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Haha, I can't deny that I love the catty drama that happens around the free software community. While I do wish people would get along better for the health of

Haha, I can't deny that I love the catty drama that happens around the free software community. While I do wish people would get along better for the health of the project, I also suspect that these strong characters are why the movement hasn't been completedo taken over by corporate interests.

artyom 3y ago
I'm 100% with you on that. Strong free software leadership (e.g. classic Torvalds), despite all its problems, is naturally anti-corporation. Anyone with a real job in a moderately Big Co. can tell you that.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Is it really though? Look at the who's who of the Linux foundation and it's all the big tech lackeys deciding everything. Even very questionable companies like Huawei are highly represented. I don't call that anti-corporate.
  - xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
    Cue gratuitous eye roll. The Linux foundation is not equal to Linux. The entire point of the Linux foundation is to interface with the rest of the world's beuracracies, corporations included. Anyone can be represented by putting in the work and putting up the cash. Ultimately corporate garbage rarely leaks into the kernel proper. Most of the filth is off in driver land, which isn't even that bad given it's always going to be a vendor landfill.
    - artyom 3y ago
      Yup, exactly the point. Corporate garbage not making it into the kernel is solely the outcome of Torvalds-like style of saying "this is garbage and you're an *diot", where it's very rare that any processes or governance bodies would do anything about it.
  - bombolo 3y ago
    To non-americans, all the companies in the linux foundation are as questionable as huawei.
    - beebeepka 3y ago
      Exactly. But we're on a US site where shitting on anything China is almost a guaranteed karma boost. Some posts are literally impossible to downvote.
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    >Even very questionable companies like Huawei That is an extremely Americanized take on that awful member list. Is Intel's history of being anticompetitive better? How about their presence in Israel? Is Meta better? Microsoft? To a non-American, many (most) of those companies are worse than Huawei. Actually, any company who share user data with the government (as shown by Snowden) is much worse than Huawei.
    - thefurdrake 3y ago
      > Actually, any company who share user data with the government (as shown by Snowden) is much worse than Huawei. Implicit bias exposed by trying to remove Huawei from the list of companies that share data with their government, combined with whataboutism trying to distract from the meaning of the comment by focusing on a minor item provided as an example.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Anti-corporate licenses would be the Peer Production License, Anti-Capitalist Software License, etc. whereas GPL/MIT/Apache etc. are all extremely corporate-friendly as can be plainly seen by the companies that have adopted them. However GPL software being corporate-friendly can be a good thing if it leads to "exvestments" into public goods that create alternatives to corporate software (such as with Linux) in ways that are not direct investments into corporate aims
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
dehrmann 3y ago
I was thinking it's part of the reason it never offered a cohesive desktop OS.
- zeroCalories 3y ago
  Linux already has a cohesive de, it's called emacs!!
- DANmode 3y ago
  Okay, everyone, line up behind KDE and push!
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    He said cohesive, not 'kohesive'.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      KDE is by far the better desktop, Gnome will never be great as long as they abhor choice. The "you're using it wrong" is too strong there.
      - bombolo 3y ago
        and yet people love apple
        lelanthran 3y ago
        > and yet people love apple That doesn't minimise the impact of open-source software. I've yet to see an Apple user who doesn't install brew as a first step before doing anything with their computer. From what I see, people may love Apple's OS, but they can't use it with without open-source tools.
        tpush 3y ago
        > I've yet to see an Apple user who doesn't install brew as a first step before doing anything with their computer. Most Apple users don't even know what brew is, and I'd be willing to bet that most devs using Macs don't install it either. Anyway, the larger point that gnome can't succeed because it doesn't offer "choice" is nonsense.
OO000oo 3y ago
> I also suspect that these strong characters are why the movement hasn't been completedo taken over by corporate interests They already serve 99% of corporate interests. A "takeover" would sacrifice the veil of what the propagandized "open source community" interprets as corporate egalitarianism.
- zeroCalories 3y ago
  If you make no distinction between free software and open source, sure. But the free software community, centered around fsf, is known to be hard to work with.
  - OO000oo 3y ago
    Sadly, that difficulty is practically the only difference in the distinction. Each share the same crippling shortcomings: those of capitalism itself.
userbinator 3y ago
One can't help but wonder if the corporate interests are actually responsible for creating this drama as an attempt to derail or impede these projects.
- enneff 3y ago
  It has happened before. But it doesn’t really matter whether that’s what’s happening here, as it doesn’t affect how you need to deal with it.
  - hsjqllzlfkf 3y ago
    > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4031841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4031841 LOL!
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- Gigachad 3y ago
  I doubt it. The libreboot maintainer is just unstable and willing to cause huge amounts of drama whenever possible.
INTPenis 3y ago
The way I see it is there's office drama just like this, difference is that open source is transparent for everyone to see, and global. It's like a global office that we all get glimpses into. And in this particular case, it reminds me of Red Hat and CentOS actually. Because one project just wants to ensure that people who download <name brand> are actually getting <name brand> and not something else. That concern is just as valid in open source as it is in big enterprise.

artyom 3y ago

I'm 100% with you on that. Strong free software leadership (e.g. classic Torvalds), despite all its problems, is naturally anti-corporation. Anyone with a real job in a moderately Big Co. can tell you that.

wkat4242 3y ago
Is it really though? Look at the who's who of the Linux foundation and it's all the big tech lackeys deciding everything. Even very questionable companies like Huawei are highly represented. I don't call that anti-corporate.
- xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
  Cue gratuitous eye roll. The Linux foundation is not equal to Linux. The entire point of the Linux foundation is to interface with the rest of the world's beuracracies, corporations included. Anyone can be represented by putting in the work and putting up the cash. Ultimately corporate garbage rarely leaks into the kernel proper. Most of the filth is off in driver land, which isn't even that bad given it's always going to be a vendor landfill.
  - artyom 3y ago
    Yup, exactly the point. Corporate garbage not making it into the kernel is solely the outcome of Torvalds-like style of saying "this is garbage and you're an *diot", where it's very rare that any processes or governance bodies would do anything about it.
- bombolo 3y ago
  To non-americans, all the companies in the linux foundation are as questionable as huawei.
  - beebeepka 3y ago
    Exactly. But we're on a US site where shitting on anything China is almost a guaranteed karma boost. Some posts are literally impossible to downvote.
- Dah00n 3y ago
  >Even very questionable companies like Huawei That is an extremely Americanized take on that awful member list. Is Intel's history of being anticompetitive better? How about their presence in Israel? Is Meta better? Microsoft? To a non-American, many (most) of those companies are worse than Huawei. Actually, any company who share user data with the government (as shown by Snowden) is much worse than Huawei.
  - thefurdrake 3y ago
    > Actually, any company who share user data with the government (as shown by Snowden) is much worse than Huawei. Implicit bias exposed by trying to remove Huawei from the list of companies that share data with their government, combined with whataboutism trying to distract from the meaning of the comment by focusing on a minor item provided as an example.
wahnfrieden 3y ago
Anti-corporate licenses would be the Peer Production License, Anti-Capitalist Software License, etc. whereas GPL/MIT/Apache etc. are all extremely corporate-friendly as can be plainly seen by the companies that have adopted them. However GPL software being corporate-friendly can be a good thing if it leads to "exvestments" into public goods that create alternatives to corporate software (such as with Linux) in ways that are not direct investments into corporate aims
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

dehrmann 3y ago

I was thinking it's part of the reason it never offered a cohesive desktop OS.

zeroCalories 3y ago
Linux already has a cohesive de, it's called emacs!!
DANmode 3y ago
Okay, everyone, line up behind KDE and push!
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  He said cohesive, not 'kohesive'.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    KDE is by far the better desktop, Gnome will never be great as long as they abhor choice. The "you're using it wrong" is too strong there.
    - bombolo 3y ago
      and yet people love apple
      - lelanthran 3y ago
        > and yet people love apple That doesn't minimise the impact of open-source software. I've yet to see an Apple user who doesn't install brew as a first step before doing anything with their computer. From what I see, people may love Apple's OS, but they can't use it with without open-source tools.
        tpush 3y ago
        > I've yet to see an Apple user who doesn't install brew as a first step before doing anything with their computer. Most Apple users don't even know what brew is, and I'd be willing to bet that most devs using Macs don't install it either. Anyway, the larger point that gnome can't succeed because it doesn't offer "choice" is nonsense.

OO000oo 3y ago

> I also suspect that these strong characters are why the movement hasn't been completedo taken over by corporate interests They already serve 99% of corporate interests. A "takeover" would sacrifice the veil of what the propagandized "open source community" interprets as corporate egalitarianism.

zeroCalories 3y ago
If you make no distinction between free software and open source, sure. But the free software community, centered around fsf, is known to be hard to work with.
- OO000oo 3y ago
  Sadly, that difficulty is practically the only difference in the distinction. Each share the same crippling shortcomings: those of capitalism itself.

userbinator 3y ago

One can't help but wonder if the corporate interests are actually responsible for creating this drama as an attempt to derail or impede these projects.

enneff 3y ago
It has happened before. But it doesn’t really matter whether that’s what’s happening here, as it doesn’t affect how you need to deal with it.
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y ago
  > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4031841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4031841 LOL!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
Gigachad 3y ago
I doubt it. The libreboot maintainer is just unstable and willing to cause huge amounts of drama whenever possible.

INTPenis 3y ago

The way I see it is there's office drama just like this, difference is that open source is transparent for everyone to see, and global. It's like a global office that we all get glimpses into. And in this particular case, it reminds me of Red Hat and CentOS actually. Because one project just wants to ensure that people who download <name brand> are actually getting <name brand> and not something else. That concern is just as valid in open source as it is in big enterprise.