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It's frustrating how people only take the capitalist / startup founder point of view when evaluating open source. It's like people can't grasp the idea that som

It's frustrating how people only take the capitalist / startup founder point of view when evaluating open source. It's like people can't grasp the idea that somebody could be pursuing a project without having the greatest possible user base / profit as their primary goal.

toastercat 3y ago
You hit the nail on the head. Hacker News ironically tends to be pretty hostile towards open-source. Offering free and open alternatives is often met with the criticism of "this will never take off and it's not really an alternative because it doesn't do what the multi-billion dollar corporate competitor does to a tee."
- Goronmon 3y ago
  You hit the nail on the head. Hacker News ironically tends to be pretty hostile towards open-source. It's actually much better than it used to be. Since it's roots are in startup culture, there has always been an under-current favoring capitalistic stances. Those currents have weakened over time though. At one point things like dark patterns for user engagement were given a more neutral response than you would see nowadays.
- rakoo 3y ago
  If you dig deep enough, you'll see that "open-source" is actually the preferred term for HN because it is business-friendly: I can use this open-source, depolitized piece of code to make money and not give any to anyone. It's why the term "open source" exists when "Libre" also defines it, but as an anti-business sound to it.
cchance 3y ago
Hackernews really does seem to be heavily capitalist, and anti-opensource when it comes to the comments section at least.
yborg 3y ago
It would have been highly amusing if HN had been around when Linus launched Linux and we could go back and read commentary from all the pragmatists about what a huge waste of time and effort it was across the whole spectrum of casual dismissal to a sense of outrage that anyone would have the hubris to take on major companies already providing far superior platforms.

toastercat 3y ago

You hit the nail on the head. Hacker News ironically tends to be pretty hostile towards open-source. Offering free and open alternatives is often met with the criticism of "this will never take off and it's not really an alternative because it doesn't do what the multi-billion dollar corporate competitor does to a tee."

Goronmon 3y ago
You hit the nail on the head. Hacker News ironically tends to be pretty hostile towards open-source. It's actually much better than it used to be. Since it's roots are in startup culture, there has always been an under-current favoring capitalistic stances. Those currents have weakened over time though. At one point things like dark patterns for user engagement were given a more neutral response than you would see nowadays.
rakoo 3y ago
If you dig deep enough, you'll see that "open-source" is actually the preferred term for HN because it is business-friendly: I can use this open-source, depolitized piece of code to make money and not give any to anyone. It's why the term "open source" exists when "Libre" also defines it, but as an anti-business sound to it.

cchance 3y ago

Hackernews really does seem to be heavily capitalist, and anti-opensource when it comes to the comments section at least.

yborg 3y ago

It would have been highly amusing if HN had been around when Linus launched Linux and we could go back and read commentary from all the pragmatists about what a huge waste of time and effort it was across the whole spectrum of casual dismissal to a sense of outrage that anyone would have the hubris to take on major companies already providing far superior platforms.