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Idea for famous billionaires: support FOSS software and bug squashing streaks like this. It automatically ensues positive image and accelerates advancement of

Idea for famous billionaires: support FOSS software and bug squashing streaks like this. It automatically ensues positive image and accelerates advancement of humanity in science and tech, especially for programs that are core to everyday life of developers, like editors. Someone tag Mr Musk.

tetris11 4y ago
Tag Mr Buffet. Don't tag anyone who will preside over the project as their own creation and will ultimately destroy any community momentum by turning it their own ego project that will destabilise the somewhat quiet community. We need funding, not more zealots
boomboomsubban 4y ago
I think you overestimate the positive image boon. The only people who would care about supporting free software are fairly techy, and they're likely either already Musk supporters or so anti Musk they'd only see the move in a cynical light. You can see this with Microsoft. Most people have no idea that "Microsoft Loves Open Source" is a thing. A few people seem to think Microsoft deserve the benefit of the doubt, some view it from a purely pragmatic view, and some will never forget "embrace, extend, extinguish." The practical benefits might end up worthwhile for them though.
- swores 4y ago
  I think a lot of people have had their feelings about MS improved by their OSS contributions (myself included, and I'm not even a dev). Of course it's not a binary thing for most people of flipping from "MS bad!" to "MS good!", some already liked MS and like them even more, some still hate them, still say "why should I trust them given their history / given they're not 100% lovely even now", but still surely a bit less hate than if they were still acting as they did 20-30 years ago. I've no idea if my gut feeling is more or less right than yours, Id imagine companies as big as MS do actually do research to see how things like this affect public perception (not just for end users/businesses but also for tech workers), but I'm not aware of any research being made public on the PR benefits (or lack thereof) from contributing to open source stuff.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
I mean the big tech companies rely heavily on these tools; surely they have the money to pay people a full-time wage, without using it as leverage to steer projects in their own direction? They owe it to the open source community; they built trillion-dollar companies on top of open source.
- noufalibrahim 4y ago
  They don't "owe" anything to "open source community". The licenses under which the software was made available more or less states that. There are incentives to open source platforms so that they can build applications on top, support projects so that they can steer them etc. but they don't owe anything to the original developers.
  - swores 4y ago
    I think the comment you're replying to is suggesting they morally owe it, the way you owe a thank you to someone who does something nice for you, not that they legally owe anything (example to demonstrate the type of "owe", not to suggest that a thank you is all that's owed). That's how I feel, at least.
    - noufalibrahim 4y ago
      I understand that. And that kind of debt makes sense in individuals. For a corporation (especially a large one), there is no single code of morality (either religious, social or anything else) that animates it except the bottom line. I submit that even "culture" and things which have a social angle are done specifically because they are profitable in the long term. From that perspective, taking software that has been expressly allowed (in black and white) to be used with more or less no restrictions and without any need to give back is perfectly fine (and in some sense, even moral) as far the corporation and the code by which it functions is concerned. That's how I see it. If the open source movement is interested in being sustainable etc., the licenses should bake in some kind of clause that incentivises the companies to pay back either monetarily or with effort. Of course, that would hurt their adoption so they choose not to but if they do that, they can't really complain when companies just take their work and use it many times without even an attribution.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Billionaires? Or millionaires even. And not programmers even. Pay someone $50k/y to fix the bugs.

tetris11 4y ago

Tag Mr Buffet. Don't tag anyone who will preside over the project as their own creation and will ultimately destroy any community momentum by turning it their own ego project that will destabilise the somewhat quiet community. We need funding, not more zealots

boomboomsubban 4y ago

I think you overestimate the positive image boon. The only people who would care about supporting free software are fairly techy, and they're likely either already Musk supporters or so anti Musk they'd only see the move in a cynical light. You can see this with Microsoft. Most people have no idea that "Microsoft Loves Open Source" is a thing. A few people seem to think Microsoft deserve the benefit of the doubt, some view it from a purely pragmatic view, and some will never forget "embrace, extend, extinguish." The practical benefits might end up worthwhile for them though.

swores 4y ago
I think a lot of people have had their feelings about MS improved by their OSS contributions (myself included, and I'm not even a dev). Of course it's not a binary thing for most people of flipping from "MS bad!" to "MS good!", some already liked MS and like them even more, some still hate them, still say "why should I trust them given their history / given they're not 100% lovely even now", but still surely a bit less hate than if they were still acting as they did 20-30 years ago. I've no idea if my gut feeling is more or less right than yours, Id imagine companies as big as MS do actually do research to see how things like this affect public perception (not just for end users/businesses but also for tech workers), but I'm not aware of any research being made public on the PR benefits (or lack thereof) from contributing to open source stuff.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

I mean the big tech companies rely heavily on these tools; surely they have the money to pay people a full-time wage, without using it as leverage to steer projects in their own direction? They owe it to the open source community; they built trillion-dollar companies on top of open source.

noufalibrahim 4y ago
They don't "owe" anything to "open source community". The licenses under which the software was made available more or less states that. There are incentives to open source platforms so that they can build applications on top, support projects so that they can steer them etc. but they don't owe anything to the original developers.
- swores 4y ago
  I think the comment you're replying to is suggesting they morally owe it, the way you owe a thank you to someone who does something nice for you, not that they legally owe anything (example to demonstrate the type of "owe", not to suggest that a thank you is all that's owed). That's how I feel, at least.
  - noufalibrahim 4y ago
    I understand that. And that kind of debt makes sense in individuals. For a corporation (especially a large one), there is no single code of morality (either religious, social or anything else) that animates it except the bottom line. I submit that even "culture" and things which have a social angle are done specifically because they are profitable in the long term. From that perspective, taking software that has been expressly allowed (in black and white) to be used with more or less no restrictions and without any need to give back is perfectly fine (and in some sense, even moral) as far the corporation and the code by which it functions is concerned. That's how I see it. If the open source movement is interested in being sustainable etc., the licenses should bake in some kind of clause that incentivises the companies to pay back either monetarily or with effort. Of course, that would hurt their adoption so they choose not to but if they do that, they can't really complain when companies just take their work and use it many times without even an attribution.

quickthrower2 4y ago

Billionaires? Or millionaires even. And not programmers even. Pay someone $50k/y to fix the bugs.