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You miss the point. "Open source is not a business model" but also the OSI has made it increasingly clear it doesn't want it to even be possible to make a busin

You miss the point. "Open source is not a business model" but also the OSI has made it increasingly clear it doesn't want it to even be possible to make a business model on top of open source software. That means companies will be, regardless of the desire otherwise, forced into proprietary models, and proprietary development will continue to be the most effective way to put food on the table. Open source will forever be a niche volunteer thing plus some predatory abuse by monopolies because the OSI is not interested in open source being the default way to make software.

hollerith 2y ago
>the OSI has made it increasingly clear it doesn't want it to even be possible to make a business model on top of open source The OSI's definition of open source was worked out in the 1990s and has changed almost not at all. That stability in the meaning of "open source" (or "OSI-approved", if you want to be precise) is a good thing. If you want to experiment with software licenses that (like open source) don't lock the user in or that (like open source) allow forking, but that are better than open source at allowing the maintainer to earn money, then please do -- just don't call your experiment open source. Coin another term. It is not some awful tragedy that those who want to experiment with software licenses cannot use the reputation of the "open source" label to market their offerings. Parenthetically, "nice volunteer thing" is not an accurate description of AOSP, Chromium, Firefox and most Linux desktop software.
- ocdtrekkie 2y ago
  > AOSP, Chromium, Firefox All exploitative projects entirely funded and mostly operated by a monopoly found violating the law or awaiting judgment for such in almost every single first world jurisdiction. Also neither AOSP nor Chromium are used in the real world in practice, over 99.99% of users use proprietary forks. In other words, thank you for supporting my statement entirely. > Linux desktop software Yeah, definitely "not niche".
  - hollerith 2y ago
    >Also neither AOSP nor Chromium are used in the real world in practice, over 99.99% of users use proprietary forks. I didn't think it needed spelling out, but OK: GrapheneOS would not exist if AOSP didn't have an open-source license. Electron, Microsoft Edge and Brave browser wouldn't exist if Chromium hadn't been released on open-source terms. Surely it is not your claim that because Google has done bad things, nothing that Google has ever done has ever been positive? Going back to your previous comment, where you write, "the OSI is not interested in open source being the default way to make software." Do you actually believe that if the OSI had been smarter or more ethical or had listened to your advice (sent back in time perhaps) then open source might have become the default way to make software? I consider it obvious that that was never a possibility.
    - kragen 2y ago
      possibly you are a time traveler because in this timeline open source did become the default way to make software
      - hollerith 2y ago
        OK, my previous comment was clumsy (and I concede that most of the software on the machine I'm using to write this is open source). What I meant to do with my previous comment was point out that my interlocutor seems to believe that the situation in software is just terrible, which implies that if things had gone different, it could be a lot better. But I'm not able to imagine a realistic evolution in which software ends up in a much better place than the current status quo.
        kragen 2y ago
        it's been much worse in the past, so we know it can be much worse. probably at the time it was hard to imagine the evolution to where we are now, so maybe it can get much better too. certainly i had no idea 30 years ago where we'd be now
kragen 2y ago
the osi was founded by people who built their businesses on open-source software, with whom i talked about it in detail at the time. despite entrenched resistance from, among others, proprietary software vendors and the iranian government, open source became the default way to make software about ten years ago. in large part that's because it's much better at limiting predatory abuse from monopolies than proprietary software is, so large users commonly choose open-source software even when proprietary alternatives look better on paper i think you're missing not only the point but actually reality as a whole

hollerith 2y ago

>the OSI has made it increasingly clear it doesn't want it to even be possible to make a business model on top of open source The OSI's definition of open source was worked out in the 1990s and has changed almost not at all. That stability in the meaning of "open source" (or "OSI-approved", if you want to be precise) is a good thing. If you want to experiment with software licenses that (like open source) don't lock the user in or that (like open source) allow forking, but that are better than open source at allowing the maintainer to earn money, then please do -- just don't call your experiment open source. Coin another term. It is not some awful tragedy that those who want to experiment with software licenses cannot use the reputation of the "open source" label to market their offerings. Parenthetically, "nice volunteer thing" is not an accurate description of AOSP, Chromium, Firefox and most Linux desktop software.

ocdtrekkie 2y ago
> AOSP, Chromium, Firefox All exploitative projects entirely funded and mostly operated by a monopoly found violating the law or awaiting judgment for such in almost every single first world jurisdiction. Also neither AOSP nor Chromium are used in the real world in practice, over 99.99% of users use proprietary forks. In other words, thank you for supporting my statement entirely. > Linux desktop software Yeah, definitely "not niche".
- hollerith 2y ago
  >Also neither AOSP nor Chromium are used in the real world in practice, over 99.99% of users use proprietary forks. I didn't think it needed spelling out, but OK: GrapheneOS would not exist if AOSP didn't have an open-source license. Electron, Microsoft Edge and Brave browser wouldn't exist if Chromium hadn't been released on open-source terms. Surely it is not your claim that because Google has done bad things, nothing that Google has ever done has ever been positive? Going back to your previous comment, where you write, "the OSI is not interested in open source being the default way to make software." Do you actually believe that if the OSI had been smarter or more ethical or had listened to your advice (sent back in time perhaps) then open source might have become the default way to make software? I consider it obvious that that was never a possibility.
  - kragen 2y ago
    possibly you are a time traveler because in this timeline open source did become the default way to make software
    - hollerith 2y ago
      OK, my previous comment was clumsy (and I concede that most of the software on the machine I'm using to write this is open source). What I meant to do with my previous comment was point out that my interlocutor seems to believe that the situation in software is just terrible, which implies that if things had gone different, it could be a lot better. But I'm not able to imagine a realistic evolution in which software ends up in a much better place than the current status quo.
      - kragen 2y ago
        it's been much worse in the past, so we know it can be much worse. probably at the time it was hard to imagine the evolution to where we are now, so maybe it can get much better too. certainly i had no idea 30 years ago where we'd be now

kragen 2y ago

the osi was founded by people who built their businesses on open-source software, with whom i talked about it in detail at the time. despite entrenched resistance from, among others, proprietary software vendors and the iranian government, open source became the default way to make software about ten years ago. in large part that's because it's much better at limiting predatory abuse from monopolies than proprietary software is, so large users commonly choose open-source software even when proprietary alternatives look better on paper i think you're missing not only the point but actually reality as a whole