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Hard to believe this even needed to be said, yet the FOSS entitlement continues unabated to this day. The post a few days ago from the developer of curl was poi

by roxgib 4y ago

Hard to believe this even needed to be said, yet the FOSS entitlement continues unabated to this day. The post a few days ago from the developer of curl was pointed example of how bad this has become. https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2022/12/30/an-m1-for-curl/ https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2022/12/30/an-m1-for-curl/

Waterluvian 4y ago
Probably gonna be unpopular but I feel like I got the opposite message: Apple is using FOSS in a completely normal, completely legal way. But some people in the comments were upset that Apple wasn’t voluntarily donating to the project. That feels like entitlement.
- TAForObvReasons 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/AppleSupport/status/1461330383425970180 https://twitter.com/AppleSupport/status/1461330383425970180 > Thanks for contacting us. To get help with this issue, please reach out to Curl: https://curl.se/gethelp.html https://curl.se/gethelp.html The original tweet was deleted. If this were a bug report related to the system distribution of curl on M1 macOS (apple's proprietary platform), it seems somewhat entitled that Apple would pass the support burden to the curl author without providing resources to debug on their proprietary platform
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    If I publish a program to run on a Mac, Apple should give me resources for debugging issues?
    - Hizonner 4y ago
      If Apple includes your program as part of the software it sells along with the Mac, then Apple should be sending you well-tested pull requests for any problems its users find, not just giving you debugging resources.
      - Ekaros 4y ago
        Or fork the project and fix it themselves. I expect the software included in Windows as default to work correctly. I don't see any reason why that wouldn't apply to all products I buy like that.
    - TAForObvReasons 4y ago
      If Apple is distributing free and open source software as part of the base operating system, certainly they should be taking on some of the support burden. This would be a different story if Apple wasn't shipping curl directly.
      - Waterluvian 4y ago
        Ah. I accept that argument. I feel that Apple is still acting perfectly legally and perhaps the solution is for developers to be clear about their expectations by way of licensing. But that’s often hard to do once the license ship has sailed and then your program becomes included in something like MacOS. The gist of what rubs me the wrong way is that Apple is following curl’s license precisely and people are still unhappy.
        thfuran 4y ago
        There's plenty of room for being a dick without breaking a law.
        wahnfrieden 4y ago
        what's legality got to do with decent society?
        josephcsible 4y ago
        > The gist of what rubs me the wrong way is that Apple is following curl’s license precisely and people are still unhappy. I view Apple's behavior the same as I do people who leave their shopping carts loose in the parking lot instead of returning them to the corrals. Sure, they aren't legally required to provide any form of support to curl, but they would anyway if they had any decency.
        morganf 4y ago
        As a human being, it can be very useful to separate out “moral” behavior from “legal” behavior. Even if Apple or John Smith acts perfectly legally, that doesn’t mean they’re acting in a kind or good or well-intentioned or fair way. The law - no matter how comprehensive - can never legislate kindness. In fact, if you are sophisticated about it, you can be a world-class Greatest Of All Time A—-hole while still technically complying with every law in your jurisdiction.
  - cldellow 4y ago
    The original tweet can be seen at https://web.archive.org/web/20211119123038/https://twitter.com/AppleSupport/status/1461330383425970180 https://web.archive.org/web/20211119123038/https://twitter.c... It's hard to tell, but it sounds like the user had a question about how to use the `-E` flag. Directing them to https://curl.se/gethelp.html https://curl.se/gethelp.html seems... reasonable? The first link on that URL is to the curl-users mailing list, which seems like a reasonable venue for such a question.
- chamwislothe2nd 4y ago
  Yeah, they're the richest computer company in the world. It would be cool if they were more generous. That's all.
maxbond 4y ago
Perhaps something that's needed is suppliers you can pay to provide a warranty for open source, who share revenue with the relevant projects (with a corporate structure that guarantees this, some flavor of B corp). So I pay Foo, Foo pays Daniel, and Foo stays on top of curl's releases & makes sure that Daniel is getting the support he needs (putting out bounties or buying him a MacBook if he isn't) and that malicious code hasn't slipped into circulation. I'm just spitballing, I'm skeptical this would work, but if it were attempted, something critical would be it being a partnership and not that the supplier becomes the boss of the open source projects.
- zokier 4y ago
  While support contracts with RedHat/SuSE/etc do not go as far as take full liability, it is essentially their business model to take money from corps and funnel it into maintenance
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  That sounds more or less like Red Hat (I suppose now IBM). I don't entirely know the ecosystem, but I believe they give some money to the Keycloak project (which my company uses). I'm sure they sponsor others, but I assume the main contribution is developers - if you look at commits on the average project github, there's a good chance Red Hat will be well represented, and for core Linux components, they'll probably be at the top. Intel will also have a significant presence. Sun was big on this back in the day as well.
- di4na 4y ago
  This is basically what Tidelift does. I personally think that the solution is more in line of something like https://sovereigntechfund.de/ https://sovereigntechfund.de/, where taxes pay for support of what is fundamentally infrastructure
  - wardedVibe 4y ago
    Ideally we'd have something like quadratic funding[0] as the means of choosing where to spend that fund, so that we get optimal contributions from private funds as well. In general, software should be treated like a public resource, since the marginal cost of distribution is ~0, and restricting distribution frequently requires a lot of effort. [0]:https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/12/07/quadratic.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/12/07/quadratic.html
zokier 4y ago
Isn't offering hardware donations for devs the opposite of entitlement?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by roxgib 4y ago

Waterluvian 4y ago

Probably gonna be unpopular but I feel like I got the opposite message: Apple is using FOSS in a completely normal, completely legal way. But some people in the comments were upset that Apple wasn’t voluntarily donating to the project. That feels like entitlement.

TAForObvReasons 4y ago
https://twitter.com/AppleSupport/status/1461330383425970180 https://twitter.com/AppleSupport/status/1461330383425970180 > Thanks for contacting us. To get help with this issue, please reach out to Curl: https://curl.se/gethelp.html https://curl.se/gethelp.html The original tweet was deleted. If this were a bug report related to the system distribution of curl on M1 macOS (apple's proprietary platform), it seems somewhat entitled that Apple would pass the support burden to the curl author without providing resources to debug on their proprietary platform
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  If I publish a program to run on a Mac, Apple should give me resources for debugging issues?
  - Hizonner 4y ago
    If Apple includes your program as part of the software it sells along with the Mac, then Apple should be sending you well-tested pull requests for any problems its users find, not just giving you debugging resources.
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      Or fork the project and fix it themselves. I expect the software included in Windows as default to work correctly. I don't see any reason why that wouldn't apply to all products I buy like that.
  - TAForObvReasons 4y ago
    If Apple is distributing free and open source software as part of the base operating system, certainly they should be taking on some of the support burden. This would be a different story if Apple wasn't shipping curl directly.
    - Waterluvian 4y ago
      Ah. I accept that argument. I feel that Apple is still acting perfectly legally and perhaps the solution is for developers to be clear about their expectations by way of licensing. But that’s often hard to do once the license ship has sailed and then your program becomes included in something like MacOS. The gist of what rubs me the wrong way is that Apple is following curl’s license precisely and people are still unhappy.
      - thfuran 4y ago
        There's plenty of room for being a dick without breaking a law.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        what's legality got to do with decent society?
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        > The gist of what rubs me the wrong way is that Apple is following curl’s license precisely and people are still unhappy. I view Apple's behavior the same as I do people who leave their shopping carts loose in the parking lot instead of returning them to the corrals. Sure, they aren't legally required to provide any form of support to curl, but they would anyway if they had any decency.
      - morganf 4y ago
        As a human being, it can be very useful to separate out “moral” behavior from “legal” behavior. Even if Apple or John Smith acts perfectly legally, that doesn’t mean they’re acting in a kind or good or well-intentioned or fair way. The law - no matter how comprehensive - can never legislate kindness. In fact, if you are sophisticated about it, you can be a world-class Greatest Of All Time A—-hole while still technically complying with every law in your jurisdiction.
- cldellow 4y ago
  The original tweet can be seen at https://web.archive.org/web/20211119123038/https://twitter.com/AppleSupport/status/1461330383425970180 https://web.archive.org/web/20211119123038/https://twitter.c... It's hard to tell, but it sounds like the user had a question about how to use the `-E` flag. Directing them to https://curl.se/gethelp.html https://curl.se/gethelp.html seems... reasonable? The first link on that URL is to the curl-users mailing list, which seems like a reasonable venue for such a question.
chamwislothe2nd 4y ago
Yeah, they're the richest computer company in the world. It would be cool if they were more generous. That's all.

maxbond 4y ago

Perhaps something that's needed is suppliers you can pay to provide a warranty for open source, who share revenue with the relevant projects (with a corporate structure that guarantees this, some flavor of B corp). So I pay Foo, Foo pays Daniel, and Foo stays on top of curl's releases & makes sure that Daniel is getting the support he needs (putting out bounties or buying him a MacBook if he isn't) and that malicious code hasn't slipped into circulation. I'm just spitballing, I'm skeptical this would work, but if it were attempted, something critical would be it being a partnership and not that the supplier becomes the boss of the open source projects.

zokier 4y ago
While support contracts with RedHat/SuSE/etc do not go as far as take full liability, it is essentially their business model to take money from corps and funnel it into maintenance
hotpotamus 4y ago
That sounds more or less like Red Hat (I suppose now IBM). I don't entirely know the ecosystem, but I believe they give some money to the Keycloak project (which my company uses). I'm sure they sponsor others, but I assume the main contribution is developers - if you look at commits on the average project github, there's a good chance Red Hat will be well represented, and for core Linux components, they'll probably be at the top. Intel will also have a significant presence. Sun was big on this back in the day as well.
di4na 4y ago
This is basically what Tidelift does. I personally think that the solution is more in line of something like https://sovereigntechfund.de/ https://sovereigntechfund.de/, where taxes pay for support of what is fundamentally infrastructure
- wardedVibe 4y ago
  Ideally we'd have something like quadratic funding[0] as the means of choosing where to spend that fund, so that we get optimal contributions from private funds as well. In general, software should be treated like a public resource, since the marginal cost of distribution is ~0, and restricting distribution frequently requires a lot of effort. [0]:https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/12/07/quadratic.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/12/07/quadratic.html

zokier 4y ago

Isn't offering hardware donations for devs the opposite of entitlement?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]