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Things that benefit everybody may sometimes disproportionately benefit some entities more than others, but that is the price of having something that's indiscri
by jchw 3y ago
Things that benefit everybody may sometimes disproportionately benefit some entities more than others, but that is the price of having something that's indiscriminately beneficial to everyone. On the other hand, the amount of people who get to benefit from those things is still vastly greater than something that is limited to benefiting just an exclusive group.
If anything, I think the way a lot of open source software winds up playing out just makes the economy a bit more efficient. Everyone does not have to write Apache or Nginx, or pay a lot of money for it. Everyone, from Spotify to some guy named Eric, can run Nginx on a server and do interesting things with it.
I'm all for fixing wealth inequality but blaming open source for it seems like a terrible mistake. Open source software certainly didn't cause the wealth inequality of our society, and it's not even clear it has yet made it much worse.
- xkekjrktllss 3y ago>Open source software certainly didn't cause the wealth inequality of our society And it certainly does nothing to change it either, but we all have to pretend otherwise because our jobs depend on us drinking the kool-aid.
- jchw 3y agoPersonally, I don't feel a pressure to do that. It's not even really necessary, because while it may not solve all of society's problems, it's still a clear mutually beneficial relationship in the long run.
- Buxato 3y agoOpen Source improved the world, from health, to 3d printing FFF, to learning, to start a business around it, ... and is continue giving a lot of opportunities in both education, research and business creation. But definitely it will not change inequality, but its contributions in the society are huge. Inequality will always exist, because we are not equal, not same intelligence, not same beauty, not same risk adversity, not same luck, not same environment...