issue will never achieve anything.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      You don't need to get people en masse to care, you need to get a niche. This niche needs to be strict about upholding its values ("avoid unnecessary burning of fossil fuels!", "GMOs reduce biodiversity and introduce systemic risks in our food production chain!", "non-FOSS and the ad-subsidized Internet is destroying the civil discourse and leading to immense concentration of wealth") and it needs to foment the creation of alternatives. Even if the masses don't fully adopt the "better" alternative, the competition should be enough to force a change in behavior of the status quo. Take IE6 and Firefox (pre-Chrome): the majority of people didn't care about the browser they were using, as long as they could go to the websites they wanted. At first, they'd use IE because that's what was there and the majority of sites worked with it. But when we got an intolerant minority [0] that upheld the idea that the web should be open and started adopting Firefox, it was enough to get a virtuous cycle of having less IE-only sites, more features on Firefox and more people simply following the recommendations of their tech-savvy friends to use Firefox. Even if Firefox never got to be the dominant browser, its mere existence and support was enough to put the incumbent in check. [0]: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
      - teddyh 4y ago

teddyh 4y ago

I think we are mostly talking past each other. > But we can collective take action and start demanding F/OSS alternatives and software that does not lock us into any trap and we should be ready to pay for it. A nice sentiment, but I don’t think this has any realistic chance of happening. Individuals boycotting something has, as far as I know, never worked to achieve anything, and that is, in effect, what it is that you are proposing – boycotting proprietary software in favor of paying for free software. > This is the worldview that implies that F/OSS is something that should be only a hobby, and something to be practiced only by amateurs (in the good sense of the word). Oh, no. Software will probably be written all over the place, both for pay and not, to solve people’s specific problems (either their own problems, or the problems of their immediate customers or associates). What does require spare time and effort, however, is generalizing this software to be useful for a wide class of people in general. Also general polish, manuals, error checking, etc. This work is what will never have an incentive to happen except the minor recognition and job satisfaction which I mentioned. And for people to spend the effort for this minor reward, they must have an abundance of effort and time to spare on it. And somehow supplying this to developers is, I believe, the only solution.

rglullis 4y ago
I don't see it as boycotting something, I see it as a creating a market segment. Like electric cars or organic food, we just need to find a way to spread the message that FOSS is better for people, even if (at first) is less convenient or more expensive.
- teddyh 4y ago
  I wish I could believe that, but, like worrying about “personal carbon footprint” is useless for solving the climate crisis, I think trying to get people en masse to care, personally, about this issue will never achieve anything.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    You don't need to get people en masse to care, you need to get a niche. This niche needs to be strict about upholding its values ("avoid unnecessary burning of fossil fuels!", "GMOs reduce biodiversity and introduce systemic risks in our food production chain!", "non-FOSS and the ad-subsidized Internet is destroying the civil discourse and leading to immense concentration of wealth") and it needs to foment the creation of alternatives. Even if the masses don't fully adopt the "better" alternative, the competition should be enough to force a change in behavior of the status quo. Take IE6 and Firefox (pre-Chrome): the majority of people didn't care about the browser they were using, as long as they could go to the websites they wanted. At first, they'd use IE because that's what was there and the majority of sites worked with it. But when we got an intolerant minority [0] that upheld the idea that the web should be open and started adopting Firefox, it was enough to get a virtuous cycle of having less IE-only sites, more features on Firefox and more people simply following the recommendations of their tech-savvy friends to use Firefox. Even if Firefox never got to be the dominant browser, its mere existence and support was enough to put the incumbent in check. [0]: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
    - teddyh 4y ago