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I'm really trying to keep this about the engineering features of a system rather than moral judgments. Open source systems are simply more flexible and adaptabl

I'm really trying to keep this about the engineering features of a system rather than moral judgments. Open source systems are simply more flexible and adaptable than proprietary systems, which have their own benefits. In today's world, the engineering value of open source systems is becoming so important that people are looking for other ways to provide for the developers creating these systems. It can be surprising when a project creator builds something in an area that is usually all open source, but they choose a proprietary path. Just look at the problems created by NVIDIA for their use of proprietary software in CUDA and their GPUs. This software is an attempt to fix issues created by proprietary software with another piece of proprietary software, which is if nothing else an interesting decision.

dylan604 2y ago
UNIX wasn't free. Windows wasn't free. It wasn't until some knucklehead came along and did something abnormal and gave away their thing. Bakers don't give away their goods. Mechanics don't typically repair things for free. Builders don't build things for free. Gas stations don't give away gas. Why do we think all software should be free, and then think that those that don't give it away are the abnormal ones?
- talldayo 2y ago
  > Why do we think all software should be free Why do people return Windows laptops when they have to pay for a Windows License Activation? Because every single OEM pays for it; you don't expect to buy Windows because it is a failed B2C business model. Nobody wants it. Same goes for proprietary UNIX, and people wish it was the case for Nvidia drivers. I own CUDA hardware and lament the fact that cross-industry GPGPU died so FAANG could sell licensed AI SDKs. The only thing stopping AI from being "free" is the limitations OEMs impose on their hardware. > that those that don't give it away are the abnormal ones? They are. Admit it; the internet is the new normal, if your software isn't as "free" as opening a website, you're weird. If I have to pay to access your little forum, I won't use it. If I have to buy your app to see what it's like, I'll never know what you're offering. Part of what makes Nvidia's business model so successful is that they do "give away" CUDA to anyone that owns their hardware. There is no developer fee or mandatory licensing cost, it is plug-and-play with the hardware. Same goes for OpenAI, they'd have never succeeded if you had to buy "the ChatGPT App" from your App Store.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    > Why do people return Windows laptops when they have to pay for a Windows License Activation? The internet echo chamber strikes again. Exactly how many people are actually doing this? Not many, and those that are all hangout together. The rest of the world just blindly goes about their day using Windows while surfing the web using Chrome. Sometimes, it's a good thing to get outside your bubble. It's a big world out there, and not everybody sees the world as you do
    - talldayo 2y ago
      > The rest of the world just blindly goes about their day using Windows while surfing the web using Chrome. Paying for Windows? I think you missed my point. If your computer doesn't ship with an OS, paid or otherwise, people think it's a glitch. The average consumer will sooner return their laptop before they buy a license of Windows, create an Install Media from their old device and flash the new hardware with a purchased license. They'll get a Chromebook instead, people don't buy Windows today. The internet has conditioned the majority of modern technology users to reject and habitually avoid non-free experiences. Ad-enabled free platforms and their pervasive success is all the evidence you need. Commercial software as it existed 20 or 30 years ago is a dead business. Free reigns supreme.
      - dylan604 2y ago
        Who/where/how does someone buy a laptop without an OS? I'm just not able to follow down this hypothetical path that you are insisting on blazing
        hamilyon2 2y ago
        That is kind of his point. You don't, Windows is bundled with laptop. It is not that I agree with his points. Windows for example isn't open source in remotest sense
        dylan604 2y ago
- TaylorAlexander 2y ago
  > Bakers don't give away their goods. Mechanics don't typically repair things for free. Builders don't build things for free. Gas stations don't give away gas. These all have the property which is that they are scarce physical goods or services. Software is not scarce (though of course the labor to create it is), so this is a really bad comparison. And again I did not say it should or should not be free, I said there are engineering benefits to open source software and more and more people recognize those benefits and choose to make things free because they see the value and are willing to recognize the tradeoffs. I never said what "should" be done. "Should" is kind of a nonsense term when used in this way as it hides a lot of assumptions, so I generally do not use it, and notably did not use it in my comment. I want to point out the peculiarity in your rather strong response to a word and concept I never used. I think you are having an argument with imagined people, not a discussion with me. And for what it is worth, I am a robotics engineer and I am designing a completely open source solar powered farming robot designed to be made in a small shop in any city in the world (see my profile), funded by a wealthy robotics entrepreneur who recognizes the value in making this technology available to people all over the world. So I am one of those engineers making this choice, and not someone just asking for things without doing the same of my work. Everything I produce is open source, including person projects and even my personal writing.
- dTal 2y ago
  Because software is information. It is closer to a scientific paper than a loaf of bread, and I do expect those to be free. I do not expect scientists to work for free, but the marginal cost of copying their output is 0 and the social benefit is huge. Free software, like open science, clearly has something going for it pragmatically. The developer hours put into it have paid for themselves magnitudes of times over. Megacorps hire people to work on free software. If you can't see the value, that's a you problem.
  - acuozzo 2y ago
    > the social benefit is huge It will be interesting to see if this is the case in the long run, assuming "huge" has a positive connotation in your post, of course. If AGI comes to pass and it winds up being a net negative for humanity, then the ethics of any practice which involves freely distributing information that can be endlessly copied for very little cost must be reevaluated.
    - TaylorAlexander 2y ago
      > If AGI comes to pass Increasingly, I am not putting much weight in any predictions about whether this will happen in the way we think it will, or what it could possibly mean. We might as well be talking about the rapture.
  - voidUpdate 2y ago
    If all software was free and made no money, how could developers pay their bills?
    - TaylorAlexander 2y ago
      Free software is so important to society that I believe the most reasonable solution is to provide for all people without their need to work for survival. Automate as much as possible such that work is not compulsory, and enough people simply want something to do (and possibly additional pay depending on how the system is arranged) that everything that needs to get done by people does get done. For now that is fiction, but so is "if all software was free". I do think though that both would lead to a faster rate of innovation in society versus one where critical information is withheld from society to pay someone's rent and food bills.
- napoleongl 2y ago
  Otoh recepies and drawings are commonly available for free. So if you can support yourself the cake and engine repair is free. But if you need support then you can get someone to bake or build for you.

dylan604 2y ago

UNIX wasn't free. Windows wasn't free. It wasn't until some knucklehead came along and did something abnormal and gave away their thing. Bakers don't give away their goods. Mechanics don't typically repair things for free. Builders don't build things for free. Gas stations don't give away gas. Why do we think all software should be free, and then think that those that don't give it away are the abnormal ones?

talldayo 2y ago
> Why do we think all software should be free Why do people return Windows laptops when they have to pay for a Windows License Activation? Because every single OEM pays for it; you don't expect to buy Windows because it is a failed B2C business model. Nobody wants it. Same goes for proprietary UNIX, and people wish it was the case for Nvidia drivers. I own CUDA hardware and lament the fact that cross-industry GPGPU died so FAANG could sell licensed AI SDKs. The only thing stopping AI from being "free" is the limitations OEMs impose on their hardware. > that those that don't give it away are the abnormal ones? They are. Admit it; the internet is the new normal, if your software isn't as "free" as opening a website, you're weird. If I have to pay to access your little forum, I won't use it. If I have to buy your app to see what it's like, I'll never know what you're offering. Part of what makes Nvidia's business model so successful is that they do "give away" CUDA to anyone that owns their hardware. There is no developer fee or mandatory licensing cost, it is plug-and-play with the hardware. Same goes for OpenAI, they'd have never succeeded if you had to buy "the ChatGPT App" from your App Store.
- dylan604 2y ago
  > Why do people return Windows laptops when they have to pay for a Windows License Activation? The internet echo chamber strikes again. Exactly how many people are actually doing this? Not many, and those that are all hangout together. The rest of the world just blindly goes about their day using Windows while surfing the web using Chrome. Sometimes, it's a good thing to get outside your bubble. It's a big world out there, and not everybody sees the world as you do
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > The rest of the world just blindly goes about their day using Windows while surfing the web using Chrome. Paying for Windows? I think you missed my point. If your computer doesn't ship with an OS, paid or otherwise, people think it's a glitch. The average consumer will sooner return their laptop before they buy a license of Windows, create an Install Media from their old device and flash the new hardware with a purchased license. They'll get a Chromebook instead, people don't buy Windows today. The internet has conditioned the majority of modern technology users to reject and habitually avoid non-free experiences. Ad-enabled free platforms and their pervasive success is all the evidence you need. Commercial software as it existed 20 or 30 years ago is a dead business. Free reigns supreme.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      Who/where/how does someone buy a laptop without an OS? I'm just not able to follow down this hypothetical path that you are insisting on blazing
      - hamilyon2 2y ago
        That is kind of his point. You don't, Windows is bundled with laptop. It is not that I agree with his points. Windows for example isn't open source in remotest sense
        dylan604 2y ago
TaylorAlexander 2y ago
> Bakers don't give away their goods. Mechanics don't typically repair things for free. Builders don't build things for free. Gas stations don't give away gas. These all have the property which is that they are scarce physical goods or services. Software is not scarce (though of course the labor to create it is), so this is a really bad comparison. And again I did not say it should or should not be free, I said there are engineering benefits to open source software and more and more people recognize those benefits and choose to make things free because they see the value and are willing to recognize the tradeoffs. I never said what "should" be done. "Should" is kind of a nonsense term when used in this way as it hides a lot of assumptions, so I generally do not use it, and notably did not use it in my comment. I want to point out the peculiarity in your rather strong response to a word and concept I never used. I think you are having an argument with imagined people, not a discussion with me. And for what it is worth, I am a robotics engineer and I am designing a completely open source solar powered farming robot designed to be made in a small shop in any city in the world (see my profile), funded by a wealthy robotics entrepreneur who recognizes the value in making this technology available to people all over the world. So I am one of those engineers making this choice, and not someone just asking for things without doing the same of my work. Everything I produce is open source, including person projects and even my personal writing.
dTal 2y ago
Because software is information. It is closer to a scientific paper than a loaf of bread, and I do expect those to be free. I do not expect scientists to work for free, but the marginal cost of copying their output is 0 and the social benefit is huge. Free software, like open science, clearly has something going for it pragmatically. The developer hours put into it have paid for themselves magnitudes of times over. Megacorps hire people to work on free software. If you can't see the value, that's a you problem.
- acuozzo 2y ago
  > the social benefit is huge It will be interesting to see if this is the case in the long run, assuming "huge" has a positive connotation in your post, of course. If AGI comes to pass and it winds up being a net negative for humanity, then the ethics of any practice which involves freely distributing information that can be endlessly copied for very little cost must be reevaluated.
  - TaylorAlexander 2y ago
    > If AGI comes to pass Increasingly, I am not putting much weight in any predictions about whether this will happen in the way we think it will, or what it could possibly mean. We might as well be talking about the rapture.
- voidUpdate 2y ago
  If all software was free and made no money, how could developers pay their bills?
  - TaylorAlexander 2y ago
    Free software is so important to society that I believe the most reasonable solution is to provide for all people without their need to work for survival. Automate as much as possible such that work is not compulsory, and enough people simply want something to do (and possibly additional pay depending on how the system is arranged) that everything that needs to get done by people does get done. For now that is fiction, but so is "if all software was free". I do think though that both would lead to a faster rate of innovation in society versus one where critical information is withheld from society to pay someone's rent and food bills.
napoleongl 2y ago
Otoh recepies and drawings are commonly available for free. So if you can support yourself the cake and engine repair is free. But if you need support then you can get someone to bake or build for you.